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Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#71

Post by ojbyrne »

rjvir wrote: post #61
fabian2k wrote: post #19

> Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent…

It's interesting how so many techies initially had the knee-jerk reaction of "well, despite this accident, I bet these Uber autonomous cars are still safer than humans". It seems like all information available to us suggests the polar opposite.

After nearly getting hit by a car while on a crosswalk in broad daylight today, I don't think "polar opposite" is correct.

I actually made eye contact with the driver, and expected her to slow down (I was right in the middle of the street). Instead she sped up to get through the crosswalk ahead of me.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#72

Post by toomuchtodo »

agumonkey wrote: post #68
hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

Good, a CI for road safety. I would love to see that.

Call your representative and demand legislation.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#73

Post by baking »

habosa wrote: post #43
cozzyd wrote: post #5

I thought the conventional wisdom was that the only way Uber can become profitable was through autonomous vehicles. It sounds like they're very unlikely to succeed at that... Arizona should consider improving their regulations to try to avoid additional fatalities.

They could always buy from someone else ... but uber seems to have extreme competitor paranoia when it comes to buying any services. I think they also spent $500M to make their own maps when you could use any of the popular mapping APIs out there.

Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber. There is no point in selling autonomous cars to Uber.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#74

Post by maym86 »

vkou wrote: post #59
macspoofing wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is cheaper than cabs ... Is there a reason why Uber needs to be cheaper than cabs?

It's only cheaper because it's operating at a loss. Taxis do not operate at a loss.

But why does it need to be? I would still take a Lyft/Uber because the service is better, even at the same price.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#75

Post by UncleEntity »

ehsankia wrote: post #46
fabian2k wrote: post #19

> Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent…

I mean, in terms of "conditions", it doesn't really get much better than Arizona. That's why most cars drive there. By most metrics, it's actually easier there than in California.

Well, except for the other drivers on the road.

Horribly horrible drivers here.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#76

Post by bertjk »

hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

The article mentions that the car was going "40 miles an hour in a 45-mile-an-hour zone." Is there a more reliable source stating that the car was speeding?

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#77

Post by bnj »

hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

Out of curiosity, is anyone aware whether it might serve some use to do tests like this virtually? Drive a car around to gather a mass of raw sensor readings on a busy street, and then feed those readings to test cars as inputs?

I guess that description doesn't make much sense, but it would be interesting to develop a virtual testing environment for testing the algorithm package even though that doesn't address hardware and numerous other concerns.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#78

Post by notahacker »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #51
teraflop wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is a well-known psychological phenomenon; see e.g. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/5/201592-the-challenges-... > When a navigation system performs well over extended periods, drivers may no longer feel they need to pay close attention. Indeed, many psychological studies show people have trouble focusing their attention when there is little or nothing to attend to. In such situations, they tend to reduce…

I bet night driving compounds with this. It may be reasonable to ban night-city autonomous near the beginning of the technology's public introduction driving, regardless of how well the car can see at night.

The other reason for banning night-city semiautonomous would be how many people thought it didn't really matter if they were drunk because they didn't need to intervene that much anyway...

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#79

Post by throwaway2048 »

danso wrote: post #70
cozzyd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video has poor dynamic range and is likely highly misleading. If the safety driver were paying attention it's quite likely they could have avoided it (although I imagine disengagement would negatively affect reaction time).

I wish this was brought up in all of the many news articles that have covered this story so far, if not from the police themselves. Even an argument from common sense seems clear: the visual range of the video is barely much better than what you see when driving down a rural highway. But the AZ road cuts through a public park where concerts are held, including the Marquee Theatre at the nearby intersection. The media…

Somebody posted a video on youtube where they drove past the scene of the accident with a less crap camera, at the same time a day later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0

a screenshot directly comparing the two images, appologies for the dumb meme crap

https://i.imgur.com/eSre3hL.png

There is absolutely no way the uber video is an accurate potrayl.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#80

Post by danso »

fabian2k wrote: post #19

> Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent…

> As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona

To be fair, Uber is not necessarily acting badly -- especially since AZ doesn't appear to care either way -- having the safety driver is ostensibly supposed to make the AV at least as safe as if it were a regular human-driven car. I hope during the investigation we find out whether Uber made it clear to its human drivers that they had to be at least as alert as if they were driving a normal car.

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