7 ms·

Nissan says self driving cars are impossible today

43 points by elmar 10y ago

rmason 10y ago
So the computer won't know what to do and you're going to dump it on someone in a cubicle a thousand miles away? Here, make a decision in at most a second and a half or you crash? That's going to work ;<). If the computer is confused I want to be the one to make the decision. I am perfectly happy having a system right now that works 95% of the time in good weather. I think it will be at least 2025 before it can handle a Michigan winter, maybe longer. Still want a limited system ASAP.
- elmar 10y ago
  And Self-Driving cars teleoperation will open the door for remote hacking, it simply creates more problems than it solves.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > If the computer is confused I want to be the one to make the decision. I am perfectly happy having a system right now that works 95% of the time in good weather. Sounds like a Tesla Model 3 reservation is in your future! ;)
  - rmason 10y ago
    Much as I like Tesla's there are two problems: 1. Thanks to the car dealer lobby here in Michigan you can't buy one in the state 2. No local charging options. Nearest supercharger is 70 miles away in either Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids I'm not very far from my local Ford dealer and the rumor is they're getting a charging station so that is probably how I will go.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      You can still buy a Tesla in Michigan; you buy it on tesla.com, and the sale officially takes place in California. The vehicle is delivered to your home (or you could pick it up from a gallery/service center over the border in OH). Can you not charge at home with a 240V outlet? You might also check out PlugShare.com for local charging options. If you're in a condo or apartment, several states have legislation now mandating reasonable accommodation (at the EV owner's cost) of EV charging stations. I do not know if Michigan has such legislation though.
      - XorNot 10y ago
        It occurs to me Tesla's self drive should eventually mean the car just drives itself to your door.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Elon has said as much on Twitter. But until level 4 autonomy, have to go pick it up or be outside for delivery like a peasant.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        It's a common misconception that states like Michigan ban Tesla sales entirely. They can't do that, as it's interstate commerce and the Feds have exclusive powers over that. All the states can do is regulate how businesses operate within the state. So they can prevent Tesla from opening stores or service centers within the state, but they can't prevent people from buying the cars.
- slededit 10y ago
  I would assume the computer would still be responsible for getting the car into a fail safe situation until a human could take over. Much as how mars rovers are driven semi-autonomously. This makes a lot more sense for a fleet of self driving vehicles. Not for personal transportation in your own car.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Most drivers can't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the road in the span of a dozen miles. Front-wheel drive cars on straight roads, too. They didn't just spin out, those drivers had to seriously mis-handle their vehicle to wind up in the ditch. That being said, the "self driving" part of my car (cruise control) turns itself off when the wheels slip already, so I agree that I could handle a car that drove itself in good weather but punted back to me in the snow. Vision-imparing snowfall is actually a more rare event than people might think. Normally the roads are quickly cleared.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Most drivers can't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the road in the span of a dozen miles. A lot of drivers have problems driving in winter conditions. But most? Over 50%? That's a pretty strong claim.
    - kobeya 10y ago
      Most drivers are in India, southern China, the equatorial belt, etc. I don't think they have much experience with Michigan winters.
      - grzm 10y ago
        I believe it's understood that the drivers under discussion are Michigan drivers, are they not? If not, I'm not sure how interesting the statement is. Drivers in India, southern China, or the equatorial belt won't have need of a car that can handle Michigan winters, either.
        kobeya 10y ago
        I don't think that was clear from context at all, no. However unlike a human driver, people will expect a car to continue working and working safely in non typical thriving conditions.
- thesagan 10y ago
  Absolutely. In Michigan winters, and in most other circumstances, I definitely want to be the one driving if I'm the one that's at risk of [and has great incentive to minimize] crashing my automobile. I really don't want to outsource that yet to a remote staffing center.
- sk5t 10y ago
  Are you really interested in a system that does the right thing 95% of the time, and the wrong thing for three seconds out of every minute? That sounds absolutely nerve-wracking to me.
- mortehu 10y ago
