| Author | Message | ||
     Sifo |
This latest crash of an Uber vehicle, killing a pedestrian is looking pretty bad IMO. When word of this accident first hit the press, it was said that it was not the fault of the Uber vehicle. I guess I just don't get it. It ran over a pedestrian crossing the road. The whole idea of this crap is to outperform humans in safety. If I run over a pedestrian with my school bus, I'm sure my balls would be in a wringer. No doubt the video makes it look like the pedestrian couldn't be seen, but the reality is that most video does very poorly in poor light. Even so, you are responsible for not out driving your headlights. Clearly the radar and/or laser systems on the car failed to recognize the pedestrian and act accordingly. The "driver" who is supposed to be there to take over if necessary, can be clearly seen looking down at his lap (cell phone?). He was clearly derelict in his job. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes in civil court. No doubt there will be a sizeable settlement to come from this. It will also be interesting to see what laws come forward, trying to catch up with this technology. Experts: Uber self-driving system should have spotted woman No doubt this is going to be part of the future of driving. If does scare the crap out of me, knowing that people are already becoming complacent with this tech. Just as a somewhat related aside: This winter someone I work with hit a deer with her car. Her loaner car would fight her choice of lane position on icy roads as she cheated toward the right side of the lane with opposing traffic. She said she hated driving that car! | ||
| Hootowl |
I agree that it should have spotted the woman. However, the question to be answered is, are driverless cars safer than those driven by human beings? That remains to be seen. I, personally, wouldn't ride in one at this stage of their development, nor would I care to be on the same stretch of road as one, especially in town. On the freeway, I think, is a different matter, a place better suited to this technology. | ||
| Zac4mac |
No problem, make jaywalking a capital offense. She wasn't in a crosswalk when hit. | ||
| Hootowl |
Well, she did get the death penalty. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I have features turned off in my Jeep (14 Grand Cherokee) because they're glitchy. - FCW (forward collision warning) - active brake assist - auto high beams My Jeep has not only a camera at the top of the windshield (built into the base for the rear view mirror), but also a radar dome sensor below the license plate. FCW will trigger regardless of whether the car in front of me is in a right- or left-hand turn lane. Active brake assist, ditto. I left the alarm turned on (BEEP BEEP BEEP) with the instrument cluster warning screen ("BRAKE!!!" flashing in big red letters), but turned off the autonomous braking part. Auto high beams is supposed to dim to low beam if it senses other traffic, so you don't blind anyone. But...the reflection off a street sign (which, last time I checked, are on the opposite side of the vehicle than oncoming traffic) is enough to trigger it, and in the middle of nowhere in deer country, I want my brights. The tech is still glitchy. I can't imagine how an auto-drive car would be. Ugh. No thanks. I use the hell out of adaptive cruise control (locks onto the car in front of me, and simply paces it)...but even it acts up if the car gets into a turn lane (see above). None of it is ironed out yet. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Skynet is coming.... | ||
| Sifo |
A couple of things really make me wonder about this technology. I wrote computer code for decades. Bugs in code are a fact. The more complex the logic, the more likely you will have, next to impossible to find bugs. These computer bugs will get people killed, plain and simple. Another thing, that I'm sure many motorcyclists will understand, human beings have the ability to just "pick up" on certain signals. Things that would be called a tell in poker. I'm not sure how well a computer will ever do such things. I used to amaze my wife when traveling down the expressway on long drives, and would occasionally point to a car and say "watch this guy". She couldn't understand how that would so often be followed by the driver doing something stupid. Happily she's gotten to where she can spot some of this stupidity on the roads before it happens too. I can't begin to think how you would program a computer to do that same thing. Also, they often refer to these systems, and many other things these days as AI (artificial intelligence). They are not AI, at least not as I learned the definition of AI decades ago. AI is a system that can learn on it's own from experience, including new things that it was not programmed for. The best we have done from what I can tell, is systems that can better tune algorithms that are built in, by adjusting certain parameters based on gathered experience data. That's a far cry from AI IMO. Sorry, I'm just annoyed by the new lowered standard of AI, probably due to the failures to create the predicted AI. That's not to say that there isn't some impressive programming out there. The mechanical dog that can open a door is pretty damned cool. I just don't think it's AI. BTW, we don't want AI controlling our cars. We want the system to be fully functioning on day one, not just starting to learn. | ||
| Hootowl |
I'd settle for it knowing how to drive as well as a 16 year old when it first starts out. You know, to be fair.  | ||
| Sifo |
The idea of a 16 year old driving every car on the road is terrifying!  | ||
| 86129squids |
I get aggravated with my sweetie's '01 Solara every time I put groceries in the passenger seat, and the dang dash starts blinking for the passenger seat belt! All these new cars just creep me out. Too many nanny farkles. Instead of all that crap, how about DISABLING CELL USE WHILST MOVING.  | ||
