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San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

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Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#491

Post by dtparr »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #487
dtparr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was that? KY requires a road test now. Also, it requires you to prove KY residency. I'm surprised people were able to get KY licenses without being residents before.

About 9 years ago, and the people advising me were working off information older than that I'm sure.

Yeah, after asking my earlier question, a quick google found the 2006 driver's manual which indicates you must be a KY resident, and discussed the road test.

https://transportation.ky.gov/HighwaySafety/Documents/2006_k...

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#492

Post by surgi »

ironmagma wrote: post #110
surgi wrote: post #15

I find the explanation offered by Cruise amusing: the car supposedly "figured out" that it is in a dangerous spot to be pulled over and "tried to move to a better one" (extremely complex behavior), while the actual reason for the car being pulled over was not having its headlights on (seemingly a relatively simple bug).

Why amusing? Sounds about right from what I know about Cruise cars. (Source/disclaimer: I worked at Cruise many moons ago.)

Amusement coming purely from the disproportionality of complexity of what worked correctly and what failed.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#493

Post by eru »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #285
eru wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges are human indeed. But things like tax dodges still exist and other loopholes. You just need good enough lawyers to structure things for you. Your second point would lead to a ban on all but one self-driving car systems, when taken seriously?

I don't know about that. I do think that if, say, Google operated a spectrum of 1,000 self-driving algorithms, and knew that some were safer than others, a judge would take a very dim view to knowingly deploying less safe cars than others. And even from a business standpoint, it wouldn't be good business to have less safe (aka, higher liability) cars on the road.

Why would Google know that some of them are less safe than others?

Just have variations that don't dominate each other. Variant A could be better at some things, and variant B could be better at other things, etc.

(Otherwise, we should use your argument to only allow exactly one company with the 'best' system on the road. Instead of allowing competition.)

Google could even officially outsource the different variants to different nominally independent companies, if that's what's legally required to not get the whole fleet grounded.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#494

Post by eru »

bmitc wrote: post #446
eru wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say actually less so. As a pedestrian I'd be much more confident stepping in front of a self-driving car, than stepping in front of a human-driven car. So much so, that I've read about people's fears that self-driving cars will be subject to bullying by pedestrians (and other drivers).

> As a pedestrian I'd be much more confident stepping in front of a self-driving car, than stepping in front of a human-driven car. Why?

Because self-driving cars don't get distracted or tired, and they don't get angry either.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#495

Post by dsr_ »

virgilp wrote: post #384
dsr_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind us how what the police officer did wasn't vehicular assault and potentially homicide. Remind us how physical injury is a reasonable response to a traffic violation.

I don't want to defend him, what he did was *wrong*. He should absolutely face consequences for gross over-reaction. I never said his response was reasonable given the circumstances. But the way the story was presented was extremely biased. I believe the US cops are trained to actually use the "pit" maneuver to stop offenders who otherwise refuse to stop. In this case, he should've known better - but one can totally…

I think that it doesn't matter whether it was 'provoked' or not: the police should be professionals who prioritize public safety above all else, and this is a total failure.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#496

Post by blindmute »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #480
s1artibartfast wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no interest in defending the actions of the Unabomber. I did feel that you were using the tautology of murder to ignore my actual point. >You: His murders are the working-out of his ideas; his ideas are worth rejecting just on that basis. >Me: That doesn't mean they are wrong in part or in whole. If the unabomber said as part of the manifesto that the sky is blue, would you now reject that the sky is blue? The…

Whether the sky is blue has no moral component. The Unabomber was saying 1) what he thought was wrong with society, and 2) how we should make a better society. These judgments ("wrong" and "better") presuppose some definition of "good". But the guy was deliberately killing people. Am I supposed to believe his definition of what "good" is? No, I'm supposed to suspect that it's seriously skewed. (In fact, he's giving m…

You need to learn to separate the ideas from the author. A work either has ideological merit or it does not. If he wrote the paper, it had merit, and then he murdered people, that does not change the writing at all. It has the same merit that it had before. Your learning information about the man who wrote the ideas should not have any effect on your assessment of its validity.

