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Is there any evidence that a technology with billions of dollars in potential would not be used if it was only 99.99% ready? I feel like lots of dangerous stuf

Is there any evidence that a technology with billions of dollars in potential would not be used if it was only 99.99% ready? I feel like lots of dangerous stuff has been deployed when it was nowhere near 99% in the past, and I'm not sure why this technology would be any different. People talk about it like it's a lot different, but how safe are regular cars? Nuclear power? Coal power? Honestly I don't even know what the state of the science is on cell phones causing brain cancer anymore because I decided that I didn't want to know. Why does everyone think we'll be smarter on waiting to deploy driverless cars until they are safe, given our history of doing the exact opposite for the last couple hundred years?

hluska 11y ago
Consider the politics of wiping out the biggest employer in 29/50 states. Can you imagine the backlash that even one death would cause?
- anoonmoose 11y ago
  Looks like on-the-job deaths for coal miners in the US are around 30 per year. I imagine the backlash for even one death would be relatively minor. Anyways, eliminating the biggest employer isn't necessarily a net negative. Unless (until) these trucks can load/unload themselves, repair themselves, schedule themselves, etc., there's a lot of work still to be done by people. Hell, I can see ways that automated driving can result in a net increase in jobs. Example: if a truck can drive more hours in a day, it'll do more miles per year, requiring more frequent maintenance, requiring more repair mechanics than we currently have. Another: if you're not limited by drivers needing to sleep, you might be able to do a better job of scheduling deliveries to arrive around the clock, requiring more people to be around around the clock. I'm not saying either of these WILL happen, I'm just saying that automated trucking doesn't HAVE to be a net-negative thing in terms of jobs.
  - positr0n 11y ago
    Yes but those 30 deaths are people knowingly working a job that society understands is dangerous, not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house that was unlucky enough to be in the wrong part of the highway at the wrong time. That is a huge difference to most people.
    - lloyd-christmas 11y ago
      > not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house. A total of 3,660 people died in large truck crashes in 2014. Sixteen percent of these deaths were truck occupants, 68 percent were occupants of cars and other passenger vehicles, and 15 percent were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. The number of people who died in large truck crashes was 16 percent higher in 2014 than in 2009[1] One incident would hardly compare to the ~3000 non-trucker deaths ever year due to the trucking industry. I don't think it would be all that tough to find the grandma of one of those 3000 to show up in court in defense of automation. It will be MADD all over again. [1] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/large-trucks/fatalityfacts/large-trucks http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/large-trucks/fatalityfacts...
      - positr0n 11y ago
        I agree. I was just pointing out it's a fallacy to compare coal miner's deaths to deaths caused by automated trucking. Whatever happens my only prediction is that it will be messy and polarizing :-)
      - OrwellianChild 11y ago
        Thanks for bringing data and scale to the conversation...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- fab13n 11y ago
  I rather see it in the following terms: some profits are up for grab, who's best positioned to take them? I don't live in the US so I might have an inaccurate perception of everyone's leverage. However, truckers seem rather disorganised, compared to superstore chains. If big stores eat up 30% of the savings, and offer the remaining 70% to their customers as lower prices (minus a couple % spent in lobbying of course), I would guess they'd had their way. Ditto for Amazon, Alibaba etc. Look at Chinese importations: politicians sometimes make big protectionist talks to their constituents, but take no measure effective enough to annoy lobbies. And I think importations represent more jobs than transport.
- calvinbhai 11y ago
  What Uber did to cabbies, Driverless truck fleets will do to truck drivers
- kmkemp 11y ago
  Company interests generally outweigh individual interests in America. Besides, we live in a global economy, so putting off technology that is profitable (by a huge margin) today only ensures more American job losses as companies can't compete with foreign competitors. I predict that the driverless car revolution, whenever it happens, will be the issue that pushes Universal Basic Income to the forefront of the political landscape.
daveguy 11y ago
It would definitely be deployed at 99% ready because that would likely mean "safer than people". The quote talks about how we are at 90% but going from 99.99% to 100% for deployment would need a mathematical revolution. Really going from 90% to 99% will also need a revolution. At least on the order of deep learning.
- ars 11y ago
  Safer than people is not 99%. The accident rate is around 74 per 100 million miles (and fatalities is 1.13). It's unclear exactly how to turn that into a percentage, but no matter how you do it it's way way more than 99%. Say an accident takes 5 minutes, and people drive 30 miles/hour. Then that works out to 99.999% for humans. If you use the numbers for fatalities then it's 99.99999%. That's not even in the same ballpark as 99%.
dclowd9901 11y ago
The average odds of a human-driven vehicle getting in an accident per 600 miles of driving is about 0.13%, according to the NHTSA. What's crazy to me is that, by the numbers, 99.99% safety would already be 13x better than our current situation. Imagine cutting traffic deaths down by a factor of 13. And that's still not good enough. I think we need to get over the idea that computers are perfect, especially with regards to how artificial intelligence works. There will always be a situation that is unaccounted for, especially in our non-deterministic universe. It may be uncomfortable to think that a life was taken due to an error in processing, but I feel no better about having a child of mine in a car with a barely experienced friend driving and making many more errors in processing.
draw_down 11y ago
I don't know what 99% means in this context, but humans are pretty terrible drivers, so I'd be cool with robot-driven automobiles as soon as possible. If the accident rate is below that of humans then it's ready in my opinion.