  > Here, make a decision in at most a second and a half or you crash This is not the kind of system they're talking about at all. From the article: > Nissan’s cubicle-based drivers aren’t emergency backups. If the car hits black ice, it’s in charge of staying on the road. There’s no feasible way to get the human into the loop in time to act. [When encountering an unusual scenario, a] human operator would look around using the car’s cameras and other sensors and issue new instructions—direct control would pose latency issues. Like: When it’s safe, cross the double yellow and get back to the right side after 20 yards.
RKearney 10y ago
Nissan also released a car that's controllable over the internet with nothing more than the VIN[0]. I wouldn't necessarily trust what they say in terms of technology advancements. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749
- S_A_P 10y ago
  that kind of reinforces the point...
bamboozled 10y ago
The world is, literally, losing it's mind.
non_repro_blue 10y ago
I wish people would just give up on this self-driving car business for now. We don't even want autonomous robots in our house, pitter pattering about like toddlers, at 3 miles an hour. We don't even trust our smart TV sets. So let's make 2 ton versions, and throw them into a frying pan with people? Yeah, great idea. I bet they'll act just like TCP packets. Good job. Why not segregated roadways? If we're so desperate to automate trucking and shipping, how about big, thick K-rails, and dedicated roadway? We all know that early adopters suffer the growing pains of buggy first versions. No reason for all of society to share this burden when It hasn't even been put to a vote. Keep these things the hell away from ordinary people, and their kids for at least another 50 years.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Plenty of people have robots pitter pattering in their house like toddlers. They're called Roombas, and they're the highest selling vacuum cleaner on the market right now. And the reason "we" don't trust smart TVs is because they spy on us without telling us. And the "we" in this situation is a tiny, tiny subset of the population. A lot of people don't know and don't care, they just like Netflix and how it's built into their TVs. No one voted on if they wanted cars in the first place. I'm not sure if you're aware of how incredibly dangerous cars are, but I can tell you without looking up the numbers that if we were to vote on it today with an unbiased viewpoint, there's no way anyone would be allowed to drive a car. I'm sorry, but I feel like you're going to be in the minority on this one. You seem really scared. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I would like for you to take a look at traffic fatality statistics and and think hard about whether or not it's worthwhile pursuit to try to bring that number down.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >I would like for you to take a look at traffic fatality statistics and and think hard I would like those people who take it as an article of faith that self driving cars will cause fewer fatalities to watch closely where the liability falls. If executives go to jail when the software crashes the car and kills or maims somebody and they let it out on the roads then I'm happy. If instead those companies get slapped with token fines, I'm pretty sure that they're going to push out faulty software before it's ready and kill a bunch of people. Politically it's still up in the air but currently it's looking like there won't be any criminal liability.
chenster 10y ago
Somehow, "I told you so" just doesn't quite say it - I Robot
derekp7 10y ago
The only way autonomous cars will work is when they are driven on pre-certified roads. And the cars continuously report back what they see to update the certification. Combined with traffic monitoring cameras that can keep a road section's certification updated. So just like most cars are to be driven on paved roads, reliable autonomous cars will need to be driven on roads with good visibility of lane markings. And road construction or road hazard cones will need to be electronic, so they can give the car computer unambiguous instructions (such as "shut down until driver manual control is confirmed").
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Short version is that the road is full of things at the 99th percentile that won't be programmable so the car will either fail, bail, or simply stop. I don't disagree with that sentiment but there were all sorts of things that "PCs" couldn't do that real computers could and they were still commercially successful (and eventually caught up to "real" computers for the most part). I could imagine that someone could come up with signage which self driving cars would understand and act on. Basically put up a QR code that links to the government approved way self driving cars should navigate the hazard, and of course a programming language that could communicate that to the car. Of course you would not want just anyone to set up overrides or you would have pranksters sending cars off into corn fields or worse. The part that Nissan appeared to miss is that if you can make them work in 99.9% of the cases, then you can hack around that last .1% and the cars will still be a net win in terms of better road behavior.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ebbv 10y ago
