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I don't think you seem to understand how self driving cars work, or even how computers work. Firstly, the car itself need not have traversed the same road for i

I don't think you seem to understand how self driving cars work, or even how computers work. Firstly, the car itself need not have traversed the same road for it to have full information. It can be gathered from collective data from all the self driving cars. That means even if one car went through that intersection, it has some relevant data on it. Secondly, you're handwaving that humans are better with the "use best judgement", which is pretty much unquantifiable. Not to mention humans have "used best judgement" and still managed to crash into things. How are you sure that the algorithmic path taken by the onboard computer isn't far superior to best judgement? We already know that computers outclass us in terms of reaction times, why not this? Thirdly, you don't need to store terabytes of data to do anything in the same way you don't need to download the entire database of HN to browse the front page. Localized data would be sufficient. Even if everything is offline, the car would most likely just revert to its learning mode .. which is how most of the Google cars that are on the streets currently started off. Lastly, you're right we aren't 100% there when it comes to distinguishing zebras and couches. But for self driving cars, we don't need that. What we need is object detection, its velocity relative to us, and data on where its heading. All of which we have become pretty good at.

gambiting 10y ago
Regarding your last point - we sort of do need accurate detection. What if there is a balloon on the road? I wouldn't swerve to avoid hitting a balloon, but an automatic car is going to see a round, rather large object. It might as well be a 100kg rock, hitting which would be disastrous. What is the car going to do? Stop and tell you to investigate? How about piles of leaves, cardboard boxes, large soda bottles. If you live anywhere with wind you are going to get those on the road. As for the "best judgement" part - if a human is about to get into an accident, they are going to do what feels best. It's not necessarily the best option, but no court would ever tell you "our simulation tells us that if you reacted 0.1s earlier you could have turned the wheels 30 degrees and hit a car with two occupants instead of four, who had better survival chances". A computer is going to make an algorithmic choice, and that's what the article was about - who makes the choice as to how the car should react? The owner? The manufacturer? The police? The insurer? Should it prioritize its owner life at the potential cost of other lives? Or minimise the damage to protect the interests of its insurers? We don't think about cars in those categories because we don't(and I would say we can't) make those choices when we drive. But computers will have to be programmed in some way. A lack of stop sign is a specific type of intersection in itself(where anyone going from the right has priority but anyone coming from the left has to yield) - so the car would need to observe and learn. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very hard to do.
- Retric 10y ago
  If something can enter the road and you can't stop in time then you have already failed. Driver-less cars should never drive at a speed where they can't stop in time. In terms of edge cases. Lidar gives a 3d image so a floating balloon is going to show up like a bird and not something to be dodged. Same is true of balls and other small fast moving objects, they are not going to ping as kids. An object on the road is going be detected in plenty of time to slow down and stop or just avoid it without hitting any thing. Or, more likely just driven over the wheels are the only contact point and clearance is high enough for many objects in the roadway. Driver-less cars have vastly shorter stopping distances at all speeds so they can be safe at speeds humans can't. They also rarely need to hard break because they can start slowing down sooner. Dodging might be considered if traction is good and there is open space to move to. PS: If human drivers where not killing 20,000 Americans a year then we might debate perfection. Until then, self driving cars that kill 1,000 people per month would be a massive improvement end of story. PPS: Remember google's self driving car from last month is worse than whatever they end up putting into production. The first production cars are also going to be worse than whatever most people end up using.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    "PS: If human drivers where not killing 20,000 Americans a year then we might debate perfection. Until then, self driving cars that kill 1,000 people per month would be a massive improvement end of story." This is the biggest faulty argument in this entire discussion. Imagine a radiotherapy machine. Statistically, due to operator errors, it delivers lethal dose of radiation to 1 patient every 10k patients. Then someone brings out a radiotherapy machine that doesn't need an operator, but statistically delivers a lethal dose of radiation every 100k patients. That machine would be banned faster than you can say litigation, even though statistically it saves lives vs. manually operated machines. As soon as an automatic car kills the first person(be it due to faulty programming or mechanical breakdown) the manufacturer will recall all of them and the backlash will be huge, even if an average, they are still thousand times safer than manual cars.
    - 10y ago

gambiting 10y ago

Regarding your last point - we sort of do need accurate detection. What if there is a balloon on the road? I wouldn't swerve to avoid hitting a balloon, but an automatic car is going to see a round, rather large object. It might as well be a 100kg rock, hitting which would be disastrous. What is the car going to do? Stop and tell you to investigate? How about piles of leaves, cardboard boxes, large soda bottles. If you live anywhere with wind you are going to get those on the road. As for the "best judgement" part - if a human is about to get into an accident, they are going to do what feels best. It's not necessarily the best option, but no court would ever tell you "our simulation tells us that if you reacted 0.1s earlier you could have turned the wheels 30 degrees and hit a car with two occupants instead of four, who had better survival chances". A computer is going to make an algorithmic choice, and that's what the article was about - who makes the choice as to how the car should react? The owner? The manufacturer? The police? The insurer? Should it prioritize its owner life at the potential cost of other lives? Or minimise the damage to protect the interests of its insurers? We don't think about cars in those categories because we don't(and I would say we can't) make those choices when we drive. But computers will have to be programmed in some way. A lack of stop sign is a specific type of intersection in itself(where anyone going from the right has priority but anyone coming from the left has to yield) - so the car would need to observe and learn. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very hard to do.

Retric 10y ago
If something can enter the road and you can't stop in time then you have already failed. Driver-less cars should never drive at a speed where they can't stop in time. In terms of edge cases. Lidar gives a 3d image so a floating balloon is going to show up like a bird and not something to be dodged. Same is true of balls and other small fast moving objects, they are not going to ping as kids. An object on the road is going be detected in plenty of time to slow down and stop or just avoid it without hitting any thing. Or, more likely just driven over the wheels are the only contact point and clearance is high enough for many objects in the roadway. Driver-less cars have vastly shorter stopping distances at all speeds so they can be safe at speeds humans can't. They also rarely need to hard break because they can start slowing down sooner. Dodging might be considered if traction is good and there is open space to move to. PS: If human drivers where not killing 20,000 Americans a year then we might debate perfection. Until then, self driving cars that kill 1,000 people per month would be a massive improvement end of story. PPS: Remember google's self driving car from last month is worse than whatever they end up putting into production. The first production cars are also going to be worse than whatever most people end up using.
- gambiting 10y ago
  "PS: If human drivers where not killing 20,000 Americans a year then we might debate perfection. Until then, self driving cars that kill 1,000 people per month would be a massive improvement end of story." This is the biggest faulty argument in this entire discussion. Imagine a radiotherapy machine. Statistically, due to operator errors, it delivers lethal dose of radiation to 1 patient every 10k patients. Then someone brings out a radiotherapy machine that doesn't need an operator, but statistically delivers a lethal dose of radiation every 100k patients. That machine would be banned faster than you can say litigation, even though statistically it saves lives vs. manually operated machines. As soon as an automatic car kills the first person(be it due to faulty programming or mechanical breakdown) the manufacturer will recall all of them and the backlash will be huge, even if an average, they are still thousand times safer than manual cars.
  - 10y ago