| Froggy |
I already trust this tech more than I trust your or anyone elses driving. That said Uber is far behind the curve with its autonomous driving systems, other companies including GM, Ford, Toyota, and even Google are using better and more advanced sensors (including FLIR that works great night), and have more road miles logged. Yea it still needs work, but autonomous vehicles have already shown that they are better drivers than humans, at least when the weather is clear. Even when self driving cars are perfected, there still will be accidents and fatalities, but taking error prone humans out of the equation will decimate crash statistics. I watched the video a few times and I agree with the cops, the car/driver is not at fault, by time she became visible she was destined to be a hood ornament. Not even The Flash could react in time. | ||
| Ratbuell |
The change in definition of "AI" is hand-in-hand with the change in definition of "education". No longer do we teach to THINK; we teach to regurgitate. Same for programming. But, I digress. From my personal experience with what is admittedly a simple/relatively basic set of functions in my Jeep...I don't trust that stuff yet. CERTAINLY not enough to go full hands-off with a 5,500 lb blunt object. I don't think "AI" will EVER get to the point of predicting / being intuitive like a human being. Hell...we can't even teach each OTHER to do it, how will we teach a machine? There's simply too much potential for error, and no room for it. And, think of it this way - a "normal", "average" person is behind the wheel (joystick?) of one of these auto-cars. Something goes wrong. What, do you think, is the average person from today's society, going to do? Anything? Will they even NOTICE in time? Or will they have already shut off any awareness function, and be completely engrossed in their text messages or Hulu movie, since "that's what the car is for"? I truly predict that no good will come from any of this. | ||
| Hootowl |
"I watched the video a few times and I agree with the cops, the car/driver is not at fault" "At fault" is not the issue, at least in my mind. She stepped out in the road, she got what you get when you do that. The question is, should the car have noticed her walking towards the street and taken evasive action? Would a human have been able to see her and anticipate her action? I don't know. I wasn't driving. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Looks like she Darwin-ized herself. Wearing black and pushing a bike across a road in front of oncoming car? Was she a junkie or something? That said, I thought these dumb things had infra red and RADAR and magical lasers? | ||
| Court |
We have the forward collision, active brake assist and the "follow the steering wheel" HID lights in 3 of our cars. The Subaru Eye-Sight system on the Outback is head and shoulders about the Jeep Cherokee Summit and the Audi R6 Cabriolet. The Jeep has more systems than a 747 and the collision avoidance system screams at you. The Audi can be forgiven cause at 340HP . . it's a rocketship. The systems on the Outback . . .well, just "work". We've also got a couple new pickups and F-250 Super Duty and an F-350 Super Duty . . they don't need collision detection . . . you hit anything in them . . . you're pretty much a guaranteed winner. | ||
| Airbozo |
AI is defined as a computer acting like a human (very simple definition) Machine Learning is the ability of a computer to learn for itself without being programmed to act a certain way. AI is basically a set of code that tells a computer how to act like a human. (in reality it does not _have_ to be a computer and can be a mechanical device which could use gears and cogs to mimic human behavior) Machine learning systems are programmed to learn, not do any specific task otherwise. You basically code the computer to learn and turn it lose on google or a digital library. I've given several low level talks about this and have another one next month. I am in no way an "expert" on this, but have been trained by experts from nVidia and Intel. I will be attending the GTC conference in San Jose next week to gain more knowledge of our future masters technology. Even though the police have determined the pedestrian stepped out between cars, there will be lawsuits based on the fact there was a human onboard that was _supposed_ to be a safety monitor who was clearly not monitoring anything but their phone. What if that person would have been paying attention? Would they have noticed something out of the corner of their eye that resembled a human? Knowing what I know about AI, ML and self driving technology, I am worried. I would never get in one of the self driving cars (with or without a phone monitor) and am certain I will have issues with them while commuting on my motorcycle. Sifo is right about code. The more lines of code and the more complex that code is, bugs become extremely difficult to track down and even notice. Factor in Machine Learning and now you have a computer writing it's own code on how to deal with a certain situation, with no feedback from the "safety" monitor or programmer. At this stage there are still too many unknowns | ||
| Hootowl |
So when I have to travel back in time to prevent AI and human cannibalism, I should look for you? | ||
| Froggy |
Collision avoidance systems on production cars are not of the same caliber of what is going on with these self driving cars. The sensors on your Jeep are "dumb" in comparison, they are cheap and simple, they don't have the sensitivity and additional feedback from other sensors. It is a bit like comparing scissors to a lawn mower and complaining the scissors suck. As tech gets cheaper and more refined, it will get added to production vehicles, but with the way things are right now the autonomous cars won't be affordable by consumers even when they get the OK for public sales, it likely will be bought by fleets for taxis and such.