  The difference is when a PC couldn't do something a mainframe couldn't nobody got killed. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, those really are the stakes with self driving cars. The problem is that when consumers think they are getting a self driving car they will very quickly resort to bad behavior (see the terribly sad Tesla fatality from last year.) We really need to be careful about how these features are marketed and implemented.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    Self driving cars don't have to be 100% equal to humans in all circumstances. Some of these edge cases are things like construction workers or traffic cops guiding traffic. That's a damn hard thing to get right. But you could instead just give the traffic cop a radio clicker. The edge cases are not going to be adverse driving conditions, which machines actually handle better with superior reaction times and finer control.
    - 10y ago
jayjay71 10y ago
I think self-driving cars have incredible potential, but the media hype is just too strong around this technology. People are used to startups going from 0 to unicorn in 5+ years, because they are often based on simple technologies and business models centered around exponential growth. AirBnB, Uber, twitch, and many more are all technology companies that obviously had many challenges, but they did not depend on a technological breakthrough in order to get where they are today. There is a gap between Level 2 and Level 4 (arguably Level 5 with the new standards, but I'm going to assume Level 4 means what most people would call a true self-driving car) autonomy which is dangerous, because it lulls humans into a false sense of safety. And then when the car can no longer drive itself, the user is expected to take over with a delayed reaction time and little to no context in what could be a very dangerous situation. It is a deadly valley. There are numerous studies on this topic from the aviation industry, and drivers don't have nearly as much training as pilots. I think real self-driving cars are awesome, and the first time I sat in one years ago when I worked on it as a PhD student was truly an incredible experience. But the hype around the technology is too much, and when investors push for a product in a few years when it's not ready at best companies will fail and at worst people will die. Misinforming the public on this is a very serious problem which nobody seems to care about, even after at least 1 death which is still under investigation. I am all for working on this technology and seeing incremental improvements over the years. But I am frustrated with the media's portrayal of how it's just around the corner (I am frustrated with the media in general), and I believe the overpromise of the technology is largely responsible for the death of the Tesla owner in Florida last year (and there are other accidents that are reported in China which get much less coverage). People will say self-driving cars save lives and are safer. In theory, yes - but the problem is we aren't there yet. There just isn't enough data to make that claim. When Tesla said it was safer, they ignored the fact that all of their driving was on highways (which are statistically safer) and that their owners are more affluent and older (at least I assume the average Tesla owner is 25+). The data isn't available when you break down these demographics, but I suspect if it were that 1 death would actually make autopilot deadlier than manual driving. It's a moot point though - anybody trying to extrapolate meaningful conclusions from a single data point is making a ridiculous claim.
- stale2002 10y ago
ddmma 10y ago
as a transitory measure in the beginning there will be zones marked as self-driving areas and others where this will be deactivated.
BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago
I don't care about self-driving cars until car company CEOs have their kids riding in them. Until then, I am not interested in taking the risk of testing their engineering.
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  You point is sound that companies who produce faulty driverless cars take the upside of them after they socialize the losses from them. Point 229 in Hammurabi's code: [229] If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. or to put it in your words. CEOs (or their kids) must drive around in driverless cars before patrons pay for them.
- dang 10y ago
  > I view this as programmers and such wanting to sacrifice the lives of plebs That's beyond uncharitable. Please don't post inflammatory, unsubstantive comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mnm1 10y ago
There's a human backup in the car itself. I don't see why you'd need remote control until we're ready to let cars drive without passengers which is a lot further away than cars driving with people in the car. What kind of car would not have some sort of a manual override anyway? That'd be incredibly stupid to the point of gross negligence. Also, the posted title is clickbait bullshit and not the actual title of the article.
