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> Similarly, unmanned vehicles might proceed at speed through an intersection where a stop sign has been removed by college students or knocked down the night b

by atonse 11y ago

> Similarly, unmanned vehicles might proceed at speed through an intersection where a stop sign has been removed by college students or knocked down the night before by an impaired human. But so would human drivers. In fact, a self-driving car may actually do better in this scenario because it would have metadata stating that the last 3,000 times a car encountered this intersection, there was a stop sign here.

rayiner 11y ago
And a sufficiently smart compiler could optimize Common Lisp to run as fast as c: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SufficientlySmartCompiler http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SufficientlySmartCompiler The fact is that GPS navigation is a mature field (I.e. unlikely to get much better very soon), and is still very failure-prone. I just took an Uber this morning and twice the GPS got confused between the street I was going to and the on-ramp to the highway (the two roads were narrow and unusually close together). Twice, the driver followed the GPS instead of looking with his eyes at the road (the on ramp clearly looked like an on ramp). I run into these sorts of things 2-3 times a month.
logfromblammo 11y ago
An uncontrolled intersection means yield to traffic approaching from your passenger side for intersecting roads of equal importance, or vehicles on the minor road yield to through traffic on the major road. Yield signs usually just formalize this implicit intersection control. Taking out one stop sign is usually not an imminent hazard to traffic, but taking out two from perpendicular approaches might cause a problem. Removing all of them would actually be slightly more safe than a bad configuration of signs. I expect my driverless car to be able to disobey signs when I indicate that it would be appropriate or necessary to do so. I may one day enforce this by carrying around two poles that bear "stop", "do not enter + wrong way", "no u-turn", "do not reverse + severe tire damage", and "no stopping any time" signs on them, and creating pop-up paradox traps for unwary driving AIs.
stormbrew 11y ago
I was just about to comment on the same section. This kind of poorly thought out assertion throws a lot of shade on the rest of the article.
- gambiting 11y ago
  I don't think it does. Sure, a car would know that a stop sign was there the last time it drove through that intersection, but you can always order the car to go someplace new. And I don't believe the dream that "oh, automatic cars will just have 100% accurate street data for every road in the civilized world". First of all because we don't have this data, and even if we did, I can't imagine a car hauling several terabytes of data with it(and how would you even update it, given that our internet connections seem to be getting worse, not better every year, with new data and speed caps being introduced?). It has to be able to decide autonomously, and since it has to be programmed to do something, it's a really hard problem. A human can just "use best judgement", but a computer can't - it either follows the rules or it doesn't. And roads are not a computer simulation - they are dynamic, they change, they require the sort of input that computers are horrible at, visual recognition is dreadful, our best, cream of the top software can't tell a difference between a zebra and a sofa in a zebra print, and yet most people just wave their hand at the problems facing automatic cars saying "oh, we will just use a machine learning algorithm to watch how humans drive and then follow that". Sure. But it doesn't magically solve the problems of responsibility where a computer does something it shouldn't have.
  - stormbrew 11y ago
    This is not the issue with that statement at all, and for the record I'm skeptical of cars sharing data to augment what they see (because this leaves them open to attacks that are unique to self-driving cars). The problem with the statement is that it, as the GP post says, ignores the fact that a human driving a car is no less likely to barrel through an intersection with a missing stop sign. There are a few other low level problems with this scenario as well, mostly hinging on the weird idea that self-driving cars are just going to barrel into an intersection without a stop sign as if there are no other cars going through it. This is why they have radar/lidar/whatever else.
mikeash 11y ago
It seems to be really hard to get people to compare driverless cars with real humans, and not imaginary perfect drivers. For another example, there's the nigh ubiquitous question of how to handle ethical dilemmas, like a crash where you have a choice between crushing a nun and crushing a baby carriage. Nobody ever seems to consider the fact that human drivers will almost never consider the ethics of the situation when choosing an outcome, and in fact probably won't deliberately choose any outcome at all, but will merely brake and steer by reflex.
- jimbokun 11y ago
  "It seems to be really hard to get people to compare driverless cars with real humans, and not imaginary perfect drivers." I think this responsibility falls squarely on the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles. I think only the people creating the technology really understand the strengths and weaknesses of software drivers compared to human drivers, and are responsible for educating law makers and the general public if they want their products to be accommodated in our laws, road ways, and market places.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I think journalists are responsible for understanding the facts and implications of what they discuss, regardless of how good the various players are at explaining it. Yes, the manufacturers have a much stronger foundation from which to figure this stuff out, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't stop doing silly things like acting as if human drivers were perfect when talking about potential autonomous vehicle systems.
    - jimbokun 11y ago
      I think it's very difficult, though, to know what state of the art software driven vehicles are good at and not so good at, though. Maybe the missing-stop-sign-intersection was a problem in version 0.7.1 but fixed in patch 0.7.1.4. Any good articles by engineers describing where current autonomous cars are still worse than humans? And which issues are just "bug that hasn't been fixed yet" vs. "we're still not sure how to solve this one in principle". Agree, though, that a journalist should be interviewing real engineers and trying to summarize, paraphrase, and edit what he hears to the best of his or her ability, instead of just speculating.
anexprogrammer 11y ago
Humans would also improve with removed signage. There's quite a bit of research now that accident rates go down the more you remove street furniture and lines. Same with traffic lights - see the caution people use when the lights are out of order. I'd hope that a self-driving car has the meta data on board rather than just relying on seeing the sign. I'd also hope that they're designed to treat all junctions with caution, not just those with missing signage.
dsp1234 11y ago
Indeed, there is an intersection near where I live where the stop sign is removed and then later replaced (seemingly randomly, but probably not) every few weeks. When there is a stop sign, I stop. When there is no stop sign, I don't stop. Those are the rules of the road. Stopping for a stop sign that doesn't exist is breaking those rules, and thus putting other people in danger.

