4 ms·

I wouldn't worry so much. I'm sure self driving cars are going to save a lot more lives than they are going to end. Humans are terrible drivers, and the softwar

by reustle 11y ago

I wouldn't worry so much. I'm sure self driving cars are going to save a lot more lives than they are going to end. Humans are terrible drivers, and the software will only get better.

VonGuard 11y ago
Yeah, remember, auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies. A car needs to be, I dunno, 80%? Compared to a bad human driver, who still drives every damn day, a computer need only be about 60% reliable to be better. People suck at driving. Even a shitty self-driving car will save a ton of lives simply by obeying traffic laws.
- dreamcompiler 11y ago
  An auto-pilot for an airplane is a considerably easier problem to solve. No lanes; no pedestrians; very little other traffic; three spatial degrees of freedom. That's why auto-pilots for airplanes have existed for almost a century but we're just now beginning to get self-driving cars. Humans are still better at dealing with the full panoply of crap that road driving throws at us.
  - infinotize 11y ago
    Aircraft autopilots also rely on experienced and licensed pilots to operate them and be responsible for the aircraft at all times. Self driving cars have assume the operator is not particularly capable nor paying attention to anything happening on the road.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      Do they rely on the pilot? I was under the impression it was entirely hands off.
      - durandal1 11y ago
        There are many conditions unders which an aircraft autopilot will simply disconnect without previous warning and hand over controls to the pilot.
      - Eugr 11y ago
        Current generation of autopilots doesn't handle traffic avoidance or make any routing decisions - they just follow pre-programmed routes at pre-programmed speed and altitude (or climb/descent profile). But even this relatively simple level of automation causes problems - pilots start to rely on automation too much, and when things go south they are not capable to deal with it. Airlines recognize it, and put more emphasis on hand-flying during training and routine operations, so pilots don't lose their basic piloting skills. It's not a new problem - there is an excellent training video from 1997 - "Children of the Magenta": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10
        schwarrrtz 11y ago
        This video also inspired an excellent podcast from 99 Percent Invisible about the challenges and dangers of automation. I would highly recommend listening. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta-automation-paradox-pt-1/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magent...
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      Google Self-Driving Cars currently fail approximately every 1,500 miles, according to their own report. We are a LONG way away from being able to separate the operator's attention from driving.
- boydc 11y ago
  Self-driving car could be better than human in average. But as long as there are human drivers who drive better than self-driving software, it would be disaster for these drivers. We definitely do not want some technique than do good for majority but do horrible things for minority, right?
  - scarecrowbob 11y ago
    I;m not following your argument here. A single driver's ability isn't the only risk factor... if I'm a great driver but every one else sucks (that's how it for everyone already, right :D ), then an overall increase in the population's driving ability helps me, right?
    - boydc 11y ago
      the overall increase helps you indeed. But do you want use self-driving software if you are a great driver(or you think you are)? I do not because I want to be more safer by driving myself. If great drivers like to drive themselves. Others wants too because they do not trust these great drivers. In everyone driver's eyes, there are only two kinds of drivers 1 ) bad driver slower than me. 2 ) mad driver faster than me.
  - jchrisa 11y ago
    Why would it be a disaster?
  - llamataboot 11y ago
    This would be true only if your driving ability only affected your chance to die, but your driving ability has an effect on everyone else's safety on the road as well!
    - boydc 11y ago
      Consider you are a damn good driver, better than self-driving software. If self-driving software can reduce your risk by giving you a safer environment(by replacing lots of bad drivers), but it will increase your risk when handling risks(because it's not as good as you). Would you like to choose self-driving software? The point here is, no matter how good the driving environment goes, I do not want to lost any chance to survive(If I'm a good driver).
- zdkl 11y ago
  Not sure low-probability/high-damage events are comparable to high-prob/"low"-dmg in the first place and that's not a trivial question to handle in real-time
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  > Yeah, remember, auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies. First, they're not anywhere near 100% reliable. They can fail on their own, and they'll also intentionally shut themselves off if the instruments they rely on fail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 Second, an autopilot failure shouldn't lead to death if the pilots are competent and paying attention.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    What does a failed autopilot look like? Would a pilot do any better with an "aerodynamic stall"? I know little about planes and it seems like that'd be a big problem with or without a pilot driving.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      All pilots are trained to recover from a stall. A failed autopilot could look like all sorts of things, from just automatically disconnecting itself (usually with a loud warning alert) to issuing incorrect instructions (which is why the pilots are supposed to be awake and alert while it's engaged, watching the instruments).
