5 ms·

They have the right plan: autonomation, leading towards automation, rather than automation from day 1. First, reduce the work for the human. Then, continually

by mabbo 10y ago

They have the right plan: autonomation, leading towards automation, rather than automation from day 1. First, reduce the work for the human. Then, continually improve it until they aren't really needed anymore.

pauldw 10y ago
1) You drive. 2) The robot helps you drive. 3) You help the robot drive. 4) The robot drives.
- aetherson 10y ago
  1) You drive 2) The robot helps you drive, you start to zone out, and plow into, let's just say as a random example, a truck crossing your lane of traffic. 3) You help the robot drive, while you are super, super, super drunk, and best-case you stop all traffic on four lanes of freeway. 4) Maybe we need to skip to this step.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > 2) The robot helps you drive, you start to zone out, and plow into, let's just say as a random example, a truck crossing your lane of traffic. This is my concern. How many days of sitting around for 12 hours not doing anything (because the computer is pretty good) does it take before the truckers who are supposed to be alert and ready to take over are completely zoned out. I would probably last about an hour.
    - Vraxx 10y ago
      that's the thing, at the point that the computer is already that good, missing that one accident isn't optimal sure, but it's definitely better than the current state of vehicle operation.
      - aetherson 10y ago
        No it's not. People here have a really exaggerated vision of how bad human drivers are. Even the most pessimistic views of how common accidents are suggest that there is one contact collision every 75k to 100k miles or so. An autonomous driver which was twice as dangerous as a human, then, would still go 37k to 50k miles between collisions. A human who was trying to backstop that robot's fallibilities would be required to pay close attention for weeks between actions. Which is inhuman.
        GFischer 10y ago
        I don't know where you're getting that data, but it's incorrect, at least here in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in Brazil. Source: I worked for an insurance company for 8 years, and part of my job involved updating casualty models. There are a LOT of accidents, but most are fender-benders. I guess if you exclude those, yes, a serious collision occurs about those numbers.
        aetherson 10y ago
        I admit that I have no idea what the accident rate is in Uruguay or Brazil. In the US: The Department of Transportation gets reports of one accident per 250k miles (roughly). It is broadly agreed that many accidents are unreported, with estimates of the true rate ranging from 1/200k miles to about 1/75k miles. For example, this document from the US Department of Transportation: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812101 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... suggests 5,687,000 total crashes (including fatality, injury, and non-injury) in the US in 2013. This graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA puts total vehicle miles driven in 2013 in the US at 2,980,181,000,000. So divide: 5,687,000 / 2,980,181,000,000
        GFischer 10y ago
        Wow, yes, there are a LOT less accidents in the U.S. According to other statistics, there are 5 million accidents, for a population of 300 million. In Uruguay there are 50.000 accidents for a population of 3 million, and with a LOT lower average mileage per driver. That's something we've discussed a lot here - there's NO way self-driving cars can go around South American streets - unless they learn to be very aggressive, beep the horn, cross streets whenever they can, shout and otherwise interact with other drivers. And we mostly don't have highways. Americans drive a lot in highways, that must skew the per mile accidents. I don't know how often accidents like fender-benders go unreported in the U.S. though.
empath75 10y ago
The step where you need a human supervising an imperfect AI is filled with landmines, though. All it takes is a semi-autonomous truck or two taking out a family car, and it's over.
- walshemj 10y ago
  Espesialy if its a cute young WASP female - you would see a moral panic driven by the tabloids / press (and don't for get the old school print media are not exactly friends with google etc )
ben_jones 10y ago
Tell Tesla marketing that. They have autopilot already!
- dmix 10y ago
  Airplanes have had autopilot forever. In that context we don't expect that phrase to mean "autonomous flying". Anyone who knows anything about airplane autopilot knows to expect the pilot to engage autopilot at certain non-critical moments and always be ready to take over for the difficult parts. Tesla's autopilot is no different. They clearly state it's intended for certain parts of highway driving. Like a glorified cruise control, much like autopilot is used in other fields. I don't believe they've ever tried to market their tech as a totally self-driving vehicle. So why then should Tesla not call their assisted-driving "autopilot"? When our current common-sense understanding of "autopilot" in other industries has worked just fine? Maybe because it's not marketing by a single trendy firm so you can't attack it with your superior intellect? Or maybe you also expect airplane manufacturers and pilots to stop calling their tech "autopilot" because it might mean something else, now that autonomous cars are becomes a thing... and we wouldn't want to confuse anybody who can't grasp context and commonly accepted meanings of phrases...