I doubt a human would have saw her, I've also had close calls were someone was standing in a unlit street, wearing dark clothing and they were not visible until I was basically on top of them. Depending on what sensor and camera setup the driverless car has, it is possible a different one would have properly detected her.
From what I've been reading over the years, their system is cheaper and less complex. They have LIDAR, so I question why it didn't wasn't able to pick up the pedestrian sooner, but since she came out from between cars I suppose no sensor would have detected her in time. Regarding the driver not looking at the road, my understanding is right now they are only being "driven" by engineers who are on board monitoring data, they have a large tablet interface similar to a Tesla, he may have been looking at that rather than a personal device but it is hard to say for sure. | ||
| Teeps |
Some points and observations about self-driving cars. By former coworker @ Honda, reposted with his permission. The classic dilemma: Car moving at 35 mph on two lane city street, young child darts out in front chasing a ball not allowing sufficient time/distance to stop or slow to avoid serious or fatal injury. Choices: Turn left into on-coming traffic into a head-on collision with a school bus, proceed straight and impact the child with serious or fatal consequences, or turn right, jumping the curb and striking Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift and 5 other people at a bus stop. As the engineer or group responsible for programing the computer, which do you choose? If a driver was behind the wheel, they could evaluate the choices base on observed data and determine the least harmful path. If example, there might not be on-coming traffic in the opposing lane, there might not be anyone one the sidewalk, so either action would not have negative consequences. And whatever choice is made, the driver could explain their reasoning and rationale. Without a driver making the decision, the decision becomes the vehicle manufacturers and you as a programing individual or group would having to decide and pick one. Obviously the decision could be based on the possible available inputs to the system but sensors to discern the proximity and speed of on-coming traffic and/or how many humans could be in the chosen path of the vehicle, are not in use at this time. So, in this hypothetical, a human or numerous humans will sustain fatal or serious injury based on your decision. The family or survivors of the victims do not care about the others that were not injured. In effect, you played god and decided who would live and who would die. The case is presented to a jury based on the issues in the incident that led to the injury, and in this incident, the choice made by the you and company, may not have been the correct one. While in different circumstances the decision would have been the proper choice. The jurors and the public will be sympathetic to their anguish. It is easy to imagine that a Attorneys General, seeking reelection, could press criminal charges for the choice made, which may not have a real chance of conviction but would stir up public sentiment against the company or the technology. As a defense, the companies promoting self-driving cars keep saying the driver should remain alert and take over when needed. The Arizona incident shows that the driver may not have their attention focused on the driving task. With cell phone usage while driving already a safety issue, what is the likelihood that younger, Facebooking or texting drivers will pay attention to a self-driving car. Us older drivers, while not that interested in keeping up-to-the-minute with our friends, may find it impossible to stay awake on long trips on boring trips think I-70 across Kansas, I-80 across Nebraska, I-10 El Paso to San Antonio, or Hwy 14 from L.A. To Bishop. Basically without attending to the driving task, it would be like sitting in the passenger seat and, if not sleeping, you would probably find something else to do, for example read the map or a book, ingest massive quantities of Tequila, chase down old motorcycle parts on the internet, etc. In any case, you or I would probably not be alert and ready to assume split-second control of the vehicle. Russ O’ | ||
| Hootowl |
There was a movie about that. Save the kid. | ||
| Ebutch |
Can't wait till it comes out for Motorcycl  es  | ||
| Ebutch |
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| Ebutch |
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| Ebutch |
Two more self driving cycles  | ||
| Sifo |
