5 ms·

> And in some areas, we are finding that there were more issues to dig into and solve than we expected,” Who could've thunk it?! The people who think we're goi

by mtgx 9y ago

> And in some areas, we are finding that there were more issues to dig into and solve than we expected,” Who could've thunk it?! The people who think we're going to have real Level 5 autonomous driving in 2 years (not the "we're bullshitting you with Level 5, but it's really more like Level 3.5" kind) are insane. There's no way we're going to simulate every single condition a car could encounter anywhere on Earth and get the cars to do the "right thing" 100% of the time by 2019-2020. I'll be impressed if they even deliver Level 4 (working perfectly only on some types of roads) by 2020. But I think even then car makers will "encounter the unexpected". It's going to take many years to test these things. And no car makers seem to even mention how they're going to address all the security issues self-driving cars will have.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Exactly. People allow themselves to be steeped in the hype and don't look at this rationally. Most people who are still in the media saying it can be done have a financial stake in saying those things. This doesn't make it true. They'll get 90% there and never really figure out the other 10%.
- sgc 9y ago
  Agreed. I don't know what the percentage is, but there will certainly come a point when it will be cheaper to pay out when (a relatively few) people die rather than invest in further R & D. The stagnation in just about every other field of 'mature' technology more or less guarantees it. If it proves to be difficult enough, that level will be when self driving cars are only marginally better than human drivers. That is an unlikely scenario, but it will probably stagnate at a far less perfect level than all but the most pragmatic dreamers envision.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    >>> a point when it will be cheaper to pay out when (a relatively few) people die rather than invest in further R & D. Not before a long time. A death is really expensive, Americans are trained to sue like crazy, a car accident is a simple case to grasp and attribute to the manufacturer who has a lot of money to pay.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      I'm not sure that the EU is known for particularly lax product liability laws either. Whether it makes sense statistically or not, I can pretty much guarantee that automated vehicles causing deaths as a result of stupid decisions (from the perspective of a human driver) will be shut down in a big hurry. At which point, it becomes public that it was known that the software had problems handling X, Y, and Z sort of situations but it was put on the road anyway.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        The EU is regulated more by regulators. They will take some time to investigate issues and shut down the perpetrators. The US has this "anyone can sue anyone at anytime for crazy damages" system. I'd expect any issue to quickly be brought to court and make an example out of them. Last but not least, after the first death related to a self driving car, the second death will be on the journalists fighting for the coverage.
        chefkoch 9y ago
        >Last but not least, after the first death related to a self driving car, the second death will be on the journalists fighting for the coverage. The first death already happened with a tesla.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        That was in a level 2 system, in which the driver is required to constantly pay attention. Many companies have shipped level 2 systems, and that one death is not the only one.
- sytelus 9y ago
  In machine learning cost of going from 90% to 95% is typically same as going from 0% to 90%. This is why every little percent point gets celebrated wildly after you cross 95%.
icebraining 9y ago
There's no way we're going to simulate every single condition a car could encounter anywhere on Earth and get the cars to do the "right thing" 100% of the time by 2019-2020. I like how you added "by 2019-2020", as if doing the right thing 100% of the time was ever possible - let alone the goal. Of course, it isn't - Level 5 is just as good as a human. And extremely rare situation won't be handled well by a human either.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > And extremely rare situation won't be handled well by a human either. Why not?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Sorry, I meant "an extremely rare situation won't always be handled well by a human either."
- skywhopper 9y ago
  The important calculation then is how many different types of rare situations are encountered, what it means to be a rare situation, how often all rare situations happen in total, and how much better or worse the human or computer does. When I hear about Uber’s cars having issues with the apparently rare situations of, say, street lanes being restriped in a different place, or with delivery vans parked partially in a lane, I realize that much city driving is a bunch of rare unusual situations strung together in a row that requires constant improvisation. Construction, wrecks, emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, weather, power outages, traffic signals on the fritz, funeral processions, pedestrians, loose debris from other cars, blown tires in the lanes, faded lane lines, parking lots, traffic jams, farm vehicles, moving vans... I think we’re going to find out that an acceptable level of automated safety ends up making automated cars so poor at navigating around the real world that it’s going to be a commercial failure.
- sytelus 9y ago
  Problem is that self-driving company would get blamed for accidents for all of its cars. So imagine if you had 100,000 cars going around and you got sued for accident on every one of them. This aggregation of blame is core issue which otherwise gets distributed among millions of human drivers. This invariably requires that self-driving car must be many many magnitudes better than regular humans. Even if companies figure out way to not get sued, its only matter of time until some very serious tragedy happens such as pregnant woman wearing same dress as color of sky crossing the road getting killed or car running in to school kids. Then there are obvious malicious usage such as modifying car sensors to fool self-driving system and purposely run in to people (cars as weapon scenario). One such thing and it could likely be the trigger for large public outcry, heavy regulations and finally game over for self-driving cars. I think it might be more desirable to approach self-driving cars in more evolutionary fashion. We can start with self-driving only in less than 25 miles/hr scenarios such as heavy traffic OR sunny days on highways. Then we can start equiping our road networks with dedicated self-driving lanes, supportive beacons on roads and so on. Then gradually move towards make all lanes self-driving.

