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>But how realistic is it that we have self-driving cars without a backup human operator anytime soon? The whole, "in case of emergency, grab the wheel" is just

>But how realistic is it that we have self-driving cars without a backup human operator anytime soon? The whole, "in case of emergency, grab the wheel" is just a legal formality. If you are not actively driving you won't be in a state of mind to be able to do that. I think eventually there will be enough data to show that a human behind the wheel does absolutely nothing to prevent a crash.

hartator 10y ago
The human being the wheel is actually intervening kind of a lot. That's the issue not legalese.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Currently, yes, but as these get better, there's going to be a really dangerous middle ground, where the car is great in 99.99% of cases but can't handle the rare exceptions. The human driver dozing off or browsing Facebook on their phone simply isn't going to be paying enough attention to realize they're barrelling towards an active train crossing or whatever the unexpected edge case is.
deleted 10y ago
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maxerickson 10y ago
The whole, "in case of emergency, grab the wheel" is just a legal formality. It's looking to be just the opposite, with several of the autonomous projects mumbling about how they don't think it is a workable level of automation, exactly because people don't stay engaged. They are going to try to jump from assistive systems like automatic braking to vehicles intended to handle unexpected driving conditions without immediate human intervention (maybe the system can't proceed, but it will safely stop).
- mtgx 10y ago
  Yes, I'm a pretty big Tesla fan, but this has been my main criticism against Tesla's cars. The most rabid fanbois don't want to believe it, and just buy Tesla's argument that it's the driver's fault when an accident happens while AutoPilot is running, because he "didn't take the wheel in time." I think Ford's study proved that humans can't react quickly like that if they don't already drive the vehicle, and I was able to figure that out myself simply through intuition, way before Ford discovered it. I also think that internally Tesla does believe the same thing, which is why it has pulled its "self-driving" ads from around the world. It's just publicly continuing to say that if there is an accident then it's the drivers' fault "because there are plenty of warnings" (like 200 miliseconds before a crash) or that it asks you to put your hands on the wheel every 5 minutes, as if that does anything. An accident could easily happen in-between those 5 minutes. I guess that feature is there because Tesla also learned that people keep dozing off when a car is self-driven. But I think people who start dozing off because they aren't driving the car themselves will be able to ignore the sounds relatively easily. The bottom line is that such systems put humans in an almost impossible situation that they're not equipped to deal with as humans, and Tesla and others act like they're legally covered and that's all that matters. I think there should only be two types of systems: autonomous features that only activate in emergency situations to save people's lives (like auto-braking when there is an accident about to happen), and complete self-driving that doesn't need a human's attention at all. There shouldn't be anything in between.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    It may perhaps become possible to allow full autonomy on certain roads under certain conditions. e.g. you can drive on these stretches of highway in daylight in good weather. How something like that gets specified and enforced in any formal sense, I have no idea.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    One of Tesla's primary responses to the Autopilot related crashes was to require higher levels of driver engagement. Tesla revamps autopilot technology after fatal crash https://www.ft.com/content/3ddb43f0-785c-11e6-a0c6-39e2633162d5 https://www.ft.com/content/3ddb43f0-785c-11e6-a0c6-39e263316... Tesla's system may still be in the deadly valley, I don't know, but I guess many people will not put up with having to stop the car repeatedly.
mannykannot 10y ago
To be clear, this is not an argument that the 'hand on wheel' rule should be dropped for existing systems. It is an argument that the 'hand on wheel' rule should not be used as a justification for allowing the general public to operate semi-autonomous vehicles.

hartator 10y ago

The human being the wheel is actually intervening kind of a lot. That's the issue not legalese.

ceejayoz 10y ago
Currently, yes, but as these get better, there's going to be a really dangerous middle ground, where the car is great in 99.99% of cases but can't handle the rare exceptions. The human driver dozing off or browsing Facebook on their phone simply isn't going to be paying enough attention to realize they're barrelling towards an active train crossing or whatever the unexpected edge case is.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

maxerickson 10y ago

The whole, "in case of emergency, grab the wheel" is just a legal formality. It's looking to be just the opposite, with several of the autonomous projects mumbling about how they don't think it is a workable level of automation, exactly because people don't stay engaged. They are going to try to jump from assistive systems like automatic braking to vehicles intended to handle unexpected driving conditions without immediate human intervention (maybe the system can't proceed, but it will safely stop).

mtgx 10y ago
Yes, I'm a pretty big Tesla fan, but this has been my main criticism against Tesla's cars. The most rabid fanbois don't want to believe it, and just buy Tesla's argument that it's the driver's fault when an accident happens while AutoPilot is running, because he "didn't take the wheel in time." I think Ford's study proved that humans can't react quickly like that if they don't already drive the vehicle, and I was able to figure that out myself simply through intuition, way before Ford discovered it. I also think that internally Tesla does believe the same thing, which is why it has pulled its "self-driving" ads from around the world. It's just publicly continuing to say that if there is an accident then it's the drivers' fault "because there are plenty of warnings" (like 200 miliseconds before a crash) or that it asks you to put your hands on the wheel every 5 minutes, as if that does anything. An accident could easily happen in-between those 5 minutes. I guess that feature is there because Tesla also learned that people keep dozing off when a car is self-driven. But I think people who start dozing off because they aren't driving the car themselves will be able to ignore the sounds relatively easily. The bottom line is that such systems put humans in an almost impossible situation that they're not equipped to deal with as humans, and Tesla and others act like they're legally covered and that's all that matters. I think there should only be two types of systems: autonomous features that only activate in emergency situations to save people's lives (like auto-braking when there is an accident about to happen), and complete self-driving that doesn't need a human's attention at all. There shouldn't be anything in between.
- ghaff 10y ago
  It may perhaps become possible to allow full autonomy on certain roads under certain conditions. e.g. you can drive on these stretches of highway in daylight in good weather. How something like that gets specified and enforced in any formal sense, I have no idea.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  One of Tesla's primary responses to the Autopilot related crashes was to require higher levels of driver engagement. Tesla revamps autopilot technology after fatal crash https://www.ft.com/content/3ddb43f0-785c-11e6-a0c6-39e2633162d5 https://www.ft.com/content/3ddb43f0-785c-11e6-a0c6-39e263316... Tesla's system may still be in the deadly valley, I don't know, but I guess many people will not put up with having to stop the car repeatedly.

mannykannot 10y ago

To be clear, this is not an argument that the 'hand on wheel' rule should be dropped for existing systems. It is an argument that the 'hand on wheel' rule should not be used as a justification for allowing the general public to operate semi-autonomous vehicles.