6 ms·

Normal desktop failure modes don't work well here. "Hi, this is your car. I've discovered that the road is icy, and am currently in the middle of a 360. Woul

by adekok 11y ago

Normal desktop failure modes don't work well here. "Hi, this is your car. I've discovered that the road is icy, and am currently in the middle of a 360. Would you like to (a) take over, (b) call an ambulance, or (c) retry?" Too late! You've crashed.

mabbo 11y ago
Bonus points if it's Clippy, but he's a steering wheel now.
mchahn 11y ago
> and am currently in the middle of a 360. You have no faith in AI. The car will always be better at driving than the human. It would be much better at handling a 360 than a human ever could. Actually humans are very bad at handling 360s unless you are a pro.
- timClicks 11y ago
  As long as the sensors, networking, compute and actuators are all functional.
- Alupis 11y ago
  Humans are very, very good at handling unknown complex situations. In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior. Undefined behavior in a car traveling down the road is not a good thing to place a bet on... especially your life. This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always be in the driver seat, ready to take control. There's an impossible volume of failure modes a driverless car must contend with, everything from someone pointing an infrared laser at the distance sensors, to complete power failure, to a sudden rockslide, a bird darting in front of the car, lines missing from a windy and hilly road, etc. In normal, daily mundane driving - driverless cars are expected to excel. Sitting in traffic is mind numbing, and mistakes happen when driver's minds wonder. In "active" driving situations, a human brain will almost always excel.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Humans are mostly terrible at handling unknown complex situations on the road. For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously." You don't have to get "undefined behavior" in response to an unknown situation. The AI can simply default to braking to a stop in the absence of any better programmed alternative. This will already put it on par with most drivers. Better, in fact, because the AI can begin braking instantly. I personally find that the majority of driverless vehicle talk vastly overestimates the average human driver, and demands unreasonable perfection from the computers.
    - jzwinck 11y ago
      Not only can a computer begin braking more promptly, it can brake more accurately. Many human drivers hit the brakes 100% when they sense danger, then the full force of braking startles them (no training), then they let off again. This can increase stopping distances dramatically. Next up is per-wheel braking. Not just stability control, but actual directed thrust. The computer can control each wheel independently. Humans just have one brake pedal. Four wheel steering might even make a comeback.
    - beat 11y ago
      Remember the two second rule? Instantaneous response would be a huge improvement in many situations already.
      - obsurveyor 11y ago
        With today's aggressive and impatient drivers, the 2 second rule is very hard to maintain because they'll just pass you and fill the spot, every time.
        mikeash 11y ago
        I see this stated a lot, but I think it's exaggerated. My car's adaptive cruise control follows at about 2.5 seconds when on the maximum setting, which is where I almost always keep it, including in heavy traffic. People do occasionally jump in, but then the car just backs off a bit and starts following the new car at 2.5 seconds. It's not a constant churn, and it doesn't cause any significant delay. And this is in the DC area, with dense traffic and ridiculous drivers. When people say that it doesn't work, I really think they're just saying that they can't stand having other people get ahead by breaking the rules, and they'd rather drive more dangerously than let that happen.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  >The car will always be better at driving than the human. I don't think this is true yet. We can interpret the incoming data incredibly well in ways the machine vision can't yet match. This is absolutely vital for driving. The difference between an empty trash bag in the road and a toddler in the road is a matter of vital importance, and correctly identifying the difference matters a lot. Humans area actually capable of being incredibly good at driving. The problem is we are also incredibly unreliable.
  - Nutmog 11y ago
    I wouldn't say the difference matters a lot. Instead humans and computers would just have different thresholds for when to stop and when to run over something. If a computer is less accurate at distinguishing them, then it'll simply err on the side of caution more often than a human. You would find there are more inconvenient stops, not that more more babies get killed. I'm sure I've stopped for empty trash bags before because I wasn't sure if they contained something solid. That doesn't mean I failed as a driver. Everything went fine. Same if it's a computer but it might stop more often than a human.
    - TrevorJ 11y ago
      This assumes that in every situation coming to a controlled stop is an option. That is almost certainly not the case. Many times the choice is between running (an object) over or making some kind of risky maneuver to avoid it.
oblio 11y ago
A very old joke (circa 1997, when Clippy was introduced): Two engineers are arguing: a mechanical engineer and a software engineer. The software engineer brags: If we were the ones making cars, they'd go twice as fast as they do now and they'd use half the fuel! The mechanical engineer replies: Yes, but if you'd want to break in case of an emergency you'd get a pop-up saying: Are you sure you want to break? Yes/No/Cancel.
- mikeash 11y ago
  There's a related joke about engineers riding in a car that breaks down. The mechanical engineer says, "It's a loose belt. Let's tighten that and we'll be all set." The chemical engineer says, "No, it's fuel contamination. We need to drain the fuel, filter it, and then we can be on our way." The software engineer says, "No, all we have to do is turn the car off, get out, shut all the doors, then get back in and turn the car back on." The irony is that I now own a car for which "reboot it" is a valid troubleshooting step....
  - david-given 11y ago
    There's a related joke about engineers at an aviation software convention. This one might even be true. At a talk to an audience of avionics programmers, the speaker at one point asks: "Tell me truthfully; how many of you would be comfortable flying in a plane where your team had done the software?" Onlt a couple of people put their hands up. The speaker targets someone at the front. "You have that much confidence in your work?" "I'd be fine," they reply. "If my team wrote the software, the plane would never even leave the ground."

