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If the statistical reliability is better than a human driver, then this is good engineering. "Man bumps car into trailer" would not have been a headline, becau
by tbabb 10y ago
If the statistical reliability is better than a human driver, then this is good engineering.
"Man bumps car into trailer" would not have been a headline, because this happens so often it's completely boring. Notably the cost of failure here is property damage. If the car were moving fast enough to endanger human life, then a driver would be behind the wheel, and fully responsible by law and common sense for the motion of the vehicle.
These headlines are going to become more common as autopiloted cars become more popular. It is important to frame them in the context of transitioning from a system that is also unreliable-- the human nervous system.
We should also expect to see a few machine failures in specific situations where a human could have avoided damage, but we must also consider them against the easily avoidable mistakes that humans make every day, which a machine can avoid with near 100% reliability.
People are afraid of airplane crashes because they're dramatic, scary, newsworthy, and out of the passengers' control, but the complete story is that stepping on a plane is a safer activity than driving to the airport. Headlines about autopilot failures will get clicks for the same reasons, but if not framed with statistics, it's just noise.
- tremon 10y agoIf the statistical reliability is better than a human driver, then this is good engineering. The statistical probability of a human driver crashing into a stationary object while not behind the wheel is zero.
- mgoetzke76 10y agoi would say that is not quite true. i know of a number of cases where people where getting out of their stopped automatic car (brakes applied) and forgot to put it into park before standing up. Also people forgetting to use the handbrake in manual transmission cars and the car rolls away after some time etc or when they put it into neutral instead of park.
- talmand 10y agoNot quite true? It isn't true and easily proven so with a few minutes research. One could say it's so close to zero that it barely factors though.
- tbabb 10y agoI am not sure what your point is. The statistical probability of a human crashing into a stationary object while parking is pretty high. If the statistical probability of the machine crashing into a stationary object while parking is lower, then it is sensible (and even advantageous) to allow the machine to do the job, even if it is not 100% perfect at it.