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Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

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Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#431

Post by Piskvorrr »

Lionsion wrote: post #80
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I think it's one of those things that is both inexcusable and guaranteed to happen. It absolutely makes sense to put a human in a car you're testing and don't have full confidence in yet but are sending into real traffic. Not doing so would be ludicrously negligent. However, humans simply don't maintain focus for a long period of time without some sort of extreme, years-long training. The ability of mon…

> However, humans simply don't maintain focus for a long period of time without some sort of extreme, years-long training. And anyone who's achieved this ability is unlikely to be willing to be hired as 1099 contractor for whatever low pay is being offered.

Immaterial. "Let's keep killing bystanders, that's cheaper" is a good way to rouse a mob with torches and pitchforks; conversely, not very useful for getting the technology approved.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#432

Post by Piskvorrr »

Aspyre wrote: post #244
trgn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes for sure. I wish articles about this crash would continue to hammer on the basics, to keep front&center this crash was completely avoidable. Even if there were no technical issues, (1) the driver was on her phone before and during the crash. The whole reason for the driver to be present is to intervene in a situation like this. (2) the car was driving too fast for conditions. Nobody should drive this fast in the…

It was 38 mph in a 45.

This is one of the core problems of the car culture: ignoring the envelope except where mandated by law. A speed limit means, literally, "you are not allowed to go any faster than this" - but is interpreted as "you are supposed to go at this speed, or better 5 above". Nowhere else is this so prevalent: "there are 50 apples here, so you can't eat any more" is "you must eat all 50 of them" by the same logic.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#433

Post by Piskvorrr »

assblaster wrote: post #7

The question I want to know is: Did Uber doctor the camera video to make the road seem darker than it actually was? If you recall, there was initially a doubt that Uber was at fault because the streets appeared extremely dark, but I think they were buying time to delay the outage at incompetent Uber. The police initially didn't fault Uber based on this video.

I think it was just a choice of a crappy dashcam (intentional? IDK); someone coined the term "scapegoat camera" in one of the discussions.

In other words, off-the-shelf dashcam equipment sucks in the dark and doesn't convey a realistic scene, no doctoring required. Here's a random piece of dashcam footage from elsewhere - watch for the pedestrians! https://youtu.be/typj1asf1EM The video is unaltered - just crappy, they were actually clearly visible.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#434

Post by Piskvorrr »

atomical wrote: post #378
swebs wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article said the LIDAR was fine. It was the decision making software that failed.

The decision making for the LIDAR?

If I were to speculate: Decision making which takes LIDAR as one of the inputs.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#435

Post by Piskvorrr »

lhorie wrote: post #219
drcode wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so I don't see how doctoring the dashcam video would fit into the narrative. Well, at the end of the day this is all involves a strong element of PR & perceptions, so regardless of the quality of other data, it would be very much in Uber's interest to have a super dark video be in the initial stories about this accident.

> it would be very much in Uber's interest to have a super dark video Why? As soon as the video came out, the first thing people (correctly) pointed out was that the dynamic range of the dashcam was crap. Besides, everyone knows that self-driving cars are essentially giant self-telemetry collection machines, so one would have to be either extremely short-sighted or incredibly stupid to think they would be able to get…

Um, nope. While this might be valid for HN, I see the scapegoat video paraded around as "proof" that nobody could have done anything, every.damn.time the collision is mentioned.

PR: mission accomplished.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#436

Post by Piskvorrr »

ajross wrote: post #182
mtgx wrote: post #9

> This puts the fault squarely on Uber’s doorstep, though there was never much reason to think it belonged anywhere else. Are you kidding me? At least 80% of the comments I saw online the following week were blaming the woman. It seems to me like Uber's self-driving system is absolute trash. But they were in a hurry to "go live" with it, because they need it so that the company can become profitable ASAP. And thanks…

It's still the biker's "fault" in some sense. That same video would have 100% exonerated a human driver. There's no way that was a safe crossing. The fact that there was a clear automation fault also doesn't change the fact that traffic safety is everyone's job, including but not exclusively the computers.

