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Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

technologyreview.com

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Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#81

Post by dalore »

Talks about unknown traffic lights possibly being a problem. But if all cars were self driving would there even be a need for traffic lights?

> If it encountered an unmapped traffic light, and there were no cars or pedestrians around, the car could run a red light simply because it wouldn’t know the light was there.

So the car determined it was safe to cross and crossed? I don't see the problem. The red light is for humans, but a self driving car will know where the other cars are and know when to cross an intersection.

You could argue the reverse even. A self driving car comes to a traffic light that is green but detects a fast moving car running the red, it would stop. But a human might not and continue on thinking green is ok.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#82

Post by robotresearcher »

agildehaus wrote: post #62
robotresearcher wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People aren't that great at this either The robot car has to be considerably better than people to become acceptable. This is a serious burden for the technology.

Accidents are usually caused by human unpredictability, lack of attention, terrible reaction time, stupidity, narrow perception, inability to follow traffic rules, and the effects of various drugs. Driverless cars mitigate all of these issues. I would feel much better riding a bike in the vicinity of a self-driving vehicle than any random human. There are a number of issues to iron out yet and a lot of testing to do.…

They are currently stumped by situations that humans are OK in. They are not "already far better" in all situations. Even if they are better on average, my point is that this is not enough. If the world was run on pure rationality, they would have only to be epsilon better on average to be adopted. In the actual world, they are going to need to be very much better, and have very very few failure cases to be adopted.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#83

Post by Swizec »

agildehaus wrote: post #70
balloot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the problem nicely. The "magic" that turns 3 lane roads into 2 lanes etc, is a situational awareness that is really, really difficult to impart on a learning system. The big problem is that probabilistic models don't have a notion of "common sense" solution to an odd situation. They need to have seen the situation, or something very similar to it, enough to make a reasonable calculation of what to…

The 3 lane to 2 lane problem is solved already. These cars follow a centimeter-accurate 3D map that has the lanes precisely defined (as well as acceptable speeds, location of stoplights, etc). The Google car knows the lane change is approaching long before it shows up on any sensor.

This isn't about a lane change approaching. This is about people disregarding the concept of lanes when there's fresh snow on the ground because they have no idea where the lanes are.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#84

Post by lukesed »

nicholas73 wrote: post #46
balloot wrote: post #31

I've been saying this for years, as I took Thrun's class when he was at Stanford. Google's dirty little secret is that self driving cars are still mostly smoke and mirrors. Given relatively controlled conditions and a trained driver who can play backup when needed, they work. But if you put them in complicated situations - snow, a busy city environment, abnormal signage - watch out. The problem is that the driving mo…

I decided to test a Google self driving car as it crossed the intersection by accelerating into its broadside - no reaction at all. Well, got a reaction from the humans inside. I recently narrowly avoided getting killed by a broadside collision by braking just in time. If I were further I would have sped up out of the way. Would a probabilistic approach handle this? Maybe they need to compile a list of special edge c…

Did you hit the car? Would the car have hit someone else if it accelerated or braked? Perhaps the AI made the right decision.
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