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> Planes can pretty much fly themselves today but > The issue is with creating the code that deals with "oh shit" scenarios. So they fly themselves except th

by cletus 9y ago

> Planes can pretty much fly themselves today but > The issue is with creating the code that deals with "oh shit" scenarios. So they fly themselves except they don't? That's kind of my point: what makes anyone think truly driverless cars are going to happen anytime soon when a human is required to deal with these "oh shit" scenarios? What's more, I think the "oh shit" scenarios for cars are FAR more complicated. With planes someone else deals with scheduling for take off and landing. While in flight, the plane simply needs to not fly into other objects and maintain speed, direction and altitude. As for liability, I agree. It's a nightmare, particularly when the standard will probably be "did the software cause injury or death?" when the standard should be "what is the incidence of injury or death compared to a human driver?" I mean that'll be little comfort to the family of someone killed in an accident. We humans seem to have a weird tolerance humans negligently killing other humans.

kevmo314 9y ago
You could argue that in the "oh shit" scenarios for a car, the proper action is to always stop. Most human drivers will instinctively stomp on the brakes if they see anything they're not expecting, and this is pretty much what today's autonomous software does. Recovering from the "oh shit" scenario is the difficult part, but human pilots often can't recover, after all it makes little sense to try and fix an engine on fire while flying, instead opting to land.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >the proper action is to always stop It's not. But it's a reasonable first reaction which is why we end up doing it. (That or swerving.) But as soon as we realize the thing that made us twitch is a squirrel or a plastic bag, our forebrain takes the foot off the brake or straightens the wheel.
  - kevmo314 9y ago
    So why is it unreasonable to think that a computer can do this? This, being take a reasonable first reaction to a situation, namely stop, then follow up with a proper action once more data is available.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      You don't stop though. You start to put your foot on the brake and then you take it off. Presumably, for a computer which doesn't really have different classes of reaction times in the same way, should never brake in the first place.
      - kevmo314 9y ago
        I don't think that presumption is true, it's a high bar that doesn't really provide much benefit to achieve. If a computer decides to tap the brakes because it thinks an "oh shit" scenario is coming up, why is that suddenly a huge transgression?
        ghaff 9y ago
        The point is that computers don't really have the same type of reflexes that humans have. The theory is that everything is pretty fast. (OK, they can run a background analysis in the cloud but that's presumably too slow to be useful.) Computers are generally not going to respond with "reflexes" and then change they're minds once they've had time to think about it for half a second. Computers could possibly be designed with these sorts of decision making patterns if there were a need to but I'm not aware of that being done today.
        kevmo314 9y ago
        > Computers are generally not going to respond with "reflexes" and then change they're minds once they've had time to think about it for half a second. Well I disagree on this point, as that's essentially how regressions work, so indirectly how neural networks work. The data the car gets isn't available immediately, all that information it takes in in half a second is useful data that aids in classification and decision making. Just as a quick example, take https://tenso.rs/demos/rock-paper-scissors/ https://tenso.rs/demos/rock-paper-scissors/ and think of the classifier as "making a decision", and it switches its decision based on the most recent information.
        9y ago
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > after all it makes little sense to try and fix an engine on fire while flying No, but you can ditch an engine that is on fire. > instead opting to land. That is supposed to be the outcome of any successful flight. Autoland is possible with an engine out, even at low altitude (on final approach): http://www.askcaptainlim.com/flying-on-the-boeing-777-flying-91/488-can-a-boeing-777-land-safely-when-an-engine-fails-during-an-auto-landing.html http://www.askcaptainlim.com/flying-on-the-boeing-777-flying... So as far as the software goes that's business as usual and not even an 'oh shit' scenario.
  - kevmo314 9y ago
    Right, so why does the negative opinion towards self-driving cars seem to be that a computer isn't allowed to slow down to give it more time to react, which it would just treat as business as usual?
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Well, for one you're passing your incompetence off to other drivers to deal with, something that will inevitably lead to accidents behind the car that slows down without any actual reason, for another because driving is a lot more complex than flying when it comes to automation. You might expect the opposite but pilots routinely describe their careers as 30 years of boredom punctuated by 30 seconds of sheer panic.
      - kevmo314 9y ago
        And why is that any worse than the current situation with humans?
notahacker 9y ago
> We humans seem to have a weird tolerance humans negligently killing other humans. Really? If anything I'd have said it was the other way round. Humans get jailed for negligently killing other humans with vehicles, and they sometimes get jailed or banned from driving for negligently driving in a way that might have endangered another human. On the other hand, the prevailing opinion in this thread seems to be that whilst it's entirely appropriate to punish bad driving by humans, similarly egregious errors made by software should be tolerated provided their average accident rate is lower than the humans'