      - neurotech1 11y ago
        Actually a key finding in AF447 was that pilots were not trained on how to recognize and recover from a high altitude stall. It is not like flying a Cessna 150. The junior first officer didn't realize the aircraft had stalled. Pilots were trained on the procedure for recovering from a low altitude stall; 100% or TOGA thrust and power out of it while minimizing altitude loss. Training has now changed for both low altitude and high altitude stall recovery.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        IIRC, part of the issue was that the two pilots issued contradictory joystick commands, which the plane averaged to zero. Which is a bit terrifying.
- duaneb 11y ago
  But autopilot for planes is actually much easier than negotiating traffic with irrational humans with road rage. You can coordinate with air traffic for takeoffs and landings, and there is very little to run into at tens of thousands of feet.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  > auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies Actually it is much more simpler than a self-driving car. And if there is a problem it disengages.
  - vacri 11y ago
    Autopilot in a plane usually doesn't involve autonavigation, whereas autodrive in a car generally requires navigation. Autodrive in a car without navigation is basically 'cruise control'.
    - dreamcompiler 11y ago
      'Cruise control' does not (at least it didn't until very recently) even attempt to avoid collisions with neighboring cars or keep the car in its lane. Even without navigation, autodrive in a car is a considerably more difficult problem than either cruise control or autopilot in a plane.
      - vacri 11y ago
        My point is that 'autopilot' is more like 'cruise control', and except in advanced cases, is not analagous to 'autodrive'.
brianwawok 11y ago
I know this logically. But emotionally I know how many bugs I have written in my life. I know software devs are human.. aka I know how the sausage is made.
- kohanz 11y ago
  Yes, but have you been part of the development & testing effort for mission-critical software (e.g. a class 1 or 2 medical device?). It's not true in all cases, but for the most part the level of QA that goes into the devices before release is significantly higher than that of your average product. This is why regulation is required.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - praxulus 11y ago
      GCE downtime just means people lose money, it's not life-or-death. Skimping on QA in order to reduce costs and get to market faster is a perfectly reasonable decision when the consequences are so mundane.
      - flurdy 11y ago
        I understand what you mean but that is generalising too much what people use GCE, public clouds, self hosted servers for, and especially going forward. It is not all convenience applications, game backends etc. What people these days use AWS/GCE for is so varied, even public sector use AWS Gov Region for example. Downtime consequences is not just money lost but can be life-and-death and for some application they need solid QA even if hosted in a public cloud. It may (emphasise 'may') be how they share medical data via GCE/AWS that gets delayed just before a surgery (ok, edge case) or how they update bugs in a critical GPS model that happen to be used by an ambulance, or even a taxi used by pregnant lady that is about to drop, etc. Or simple general medical self diagnosis information site that by chance could have saved someone in that time slot. Or any other random non medical usage which involves a server and data of some kind that happen to be in GCE. Yes critical real time systems often are on-premise or in self hosted data centres, but more and more are not especially if viewed as not critical but in some cases indirectly are critical.
ambago 11y ago
Especially since "driver-error" is the cause of 94% of motor vehicle crashes in the U.S.[1], with 32,675 people killed and 2.3 million injured in 2014.[2] Worldwide, motor-vehicle crashes cause over 1.2 million deaths each year and are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15-29 years old.[3] It's estimated that self-driving cars could reduce vehicle crashes by approximately 90%! [4] [1] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/812115.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/812115.pdf [2] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf [3] http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/en/ http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st... [4] http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/ten-ways-autonomous-driving-could-redefine-the-automotive-world http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/o...
- takeda 11y ago
  This is true for a single car, but self driving cars are introducing something that did not happen before. Imagine majority of cars are self driving cars and they all malfunctions due to bug in software update.
  - executesorder66 11y ago
    > and they all malfunctions due to bug in software update. That's assuming everyone with a self driving car is driving the exact same model and they all updated at the exact same time. Chances are there will be many different models and manufactures so an OTA update with a bug will only affect a much smaller percentage of the self driving cars.

by reustle 11y ago

I wouldn't worry so much. I'm sure self driving cars are going to save a lot more lives than they are going to end. Humans are terrible drivers, and the software will only get better.