- intopieces 10y ago
  Google is actively promoting a self-driving technology that doesn't need a human to take over, ever. Their commercial for this technology features a blind man being driven by a car around Austin, TX. As well, the prototype at the Computer History Museum is a model that does not feature a steering wheel at all. The thesis of the article is that the promises made by these companies -- and the promises are being made -- are not quite feasible in the short term. So what kind of car would not have some sort of manual override? The car that all these companies are promising!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - BipolarElsa 10y ago
    When you fly in an airplane the pilot is basically checked out the entire time because of autopilot. Over thousands of miles, too. But guess what? They have steering wheels (or whatever it is you call them) and manual control when things get dicey. Point of person above you is that this should always be a feature of driverless cars: manual control. Always. I know Alphabet is peddling some blind-person shit, but let's be real, that's many year away (2050+) and would be for limited use cases.
_andromeda_ 10y ago
Sort of reminiscent of Balmer and his frowning upon the iPhone
gkya 10y ago
I say this whenever this topic comes up: we have public transport today, it's safer and cheaper than having a car, it allows you to make use of your commute time (read, study, eat a sandwich, have a coffee), it's better for the environment (electric doesn't come from nowhere), and it's faster and even more so if more people use it. Your city maybe lacks it, but then the solution is not to say "meh, public transport is crap" and go buy a car. But this is the answer I always get in this community of people who make a living finding solutions to problems. On the road, an actor's actions do not merely affect itself, but all the others on that road. If you slow down at a point, that can cause the driver arriving at that point five, ten minutes after to stop. On the road, everything creates a butterfly effect. And just like you can't run around naked or listen to very loud music in residential areas, you can't just get on the road with your new toy which if fails, does not only put your life at danger, but also many others'.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  That is if you live in a place with sane, safe, readily available public transportation which doesn't increase your commute time by 2-3 times. It's not hard to find places where a 40min commute in a car turns into 2-3 hours using public transport. Public transport is also not as reliable in places with extreme weather especially cold. Have fun waiting for a bus in an open bus stop at -10c...
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    My old boss' master's degree in city planning was a plan to run a grid of 15-minute busses throughout LA. His analysis showed it would nearly eliminate the need for private cars. In LA. Good luck convincing anybody. But I believe it could work. Principally because the transfers wouldn't be an hour wait, so the wait time wouldn't dominate the total trip time.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Where I'm it goes down to about -5C in wintertime (-4C ATM). I'm actually fine with it. Certainly in rural areas and in wider peripheral suburban areas public transport is less useful. But in actual cities (London, Paris, Istanbul, etc.) with a high density of people and their residences, public transport is the way to go. I don't know much about American cities, but if we got a comprehensive and functional system of metros, buses and boats here in Istanbul, where some of you would classify as a part of the third world, I guess you are capable of doing it in the US too.
throw2016 10y ago
I think the self driving stories on HN have consistently underestimated human drivers and overestimated the tech and hand waved away the myriad challenges. There is something deeply unpleasant about underestimating people and underestimating the problem is generally not a great way to solve it. In the real world hundreds of millions of drivers have been driving on extremely varied roads and traffic conditions all over the world for decades. Given the sheer scale and volume of drivers, conditions and cars involved it appears self driving proponents are massively overplaying the safety card and worse with little to no data for the other side. Any ai vehicle that requires new kinds of roads or contraints is a completely different ball game and cannot be compared to human drivers. Trains are far safer and in many cases faster than cars. Yet the train story in the US has remained dire for decades making ai safety proponents look self serving. Technology does not exist in a vaccum, it is to benefit us and things like cars are tecnological as much as social and political. A car gives you basic transportation but also the freedom to go wherever you want. Having ai cars, constraints for them and control that could limit mobility and freedom then become more than techology issues in which the voice of society becomes far more important than the people creating the technology.