by cletus 9y ago

kevmo314 9y ago

You could argue that in the "oh shit" scenarios for a car, the proper action is to always stop. Most human drivers will instinctively stomp on the brakes if they see anything they're not expecting, and this is pretty much what today's autonomous software does. Recovering from the "oh shit" scenario is the difficult part, but human pilots often can't recover, after all it makes little sense to try and fix an engine on fire while flying, instead opting to land.

ghaff 9y ago
>the proper action is to always stop It's not. But it's a reasonable first reaction which is why we end up doing it. (That or swerving.) But as soon as we realize the thing that made us twitch is a squirrel or a plastic bag, our forebrain takes the foot off the brake or straightens the wheel.
- kevmo314 9y ago
  So why is it unreasonable to think that a computer can do this? This, being take a reasonable first reaction to a situation, namely stop, then follow up with a proper action once more data is available.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    You don't stop though. You start to put your foot on the brake and then you take it off. Presumably, for a computer which doesn't really have different classes of reaction times in the same way, should never brake in the first place.
    - kevmo314 9y ago
      I don't think that presumption is true, it's a high bar that doesn't really provide much benefit to achieve. If a computer decides to tap the brakes because it thinks an "oh shit" scenario is coming up, why is that suddenly a huge transgression?
      - ghaff 9y ago
        The point is that computers don't really have the same type of reflexes that humans have. The theory is that everything is pretty fast. (OK, they can run a background analysis in the cloud but that's presumably too slow to be useful.) Computers are generally not going to respond with "reflexes" and then change they're minds once they've had time to think about it for half a second. Computers could possibly be designed with these sorts of decision making patterns if there were a need to but I'm not aware of that being done today.
        kevmo314 9y ago
        > Computers are generally not going to respond with "reflexes" and then change they're minds once they've had time to think about it for half a second. Well I disagree on this point, as that's essentially how regressions work, so indirectly how neural networks work. The data the car gets isn't available immediately, all that information it takes in in half a second is useful data that aids in classification and decision making. Just as a quick example, take https://tenso.rs/demos/rock-paper-scissors/ https://tenso.rs/demos/rock-paper-scissors/ and think of the classifier as "making a decision", and it switches its decision based on the most recent information.
        9y ago
jacquesm 9y ago
> after all it makes little sense to try and fix an engine on fire while flying No, but you can ditch an engine that is on fire. > instead opting to land. That is supposed to be the outcome of any successful flight. Autoland is possible with an engine out, even at low altitude (on final approach): http://www.askcaptainlim.com/flying-on-the-boeing-777-flying-91/488-can-a-boeing-777-land-safely-when-an-engine-fails-during-an-auto-landing.html http://www.askcaptainlim.com/flying-on-the-boeing-777-flying... So as far as the software goes that's business as usual and not even an 'oh shit' scenario.
- kevmo314 9y ago
  Right, so why does the negative opinion towards self-driving cars seem to be that a computer isn't allowed to slow down to give it more time to react, which it would just treat as business as usual?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Well, for one you're passing your incompetence off to other drivers to deal with, something that will inevitably lead to accidents behind the car that slows down without any actual reason, for another because driving is a lot more complex than flying when it comes to automation. You might expect the opposite but pilots routinely describe their careers as 30 years of boredom punctuated by 30 seconds of sheer panic.
    - kevmo314 9y ago
      And why is that any worse than the current situation with humans?

notahacker 9y ago

> We humans seem to have a weird tolerance humans negligently killing other humans. Really? If anything I'd have said it was the other way round. Humans get jailed for negligently killing other humans with vehicles, and they sometimes get jailed or banned from driving for negligently driving in a way that might have endangered another human. On the other hand, the prevailing opinion in this thread seems to be that whilst it's entirely appropriate to punish bad driving by humans, similarly egregious errors made by software should be tolerated provided their average accident rate is lower than the humans'