California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment • Hacker News Board

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#621

Post by fudged71 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:24 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #247

_ea1k wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it sounds like a fairly fundamental flaw. Does the car have sensors that can determine pulling over is the wrong thing to do in this situation? In general, getting out of the way is the right course of action, but this clearly shows that there are exceptions. I'm not sure that the vehicles are currently equipped for differentiating to even be possible.

In case of a serious accident, especially one where a person has come to harm, not blocking traffic shouldn't be the main concern anymore IMHO...

A human driver (and owner of the vehicle) would get out to assess the damage. So in the absence…

Remain where you are until a trained professional gives you directions. Fire/police/ambulance should have some way to direct the vehicle.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#622

Post by esoterica » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #594

saagarjha wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah San Francisco has some of the best traffic lights in the Bay Area when it comes to predictive signaling and synchronization

and for a long time you could drive on Great Highway at 35MPH and hit green at every single light. Always enjoyed that except that I would have preferred 50MPH

It should be illegal to drive above 25mph on any street that pedestrians regularly cross (i.e. all urban non-highway roads). Your enjoyment of speeding does not supersede other people’s right to not get struck by a car going 50mph.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#623

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #616

londons_explore wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda surprised they stop... When you have a self-driving system that costs $200k+, you want to keep it running and collecting data as much as possible - passenger or no passenger. The added tyre wear is going to be tiny compared to the interest payments on all that expensive hardware and engineers salaries.

probably more about stretching their battery than anything else. if it roams around between trips it's going to have fewer customers per charge cycle.

But when roaming around at like 10 mph average round the city, it can presumably do a full 18+ hour day on a single charge. Electric cars are super efficient in urban environments.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#624

Post by PraetorianGourd » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #325

cp9 wrote: post #122

if people weren't VC brained they would realize that the way to prevent traffic deaths isn't to build fancy self driving cars, it's to invest in safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure and use the boring technology that already exists to get people where they want to go. the future is on buses and trains and bikes and pedestrian friendly 15 minute communities

This is a very obtuse way of looking at things. Society is not a monolith. The people and companies choosing to invest into self-driving cars are not the ones who would be able to make communities more pedestrian- or transit- or bike-friendly. As much tech as there is in the bay area, Google is not a local duke that can unilaterally make streets less car-dominant. The people who can choose to make communities more fr…

I would argue that it is less due to politics and "safe streets" being an extreme position and more to do with the fact that _entire metropolitan areas_ are designed around the car. It would literally require starting from scratch in many places to design a city around non-car ownership.

You can argue that it is a net negative that a lot of America, and most of the American west, was built and grew in conjunction with the car, but it is not entirely fair to say the only impediment is culture and politics.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#625

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #504

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can't punish a car. If a human being had done that they would have absolutely had the book thrown at them. There was a case where a woman was drunk driving and hit a man, he came up over the hood and into her windshield. He was alive but bleeding. She drove home and parked her car in the garage. He bled out through the night. NO ONE was sympathetic towards that woman. But if an automated vehic…

> If a human being had done that they would have absolutely had the book thrown at them. Really? If they had been in a car accident caused by another driver, and took a few seconds to pull over because they were unaware they were dragging a person initially hit by the other driver, they would have been charged? It's very hard to hold people responsible, and it's telling that you had to cite such a grisly and outrageo…

> Really? If they had been in a car accident caused by another driver, and took a few seconds to pull over because they were unaware they were dragging a person initially hit by the other driver, they would have been charged?

unless you believe this person stayed completely silent during this, the answer is yes. The measuring stick that the law tends to use for liability like this is the reasonable person test and no reasonable person drives 20 feet with someone screaming in pain after having HIT their car.

Are there circumstances in which someone would NOT be charged? sure, there have been cases of toddlers running out in front of cars and it was determined the driver couldn't possible have seen them due to their height.

Since you apparently misunderstood, the point about the insurance is that maybe we shouldn't allow companies to insure themselves against killing people. We as a society absolutely went after Ford for choosing not to do recalls because the estimated cost of the recall exceeded the estimated payout for the deaths and injuries. Under no circumstances should we allow companies to make decisions like this.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#626

Post by IKantRead » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:28 PM UTC

l33t7332273 wrote: post #581

IKantRead wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF today is as close to Blade Runner that we'll ever get. Every billboard is for some AI company, you ride in a driverless cab across a literal mile of homeless people drugged out of their minds, screaming and pooping on the sidewalk. SF today is so aggressively dystopian that it's sort of hard not to enjoy the experience.

