15 ms·

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Overtonwindow 10y ago
Nice video, but the evidence is not clear that was human or computer error. It would be nice to make that distinction somewhere..
- symlinkk 10y ago
  There is a red light. The car, which is being driven by a computer, did not stop. That is a computer error.
  - jgacook 10y ago
    The Uber self-driving cars have a human in the driver's seat that is able to take control of the vehicle. It's not clear whether the computer or the human was in control when the car blew the red light.
    - unclebucknasty 10y ago
      Some variation of that comment has been oft-repeated on this thread and it's exactly what Uber wants. One of the main functions of that human is to accept blame (or at least obfuscate culpability) and absolve the tech in the event of an accident. There are a ton of scenarios wherein it would be virtually impossible for a human--especially one lulled into inaction and passivity for most of the ride--would be able to intervene quickly enough to avert an accident once it became apparent that the tech was failing.
      - jodrellblank 10y ago
        And you're absolving the legally responsible human, so you can blame the implied-Evil corporation, because... why? Humans who are lulled into passivity by highway driving don't get to escape the blame if they crash because they couldn't respond quickly enough if the situation changes suddenly, regardless of 'tech failing'. If you have SatNav and it says 'drive down here' and you do, and it's a one-way street, you don't say "that's exactly what Garmin want, a human to absolve them when their tech fails". Because the driver is in the position of responsibility, the tech is not.
        unclebucknasty 10y ago
        >so you can blame the implied-Evil corporation, because... why? Because the "implied-Evil corporation" offers technology which claims to be capable of doing something, entreats you to confer upon it some degree of trust, then holds you responsible when it fails. Because lives can be lost as a result of such failures and the company's stance represents a cynical and cavalier regard for this fact. Because, they want the cachet (and the cash) without the responsibility. >Humans who are lulled into passivity by highway driving That analogy isn't even close to holding. In that case, you are understood to be in control of the vehicle. In fact, you are actively giving minor corrective inputs at all times. It's nowhere near the same as the car saying, "here, let me do that for you", but, you are supposed to sit at the ready, hands hovering slightly over the wheel and foot over the brake, ever scanning and ready to take over? That's asinine, and it's a flawed model. At a minimum, your reaction time will be slowed as you must first recognize that the car is not responding properly in, perhaps, a split second when it suddenly does something unexpected. Look, it's simple: the car needs to either be fully ready and safe, or it's not. This have-it-both-ways Tesla-invented PR spin that says "our tech is statistically safer, but it's your fault for not correcting it even if it does screw up" is a pernicious subterfuge and I personally don't like how it defines our relationship with technology.
        lisivka 10y ago
        Car is not 100% safe even with human driver. If a tech makes less mistakes than a human, then the tech is better. It's your responsibility to chose what is better: you, the tech, or a taxi driver. IMHO, every self-driving car must be equipped with a black-box to capture all information in case of an accident and special commission for investigation, to make rules to follow, so self-driven cars will be safer for others, and that is all. Self-driven system manufacturer can be punished only if these rules are not followed, by suspending a license to manufacture self-driving systems. Currently, we have almost no such rules at all. IMHO, the first rule for self-driving cars, until they will be mature, must be better communication between computer and human: as driver, I want to see how computer sees road and obstacles, and planned actions, and other variants of these actions to pickup. I want computer to project computer map to wind-shield and be presented with tree buttons: big red «stop» button, left button, and right button, so I will be able to see road situation, computer understanding of that situation, and will be able to correct computer or make a full stop.
  - singlow 10y ago
    But do we know whether it was under computer control at the time?
  - Gustomaximus 10y ago
    The video doesn't show if it was a person or computer driving. And Uber claim it was a human error though I'm not inclined to take that as proof. https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
  - onion2k 10y ago
    which is being driven by a computer The point is that we don't know that. It may have been under driver control at the time. There's probably a good argument for having some sort of external indicator of whether or not a self-driving car is under computer control or human control. Maybe a small roof mounted beacon that has to be lit up or something.
scarmig 10y ago
Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?
- spike021 10y ago
  Been watching too many Muni busses.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the worst hazards on the road.
  - detaro 10y ago
    Curious, have you reported those things to uber/given appropriately bad ratings? (Uber always claims the rating system should filter unsafe actors out quickly)
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      I don’t have Uber installed on my phone. I mostly walk or take the bus/subway. This is just my observations as a pedestrian.
      - detaro 10y ago
        oh, then I misunderstood. Would still be curious how passengers actually act in these cases, since "I don't want to give a bad rating" seems to be a big thing.
        surfmike 10y ago
        Why wouldn't you want to give a bad rating for bad driving? I almost always give 5 stars, but with the notable exception being distracted or aggressive drivers.
relics443 10y ago
Uber released a statement saying that it was human error https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
JamilD 10y ago
Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
- stuckagain 10y ago
  They should release the interior video of the incident, then. It's their car and their employee (not one of their contractors) and with no passenger there's no privacy concern either.
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  Seems like a reckless statement on a couple of fronts. For one, it's openly disrespectful to the human drivers upon whom they've relied to this point--seemingly regarding them as nuisances which must be discarded post-haste. And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? Their statement could easily be used against them.
  - jnky 10y ago
    > And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? That's not a problem at all. They'll just use "git blame" and fire the programmer whose "human error" caused the accident.
- jdale27 10y ago
  Why on earth should we believe them?
- dictum 10y ago
  > This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. My new side project is a The Aristrocrats joke, except it ends with "The Gig Economy!"
detaro 10y ago
HN submission of that video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180172
kt9 10y ago
Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?
- russell_h 10y ago
  It was a taxi.
- stuckagain 10y ago
  It's a taxi, actually. I'm sure they were delighted to get this video.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The video, published by the San Francisco Examiner, was captured by a dashcam mounted inside a vehicle operated by Luxor Cab, one of SF’s licensed cab companies. https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident... The car certainly should know how to respond to police lights/sirens. I was reading Google's monthly reports on their cars and they were talking about adding a pull over response to their system.
- return0 10y ago
  > And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to? It's going to be even funnier when the patrol car is an unmanned self-driving bot itself.
DoodleBuggy 10y ago
Whoops.
return0 10y ago
There should be special fines for self-driving cars making errors. It would force companies to be more careful and lead to better engineering. Also, competing manufacturers could "turn in" to police other manufacturer's cars that misbehave.
- amelius 10y ago
  Also, any changes to the software run on self-driving cars should be stored in an "escrow" service for at least X months before it is uploaded (preferably by an independent party) to the cars, to allow for sufficient testing. We don't want to end up in the situation where car manufacturers make quick updates to cover flaws. If the software is broken, the cars should be grounded, the software should be fixed and tested for at least X hours of driving.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

