4 ms·

There's no question that machines have faster reaction times, but the other part of the equation is predicting how much a vehicle should slow down in any given

by foob 9y ago

There's no question that machines have faster reaction times, but the other part of the equation is predicting how much a vehicle should slow down in any given situation in order to reduce braking time. The parent was talking about looking at a fairly complicated scene and making a decision about reducing their speed so that they could stop more quickly if it becomes necessary. We all know that there's a big difference between driving by a child playing aimlessly and somebody walking predictably on a sidewalk. It's much more difficult for an automated system to make these sort of predictions than it is for them to react quickly to emergency situations. My guess is that automated driving systems will have to err on the side of caution and that this will result in seemingly (to the passenger) unnecessary slow-downs. I don't personally think that this is a huge problem, but it's fair to say that reaction time is only one one of several significant factors in avoiding accidents.

codebolt 9y ago
> My guess is that automated driving systems will have to err on the side of caution and that this will result in seemingly (to the passenger) unnecessary slow-downs. How are you expecting to be able to regulate implementation specific details like this across the industry? How would you enforce entirely requirements like this? If it's left to invisible hand of the market I would assume that the demand would be higher for cars with more aggressive driving styles, that will get you from A to B faster.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
A computer can compute that the maximum expected velocity of that child-looking object on the sidewalk is min(hardcoded maximum velocity of a human, maximum observed velocity), and use that in order to quickly calculate whether or not it will have enough time to break, assuming the child-like object suddenly starts moving straight towards the road with maximum velocity. Unless you expect rocket-propelled children being launched from the sidewalk, that's pretty much it. (Of course the actual implementation within the entire system will be more complicated, but my point is - a computer can precisely compute what a human tends to intuit.)
- mike-cardwell 9y ago
  That sounds like it would end up with us having a situation where every time there is a human on the path, the car needs to slow down to 5mph in case it decides to jump out into the road. A human can tell if there is something going on at the side of the road that might make the human jump into the road. Machines are nowhere near being able to understand the context of many situations that allow humans to predict these things.

by foob 9y ago

codebolt 9y ago

> My guess is that automated driving systems will have to err on the side of caution and that this will result in seemingly (to the passenger) unnecessary slow-downs. How are you expecting to be able to regulate implementation specific details like this across the industry? How would you enforce entirely requirements like this? If it's left to invisible hand of the market I would assume that the demand would be higher for cars with more aggressive driving styles, that will get you from A to B faster.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

A computer can compute that the maximum expected velocity of that child-looking object on the sidewalk is min(hardcoded maximum velocity of a human, maximum observed velocity), and use that in order to quickly calculate whether or not it will have enough time to break, assuming the child-like object suddenly starts moving straight towards the road with maximum velocity. Unless you expect rocket-propelled children being launched from the sidewalk, that's pretty much it. (Of course the actual implementation within the entire system will be more complicated, but my point is - a computer can precisely compute what a human tends to intuit.)

mike-cardwell 9y ago
That sounds like it would end up with us having a situation where every time there is a human on the path, the car needs to slow down to 5mph in case it decides to jump out into the road. A human can tell if there is something going on at the side of the road that might make the human jump into the road. Machines are nowhere near being able to understand the context of many situations that allow humans to predict these things.