43 points by elmar 10y ago

So the computer won't know what to do and you're going to dump it on someone in a cubicle a thousand miles away? Here, make a decision in at most a second and a half or you crash? That's going to work ;<). If the computer is confused I want to be the one to make the decision. I am perfectly happy having a system right now that works 95% of the time in good weather. I think it will be at least 2025 before it can handle a Michigan winter, maybe longer. Still want a limited system ASAP.

elmar 10y ago
And Self-Driving cars teleoperation will open the door for remote hacking, it simply creates more problems than it solves.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> If the computer is confused I want to be the one to make the decision. I am perfectly happy having a system right now that works 95% of the time in good weather. Sounds like a Tesla Model 3 reservation is in your future! ;)
- rmason 10y ago
  Much as I like Tesla's there are two problems: 1. Thanks to the car dealer lobby here in Michigan you can't buy one in the state 2. No local charging options. Nearest supercharger is 70 miles away in either Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids I'm not very far from my local Ford dealer and the rumor is they're getting a charging station so that is probably how I will go.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    You can still buy a Tesla in Michigan; you buy it on tesla.com, and the sale officially takes place in California. The vehicle is delivered to your home (or you could pick it up from a gallery/service center over the border in OH). Can you not charge at home with a 240V outlet? You might also check out PlugShare.com for local charging options. If you're in a condo or apartment, several states have legislation now mandating reasonable accommodation (at the EV owner's cost) of EV charging stations. I do not know if Michigan has such legislation though.
    - XorNot 10y ago
      It occurs to me Tesla's self drive should eventually mean the car just drives itself to your door.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Elon has said as much on Twitter. But until level 4 autonomy, have to go pick it up or be outside for delivery like a peasant.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      It's a common misconception that states like Michigan ban Tesla sales entirely. They can't do that, as it's interstate commerce and the Feds have exclusive powers over that. All the states can do is regulate how businesses operate within the state. So they can prevent Tesla from opening stores or service centers within the state, but they can't prevent people from buying the cars.
slededit 10y ago
I would assume the computer would still be responsible for getting the car into a fail safe situation until a human could take over. Much as how mars rovers are driven semi-autonomously. This makes a lot more sense for a fleet of self driving vehicles. Not for personal transportation in your own car.
freehunter 10y ago
Most drivers can't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the road in the span of a dozen miles. Front-wheel drive cars on straight roads, too. They didn't just spin out, those drivers had to seriously mis-handle their vehicle to wind up in the ditch. That being said, the "self driving" part of my car (cruise control) turns itself off when the wheels slip already, so I agree that I could handle a car that drove itself in good weather but punted back to me in the snow. Vision-imparing snowfall is actually a more rare event than people might think. Normally the roads are quickly cleared.
- grzm 10y ago
  Most drivers can't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the road in the span of a dozen miles. A lot of drivers have problems driving in winter conditions. But most? Over 50%? That's a pretty strong claim.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    Most drivers are in India, southern China, the equatorial belt, etc. I don't think they have much experience with Michigan winters.
    - grzm 10y ago
      I believe it's understood that the drivers under discussion are Michigan drivers, are they not? If not, I'm not sure how interesting the statement is. Drivers in India, southern China, or the equatorial belt won't have need of a car that can handle Michigan winters, either.
      - kobeya 10y ago
        I don't think that was clear from context at all, no. However unlike a human driver, people will expect a car to continue working and working safely in non typical thriving conditions.
thesagan 10y ago
Absolutely. In Michigan winters, and in most other circumstances, I definitely want to be the one driving if I'm the one that's at risk of [and has great incentive to minimize] crashing my automobile. I really don't want to outsource that yet to a remote staffing center.
sk5t 10y ago
Are you really interested in a system that does the right thing 95% of the time, and the wrong thing for three seconds out of every minute? That sounds absolutely nerve-wracking to me.
mortehu 10y ago
> Here, make a decision in at most a second and a half or you crash This is not the kind of system they're talking about at all. From the article: > Nissan’s cubicle-based drivers aren’t emergency backups. If the car hits black ice, it’s in charge of staying on the road. There’s no feasible way to get the human into the loop in time to act. [When encountering an unusual scenario, a] human operator would look around using the car’s cameras and other sensors and issue new instructions—direct control would pose latency issues. Like: When it’s safe, cross the double yellow and get back to the right side after 20 yards.

