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Really well-written and engaging article. It seems the main point of an article like this from Google's perspective is gaining the public's trust. I'm sure most

Really well-written and engaging article. It seems the main point of an article like this from Google's perspective is gaining the public's trust. I'm sure most people are worried about the edge-cases that are so hard to run into in the real world, but are so important to get right. This is Google saying "we may not see that edge-case exactly, but we know when it could happen and simulate the situation a million times to make sure we get it right if we ever see it again."

stevenwoo 9y ago
I occassionally come across construction that is marked in an unusual way - at 65 miles an hour when the speed limit is 75. Also, when they are changing freeways and restriping them (leaving the original old faded lanes and before new lines go up) sometimes it's confusing to me and the traffic is flowing at 80 miles an hour, IIRC this was happening on 880 for a while about 10 years back. If the AI is confused by a roundabout as described I wonder how they handle that or if this is something that only fools me because I am only using visual sensors.
- pgodzin 9y ago
  Aren't those examples in which it'd be fine for it to be confused? That confusion shouldn't lead to any dangerous situations, just a different speed than other cars. It would also be interesting to know whether Waymo factors in other cars' behavior. If everyone is going 80 while the speed limit is 65, will it factor that in and go 80 or keep with the speed limit?
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    I don't know what a good answer is, my recollection of those examples is no one else is slowing down so I need to go the same speed in order to not be rear ended and hope the car in front of me knows what they are doing. This feels pretty unsatisfactory. The speed limit is kind of interesting, occassionally see someone go the speed limit on I-5 but it's hard to maintain because there's always an eighteen wheeler going slower than that, and then it hits a hill, and then there's a cascade reaction where the slow lane hits 45-50 for an extended period but the fast lane is going 75-95, though just being patient and waiting in the slow lane isn't a big deal for a autodriving car, or 280 between San Francisco and San Jose with sections where it appears almost everyone is going 85 miles per hour (not sure why CHP doesn't just camp out there). I see Teslas in both these places but I've never seen a Waymo.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    When I was in high school, I was driving to a party in a VW bug. My crazy friend was tailgating me. He was kinda drunk, and thought it was hilarious.(He became a cop after high school.) So I was driving down the road around 40 mph, and a Raccoon ran right in front of my passenger front tire. I just slammed on the brakes. My buddy car almost skidded into my bumper. We were both young and are reflexes were spot on. We were both slight buzzed, but way under .08. The incident happened in milliseconds. I remember taking to him later, and he said he would have done the same thing as myself. In all reality, I should have run over the animal, but my subconscious was not wired that way. My point is I still think about that incident to this day. I've thought about it way before self-driving was even a real reality. In my head, I knew he was tailgating me, but I still didn't want to kill an animal over our stupidity that night. I've thought about what the best Self-Driving system would have done that one night. (I've been told that lidar can see animals in the bushes. I just question when the vechicle has a moral issue to deal with. There's moral decisions computers can't make. To this day, I glad I didn't kill that Racoon. I still rember her babies still in the bushes. They were looking at me, and their stunned mom.)
  - user5994461 9y ago
    >>> If everyone is going 80 while the speed limit is 65, will it factor that in and go 80 or keep with the speed limit? No, that's illegal to drive over the speed limit.
    - tim333 9y ago
      Perhaps. Tesla allow the driver to get the system to exceed the limit. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/16/tesla-allows-self-driving-cars-to-break-speed-limit-again https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/16/tesla-all...
    - ghshephard 9y ago
      Google's driverless cars designed to exceed speed limit See: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    A slower speed is dangerous to everyone. One car slows down and everyone else needs to get around them. That results in people who would otherwise be content to flow with traffic making aggressive moves to pass the obstruction. These actions catches some people in the other lanes unaware and some of them insensitively hit their brakes (kind of like the people who brake for curves at low speed because "it's what you do") which exacerbates the problem. Now add in a poorly marked road dense traffic and construction. Other drivers (as a ground) don't really have the spare attention to allocate to the fallout of someone who's slowing down. edit: This is backed up by traffic studies When everyone is driving the same speed things are safer because there's less "friction" (I think that's the correct term) between traffic elements.
    - losteverything 9y ago
      "Avoid highway braking!" was drilled into us in drivers ed. Too slow was equal to too fast during drivers ed. We had a trailer with a simulator screen and a projector, and about 10 or so fake wheels, brakes and accelerator. He would stop the reel and quiz us about the scene (kid on bike about to cross road; kid hidden by truck. ) The instructor had a print out of our actions. Pretty sophisticated for the mid '70s.
- colordrops 9y ago
  Both of those situations are one where policy could be changed to solve the problem with relative ease. Transportation construction crews would actively put up markers and other signs to make routes clear to self driving vehicles. A side effect would be that it would probably be more clear to human drivers as well.
  - apk17 9y ago
    Basically, I'd expect an AI system to be able to go into swarm mode without clear markings. How else do they ever want to work in egypt, or around the arc de trioumpe(sp?) in paris?
    - Joeri 9y ago
      Swarm mode can still happen with clear markings. I assume the vehicles don't have a dedicated swarm mode, more like they try to do lane keeping but the distance and road keeping algorithms override that. If not, a "great" practical joke would be to paint lane markings that run off the side of the road. It's just like any piece of software, you cannot trust any external input, not even road markings.
- apk17 9y ago
  They might want to look at https://www.google.de/maps/@48.4020174,9.9783793,159m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=de https://www.google.de/maps/@48.4020174,9.9783793,159m/data=!... - the lower right part confuses drivers very much as well.
  - andegre 9y ago
    Wow, that would confuse me!