by mabbo 10y ago

pauldw 10y ago

1) You drive. 2) The robot helps you drive. 3) You help the robot drive. 4) The robot drives.

aetherson 10y ago
1) You drive 2) The robot helps you drive, you start to zone out, and plow into, let's just say as a random example, a truck crossing your lane of traffic. 3) You help the robot drive, while you are super, super, super drunk, and best-case you stop all traffic on four lanes of freeway. 4) Maybe we need to skip to this step.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > 2) The robot helps you drive, you start to zone out, and plow into, let's just say as a random example, a truck crossing your lane of traffic. This is my concern. How many days of sitting around for 12 hours not doing anything (because the computer is pretty good) does it take before the truckers who are supposed to be alert and ready to take over are completely zoned out. I would probably last about an hour.
  - Vraxx 10y ago
    that's the thing, at the point that the computer is already that good, missing that one accident isn't optimal sure, but it's definitely better than the current state of vehicle operation.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      No it's not. People here have a really exaggerated vision of how bad human drivers are. Even the most pessimistic views of how common accidents are suggest that there is one contact collision every 75k to 100k miles or so. An autonomous driver which was twice as dangerous as a human, then, would still go 37k to 50k miles between collisions. A human who was trying to backstop that robot's fallibilities would be required to pay close attention for weeks between actions. Which is inhuman.
      - GFischer 10y ago
        I don't know where you're getting that data, but it's incorrect, at least here in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in Brazil. Source: I worked for an insurance company for 8 years, and part of my job involved updating casualty models. There are a LOT of accidents, but most are fender-benders. I guess if you exclude those, yes, a serious collision occurs about those numbers.
        aetherson 10y ago
        I admit that I have no idea what the accident rate is in Uruguay or Brazil. In the US: The Department of Transportation gets reports of one accident per 250k miles (roughly). It is broadly agreed that many accidents are unreported, with estimates of the true rate ranging from 1/200k miles to about 1/75k miles. For example, this document from the US Department of Transportation: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812101 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... suggests 5,687,000 total crashes (including fatality, injury, and non-injury) in the US in 2013. This graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA puts total vehicle miles driven in 2013 in the US at 2,980,181,000,000. So divide: 5,687,000 / 2,980,181,000,000
        GFischer 10y ago
        Wow, yes, there are a LOT less accidents in the U.S. According to other statistics, there are 5 million accidents, for a population of 300 million. In Uruguay there are 50.000 accidents for a population of 3 million, and with a LOT lower average mileage per driver. That's something we've discussed a lot here - there's NO way self-driving cars can go around South American streets - unless they learn to be very aggressive, beep the horn, cross streets whenever they can, shout and otherwise interact with other drivers. And we mostly don't have highways. Americans drive a lot in highways, that must skew the per mile accidents. I don't know how often accidents like fender-benders go unreported in the U.S. though.

empath75 10y ago

The step where you need a human supervising an imperfect AI is filled with landmines, though. All it takes is a semi-autonomous truck or two taking out a family car, and it's over.

walshemj 10y ago
Espesialy if its a cute young WASP female - you would see a moral panic driven by the tabloids / press (and don't for get the old school print media are not exactly friends with google etc )

ben_jones 10y ago

Tell Tesla marketing that. They have autopilot already!

dmix 10y ago
Airplanes have had autopilot forever. In that context we don't expect that phrase to mean "autonomous flying". Anyone who knows anything about airplane autopilot knows to expect the pilot to engage autopilot at certain non-critical moments and always be ready to take over for the difficult parts. Tesla's autopilot is no different. They clearly state it's intended for certain parts of highway driving. Like a glorified cruise control, much like autopilot is used in other fields. I don't believe they've ever tried to market their tech as a totally self-driving vehicle. So why then should Tesla not call their assisted-driving "autopilot"? When our current common-sense understanding of "autopilot" in other industries has worked just fine? Maybe because it's not marketing by a single trendy firm so you can't attack it with your superior intellect? Or maybe you also expect airplane manufacturers and pilots to stop calling their tech "autopilot" because it might mean something else, now that autonomous cars are becomes a thing... and we wouldn't want to confuse anybody who can't grasp context and commonly accepted meanings of phrases...