Nice video, but the evidence is not clear that was human or computer error. It would be nice to make that distinction somewhere..

symlinkk 10y ago
There is a red light. The car, which is being driven by a computer, did not stop. That is a computer error.
- jgacook 10y ago
  The Uber self-driving cars have a human in the driver's seat that is able to take control of the vehicle. It's not clear whether the computer or the human was in control when the car blew the red light.
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    Some variation of that comment has been oft-repeated on this thread and it's exactly what Uber wants. One of the main functions of that human is to accept blame (or at least obfuscate culpability) and absolve the tech in the event of an accident. There are a ton of scenarios wherein it would be virtually impossible for a human--especially one lulled into inaction and passivity for most of the ride--would be able to intervene quickly enough to avert an accident once it became apparent that the tech was failing.
    - jodrellblank 10y ago
      And you're absolving the legally responsible human, so you can blame the implied-Evil corporation, because... why? Humans who are lulled into passivity by highway driving don't get to escape the blame if they crash because they couldn't respond quickly enough if the situation changes suddenly, regardless of 'tech failing'. If you have SatNav and it says 'drive down here' and you do, and it's a one-way street, you don't say "that's exactly what Garmin want, a human to absolve them when their tech fails". Because the driver is in the position of responsibility, the tech is not.
      - unclebucknasty 10y ago
        >so you can blame the implied-Evil corporation, because... why? Because the "implied-Evil corporation" offers technology which claims to be capable of doing something, entreats you to confer upon it some degree of trust, then holds you responsible when it fails. Because lives can be lost as a result of such failures and the company's stance represents a cynical and cavalier regard for this fact. Because, they want the cachet (and the cash) without the responsibility. >Humans who are lulled into passivity by highway driving That analogy isn't even close to holding. In that case, you are understood to be in control of the vehicle. In fact, you are actively giving minor corrective inputs at all times. It's nowhere near the same as the car saying, "here, let me do that for you", but, you are supposed to sit at the ready, hands hovering slightly over the wheel and foot over the brake, ever scanning and ready to take over? That's asinine, and it's a flawed model. At a minimum, your reaction time will be slowed as you must first recognize that the car is not responding properly in, perhaps, a split second when it suddenly does something unexpected. Look, it's simple: the car needs to either be fully ready and safe, or it's not. This have-it-both-ways Tesla-invented PR spin that says "our tech is statistically safer, but it's your fault for not correcting it even if it does screw up" is a pernicious subterfuge and I personally don't like how it defines our relationship with technology.
        lisivka 10y ago
        Car is not 100% safe even with human driver. If a tech makes less mistakes than a human, then the tech is better. It's your responsibility to chose what is better: you, the tech, or a taxi driver. IMHO, every self-driving car must be equipped with a black-box to capture all information in case of an accident and special commission for investigation, to make rules to follow, so self-driven cars will be safer for others, and that is all. Self-driven system manufacturer can be punished only if these rules are not followed, by suspending a license to manufacture self-driving systems. Currently, we have almost no such rules at all. IMHO, the first rule for self-driving cars, until they will be mature, must be better communication between computer and human: as driver, I want to see how computer sees road and obstacles, and planned actions, and other variants of these actions to pickup. I want computer to project computer map to wind-shield and be presented with tree buttons: big red «stop» button, left button, and right button, so I will be able to see road situation, computer understanding of that situation, and will be able to correct computer or make a full stop.
- singlow 10y ago
  But do we know whether it was under computer control at the time?
- Gustomaximus 10y ago
  The video doesn't show if it was a person or computer driving. And Uber claim it was a human error though I'm not inclined to take that as proof. https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
- onion2k 10y ago
  which is being driven by a computer The point is that we don't know that. It may have been under driver control at the time. There's probably a good argument for having some sort of external indicator of whether or not a self-driving car is under computer control or human control. Maybe a small roof mounted beacon that has to be lit up or something.

