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Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

arstechnica.com

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Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#51

Post by saas_co_de »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #3

I have two problems with this article. 1) They make it appear that Uber is a car manufacturer. 2) Even though Uber has not been determined to be at fault, the author seems to want to make it that way anyway.

The other missing part is that it is the human driver who is responsible. This is a test vehicle and their job is to be ready to take over at any time as if they are driving.

It seems unlikely that the Police will find any fault because they probably don't want to have to file a criminal charge against the driver, but that is who it would go against if there was fault.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#52

Post by mr_toad »

matte_black wrote: post #10

Why don’t we require software engineers who work on self driving car software to go through licensing and certification. And then, if their code results in a death, they are liable and can have their license completely revoked, and they would be unable to work on self driving cars again.

Engineers aren’t in charge. Unlike lawyers, surgeons, even dental hygienists, they aren’t making the calls.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#53

Post by namelost »

matte_black wrote: post #10

Why don’t we require software engineers who work on self driving car software to go through licensing and certification. And then, if their code results in a death, they are liable and can have their license completely revoked, and they would be unable to work on self driving cars again.

Obligatory: https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

If you want error-free software you need a blameless culture based around process, not individual ownership of code. It should not even be possible for an error to be one individual's mistake, because by the time it hits the road it should have gone through endless code review and testing cycles.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#54

Post by saas_co_de »

TillE wrote: post #23
sureaboutthis wrote: post #3

I have two problems with this article. 1) They make it appear that Uber is a car manufacturer. 2) Even though Uber has not been determined to be at fault, the author seems to want to make it that way anyway.

Every engineer on this project at Uber knows very well that their car completely failed in one of its most basic expected functions. It's incredibly obvious, and a number of independent experts have said as much. I'd be fairly surprised if there's any real appetite at Uber to continue with this now. It was never anywhere near their core competency.

Interesting question is if the LIDAR was not being used because of the settlement with Google and agreement not to use any of the contested tech.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#55

Post by simion314 »

superfrank wrote: post #39
matte_black wrote: post #10

Why don’t we require software engineers who work on self driving car software to go through licensing and certification. And then, if their code results in a death, they are liable and can have their license completely revoked, and they would be unable to work on self driving cars again.

- Expecting engineers to always write perfect code is insane. Mistakes happen. - If bad code makes it into production, that is a systemic failure not an individual one (Why didn't the bug get caught in code review, QA, etc.) - No one is going to want to work on a project where a single failure can taint their career. - What if I use a 3rd party lib and that is where the bug is. Who is at fault then? What if the code…

I think the company must pay a lot if a failure happens, if NASA makes a mistake that will costs so they make sure to think hard, have good processes and do a lot of testing.

From what we seen so far the Uber car failed to detect an obstacle, we also had Tesla crash where the car did not seen a truck so it is obvious that there are some major issues that are not tested for. They need to have better tests and maybe get better security drivers inside the cars so they don't text on the phone on the job.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#56

Post by JimmyAustin »

Silhouette wrote: post #35
TillE wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every engineer on this project at Uber knows very well that their car completely failed in one of its most basic expected functions. It's incredibly obvious, and a number of independent experts have said as much. I'd be fairly surprised if there's any real appetite at Uber to continue with this now. It was never anywhere near their core competency.

It was never anywhere near their core competency. Maybe not directly, but is Uber's current business model sustainable without some form of self-driving technology replacing their human drivers?

In the short term, yes, but the moment someone else gets a self driving car they’ll be destroyed.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#57

Post by [deleted] »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #56
Silhouette wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was never anywhere near their core competency. Maybe not directly, but is Uber's current business model sustainable without some form of self-driving technology replacing their human drivers?

In the short term, yes, but the moment someone else gets a self driving car they’ll be destroyed.

[deleted]

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#58

Post by ThrustVectoring »

Silhouette wrote: post #26
c06n wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software should try to learn from human drivers Yeah, that doesn't work though. Basically because you would need to have an excellent situation representation to really understand the drivers' reactions to outside events. But that does not exist. Perception and situation representation are key to mastering the driving task, and they both differ greatly between humans and machines.

Basically because you would need to have an excellent situation representation to really understand the drivers' reactions to outside events. But that does not exist. This is the #1 reason I'm sceptical about self-driving cars becoming ubiquitous any time soon. Clearly they have potential advantages over a human driver in terms of not being tired or distracted, better sensors and better reaction times, but their judg…

It doesn't need to outperform an experienced and reasonably careful human driver to be a significant net benefit to society. All it needs to do is get the most dangerous 10-20% of the population out from behind the wheel.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#59

Post by dsfyu404ed »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

Are you suprised? Uber is a company that: * Flouted Taxi regulations * Living in legal gray zones in regards to contractors vs employees * Designed a system to avoid law enforcement * Performed shady tactics with its competitors * Illegally obtained the private medical records of a rape victim * Created a workplace where sexual harassment was routine * Illegally tested self-driving cars on public roads in California…

>"One of my big concerns about this incident is that people are going to conflate an on-the-spot binary assignment of fault with a broader evaluation of the performance of the automated driving system, the safety driver, and Uber's testing program generally,"

Self driving cars are currently in that state where they're always in accidents but never technically at fault. When individuals have this behavior patter their insurance company drops them because if they're so frequently present when shit hits the fan they're a time bomb from a risk perspective.

Edit: meant to reply to parent, oh well.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#60

Post by clairity »

bobthepanda wrote: post #28
Stanleyc23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they are at fault they should be punished, but you do realize that the expectation for self driving vehicles is not to eliminate all car related deaths, right? edit: wow this triggered some people. somehow 'if they are at fault they should be punished' got interpreted as 'they are not at fault and should not be punished'

From the article: > But zooming out from the specifics of Herzberg's crash, the more fundamental point is this: conventional car crashes killed 37,461 in the United States in 2016, which works out to 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Uber announced that it had driven 2 million miles by December 2017 and is probably up to around 3 million miles today. If you do the math, that means that Uber's cars have killed…

> "We have a sample size of 1..."

i'm not sure that's the right way to look at it (that uber is a sample of 1, or that the death is a sample of 1).

in this case, the metric is deaths per mile, so there are purportedly 3 million samples for uber self-driving cars, with one positive (negative?) result in that sample. you need so many samples because the positive observation rate is expected to be very low (as evidenced by the 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven by human drivers).

if you assume the death rate is roughly the same, you can (roughly) estimate the expected error or confidence interval with the 3 million sample size versus a 100 million known rate for human drivers. as more samples are gathered, the confidence interval gets tighter: if the confidence interval currently stands at 80% with 3 million samples (made up numbers), it might go up to 85% with 6 million samples.

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