RKearney 10y ago

Nissan also released a car that's controllable over the internet with nothing more than the VIN[0]. I wouldn't necessarily trust what they say in terms of technology advancements. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749

S_A_P 10y ago
that kind of reinforces the point...

bamboozled 10y ago

The world is, literally, losing it's mind.

non_repro_blue 10y ago

I wish people would just give up on this self-driving car business for now. We don't even want autonomous robots in our house, pitter pattering about like toddlers, at 3 miles an hour. We don't even trust our smart TV sets. So let's make 2 ton versions, and throw them into a frying pan with people? Yeah, great idea. I bet they'll act just like TCP packets. Good job. Why not segregated roadways? If we're so desperate to automate trucking and shipping, how about big, thick K-rails, and dedicated roadway? We all know that early adopters suffer the growing pains of buggy first versions. No reason for all of society to share this burden when It hasn't even been put to a vote. Keep these things the hell away from ordinary people, and their kids for at least another 50 years.

freehunter 10y ago
Plenty of people have robots pitter pattering in their house like toddlers. They're called Roombas, and they're the highest selling vacuum cleaner on the market right now. And the reason "we" don't trust smart TVs is because they spy on us without telling us. And the "we" in this situation is a tiny, tiny subset of the population. A lot of people don't know and don't care, they just like Netflix and how it's built into their TVs. No one voted on if they wanted cars in the first place. I'm not sure if you're aware of how incredibly dangerous cars are, but I can tell you without looking up the numbers that if we were to vote on it today with an unbiased viewpoint, there's no way anyone would be allowed to drive a car. I'm sorry, but I feel like you're going to be in the minority on this one. You seem really scared. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I would like for you to take a look at traffic fatality statistics and and think hard about whether or not it's worthwhile pursuit to try to bring that number down.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >I would like for you to take a look at traffic fatality statistics and and think hard I would like those people who take it as an article of faith that self driving cars will cause fewer fatalities to watch closely where the liability falls. If executives go to jail when the software crashes the car and kills or maims somebody and they let it out on the roads then I'm happy. If instead those companies get slapped with token fines, I'm pretty sure that they're going to push out faulty software before it's ready and kill a bunch of people. Politically it's still up in the air but currently it's looking like there won't be any criminal liability.

chenster 10y ago

Somehow, "I told you so" just doesn't quite say it - I Robot

derekp7 10y ago

The only way autonomous cars will work is when they are driven on pre-certified roads. And the cars continuously report back what they see to update the certification. Combined with traffic monitoring cameras that can keep a road section's certification updated. So just like most cars are to be driven on paved roads, reliable autonomous cars will need to be driven on roads with good visibility of lane markings. And road construction or road hazard cones will need to be electronic, so they can give the car computer unambiguous instructions (such as "shut down until driver manual control is confirmed").