hluska 11y ago

Consider the politics of wiping out the biggest employer in 29/50 states. Can you imagine the backlash that even one death would cause?

anoonmoose 11y ago
Looks like on-the-job deaths for coal miners in the US are around 30 per year. I imagine the backlash for even one death would be relatively minor. Anyways, eliminating the biggest employer isn't necessarily a net negative. Unless (until) these trucks can load/unload themselves, repair themselves, schedule themselves, etc., there's a lot of work still to be done by people. Hell, I can see ways that automated driving can result in a net increase in jobs. Example: if a truck can drive more hours in a day, it'll do more miles per year, requiring more frequent maintenance, requiring more repair mechanics than we currently have. Another: if you're not limited by drivers needing to sleep, you might be able to do a better job of scheduling deliveries to arrive around the clock, requiring more people to be around around the clock. I'm not saying either of these WILL happen, I'm just saying that automated trucking doesn't HAVE to be a net-negative thing in terms of jobs.
- positr0n 11y ago
  Yes but those 30 deaths are people knowingly working a job that society understands is dangerous, not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house that was unlucky enough to be in the wrong part of the highway at the wrong time. That is a huge difference to most people.
  - lloyd-christmas 11y ago
    > not a family in a minivan driving to grandma's house. A total of 3,660 people died in large truck crashes in 2014. Sixteen percent of these deaths were truck occupants, 68 percent were occupants of cars and other passenger vehicles, and 15 percent were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. The number of people who died in large truck crashes was 16 percent higher in 2014 than in 2009[1] One incident would hardly compare to the ~3000 non-trucker deaths ever year due to the trucking industry. I don't think it would be all that tough to find the grandma of one of those 3000 to show up in court in defense of automation. It will be MADD all over again. [1] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/large-trucks/fatalityfacts/large-trucks http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/large-trucks/fatalityfacts...
    - positr0n 11y ago
      I agree. I was just pointing out it's a fallacy to compare coal miner's deaths to deaths caused by automated trucking. Whatever happens my only prediction is that it will be messy and polarizing :-)
    - OrwellianChild 11y ago
      Thanks for bringing data and scale to the conversation...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
fab13n 11y ago
I rather see it in the following terms: some profits are up for grab, who's best positioned to take them? I don't live in the US so I might have an inaccurate perception of everyone's leverage. However, truckers seem rather disorganised, compared to superstore chains. If big stores eat up 30% of the savings, and offer the remaining 70% to their customers as lower prices (minus a couple % spent in lobbying of course), I would guess they'd had their way. Ditto for Amazon, Alibaba etc. Look at Chinese importations: politicians sometimes make big protectionist talks to their constituents, but take no measure effective enough to annoy lobbies. And I think importations represent more jobs than transport.
calvinbhai 11y ago
What Uber did to cabbies, Driverless truck fleets will do to truck drivers
kmkemp 11y ago
Company interests generally outweigh individual interests in America. Besides, we live in a global economy, so putting off technology that is profitable (by a huge margin) today only ensures more American job losses as companies can't compete with foreign competitors. I predict that the driverless car revolution, whenever it happens, will be the issue that pushes Universal Basic Income to the forefront of the political landscape.

daveguy 11y ago

It would definitely be deployed at 99% ready because that would likely mean "safer than people". The quote talks about how we are at 90% but going from 99.99% to 100% for deployment would need a mathematical revolution. Really going from 90% to 99% will also need a revolution. At least on the order of deep learning.

ars 11y ago
Safer than people is not 99%. The accident rate is around 74 per 100 million miles (and fatalities is 1.13). It's unclear exactly how to turn that into a percentage, but no matter how you do it it's way way more than 99%. Say an accident takes 5 minutes, and people drive 30 miles/hour. Then that works out to 99.999% for humans. If you use the numbers for fatalities then it's 99.99999%. That's not even in the same ballpark as 99%.

dclowd9901 11y ago

The average odds of a human-driven vehicle getting in an accident per 600 miles of driving is about 0.13%, according to the NHTSA. What's crazy to me is that, by the numbers, 99.99% safety would already be 13x better than our current situation. Imagine cutting traffic deaths down by a factor of 13. And that's still not good enough. I think we need to get over the idea that computers are perfect, especially with regards to how artificial intelligence works. There will always be a situation that is unaccounted for, especially in our non-deterministic universe. It may be uncomfortable to think that a life was taken due to an error in processing, but I feel no better about having a child of mine in a car with a barely experienced friend driving and making many more errors in processing.

draw_down 11y ago

I don't know what 99% means in this context, but humans are pretty terrible drivers, so I'd be cool with robot-driven automobiles as soon as possible. If the accident rate is below that of humans then it's ready in my opinion.