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Master Plan, Part Deux

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Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#461

Post by spurgu »

tikl1 wrote: post #424
kybernetikos wrote: post #415

> The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability. I don't think this is the correct comparison. A car used correctly is safe. We have huge numbers of road accidents because most people are unable t…

Humans are the very definition of imperfection and thinking that you are capable of "correctly using a car" that is, never make the mistake that will cause a terrible accident is a big problem. It's probably why so much people keep resisting evolution like autopilot, they can't admit that even them can someday fail and crash. They believe that if they are good drivers they will avoid it. Sadly very good drivers die e…

> should it saves its owner or the kids in front of it ?

It would seem as the life expectancy of dwarves will go up.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#462

Post by barrkel »

ams6110 wrote: post #310
batiudrami wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that it's time consuming than boring, which obviously gets worse with urban sprawl. Sure, I can do all my "down time" entertainment, but I can't schedule anything else while I'm commuting which is the real issue. Though many US city demographics are different to anywhere else in the world due to white flight - the "wealth donut" around a poor inner city rather rather than people getting poorer as you move f…

Honest question: are any of the large European cities seeing the "white flight" phenomenon with the influx of poor middle eastern and african immigrants?

IMO it's the reverse; all the fun for young wealthy people is in the city centre, while minorities are pushed out to the suburbs. Old tenement buildings get reworked into apartments, warehouses in old industrial districts get similar treatment, etc.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#463

Post by barrkel »

nkw wrote: post #142
ams6110 wrote: post #101

My points of skepticism: 1. Semis . A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highw…

> Legal liability is one reason. As owner of the car, I am liable for damage it causes. So legal liability laws will have to change. This, at least in most of the United States, is not a correct statement of the law. Absent something like Negligent Entrustment[1] or Vicarious Liability[2], one's ownership of a vehicle does not determine if one is liable if damage is caused while another is operating the vehicle. Some…

In the UK, under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, the owner's insurers are liable for third party injuries or losses caused by a thief driving the vehicle. They can try and claim back their losses from the thief, but that's unlikely to make them whole. So the legal owner will end up with a claim on their insurance.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#464

Post by ZeroGravitas »

kriro wrote: post #352
garyclarke27 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the old accounting joke. CFO -> CEO We have a major problem, recent price cuts mean that we are now making a loss per unit on our major product lines. CEO -> CFO Don't worry about that, We'll make it up on the volume!

I have this bookmarked just for these types of discussions. It's surprising how often I have used it: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html

This may seem like a ridiculous strawman, possibly because it's presented as a comic strip, but I've seen similar conversations on the TV show Kitchen Nightmares. Possibly worse actually, as the business owners didn't even know how much it cost them to make their most popular dishes.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#465

Post by agumonkey »

beambot wrote: post #171
JeffL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that would be a good thing? Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away for cheaper than ever. If the cars aren't causing pollution or gridlock, what's so bad about living in the suburbs?

Or better yet: Reclaim parking lots and roadways and turn them into urban green spaces and parks!

There were plans in the past of subterrain roads/tunnels so cities would be a place to live, not to move.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#466

Post by dilemma »

ishi wrote: post #440
greendestiny wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but in comparison it will never fail as often as human do" Ok I know this is my little cause of the moment, but seriously why are computers apriori better at anything? Sure they don't make poor life choices but they are absolutely at the mercy of the quality of the algorithms, sensors, operating system, training data and physical computational hardware.

Computers are not apriori better - you can always develop a stupid or buggy algorithm that fails often. But Tesla is working to PROVE (using real-world data) that autopilot is better than a human driver, and IMPROVE it constantly until it is ten times better.

As of today, there's much left to prove. AI remain ideology, not reality.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#467

Post by dilemma »

aschampion wrote: post #302
dilemma wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are 30,000 motor vehicle deaths in America each year. In perhaps 30 years, fully autonomous vehicles could cut all of that needless carnage to nearly nothing. There is a huge assumption underlying this: That computer systems would be more intelligent than humans. I believe the opposite: Computer systems will be much dumber than humans, and increase the number of accidents if ever adopted on large scale.

It's not a question of intelligence, but of attention. Few crashes are caused by wrong inferences; most are caused by lapses in attention or impaired judgement. Computer systems do not necessarily suffer from those.

Computer systems can't handle unexpected events, at all. They can only do what they're told (execute instructions). They do not have judgment.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#468

Post by vacri »

d_t_w wrote: post #360
vacri wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, you're right. Rather than living in one of the most stable and wealthy societies on the planet, we're actually falling fast towards a Mad Max-style dystopia. I must remember to weld some more armour onto my car tonight... Just because we're not living in an impossible utopia doesn't mean the situation is dire. We haven't had great leadership since the Hawke/Keating years (over 20 years ago), yet still the country…

I don't know what you think this hyperbole adds to the conversation?

"Dire" is hyperbole, and pretending that you don't know what I mean when I say "voted out, not voted in" is just insulting.

I also tried giving you reasoned paragraphs, and you responded with trite lines adding very little - I wouldn't go taking the high road here about 'contributing to the conversation'.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#469

Post by ilamont »

Once we get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the US vehicle average, the beta label will be removed

Musk misreads the public's attitude about vehicle safety. Human error is understandable, mechanical failure is unacceptable. Society can live with 10 people driving themselves off a cliff (and blame the drivers, road conditions, or poor signage) but they will not accept a car driving its trusting passengers off a cliff.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#470

Post by vanderZwan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #425
vanderZwan wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walking remark by GP was perhaps a bit snarky, but there is a deeper point to be made: if the problem is caused by cars, limiting your view to designing better cars is not a smart strategy (don't get me wrong: we should build better, safer, smarter cars, they just shouldn't be the only potential solution we look at). Something something Ford something "faster horses" . There's public transport, there's biking, ev…

I agree about the point of different transport options, but then if you want to go full-efficiency with public transport, you have the concept of PRT[0]... which when you look at it you realize it's exactly what Tesla is aiming for with autonomous electric car fleets. So in this case yes, designing a better car may be a big part of the solution. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

Oh yes, absolutely! The other worrying bits there are the need for a standard, for which we have the always relevant xkcd[0], and this:

> The report also concluded that, despite these advantages, public authorities will not commit to building PRT because of the risks associated with being the first public implementation.

Of course, there's also the question of whether this will be more or less efficient than a smart fleet of buses, for example.

https://xkcd.com/927/

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