by atonse 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

And a sufficiently smart compiler could optimize Common Lisp to run as fast as c: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SufficientlySmartCompiler http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SufficientlySmartCompiler The fact is that GPS navigation is a mature field (I.e. unlikely to get much better very soon), and is still very failure-prone. I just took an Uber this morning and twice the GPS got confused between the street I was going to and the on-ramp to the highway (the two roads were narrow and unusually close together). Twice, the driver followed the GPS instead of looking with his eyes at the road (the on ramp clearly looked like an on ramp). I run into these sorts of things 2-3 times a month.

logfromblammo 11y ago

An uncontrolled intersection means yield to traffic approaching from your passenger side for intersecting roads of equal importance, or vehicles on the minor road yield to through traffic on the major road. Yield signs usually just formalize this implicit intersection control. Taking out one stop sign is usually not an imminent hazard to traffic, but taking out two from perpendicular approaches might cause a problem. Removing all of them would actually be slightly more safe than a bad configuration of signs. I expect my driverless car to be able to disobey signs when I indicate that it would be appropriate or necessary to do so. I may one day enforce this by carrying around two poles that bear "stop", "do not enter + wrong way", "no u-turn", "do not reverse + severe tire damage", and "no stopping any time" signs on them, and creating pop-up paradox traps for unwary driving AIs.

stormbrew 11y ago

I was just about to comment on the same section. This kind of poorly thought out assertion throws a lot of shade on the rest of the article.

gambiting 11y ago
I don't think it does. Sure, a car would know that a stop sign was there the last time it drove through that intersection, but you can always order the car to go someplace new. And I don't believe the dream that "oh, automatic cars will just have 100% accurate street data for every road in the civilized world". First of all because we don't have this data, and even if we did, I can't imagine a car hauling several terabytes of data with it(and how would you even update it, given that our internet connections seem to be getting worse, not better every year, with new data and speed caps being introduced?). It has to be able to decide autonomously, and since it has to be programmed to do something, it's a really hard problem. A human can just "use best judgement", but a computer can't - it either follows the rules or it doesn't. And roads are not a computer simulation - they are dynamic, they change, they require the sort of input that computers are horrible at, visual recognition is dreadful, our best, cream of the top software can't tell a difference between a zebra and a sofa in a zebra print, and yet most people just wave their hand at the problems facing automatic cars saying "oh, we will just use a machine learning algorithm to watch how humans drive and then follow that". Sure. But it doesn't magically solve the problems of responsibility where a computer does something it shouldn't have.
- stormbrew 11y ago
  This is not the issue with that statement at all, and for the record I'm skeptical of cars sharing data to augment what they see (because this leaves them open to attacks that are unique to self-driving cars). The problem with the statement is that it, as the GP post says, ignores the fact that a human driving a car is no less likely to barrel through an intersection with a missing stop sign. There are a few other low level problems with this scenario as well, mostly hinging on the weird idea that self-driving cars are just going to barrel into an intersection without a stop sign as if there are no other cars going through it. This is why they have radar/lidar/whatever else.

mikeash 11y ago

It seems to be really hard to get people to compare driverless cars with real humans, and not imaginary perfect drivers. For another example, there's the nigh ubiquitous question of how to handle ethical dilemmas, like a crash where you have a choice between crushing a nun and crushing a baby carriage. Nobody ever seems to consider the fact that human drivers will almost never consider the ethics of the situation when choosing an outcome, and in fact probably won't deliberately choose any outcome at all, but will merely brake and steer by reflex.

jimbokun 11y ago
"It seems to be really hard to get people to compare driverless cars with real humans, and not imaginary perfect drivers." I think this responsibility falls squarely on the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles. I think only the people creating the technology really understand the strengths and weaknesses of software drivers compared to human drivers, and are responsible for educating law makers and the general public if they want their products to be accommodated in our laws, road ways, and market places.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I think journalists are responsible for understanding the facts and implications of what they discuss, regardless of how good the various players are at explaining it. Yes, the manufacturers have a much stronger foundation from which to figure this stuff out, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't stop doing silly things like acting as if human drivers were perfect when talking about potential autonomous vehicle systems.
  - jimbokun 11y ago
    I think it's very difficult, though, to know what state of the art software driven vehicles are good at and not so good at, though. Maybe the missing-stop-sign-intersection was a problem in version 0.7.1 but fixed in patch 0.7.1.4. Any good articles by engineers describing where current autonomous cars are still worse than humans? And which issues are just "bug that hasn't been fixed yet" vs. "we're still not sure how to solve this one in principle". Agree, though, that a journalist should be interviewing real engineers and trying to summarize, paraphrase, and edit what he hears to the best of his or her ability, instead of just speculating.

anexprogrammer 11y ago

Humans would also improve with removed signage. There's quite a bit of research now that accident rates go down the more you remove street furniture and lines. Same with traffic lights - see the caution people use when the lights are out of order. I'd hope that a self-driving car has the meta data on board rather than just relying on seeing the sign. I'd also hope that they're designed to treat all junctions with caution, not just those with missing signage.

dsp1234 11y ago

Indeed, there is an intersection near where I live where the stop sign is removed and then later replaced (seemingly randomly, but probably not) every few weeks. When there is a stop sign, I stop. When there is no stop sign, I don't stop. Those are the rules of the road. Stopping for a stop sign that doesn't exist is breaking those rules, and thus putting other people in danger.