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Can someone with knowledge answer questions about the current state of autonomous cars: 1) What do these cars do in ambiguous driving environments: constructio

by jhulla 11y ago

Can someone with knowledge answer questions about the current state of autonomous cars: 1) What do these cars do in ambiguous driving environments: construction zones, poorly/under relined lanes, freshly paved roads, hazards, dark/rainy roads where camera images are useless, etc. 2) How do these cars handle system failure while driving? Blown tire, engine failure, etc. 3) Is there "Moral Decision Engine" code in current generation cars? E.g. person runs out in front of an autonomous car, the car chooses to spare the person by veering off and hitting some inanimate object. I can imagine a class of accidents in traditional hands-on cars where a driver hurts himself in order to avoid harming a pedestrian. Is such moral logic hard wired into autonomous cars?

jzwinck 11y ago
1) Some of the extant cars cede control to the human driver if things get too difficult. This is a problem because people will context switch away from driving and there is no way to get them back in the game in 100ms when the car needs help. 2) Engine failure is not a big deal, it just means coast to a stop on the side of the road with hazard lights on. Blowouts are a little trickier. But what about unusual stuff like hitting a deer? A wheel falling off? Or another car drifting into the side of our car on the expressway? Those are tricky but not truly rare. This is an area where implementors will need to compete yet purchasers will have a very incomplete view of the relative performance of cars on the market (it's not a single number like HP). 3) Hitting a pole instead of a person is an easy choice. Yet one that many humans would not be able to make quickly enough. I think autonomous cars will outperform human drivers in "moral" decision making quite early on.
- jhulla 11y ago
  Thanks. 1) Expecting a human to be on deck within some fraction of a second in challenging times will not fly. 2) Perhaps software in cars can be independently safety tested. Just like cars are collision tested today. 3) Understand about human reaction times. My question is about making moral choices: hit a pedestrian or sacrifice the driver?
  - rjp0008 11y ago
    Your wording is very interesting on #3, "hit" a pedestrian versus "sacrificing" a driver. I don't think this situation is very likely. A self driving car should be aware of people and would likely be able to compensate without killing the passenger. If it was a case of hitting a pedestrian versus driving off a cliff I feel like the pedestrian will just be SOL for getting in that situation. Otherwise you could have murder by car relatively easily. Maybe we could make people register their car settings at the DMV like we do for organ donations. "Would you like to opt-in to the murder-children AI driver, or the martyr driver?"
- Consultant32452 11y ago
  http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving...
  - hellcow 11y ago
    That article raises an interesting question that I've seen before. Namely: in the event where loss of life is inevitable, who does the car choose to save, and who does it choose to kill? Pedestrians or occupants? I expect auto insurance companies will have the final decision on this one. They'll provide lower insurance rates for cars that make the correct decisions minimizing total insurance payouts (whatever those happen to be). With lower insurance costs and therefore a lower effective price, sales of that particular brand of self-driving software should increase. Competitors will then rush to do the same.
    - peteretep 11y ago
      Presumably it's better to kill whomever is at fault, which the car will assume is not it?
    - notatoad 11y ago
      In the driving class I took when I was 16, we were taught to always prefer crashing into another car instead of a pedestrian if there was no alternative - humans don't have crumple zones designed into them, cars do. I would assume self-driving cars would be programmed similarly.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
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yread 11y ago
From the report https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-1115.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...: >Miles driven since start of project in 2009: “Autonomous mode” means the software is driving the vehicle, and test drivers are not touching the manual controls. “Manual mode” means the test drivers are driving the car. > Autonomous mode: 1,320,755 miles > Manual mode: 955,771 miles So it seems the cars are self-driving only half of the time! The answer to 1) seems to be driver takes over all the time.
estefan 11y ago
The problem with developing autonomous cars is that the 80-20 rule doesn't apply. They need to be 100% capable of handling any situation that come their way... unless a person is expected to watch the road as if they're driving ready to take control... in which case there's almost no benefit.
hobbes78 11y ago
Regarding "dark/rainy roads where camera images are useless", camera images are not the main input, but rather one of many (radar, laser, collision detection, etc.). It may be comparable to landing a plane automatically without visibility, as is commonplace nowadays... This, at least, isn't an issue...

by jhulla 11y ago

jzwinck 11y ago

1) Some of the extant cars cede control to the human driver if things get too difficult. This is a problem because people will context switch away from driving and there is no way to get them back in the game in 100ms when the car needs help. 2) Engine failure is not a big deal, it just means coast to a stop on the side of the road with hazard lights on. Blowouts are a little trickier. But what about unusual stuff like hitting a deer? A wheel falling off? Or another car drifting into the side of our car on the expressway? Those are tricky but not truly rare. This is an area where implementors will need to compete yet purchasers will have a very incomplete view of the relative performance of cars on the market (it's not a single number like HP). 3) Hitting a pole instead of a person is an easy choice. Yet one that many humans would not be able to make quickly enough. I think autonomous cars will outperform human drivers in "moral" decision making quite early on.

jhulla 11y ago
Thanks. 1) Expecting a human to be on deck within some fraction of a second in challenging times will not fly. 2) Perhaps software in cars can be independently safety tested. Just like cars are collision tested today. 3) Understand about human reaction times. My question is about making moral choices: hit a pedestrian or sacrifice the driver?
- rjp0008 11y ago
  Your wording is very interesting on #3, "hit" a pedestrian versus "sacrificing" a driver. I don't think this situation is very likely. A self driving car should be aware of people and would likely be able to compensate without killing the passenger. If it was a case of hitting a pedestrian versus driving off a cliff I feel like the pedestrian will just be SOL for getting in that situation. Otherwise you could have murder by car relatively easily. Maybe we could make people register their car settings at the DMV like we do for organ donations. "Would you like to opt-in to the murder-children AI driver, or the martyr driver?"
Consultant32452 11y ago
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving...
- hellcow 11y ago
  That article raises an interesting question that I've seen before. Namely: in the event where loss of life is inevitable, who does the car choose to save, and who does it choose to kill? Pedestrians or occupants? I expect auto insurance companies will have the final decision on this one. They'll provide lower insurance rates for cars that make the correct decisions minimizing total insurance payouts (whatever those happen to be). With lower insurance costs and therefore a lower effective price, sales of that particular brand of self-driving software should increase. Competitors will then rush to do the same.
  - peteretep 11y ago
    Presumably it's better to kill whomever is at fault, which the car will assume is not it?
  - notatoad 11y ago
    In the driving class I took when I was 16, we were taught to always prefer crashing into another car instead of a pedestrian if there was no alternative - humans don't have crumple zones designed into them, cars do. I would assume self-driving cars would be programmed similarly.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

yread 11y ago

From the report https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-1115.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...: >Miles driven since start of project in 2009: “Autonomous mode” means the software is driving the vehicle, and test drivers are not touching the manual controls. “Manual mode” means the test drivers are driving the car. > Autonomous mode: 1,320,755 miles > Manual mode: 955,771 miles So it seems the cars are self-driving only half of the time! The answer to 1) seems to be driver takes over all the time.

estefan 11y ago

The problem with developing autonomous cars is that the 80-20 rule doesn't apply. They need to be 100% capable of handling any situation that come their way... unless a person is expected to watch the road as if they're driving ready to take control... in which case there's almost no benefit.

hobbes78 11y ago

Regarding "dark/rainy roads where camera images are useless", camera images are not the main input, but rather one of many (radar, laser, collision detection, etc.). It may be comparable to landing a plane automatically without visibility, as is commonplace nowadays... This, at least, isn't an issue...