Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #43

smallstepforman wrote: post #35

There are many reasons why I dont believe in self driving cars, the first (and strongest) is to imagine that the software was written by my collegues (and myself).

I sort of find the idea of self-driving cars as ... selfish? Don't want to drive, take the bus. The idea that we all need our personal chariots (and now robotic chauffeurs) seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility. And, yes, I am guilty of owning a car myself and feel guilt about it. But for some reason the self-driving bit just seems to take it to another level for me. Maybe too there's an air of elitism abo…

Post by ianmobbs » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

contravariant wrote: post #47

ianmobbs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LIDAR maps out the world around you in three dimensions, so with that data, there's no way it would mistake "a 'Stop' sign hidden within a fast food commercial [...] only flashing on-screen for a fraction of a second" (article) for an actual stop sign

Well it probably would stop working if you confuse it with a whole bunch of confetti of reflective material or similar. Although I suppose that would work against humans as well. Still I wonder if it has failure modes that humans lack, which could result in situations where it does inexplicable things.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

MauranKilom wrote: post #41

klyrs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd stop in most of those situations. Except for the bogus painted lines -- I'd see that they were trying to direct me into oncoming traffic and respond accordingly. The panel van (or drone) attack is highly targeted, and doesn't stick around like paint does. These aren't just "ridiculous what ifs," they're a rather plausible method for freshly unemployed Luddites.

Do you see anyone going around with a massive LED array on the back of their trucks to blind (targeted) human drivers? Because that's even easier than floating around a panel with a specially crafted video feed. Yet I've never heard someone do it. Sure, leading a self-driving car astray is more of an accomplishment than blinding a human, but comparing crimes by how entertaining they are to a bored unemployed DIY soci…

Post by JacobDotVI » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #31

liquidify wrote: post #21

Why don't we build some experimental infrastructure that is designed specifically for self driving vehicles?

A number of dedicated test facilities for autonomous vehicles exist, some operated by universities, some by government agencies, and some of the autonomous vehicle vendors own their own (more common for those aligned with major automakers which generally already have large proving grounds, but Uber apparently has a small one). I think the issue is that a dedicated test area will just never reflect the full set of pro…

Post by nexuist » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #3

mike_d wrote: post #2

States just need to start mandating LIDAR for any level of autonomous certification, in the same way we finally figured out seatbelts were the minimum level of safety for passenger retention.

Mandating how a certain outcome should be achieved generally is not the best (efficient, quickest, cheapest, etc.) way in getting to that outcome. Autonomous certification should have its safety requirements for each level and require the vehicles meet that standard. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to reduce deaths and injuries dramatically and increasing the time to get there will cause thousands to millions…