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Short version is that the road is full of things at the 99th percentile that won't be programmable so the car will either fail, bail, or simply stop. I don't disagree with that sentiment but there were all sorts of things that "PCs" couldn't do that real computers could and they were still commercially successful (and eventually caught up to "real" computers for the most part). I could imagine that someone could come up with signage which self driving cars would understand and act on. Basically put up a QR code that links to the government approved way self driving cars should navigate the hazard, and of course a programming language that could communicate that to the car. Of course you would not want just anyone to set up overrides or you would have pranksters sending cars off into corn fields or worse. The part that Nissan appeared to miss is that if you can make them work in 99.9% of the cases, then you can hack around that last .1% and the cars will still be a net win in terms of better road behavior.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ebbv 10y ago
The difference is when a PC couldn't do something a mainframe couldn't nobody got killed. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, those really are the stakes with self driving cars. The problem is that when consumers think they are getting a self driving car they will very quickly resort to bad behavior (see the terribly sad Tesla fatality from last year.) We really need to be careful about how these features are marketed and implemented.
- kobeya 10y ago
  Self driving cars don't have to be 100% equal to humans in all circumstances. Some of these edge cases are things like construction workers or traffic cops guiding traffic. That's a damn hard thing to get right. But you could instead just give the traffic cop a radio clicker. The edge cases are not going to be adverse driving conditions, which machines actually handle better with superior reaction times and finer control.
  - 10y ago

jayjay71 10y ago

I think self-driving cars have incredible potential, but the media hype is just too strong around this technology. People are used to startups going from 0 to unicorn in 5+ years, because they are often based on simple technologies and business models centered around exponential growth. AirBnB, Uber, twitch, and many more are all technology companies that obviously had many challenges, but they did not depend on a technological breakthrough in order to get where they are today. There is a gap between Level 2 and Level 4 (arguably Level 5 with the new standards, but I'm going to assume Level 4 means what most people would call a true self-driving car) autonomy which is dangerous, because it lulls humans into a false sense of safety. And then when the car can no longer drive itself, the user is expected to take over with a delayed reaction time and little to no context in what could be a very dangerous situation. It is a deadly valley. There are numerous studies on this topic from the aviation industry, and drivers don't have nearly as much training as pilots. I think real self-driving cars are awesome, and the first time I sat in one years ago when I worked on it as a PhD student was truly an incredible experience. But the hype around the technology is too much, and when investors push for a product in a few years when it's not ready at best companies will fail and at worst people will die. Misinforming the public on this is a very serious problem which nobody seems to care about, even after at least 1 death which is still under investigation. I am all for working on this technology and seeing incremental improvements over the years. But I am frustrated with the media's portrayal of how it's just around the corner (I am frustrated with the media in general), and I believe the overpromise of the technology is largely responsible for the death of the Tesla owner in Florida last year (and there are other accidents that are reported in China which get much less coverage). People will say self-driving cars save lives and are safer. In theory, yes - but the problem is we aren't there yet. There just isn't enough data to make that claim. When Tesla said it was safer, they ignored the fact that all of their driving was on highways (which are statistically safer) and that their owners are more affluent and older (at least I assume the average Tesla owner is 25+). The data isn't available when you break down these demographics, but I suspect if it were that 1 death would actually make autopilot deadlier than manual driving. It's a moot point though - anybody trying to extrapolate meaningful conclusions from a single data point is making a ridiculous claim.

stale2002 10y ago

ddmma 10y ago

as a transitory measure in the beginning there will be zones marked as self-driving areas and others where this will be deactivated.

BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago

I don't care about self-driving cars until car company CEOs have their kids riding in them. Until then, I am not interested in taking the risk of testing their engineering.

DINKDINK 10y ago
You point is sound that companies who produce faulty driverless cars take the upside of them after they socialize the losses from them. Point 229 in Hammurabi's code: [229] If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. or to put it in your words. CEOs (or their kids) must drive around in driverless cars before patrons pay for them.
dang 10y ago
> I view this as programmers and such wanting to sacrifice the lives of plebs That's beyond uncharitable. Please don't post inflammatory, unsubstantive comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mnm1 10y ago

There's a human backup in the car itself. I don't see why you'd need remote control until we're ready to let cars drive without passengers which is a lot further away than cars driving with people in the car. What kind of car would not have some sort of a manual override anyway? That'd be incredibly stupid to the point of gross negligence. Also, the posted title is clickbait bullshit and not the actual title of the article.