by adekok 11y ago

mabbo 11y ago

Bonus points if it's Clippy, but he's a steering wheel now.

mchahn 11y ago

> and am currently in the middle of a 360. You have no faith in AI. The car will always be better at driving than the human. It would be much better at handling a 360 than a human ever could. Actually humans are very bad at handling 360s unless you are a pro.

timClicks 11y ago
As long as the sensors, networking, compute and actuators are all functional.
Alupis 11y ago
Humans are very, very good at handling unknown complex situations. In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior. Undefined behavior in a car traveling down the road is not a good thing to place a bet on... especially your life. This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always be in the driver seat, ready to take control. There's an impossible volume of failure modes a driverless car must contend with, everything from someone pointing an infrared laser at the distance sensors, to complete power failure, to a sudden rockslide, a bird darting in front of the car, lines missing from a windy and hilly road, etc. In normal, daily mundane driving - driverless cars are expected to excel. Sitting in traffic is mind numbing, and mistakes happen when driver's minds wonder. In "active" driving situations, a human brain will almost always excel.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Humans are mostly terrible at handling unknown complex situations on the road. For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously." You don't have to get "undefined behavior" in response to an unknown situation. The AI can simply default to braking to a stop in the absence of any better programmed alternative. This will already put it on par with most drivers. Better, in fact, because the AI can begin braking instantly. I personally find that the majority of driverless vehicle talk vastly overestimates the average human driver, and demands unreasonable perfection from the computers.
  - jzwinck 11y ago
    Not only can a computer begin braking more promptly, it can brake more accurately. Many human drivers hit the brakes 100% when they sense danger, then the full force of braking startles them (no training), then they let off again. This can increase stopping distances dramatically. Next up is per-wheel braking. Not just stability control, but actual directed thrust. The computer can control each wheel independently. Humans just have one brake pedal. Four wheel steering might even make a comeback.
  - beat 11y ago
    Remember the two second rule? Instantaneous response would be a huge improvement in many situations already.
    - obsurveyor 11y ago
      With today's aggressive and impatient drivers, the 2 second rule is very hard to maintain because they'll just pass you and fill the spot, every time.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        I see this stated a lot, but I think it's exaggerated. My car's adaptive cruise control follows at about 2.5 seconds when on the maximum setting, which is where I almost always keep it, including in heavy traffic. People do occasionally jump in, but then the car just backs off a bit and starts following the new car at 2.5 seconds. It's not a constant churn, and it doesn't cause any significant delay. And this is in the DC area, with dense traffic and ridiculous drivers. When people say that it doesn't work, I really think they're just saying that they can't stand having other people get ahead by breaking the rules, and they'd rather drive more dangerously than let that happen.
TrevorJ 11y ago
>The car will always be better at driving than the human. I don't think this is true yet. We can interpret the incoming data incredibly well in ways the machine vision can't yet match. This is absolutely vital for driving. The difference between an empty trash bag in the road and a toddler in the road is a matter of vital importance, and correctly identifying the difference matters a lot. Humans area actually capable of being incredibly good at driving. The problem is we are also incredibly unreliable.
- Nutmog 11y ago
  I wouldn't say the difference matters a lot. Instead humans and computers would just have different thresholds for when to stop and when to run over something. If a computer is less accurate at distinguishing them, then it'll simply err on the side of caution more often than a human. You would find there are more inconvenient stops, not that more more babies get killed. I'm sure I've stopped for empty trash bags before because I wasn't sure if they contained something solid. That doesn't mean I failed as a driver. Everything went fine. Same if it's a computer but it might stop more often than a human.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    This assumes that in every situation coming to a controlled stop is an option. That is almost certainly not the case. Many times the choice is between running (an object) over or making some kind of risky maneuver to avoid it.

oblio 11y ago

A very old joke (circa 1997, when Clippy was introduced): Two engineers are arguing: a mechanical engineer and a software engineer. The software engineer brags: If we were the ones making cars, they'd go twice as fast as they do now and they'd use half the fuel! The mechanical engineer replies: Yes, but if you'd want to break in case of an emergency you'd get a pop-up saying: Are you sure you want to break? Yes/No/Cancel.

mikeash 11y ago
There's a related joke about engineers riding in a car that breaks down. The mechanical engineer says, "It's a loose belt. Let's tighten that and we'll be all set." The chemical engineer says, "No, it's fuel contamination. We need to drain the fuel, filter it, and then we can be on our way." The software engineer says, "No, all we have to do is turn the car off, get out, shut all the doors, then get back in and turn the car back on." The irony is that I now own a car for which "reboot it" is a valid troubleshooting step....
- david-given 11y ago
  There's a related joke about engineers at an aviation software convention. This one might even be true. At a talk to an audience of avionics programmers, the speaker at one point asks: "Tell me truthfully; how many of you would be comfortable flying in a plane where your team had done the software?" Onlt a couple of people put their hands up. The speaker targets someone at the front. "You have that much confidence in your work?" "I'd be fine," they reply. "If my team wrote the software, the plane would never even leave the ground."