scarmig 10y ago

Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?

spike021 10y ago
Been watching too many Muni busses.
jacobolus 10y ago
If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the worst hazards on the road.
- detaro 10y ago
  Curious, have you reported those things to uber/given appropriately bad ratings? (Uber always claims the rating system should filter unsafe actors out quickly)
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    I don’t have Uber installed on my phone. I mostly walk or take the bus/subway. This is just my observations as a pedestrian.
    - detaro 10y ago
      oh, then I misunderstood. Would still be curious how passengers actually act in these cases, since "I don't want to give a bad rating" seems to be a big thing.
      - surfmike 10y ago
        Why wouldn't you want to give a bad rating for bad driving? I almost always give 5 stars, but with the notable exception being distracted or aggressive drivers.

relics443 10y ago

Uber released a statement saying that it was human error https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

JamilD 10y ago

Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

stuckagain 10y ago
They should release the interior video of the incident, then. It's their car and their employee (not one of their contractors) and with no passenger there's no privacy concern either.
unclebucknasty 10y ago
Seems like a reckless statement on a couple of fronts. For one, it's openly disrespectful to the human drivers upon whom they've relied to this point--seemingly regarding them as nuisances which must be discarded post-haste. And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? Their statement could easily be used against them.
- jnky 10y ago
  > And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? That's not a problem at all. They'll just use "git blame" and fire the programmer whose "human error" caused the accident.
jdale27 10y ago
Why on earth should we believe them?
dictum 10y ago
> This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. My new side project is a The Aristrocrats joke, except it ends with "The Gig Economy!"

detaro 10y ago

HN submission of that video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180172

kt9 10y ago

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

russell_h 10y ago
It was a taxi.
stuckagain 10y ago
It's a taxi, actually. I'm sure they were delighted to get this video.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
maxerickson 10y ago
The video, published by the San Francisco Examiner, was captured by a dashcam mounted inside a vehicle operated by Luxor Cab, one of SF’s licensed cab companies. https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident... The car certainly should know how to respond to police lights/sirens. I was reading Google's monthly reports on their cars and they were talking about adding a pull over response to their system.
return0 10y ago
> And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to? It's going to be even funnier when the patrol car is an unmanned self-driving bot itself.

DoodleBuggy 10y ago

Whoops.

return0 10y ago

There should be special fines for self-driving cars making errors. It would force companies to be more careful and lead to better engineering. Also, competing manufacturers could "turn in" to police other manufacturer's cars that misbehave.

amelius 10y ago
Also, any changes to the software run on self-driving cars should be stored in an "escrow" service for at least X months before it is uploaded (preferably by an independent party) to the cars, to allow for sufficient testing. We don't want to end up in the situation where car manufacturers make quick updates to cover flaws. If the software is broken, the cars should be grounded, the software should be fixed and tested for at least X hours of driving.