intopieces 10y ago
Google is actively promoting a self-driving technology that doesn't need a human to take over, ever. Their commercial for this technology features a blind man being driven by a car around Austin, TX. As well, the prototype at the Computer History Museum is a model that does not feature a steering wheel at all. The thesis of the article is that the promises made by these companies -- and the promises are being made -- are not quite feasible in the short term. So what kind of car would not have some sort of manual override? The car that all these companies are promising!
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- BipolarElsa 10y ago
  When you fly in an airplane the pilot is basically checked out the entire time because of autopilot. Over thousands of miles, too. But guess what? They have steering wheels (or whatever it is you call them) and manual control when things get dicey. Point of person above you is that this should always be a feature of driverless cars: manual control. Always. I know Alphabet is peddling some blind-person shit, but let's be real, that's many year away (2050+) and would be for limited use cases.

_andromeda_ 10y ago

Sort of reminiscent of Balmer and his frowning upon the iPhone

gkya 10y ago

I say this whenever this topic comes up: we have public transport today, it's safer and cheaper than having a car, it allows you to make use of your commute time (read, study, eat a sandwich, have a coffee), it's better for the environment (electric doesn't come from nowhere), and it's faster and even more so if more people use it. Your city maybe lacks it, but then the solution is not to say "meh, public transport is crap" and go buy a car. But this is the answer I always get in this community of people who make a living finding solutions to problems. On the road, an actor's actions do not merely affect itself, but all the others on that road. If you slow down at a point, that can cause the driver arriving at that point five, ten minutes after to stop. On the road, everything creates a butterfly effect. And just like you can't run around naked or listen to very loud music in residential areas, you can't just get on the road with your new toy which if fails, does not only put your life at danger, but also many others'.

dogma1138 10y ago
That is if you live in a place with sane, safe, readily available public transportation which doesn't increase your commute time by 2-3 times. It's not hard to find places where a 40min commute in a car turns into 2-3 hours using public transport. Public transport is also not as reliable in places with extreme weather especially cold. Have fun waiting for a bus in an open bus stop at -10c...
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  My old boss' master's degree in city planning was a plan to run a grid of 15-minute busses throughout LA. His analysis showed it would nearly eliminate the need for private cars. In LA. Good luck convincing anybody. But I believe it could work. Principally because the transfers wouldn't be an hour wait, so the wait time wouldn't dominate the total trip time.
- gkya 10y ago
  Where I'm it goes down to about -5C in wintertime (-4C ATM). I'm actually fine with it. Certainly in rural areas and in wider peripheral suburban areas public transport is less useful. But in actual cities (London, Paris, Istanbul, etc.) with a high density of people and their residences, public transport is the way to go. I don't know much about American cities, but if we got a comprehensive and functional system of metros, buses and boats here in Istanbul, where some of you would classify as a part of the third world, I guess you are capable of doing it in the US too.

throw2016 10y ago

I think the self driving stories on HN have consistently underestimated human drivers and overestimated the tech and hand waved away the myriad challenges. There is something deeply unpleasant about underestimating people and underestimating the problem is generally not a great way to solve it. In the real world hundreds of millions of drivers have been driving on extremely varied roads and traffic conditions all over the world for decades. Given the sheer scale and volume of drivers, conditions and cars involved it appears self driving proponents are massively overplaying the safety card and worse with little to no data for the other side. Any ai vehicle that requires new kinds of roads or contraints is a completely different ball game and cannot be compared to human drivers. Trains are far safer and in many cases faster than cars. Yet the train story in the US has remained dire for decades making ai safety proponents look self serving. Technology does not exist in a vaccum, it is to benefit us and things like cars are tecnological as much as social and political. A car gives you basic transportation but also the freedom to go wherever you want. Having ai cars, constraints for them and control that could limit mobility and freedom then become more than techology issues in which the voice of society becomes far more important than the people creating the technology.