A few things about this... Watching the few seconds of the video as the car approaches, the car doesn't seem to slow until well after the pedestrian is visible. I'm honestly not sure is slowed at all. I can't detect the front suspension compressing under heavy breaking before the crash. I'd be curious what others see after playing that several times. Pay attention to the tempo of the center line of the road. Just getting slowed down before the impact may have saved her life. Then, I'm not sure that a video camera is a good indication of what a human would see in low light. A cheap camera will make it all look very dark. A very good camera, OTOH can collect a lot more light than the human eye, and make things look brighter than the human eye would see. The point here is that this video is probably a poor representation of what the driver would see if they were paying attention. This leads to another point. She was crossing at a street light. The story calls it a dark street, but she's under a freaking street light! The car also has headlights. Presumably, other sensors too. So is it OK for an autonomous car to drive faster than the "driver" can see, and react? This reveals a critical flaw in logic. A huge flaw. At this point the argument is that the system can't be trusted without a back up driver, but the car will out drive what the back up driver is expected to be able to do, reacting to a failure of the system that we can't trust. FAIL!!! Just wait for that to be explained to the jury! Having said all of that, when you walk out into a street... Any street... PAY FREAKING ATTENTION!!! This whole thing went wrong in so many places it's almost ridiculous. To me it demonstrates that we are pushing ahead with this stuff far before it's ready. Link after link in the chain broke to make this happen. | ||
| Etennuly |
Mechanical failure is one of my concerns. Recently Joe had a brake line hydraulic failure. What would AI do while you are watching a movie on your phone while the car is driving? Court, Tucker had the headlight tech way back. What happens to you on a pitch black rainy night on a curvy road when you turn right, the car looks right, then a servo quits just as you have to turn left? Tucker had the answer. What Sifo said. Often people can feel a problem coming. Experience and situational reasoning. But then people get tired, distracted, stupid, and ignore warning signs. If you are going to drive don't fear the reaper. | ||
| Ratbuell |
My grand Cherokee has steering headlights as well - the 'inside' light follows the turn while the "outside" light stays straight. Lazy eye, anyone? All I think of is Igor..."walk thith way, thir...." More amusement than useful, but I leave that one turned on... | ||
| Airbozo |
My Cadillac has the steering headlights. Both move in the direction of the turn and it has helped a lot on my dark mountain roads. I want the controlled headlights on my motorcycles. Use the same technology employed on military helicopters. Come to think of it, a helmet controlled Gatling gun would be a nice feature... | ||
| Etennuly |
My C5 Corvette has active handling. Having had many Vettes without that option I forgot to turn it off one day. Putting this car into a 30 mph nice banked corner at 60, that I frequented with my previous Vettes for a nice drift, nearly had it in the ditch. As soon as the ass kicked out the brakes did their thing slowing and straightening out the car to nearly go head on into the outside embankment. Wasn't a thing I could do about it. I was in the inside lane, as I was driving it, had a car come the other way we would cleared no question. This thing put me across the road. I drive the car through corners like the bikes. I stay on my side of the yellow as much as I can. Fighting against it did nothing to keep it on my side of the road. Nanny •••••• almost got me. | ||
| Sifo |
The stability control, AKA nanny in my Wrangler is very aggressive. It makes for a very jerky ride when it's icy sometimes, especially when you anticipate sliding and are ready to steer accordingly. You can also hear a loud growling noise as it brakes one corner or the other. It just makes for a very uncoordinated skid correction with multiple captains on board. Every once in a while though, I've managed to toss it into a corner really sideways with no interaction from nanny. It's funny hearing my wife ask "where was nanny on that one?". It's really a PITA trying to accelerate though. It can really kill the power and leave you unable to cross a lane at a reasonable pace. I've found these systems quite unpredictable on my Wrangler. They suck you into thinking you know how they will react, then throw you a curve ball. New generations won't know how to drive without them. |