VonGuard 11y ago

Yeah, remember, auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies. A car needs to be, I dunno, 80%? Compared to a bad human driver, who still drives every damn day, a computer need only be about 60% reliable to be better. People suck at driving. Even a shitty self-driving car will save a ton of lives simply by obeying traffic laws.

dreamcompiler 11y ago
An auto-pilot for an airplane is a considerably easier problem to solve. No lanes; no pedestrians; very little other traffic; three spatial degrees of freedom. That's why auto-pilots for airplanes have existed for almost a century but we're just now beginning to get self-driving cars. Humans are still better at dealing with the full panoply of crap that road driving throws at us.
- infinotize 11y ago
  Aircraft autopilots also rely on experienced and licensed pilots to operate them and be responsible for the aircraft at all times. Self driving cars have assume the operator is not particularly capable nor paying attention to anything happening on the road.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    Do they rely on the pilot? I was under the impression it was entirely hands off.
    - durandal1 11y ago
      There are many conditions unders which an aircraft autopilot will simply disconnect without previous warning and hand over controls to the pilot.
    - Eugr 11y ago
      Current generation of autopilots doesn't handle traffic avoidance or make any routing decisions - they just follow pre-programmed routes at pre-programmed speed and altitude (or climb/descent profile). But even this relatively simple level of automation causes problems - pilots start to rely on automation too much, and when things go south they are not capable to deal with it. Airlines recognize it, and put more emphasis on hand-flying during training and routine operations, so pilots don't lose their basic piloting skills. It's not a new problem - there is an excellent training video from 1997 - "Children of the Magenta": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10
      - schwarrrtz 11y ago
        This video also inspired an excellent podcast from 99 Percent Invisible about the challenges and dangers of automation. I would highly recommend listening. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta-automation-paradox-pt-1/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magent...
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Google Self-Driving Cars currently fail approximately every 1,500 miles, according to their own report. We are a LONG way away from being able to separate the operator's attention from driving.
boydc 11y ago
Self-driving car could be better than human in average. But as long as there are human drivers who drive better than self-driving software, it would be disaster for these drivers. We definitely do not want some technique than do good for majority but do horrible things for minority, right?
- scarecrowbob 11y ago
  I;m not following your argument here. A single driver's ability isn't the only risk factor... if I'm a great driver but every one else sucks (that's how it for everyone already, right :D ), then an overall increase in the population's driving ability helps me, right?
  - boydc 11y ago
    the overall increase helps you indeed. But do you want use self-driving software if you are a great driver(or you think you are)? I do not because I want to be more safer by driving myself. If great drivers like to drive themselves. Others wants too because they do not trust these great drivers. In everyone driver's eyes, there are only two kinds of drivers 1 ) bad driver slower than me. 2 ) mad driver faster than me.
- jchrisa 11y ago
  Why would it be a disaster?
- llamataboot 11y ago
  This would be true only if your driving ability only affected your chance to die, but your driving ability has an effect on everyone else's safety on the road as well!
  - boydc 11y ago
    Consider you are a damn good driver, better than self-driving software. If self-driving software can reduce your risk by giving you a safer environment(by replacing lots of bad drivers), but it will increase your risk when handling risks(because it's not as good as you). Would you like to choose self-driving software? The point here is, no matter how good the driving environment goes, I do not want to lost any chance to survive(If I'm a good driver).
zdkl 11y ago
Not sure low-probability/high-damage events are comparable to high-prob/"low"-dmg in the first place and that's not a trivial question to handle in real-time
ceejayoz 11y ago
> Yeah, remember, auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies. First, they're not anywhere near 100% reliable. They can fail on their own, and they'll also intentionally shut themselves off if the instruments they rely on fail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 Second, an autopilot failure shouldn't lead to death if the pilots are competent and paying attention.
- duaneb 11y ago
  What does a failed autopilot look like? Would a pilot do any better with an "aerodynamic stall"? I know little about planes and it seems like that'd be a big problem with or without a pilot driving.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    All pilots are trained to recover from a stall. A failed autopilot could look like all sorts of things, from just automatically disconnecting itself (usually with a loud warning alert) to issuing incorrect instructions (which is why the pilots are supposed to be awake and alert while it's engaged, watching the instruments).
    - neurotech1 11y ago
      Actually a key finding in AF447 was that pilots were not trained on how to recognize and recover from a high altitude stall. It is not like flying a Cessna 150. The junior first officer didn't realize the aircraft had stalled. Pilots were trained on the procedure for recovering from a low altitude stall; 100% or TOGA thrust and power out of it while minimizing altitude loss. Training has now changed for both low altitude and high altitude stall recovery.
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        IIRC, part of the issue was that the two pilots issued contradictory joystick commands, which the plane averaged to zero. Which is a bit terrifying.
duaneb 11y ago
But autopilot for planes is actually much easier than negotiating traffic with irrational humans with road rage. You can coordinate with air traffic for takeoffs and landings, and there is very little to run into at tens of thousands of feet.
raverbashing 11y ago
> auto-pilot in a plane needs to be 100% reliable, or everyone dies Actually it is much more simpler than a self-driving car. And if there is a problem it disengages.
- vacri 11y ago
  Autopilot in a plane usually doesn't involve autonavigation, whereas autodrive in a car generally requires navigation. Autodrive in a car without navigation is basically 'cruise control'.
  - dreamcompiler 11y ago
    'Cruise control' does not (at least it didn't until very recently) even attempt to avoid collisions with neighboring cars or keep the car in its lane. Even without navigation, autodrive in a car is a considerably more difficult problem than either cruise control or autopilot in a plane.
    - vacri 11y ago
      My point is that 'autopilot' is more like 'cruise control', and except in advanced cases, is not analagous to 'autodrive'.