stevenwoo 9y ago

I occassionally come across construction that is marked in an unusual way - at 65 miles an hour when the speed limit is 75. Also, when they are changing freeways and restriping them (leaving the original old faded lanes and before new lines go up) sometimes it's confusing to me and the traffic is flowing at 80 miles an hour, IIRC this was happening on 880 for a while about 10 years back. If the AI is confused by a roundabout as described I wonder how they handle that or if this is something that only fools me because I am only using visual sensors.

pgodzin 9y ago
Aren't those examples in which it'd be fine for it to be confused? That confusion shouldn't lead to any dangerous situations, just a different speed than other cars. It would also be interesting to know whether Waymo factors in other cars' behavior. If everyone is going 80 while the speed limit is 65, will it factor that in and go 80 or keep with the speed limit?
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  I don't know what a good answer is, my recollection of those examples is no one else is slowing down so I need to go the same speed in order to not be rear ended and hope the car in front of me knows what they are doing. This feels pretty unsatisfactory. The speed limit is kind of interesting, occassionally see someone go the speed limit on I-5 but it's hard to maintain because there's always an eighteen wheeler going slower than that, and then it hits a hill, and then there's a cascade reaction where the slow lane hits 45-50 for an extended period but the fast lane is going 75-95, though just being patient and waiting in the slow lane isn't a big deal for a autodriving car, or 280 between San Francisco and San Jose with sections where it appears almost everyone is going 85 miles per hour (not sure why CHP doesn't just camp out there). I see Teslas in both these places but I've never seen a Waymo.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  When I was in high school, I was driving to a party in a VW bug. My crazy friend was tailgating me. He was kinda drunk, and thought it was hilarious.(He became a cop after high school.) So I was driving down the road around 40 mph, and a Raccoon ran right in front of my passenger front tire. I just slammed on the brakes. My buddy car almost skidded into my bumper. We were both young and are reflexes were spot on. We were both slight buzzed, but way under .08. The incident happened in milliseconds. I remember taking to him later, and he said he would have done the same thing as myself. In all reality, I should have run over the animal, but my subconscious was not wired that way. My point is I still think about that incident to this day. I've thought about it way before self-driving was even a real reality. In my head, I knew he was tailgating me, but I still didn't want to kill an animal over our stupidity that night. I've thought about what the best Self-Driving system would have done that one night. (I've been told that lidar can see animals in the bushes. I just question when the vechicle has a moral issue to deal with. There's moral decisions computers can't make. To this day, I glad I didn't kill that Racoon. I still rember her babies still in the bushes. They were looking at me, and their stunned mom.)
- user5994461 9y ago
  >>> If everyone is going 80 while the speed limit is 65, will it factor that in and go 80 or keep with the speed limit? No, that's illegal to drive over the speed limit.
  - tim333 9y ago
    Perhaps. Tesla allow the driver to get the system to exceed the limit. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/16/tesla-allows-self-driving-cars-to-break-speed-limit-again https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/16/tesla-all...
  - ghshephard 9y ago
    Google's driverless cars designed to exceed speed limit See: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  A slower speed is dangerous to everyone. One car slows down and everyone else needs to get around them. That results in people who would otherwise be content to flow with traffic making aggressive moves to pass the obstruction. These actions catches some people in the other lanes unaware and some of them insensitively hit their brakes (kind of like the people who brake for curves at low speed because "it's what you do") which exacerbates the problem. Now add in a poorly marked road dense traffic and construction. Other drivers (as a ground) don't really have the spare attention to allocate to the fallout of someone who's slowing down. edit: This is backed up by traffic studies When everyone is driving the same speed things are safer because there's less "friction" (I think that's the correct term) between traffic elements.
  - losteverything 9y ago
    "Avoid highway braking!" was drilled into us in drivers ed. Too slow was equal to too fast during drivers ed. We had a trailer with a simulator screen and a projector, and about 10 or so fake wheels, brakes and accelerator. He would stop the reel and quiz us about the scene (kid on bike about to cross road; kid hidden by truck. ) The instructor had a print out of our actions. Pretty sophisticated for the mid '70s.
colordrops 9y ago
Both of those situations are one where policy could be changed to solve the problem with relative ease. Transportation construction crews would actively put up markers and other signs to make routes clear to self driving vehicles. A side effect would be that it would probably be more clear to human drivers as well.
- apk17 9y ago
  Basically, I'd expect an AI system to be able to go into swarm mode without clear markings. How else do they ever want to work in egypt, or around the arc de trioumpe(sp?) in paris?
  - Joeri 9y ago
    Swarm mode can still happen with clear markings. I assume the vehicles don't have a dedicated swarm mode, more like they try to do lane keeping but the distance and road keeping algorithms override that. If not, a "great" practical joke would be to paint lane markings that run off the side of the road. It's just like any piece of software, you cannot trust any external input, not even road markings.
apk17 9y ago
They might want to look at https://www.google.de/maps/@48.4020174,9.9783793,159m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=de https://www.google.de/maps/@48.4020174,9.9783793,159m/data=!... - the lower right part confuses drivers very much as well.
- andegre 9y ago
  Wow, that would confuse me!