If the video correctly portrayed the conditions, the driver would have been squarely on the hook for overdriving their headlights. Nope, the scapegoat camera doesn't help Uber in any conceivable scenario.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#437

Post by drcode »

lhorie wrote: post #309
drcode wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I doubt the police just "popped the SD card out of dashcam"... more likely Uber had managers (and lawyers) at the scene within a short time window and Uber had time for very careful deliberations before handing anything to the NTSB (though as you say it's still more likely the got they raw dashcam footage instead of an altered video) Here is the more likely order of events: 1. Driver calls supervisor 2. S…

That still sounds pretty farfetched IMHO. You're basically saying that both the supervisor and a senior lawyer were on call at 10:30pm on some random day _and_ were immediately available upon request _and_ knew exactly what to do and who to call next _and_ the police were just twiddling their thumbs the whole time, despite there being a dead body on the scene. And lawyers/engineers can teleport from SF to Tempe someh…

So our differences in interpretation are exactly what distinguishes a "fantastic lawyer" from a "mediocre lawyer"- I agree if Uber has mediocre lawyers your scenario is more likely. A "fantastic lawyer" will have someone competent at ground zero dealing with the police on behalf of the company and handling the temp worker driving the car (otherwise the only representative of the Uber corporation and likely to incriminate the company) in 45 minutes.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#438

Post by lhorie »

drcode wrote: post #437
lhorie wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still sounds pretty farfetched IMHO. You're basically saying that both the supervisor and a senior lawyer were on call at 10:30pm on some random day _and_ were immediately available upon request _and_ knew exactly what to do and who to call next _and_ the police were just twiddling their thumbs the whole time, despite there being a dead body on the scene. And lawyers/engineers can teleport from SF to Tempe someh…

So our differences in interpretation are exactly what distinguishes a "fantastic lawyer" from a "mediocre lawyer"- I agree if Uber has mediocre lawyers your scenario is more likely. A "fantastic lawyer" will have someone competent at ground zero dealing with the police on behalf of the company and handling the temp worker driving the car (otherwise the only representative of the Uber corporation and likely to incrimi…

> A "fantastic lawyer" will have someone competent at ground zero in 45 minutes

Gonna be honest, that sounds like something straight out of a hollywood movie. In reality, when suddenly presented with a unexpected event, real people simply aren't physically able to coordinate narrative-altering eloquence training so perfectly on a 30 minute notice close to midnight on some random day. That's kinda like saying that if a macdonalds night-shift employee witnessed a customer choking to death on a lye-contaminated drink, a super star legal team would be on the scene in 45 minutes to instruct the employee on how to avoid incriminating the company when talking to the police. That simply isn't how the world works.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#439

Post by drcode »

lhorie wrote: post #438
drcode wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So our differences in interpretation are exactly what distinguishes a "fantastic lawyer" from a "mediocre lawyer"- I agree if Uber has mediocre lawyers your scenario is more likely. A "fantastic lawyer" will have someone competent at ground zero dealing with the police on behalf of the company and handling the temp worker driving the car (otherwise the only representative of the Uber corporation and likely to incrimi…

> A "fantastic lawyer" will have someone competent at ground zero in 45 minutes Gonna be honest, that sounds like something straight out of a hollywood movie. In reality, when suddenly presented with a unexpected event, real people simply aren't physically able to coordinate narrative-altering eloquence training so perfectly on a 30 minute notice close to midnight on some random day. That's kinda like saying that if…

If they are doing a self driving car pilot, it would be stupid not to have some junior legal staff in the same or nearby county. The senior lawyer just calls the junior staff (who are always potentially on the clock when it comes to that type of work) and says "get your ass down there!"

That doesn't seem like a Hollywood movie to me, that just seems like the way competent people operate.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#440

Post by forgotmypw »

lttlrck wrote: post #241
chcknsammich wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says the person who has never seen the ridiculous thing that is single lane road deadlock.

Indeed. When I first came to the US I lived in Boston and this happens quite frequently inside the I95. It used to drive me crazy, I hated it, I though it was dangerous and uncivilized :-) it didn’t take long for me to understand why it was necessary and to start doing it myself.

For a responsible driver, it is a test to see if you are paying attention. A careful driver will see this about to happen, anticipate it, and allow the turning driver to make his impatient left safely.
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