brianwawok 11y ago

I know this logically. But emotionally I know how many bugs I have written in my life. I know software devs are human.. aka I know how the sausage is made.

kohanz 11y ago
Yes, but have you been part of the development & testing effort for mission-critical software (e.g. a class 1 or 2 medical device?). It's not true in all cases, but for the most part the level of QA that goes into the devices before release is significantly higher than that of your average product. This is why regulation is required.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - praxulus 11y ago
    GCE downtime just means people lose money, it's not life-or-death. Skimping on QA in order to reduce costs and get to market faster is a perfectly reasonable decision when the consequences are so mundane.
    - flurdy 11y ago
      I understand what you mean but that is generalising too much what people use GCE, public clouds, self hosted servers for, and especially going forward. It is not all convenience applications, game backends etc. What people these days use AWS/GCE for is so varied, even public sector use AWS Gov Region for example. Downtime consequences is not just money lost but can be life-and-death and for some application they need solid QA even if hosted in a public cloud. It may (emphasise 'may') be how they share medical data via GCE/AWS that gets delayed just before a surgery (ok, edge case) or how they update bugs in a critical GPS model that happen to be used by an ambulance, or even a taxi used by pregnant lady that is about to drop, etc. Or simple general medical self diagnosis information site that by chance could have saved someone in that time slot. Or any other random non medical usage which involves a server and data of some kind that happen to be in GCE. Yes critical real time systems often are on-premise or in self hosted data centres, but more and more are not especially if viewed as not critical but in some cases indirectly are critical.

ambago 11y ago

Especially since "driver-error" is the cause of 94% of motor vehicle crashes in the U.S.[1], with 32,675 people killed and 2.3 million injured in 2014.[2] Worldwide, motor-vehicle crashes cause over 1.2 million deaths each year and are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15-29 years old.[3] It's estimated that self-driving cars could reduce vehicle crashes by approximately 90%! [4] [1] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/812115.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/812115.pdf [2] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf [3] http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/en/ http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st... [4] http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/ten-ways-autonomous-driving-could-redefine-the-automotive-world http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/o...

takeda 11y ago
This is true for a single car, but self driving cars are introducing something that did not happen before. Imagine majority of cars are self driving cars and they all malfunctions due to bug in software update.
- executesorder66 11y ago
  > and they all malfunctions due to bug in software update. That's assuming everyone with a self driving car is driving the exact same model and they all updated at the exact same time. Chances are there will be many different models and manufactures so an OTA update with a bug will only affect a much smaller percentage of the self driving cars.