by mtgx 9y ago

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Exactly. People allow themselves to be steeped in the hype and don't look at this rationally. Most people who are still in the media saying it can be done have a financial stake in saying those things. This doesn't make it true. They'll get 90% there and never really figure out the other 10%.

sgc 9y ago
Agreed. I don't know what the percentage is, but there will certainly come a point when it will be cheaper to pay out when (a relatively few) people die rather than invest in further R & D. The stagnation in just about every other field of 'mature' technology more or less guarantees it. If it proves to be difficult enough, that level will be when self driving cars are only marginally better than human drivers. That is an unlikely scenario, but it will probably stagnate at a far less perfect level than all but the most pragmatic dreamers envision.
- user5994461 9y ago
  >>> a point when it will be cheaper to pay out when (a relatively few) people die rather than invest in further R & D. Not before a long time. A death is really expensive, Americans are trained to sue like crazy, a car accident is a simple case to grasp and attribute to the manufacturer who has a lot of money to pay.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    I'm not sure that the EU is known for particularly lax product liability laws either. Whether it makes sense statistically or not, I can pretty much guarantee that automated vehicles causing deaths as a result of stupid decisions (from the perspective of a human driver) will be shut down in a big hurry. At which point, it becomes public that it was known that the software had problems handling X, Y, and Z sort of situations but it was put on the road anyway.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      The EU is regulated more by regulators. They will take some time to investigate issues and shut down the perpetrators. The US has this "anyone can sue anyone at anytime for crazy damages" system. I'd expect any issue to quickly be brought to court and make an example out of them. Last but not least, after the first death related to a self driving car, the second death will be on the journalists fighting for the coverage.
      - chefkoch 9y ago
        >Last but not least, after the first death related to a self driving car, the second death will be on the journalists fighting for the coverage. The first death already happened with a tesla.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        That was in a level 2 system, in which the driver is required to constantly pay attention. Many companies have shipped level 2 systems, and that one death is not the only one.
sytelus 9y ago
In machine learning cost of going from 90% to 95% is typically same as going from 0% to 90%. This is why every little percent point gets celebrated wildly after you cross 95%.

icebraining 9y ago

There's no way we're going to simulate every single condition a car could encounter anywhere on Earth and get the cars to do the "right thing" 100% of the time by 2019-2020. I like how you added "by 2019-2020", as if doing the right thing 100% of the time was ever possible - let alone the goal. Of course, it isn't - Level 5 is just as good as a human. And extremely rare situation won't be handled well by a human either.

jacquesm 9y ago
> And extremely rare situation won't be handled well by a human either. Why not?
- icebraining 9y ago
  Sorry, I meant "an extremely rare situation won't always be handled well by a human either."
skywhopper 9y ago
The important calculation then is how many different types of rare situations are encountered, what it means to be a rare situation, how often all rare situations happen in total, and how much better or worse the human or computer does. When I hear about Uber’s cars having issues with the apparently rare situations of, say, street lanes being restriped in a different place, or with delivery vans parked partially in a lane, I realize that much city driving is a bunch of rare unusual situations strung together in a row that requires constant improvisation. Construction, wrecks, emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, weather, power outages, traffic signals on the fritz, funeral processions, pedestrians, loose debris from other cars, blown tires in the lanes, faded lane lines, parking lots, traffic jams, farm vehicles, moving vans... I think we’re going to find out that an acceptable level of automated safety ends up making automated cars so poor at navigating around the real world that it’s going to be a commercial failure.
sytelus 9y ago
Problem is that self-driving company would get blamed for accidents for all of its cars. So imagine if you had 100,000 cars going around and you got sued for accident on every one of them. This aggregation of blame is core issue which otherwise gets distributed among millions of human drivers. This invariably requires that self-driving car must be many many magnitudes better than regular humans. Even if companies figure out way to not get sued, its only matter of time until some very serious tragedy happens such as pregnant woman wearing same dress as color of sky crossing the road getting killed or car running in to school kids. Then there are obvious malicious usage such as modifying car sensors to fool self-driving system and purposely run in to people (cars as weapon scenario). One such thing and it could likely be the trigger for large public outcry, heavy regulations and finally game over for self-driving cars. I think it might be more desirable to approach self-driving cars in more evolutionary fashion. We can start with self-driving only in less than 25 miles/hr scenarios such as heavy traffic OR sunny days on highways. Then we can start equiping our road networks with dedicated self-driving lanes, supportive beacons on roads and so on. Then gradually move towards make all lanes self-driving.