5 ms·

>Good drivers really distinguish themselves in the moments where the inputs and behaviors that are expected do not occur (ex: tire blow out). Autonomous cars w

by 6d6b73 9y ago

>Good drivers really distinguish themselves in the moments where the inputs and behaviors that are expected do not occur (ex: tire blow out). Autonomous cars will be much better at handling these types of situations - in your example, the machine will know what's going on few milliseconds after it happens and will be able to adjust speed and direction almost instantaneously. All you need is lots of sensors.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
> All you need is lots of sensors. Which rapidly reduces the MTBF at which point you're stuck with an overpriced manual drive vehicle.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Do you also replace cars when a tire gets punctured?
  - damnfine 9y ago
    When the tires cost more than the car you do.
rgbrenner 9y ago
and when the sensors start failing?
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  System will know that they are failing. this is not rocket science.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - hossbeast 9y ago
    Actually, rockets work like this.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      On that note, here's an interesting interview with the analysis lead for Mission and Fault Management on the NASA’s Space Launch System program: http://omegataupodcast.net/100-system-health-mgt/ http://omegataupodcast.net/100-system-health-mgt/
  - mypalmike 9y ago
    And this is one reason they will be better to rent than own. How many times have you had a perfectly drivable car with some failing sensor? In an autonomous vehicle, such sensor failures will essentially brick the vehicle until it's fixed.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      If the sensors are redundant enough, a failure or two shouldn't prevent the car from driving; it'll just drop you off and drive itself to the nearest repair place.
      - 6d6b73 9y ago
        Plus this will make these cars safer. There are thousands of people who drive cars that should not be on the roads.
ufmace 9y ago
I agree that autonomous cars will be much better, but mostly not because of sensors. Experience will be the difference. Virtually no drivers actually have experience handling blowouts and know what to do during one. Even the ones who have will mostly not be very effective at handling it, because it happens so rarely, and virtually nobody actively practices it and studies and trains the best techniques. What will make autonomous cars better is that they can take all of the input from thousands of blowouts, add "training" from actual experts, and load the resulting techniques into every car on the road, ready for execution the instant something happens.
jcranmer 9y ago
And engineers who can recognize every possible failure and make the car react to them. There are two things where human beings far outpace AI in competence. The first is the ability to recognize when inputs just simply don't make sense and thus the intended algorithm is going to return garbage results. A related, but important issue (particularly if you talk about networking cars together) is being able to recognize malicious inputs. The second issue is that humans are good at higher-order planning. An example as it relates to driving is what we do when we can't tell the state of the traffic light (direct sunlight, say). Humans naturally look for ways to indirectly infer the state: the status of the traffic light in the cross direction, the current disposition of cars around the intersection. Autonomous cars will only be better at handling these situations if the engineers are aware that these situations need to be handled and take measures to make the cars aware of them. And history suggests that is sufficiently unlikely to happen to make me fearful of the future.
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  You're giving us humans superhuman abilities. How many people are prepared for tire blowout? Have you ever had your wife calling you asking what is this red light on the instrument panel? Heck I myself questioned myself when ABS light turned on in a middle of my trip.. Should I continue? Pull over? Will my breaks work? When the autonomous vehicle gets that signal it will most likely play it on a safe side, pull over and call service, all automatically. Me? I just kept driving... And yes, we can deduct light color from other clues, but we can also go through a red light because we were preoccupied with our cellphones. AV will on the other hand have access to multiple cameras, looking at the light from multiple angles, possibly with some polarizing filters that will make this non-issue.

by 6d6b73 9y ago

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

> All you need is lots of sensors. Which rapidly reduces the MTBF at which point you're stuck with an overpriced manual drive vehicle.

icebraining 9y ago
Do you also replace cars when a tire gets punctured?
- damnfine 9y ago
  When the tires cost more than the car you do.

rgbrenner 9y ago

and when the sensors start failing?

6d6b73 9y ago
System will know that they are failing. this is not rocket science.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- hossbeast 9y ago
  Actually, rockets work like this.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    On that note, here's an interesting interview with the analysis lead for Mission and Fault Management on the NASA’s Space Launch System program: http://omegataupodcast.net/100-system-health-mgt/ http://omegataupodcast.net/100-system-health-mgt/
- mypalmike 9y ago
  And this is one reason they will be better to rent than own. How many times have you had a perfectly drivable car with some failing sensor? In an autonomous vehicle, such sensor failures will essentially brick the vehicle until it's fixed.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    If the sensors are redundant enough, a failure or two shouldn't prevent the car from driving; it'll just drop you off and drive itself to the nearest repair place.
    - 6d6b73 9y ago
      Plus this will make these cars safer. There are thousands of people who drive cars that should not be on the roads.

ufmace 9y ago

I agree that autonomous cars will be much better, but mostly not because of sensors. Experience will be the difference. Virtually no drivers actually have experience handling blowouts and know what to do during one. Even the ones who have will mostly not be very effective at handling it, because it happens so rarely, and virtually nobody actively practices it and studies and trains the best techniques. What will make autonomous cars better is that they can take all of the input from thousands of blowouts, add "training" from actual experts, and load the resulting techniques into every car on the road, ready for execution the instant something happens.

jcranmer 9y ago

And engineers who can recognize every possible failure and make the car react to them. There are two things where human beings far outpace AI in competence. The first is the ability to recognize when inputs just simply don't make sense and thus the intended algorithm is going to return garbage results. A related, but important issue (particularly if you talk about networking cars together) is being able to recognize malicious inputs. The second issue is that humans are good at higher-order planning. An example as it relates to driving is what we do when we can't tell the state of the traffic light (direct sunlight, say). Humans naturally look for ways to indirectly infer the state: the status of the traffic light in the cross direction, the current disposition of cars around the intersection. Autonomous cars will only be better at handling these situations if the engineers are aware that these situations need to be handled and take measures to make the cars aware of them. And history suggests that is sufficiently unlikely to happen to make me fearful of the future.

6d6b73 9y ago
You're giving us humans superhuman abilities. How many people are prepared for tire blowout? Have you ever had your wife calling you asking what is this red light on the instrument panel? Heck I myself questioned myself when ABS light turned on in a middle of my trip.. Should I continue? Pull over? Will my breaks work? When the autonomous vehicle gets that signal it will most likely play it on a safe side, pull over and call service, all automatically. Me? I just kept driving... And yes, we can deduct light color from other clues, but we can also go through a red light because we were preoccupied with our cellphones. AV will on the other hand have access to multiple cameras, looking at the light from multiple angles, possibly with some polarizing filters that will make this non-issue.