I think this comment is slightly exaggerated. I didn’t see that many ads for AI companies and while I did see some driverless vehicles, they were in the minority and I only saw them on my second full day exploring the city. There are a large number of homeless people openly doing drugs, and there is some poop, but I find these descriptions to be generally inaccurate. Don’t get me wrong, the situation is bad, but base…

That comment is just based on my experience going to SF a few weeks ago.

- Every billboard on the way to the hotel from the airport was for AI (which not the case a few months ago)

- Uber driver interrogated me all the way to the hotel on the value prop of my current project at work

- Went to grab a burger and had to dodge 2 people screaming at me, walked passed a man crying because I believe a friend had just gotten hit by a car.

- almost stepped in human fecies

- On my last night, took a cruise back to my hotel (thanks to a friend). Honestly it was quite fun.

Nothing in my comment was exaggerated, just edited a bit to make it more coherent. The reality was actually more dystopian.

And I do mean that last line seriously, I had a blast!:

> SF today is so aggressively dystopian that it's sort of hard not to enjoy the experience.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#627

Post by tschellenbach » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

rurp wrote: post #307

tschellenbach wrote: post #107

43k deaths per year due to human drivers. DMV should stop sticking their heads in the sand. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state... .

I don't know why something like this gets trotted out in every self driving thread as if it's some sort of clever point. One thing being dangerous does not automatically make the shiny new alternative safer. General purpose self driving literally doesn't exist yet, and when it does it might be even less safe than human driving. Assuming that it will definitely be safer because of some highly constrained testing doesn…

Because it will not get solved unless we're willing to invest time, effort and some risk into developing AI

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#628

Post by ehsankia » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #582

foota wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose they do so?

That's a question for regulators. What AV companies are doing is akin to human trials in pedestrian safety without consent. This wouldn't fly in another industry like pharmaceuticals.

Not really. Oharmaceuticals have many different tiers of trials, but even with that, there are still new discoveries and surprises once they reach the full population. Waymo has been testing their tech for over a decade in much smaller and controlled situations. Similarly, all of these companies also have done tests with humans behind the wheel for years. To claim that they've done no testing and are going straight to public testing is just plainly false.

You can argue about how much non-public testing is enough, but any roadmap for AV will eventually at some point have to include public testing.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#629

Post by redox99 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:31 PM UTC

cp9 wrote: post #309

bdamm wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring reality 101. Cars were here yesterday, people loved them for their freedom. Cars are here today, people love them and build communities around them. Cars will be here tomorrow, and people will still love them.

freedom is not "everyone has a car". freedom is no one has to have a car to get where they need to go and do what needs done. for example, my favorite bar in my city is like .75 miles away. I would love to walk there, but functionally you can't because the two roads you need to take to get there are dangerous with limited or no sidewalks and extremely dangerous intersections (one is a blind corner where the cars are…

Having a car is always more freedom than not having a car.

Where I live I sometimes walk, sometimes bike, sometimes take the subway, sometimes use my car, and sometimes use my truck.

I'm nowhere near rich enough, but having your own private jet would also give you a lot of extra freedom.

However I don't consider these self driving taxis to give you much freedom (because you don't own them).

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#630

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #476

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can't punish a car. If a human being had done that they would have absolutely had the book thrown at them. There was a case where a woman was drunk driving and hit a man, he came up over the hood and into her windshield. He was alive but bleeding. She drove home and parked her car in the garage. He bled out through the night. NO ONE was sympathetic towards that woman. But if an automated vehic…

This is just a general problem. Companies very often kill people and get fines. The body count before a company starts to get close to "this might kill the company" is absurdly high. Consider, the Dalkon shield which had a hospitalization rate of 5 in 1000 and a death toll easily in the 1000s (maybe 10s of thousands). [1] The company went bankrupt but not defunct. It is now a part of Pfizer. Nobody experienced any so…

yep, this is why I said it should be an existential crisis. mistakes happen, but if your mistakes can potentially cause bodily harm you better be damned well prepared to show how it was not negligence in any way or you should get a fine that scares the shit out of you.

But that's the idealist side of me talking, the realist understands that will never happen.