Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Autopilot: an open source driving agent

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 129 posts

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#71

Post by dsr_ »

breck wrote: post #30
Matthias247 wrote: post #7

Really, a safety critical hard realtime system with control loops on top of Python, a general purpose OS and a CAN-USB adapter? There are reasons why we have realtime operating systems, deterministic bus systems and dedicated CPUs for these kinds of applications. That might be an interesting research, prototyping or simulation platform. But nothing you want to have on a real public road.

Why not? We entrust humans with operating cars right now. Humans in a sense are running a general purpose OS.

If you read enough security literature, eventually you'll come across the notion of a "trusted system". And your first impression will be that this is a system which is fully debugged and tested and you can trust it to do its job within specifications.

But you couldn't be more wrong. A trusted system is one which you have to trust. No representations are made about whether you should or not.

Humans are frequently trusted systems.

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#72

Post by espes »

openasocket wrote: post #65
darawk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The car would likely still be street legal. (IANAL) However, allowing this system to take control of your car on a public road would not. IAANAL, but I don't think even that is true. I think it actually is legal to allow it to take control of your car, provided you are still sitting in the driver's seat and can take control back at any time.

> can take control back at any time but if you're going down the highway and the AI decides to suddenly swing the wheel far right as quickly as possible, no human being would have reaction time good enough to recover without crashing. I'd be pretty concerned if you could add an autopilot to your car and drive it around on public roads without any sort of demonstration of safety.

> but if you're going down the highway and the AI decides to suddenly swing the wheel far right as quickly as possible, no human being would have reaction time good enough to recover without crashing

"The EPS controller in the car limits the torque to a very small amount, so regardless of the message, the controller cannot jerk the wheel" [1]

[1] https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/SAFETY.md

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#73

Post by ams6110 »

openasocket wrote: post #65
darawk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The car would likely still be street legal. (IANAL) However, allowing this system to take control of your car on a public road would not. IAANAL, but I don't think even that is true. I think it actually is legal to allow it to take control of your car, provided you are still sitting in the driver's seat and can take control back at any time.

> can take control back at any time but if you're going down the highway and the AI decides to suddenly swing the wheel far right as quickly as possible, no human being would have reaction time good enough to recover without crashing. I'd be pretty concerned if you could add an autopilot to your car and drive it around on public roads without any sort of demonstration of safety.

People are allowed to work on their own cars, including brakes, suspension, steering, etc. Happens every day in driveways everywhere. I do it myself.

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#74

Post by ams6110 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #14

I read an interesting ethical dilemma related to self-driving cars recently. Imagine that a self-driving car detects a child in the road, and the only way to avoid hitting the child is to crash the car in to a wall, certainly killing the driver. What choice should the car be programmed to make? Who should decide what that choice is? Who is ethically responsible for that choice? In a normal car that is driven by a hum…

Apply the brakes and stay in the right-of-way. The fact that there is a child in the road is someone else's fault i.e. whoever is supposed to be supervising the child. Chosing to depart from the road would certainly be the wrong choice, since now you might hurt/damage something or someone that is minding its own business and is where it is supposed to be.

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#76

Post by serge2k »

sounds wrote: post #3

I have my reservations about this code. I am a long time free software developer so it is hard to say it but it seems clear to me that a single entity (from a legal perspective) has to "own" the self-driving car software. In the future bits of a self-driving car system may get open-sourced the way Facebook Open Compute has emerged in data centers, but first the proprietary implementations will need to pave the way in…

You can solve that problem with certification. Sure, the software platform is open but actually building a car and getting it to the road requires certification of the final product.

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#77

Post by serge2k »

ams6110 wrote: post #73
openasocket wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can take control back at any time but if you're going down the highway and the AI decides to suddenly swing the wheel far right as quickly as possible, no human being would have reaction time good enough to recover without crashing. I'd be pretty concerned if you could add an autopilot to your car and drive it around on public roads without any sort of demonstration of safety.

People are allowed to work on their own cars, including brakes, suspension, steering, etc. Happens every day in driveways everywhere. I do it myself.

So if I decide to do a bunch of suspension work and then don't bother to get any sort of alignment done am I liable when I get into an accident?

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#78

Post by openasocket »

ams6110 wrote: post #73
openasocket wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can take control back at any time but if you're going down the highway and the AI decides to suddenly swing the wheel far right as quickly as possible, no human being would have reaction time good enough to recover without crashing. I'd be pretty concerned if you could add an autopilot to your car and drive it around on public roads without any sort of demonstration of safety.

People are allowed to work on their own cars, including brakes, suspension, steering, etc. Happens every day in driveways everywhere. I do it myself.

But there are restrictions of what parts you can use. I can't just make my own engine and drive around with it without getting that engine certified, right?

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#79

Post by ams6110 »

openasocket wrote: post #78
ams6110 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are allowed to work on their own cars, including brakes, suspension, steering, etc. Happens every day in driveways everywhere. I do it myself.

But there are restrictions of what parts you can use. I can't just make my own engine and drive around with it without getting that engine certified, right?

I don't know of any reason why not. Certified by who? Who would ever know?

I can put a Chevy engine in a Ford, and plenty of people do much more than that, e.g. homebrew EVs, etc.

Re: Autopilot: an open source driving agent

#80

Post by ams6110 »

serge2k wrote: post #77
ams6110 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are allowed to work on their own cars, including brakes, suspension, steering, etc. Happens every day in driveways everywhere. I do it myself.

So if I decide to do a bunch of suspension work and then don't bother to get any sort of alignment done am I liable when I get into an accident?

Yes, IMO.
Post reply on HN