Nearly every great thinker and writer you can name from before a certain year owned slaves or wanted to.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#497

Post by carapace »

nullc wrote: post #364
carapace wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. These robots are massive and fast, they are killers. Yet as long as they look like cars we let them run loose on public streets. It's kinda nuts. (Arguably car traffic as it's set up now is kinds nuts too, but that's a different argument.) The obvious thing to do is start with something like a golf cart that is limited to, say, 5mph top speed, and work your way up.

Great observation. When the device is a giant robot arm or a laser cutter, there are huge amounts of regulation-- you may have to get permission from your municipality to operate it even within the confines of your own facility. Make it look like a car, however, ... Cars and roads are kind of nuts, but they're established lunacy at least.

It's not really my observation. Bicyclists have a (sick) joke: "If you want to get away with murder just be sure you're driving a car and your victim is riding a bike." The way I see it, the same blind spot (no pun intended) applies to car-shaped killer robots.

R.I.P. Elaine Herzberg.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#498

Post by conductr »

scoot wrote: post #486
conductr wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife's 96 year old grandfather still has a driver's license because he passes some ridiculous vision test with 1 of his eyes. He can't read a newspaper or see a television well enough to enjoy sports (previously his favorite thing). He says he's memorized the vision test at his doctor's office and when asked the doctor refuses to file a report (or whatever procedural thing is required to remove his driving abiliti…

If there's one thing that seems the be much more forgiving in the US, it's car insurance. How has his premium and excess not become unmanageably expensive? Or not to have been denied insurance? UK car insurance feels more like US health insurance. High premiums, and heaven forbid if you get into an accident.

I think it has become expensive by most measurements. Except, for them at 96, the cost and vehicle buys them independence. The alternative is to move into a senior living situation, which is quite expensive as well. I’m pretty sure they only cover him for liability and he keeps just buying new cars every time. He has some minor wealth and mailbox money type arrangements and at this age he’s in a “can’t take it with me” phase of his financial justifications. So he pays the premiums.

Why they keep insuring him with no sense of the danger he imposes to others is an interesting question and it’s because their financial exposure is all that matters. They are betting that he won’t kill anyone and if he causes some property damage they feel protected from a risk adjusted perspective. But no larger corporate responsibility / citizenship is in place.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#499

Post by carapace »

WindyCityBrew wrote: post #317
carapace wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. These robots are massive and fast, they are killers. Yet as long as they look like cars we let them run loose on public streets. It's kinda nuts. (Arguably car traffic as it's set up now is kinds nuts too, but that's a different argument.) The obvious thing to do is start with something like a golf cart that is limited to, say, 5mph top speed, and work your way up.

Lol. Drunk drivers are killers. People that text and drive are killers. People that get kicked by their kid and turn around for a second to yell at them are killers. I'll take an unfatigable, indistractable, computer that literally has eyes in the back of its head, and on the side of its head, and the front, and can bounce radar under cars, etc over the pitiful example of a "safe (human) driver" we have now.

> I'll take an unfatigable, indistractable, computer that literally has eyes in the back of its head, and on the side of its head, and the front, and can bounce radar under cars, etc over the pitiful example of a "safe (human) driver" we have now.

Yes, friend, and when we have those so will I.

Those (as yet still fictional) robot cars (and can we PLEASE call them "auto-autos"!?) are not the problem.

- - - -

> Drunk drivers are killers. People that text and drive are killers. ...

Yes, and it's arguably fucking crazy that we let them do that. The whole reason is a deliberate campaign to normalize the carnage: "speed demons" were replaced by "jay walkers" and now more people (in the USA) have been killed by cars than by all the wars we've fought.

"The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM

Anyhow, "people kill people so my robots should be allowed to kill people too." Is not a valid argument IMO.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#500

Post by standardUser »

kadoban wrote: post #461
standardUser wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That teenage driver goes through a training and certification process" Did anyone else spit out their morning coffee at this hilarious one-liner?

Feel free to argue that licensing isn't strict enough. I'd agree. But AI driver certification is effectively nonexistent, judging by Telsa's bullshit behavior.

It's not that it's not strict enough, it's that driver certification is so outrageously lenient that "existing" is about all it accomplishes. I would trust any AI on the road today over a "certified" 16-year old or 85-year-old.
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