6 ms·

On purpose to protect something "more valuable," or on accident?

cek 9y ago
There's an old saying around gun owners: "There's no such thing as a firearms accident. Only negligence." I think the same thing applies to autonomous things.
- si1entstill 9y ago
  I feel that this sentiment could be applied to almost anything and isn't really meaningful. Almost every accident ever could be attributed to negligence somewhere.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    I try pretty hard to refer to "vehicle collisions" and things like that instead of "car accidents". So yeah.
  - SllX 9y ago
    I think the point here is a firearm in particular is designed to project deadly force and should be treated as such. If someone "accidentally" shoots someone, it means they were negligent in their treatment of the instrument in their hand. Autonomous vehicles are expected to be able to safely navigate a large variety of streets and highways, and possibly trails and countryside in the future, without killing anybody else around or killing the people inside, nor destroying the fixtures and buildings that make up your typical city street. The only problem is cars are inherently deadly, go look up the number of people that have died in automobile "accidents" since the automobile was invented, total it up for just one country. They need to be treated with and afforded the same respect as any other instrument intended to project deadly force, because they do, as do whatever algorithms are controlling the instrument.
- jaxbot 9y ago
  In NYC the urbanists have a trend of saying "crash" instead of "accident" when referring to traffic collisions. They feel that "accident" gives the driver too much credit in situations where they were completely at fault for not looking, going too fast, running a light, etc.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > In NYC the urbanists have a trend of saying "crash" instead of "accident" when referring to traffic collisions. Everyone I've known in law enforcement, especially CHP officers, does this by default (though they tend to prefer “collision”) when referring to an event where a car hit something. As one of them explained, “collision” or “crash” is a readily discernable physical fact; “accident” is a conclusion about the mental state of the participants.
  - gowld 9y ago
    Which by the way is idiotic. Last century, people switched from "crash" to "accident" for exactly the same reason -- to shift liability from the machine to the operator. IT's a nonsensical euphemism treadmill. The idea that an "accident" isn't the drivers false is an absurd premise. Drivers are obligated to be diligent. "Crash" is a neutral term that doesn't assign liability to anyone.
- neon_electro 9y ago
  Agreed; more generally, there's a movement to avoid calling these incidents "crashes" instead of "accidents", since it's arguable that crashes are avoidable: https://www.crashnotaccident.com/ https://www.crashnotaccident.com/
  - gowld 9y ago
    Accidents are avoidable. Legislating euphemisms is feelgood nonsense.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y ago
  I agree completely. Here, there's perhaps negligence of the system, and the driver that was supposed to be overriding it in situations like this.
- jakelazaroff 9y ago
  This is a dumb saying that ignores the fact that humans are fallible beings who make mistakes. Sure, you might shoot yourself because you're just careless with your gun. Or you might be also thinking of an argument you had with your spouse, or you might be tired when you're handling your everyday carry on your way to work, or you might get startled, or a million and one other things that might prevent you from singly focusing your attention the gun you're handling. Machines exist to serve us, not the other way around. If a product doesn't take human habits and flaws into account, it's a bad product, because over a large enough sample size someone will make a mistake.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    > This is a dumb saying that ignores the fact that humans are fallible beings who make mistakes. It's not, because the basic rules of gun handling are designed in such a way that failing to obey one of them will not result in injury. They are: * Never point a gun at anything you don't wish to destroy * Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire * Always assume the gun is loaded * Know your target and what's beyond it. > Machines exist to serve us, not the other way around. If a product doesn't take human habits and flaws into account, it's a bad product, because over a large enough sample size someone will make a mistake. Modern firearms are absolutely designed to this criteria - it takes a willful act to discharge them. If someone "mistakenly" fires a gun and hits someone, it requires multiple failures and clearly rises to the point of negligence.
    - jakelazaroff 9y ago
      As long as you follow the basic rules of car safety, you won't crash. Stay within the speed limit, be aware of your surroundings, keep a safe distance from the car in front of you, signal 100 feet before a turn. Unless someone else doesn't follow the basic rules of car safety! You know what system we've come up with to improve car safety that has only one rule to remember? Always wear your seatbelt. You know what we've come up with that requires zero effort from the driver? Laminated glass. Crumple zones. Airbags. Automatic braking. This isn't about whether people use a product negligently — put it in enough hands and it will happen. The point is to design products such that the consequence of negligence is not injury or death.
xexers 9y ago
Forgive me, I don't understand what you mean. Please elaborate.
- bennyg 9y ago
  They're basically asking if the car avoided doing something that would have been more destructive (e.g not hitting 2 people but only hitting one person instead). Or if there was no conflict decision making that happened and the car accidentally ran into the person and it resulted in a fatality. - AI decides between one life lost as a better potential outcome - AI made no decision and just happened to hurt someone
- delete2 9y ago
  Please don't, he's going to launch into some philosophical dilemma that's not relevant because these cars aren't making decisions.
  - xexers 9y ago
    No, I'm not going to do that. I just didnt know what they meant.
- hughes 9y ago
  I think it's a reference to the imaginary trolley problem, which is often raised as an objection to self-driving capability. The idea is that making a decision between killing one person vs killing something more valuable than one person (eg. multiple people) is something that drivers do on a regular basis. Computers may not be capable of correctly evaluating the ethics of that decision.
- suresk 9y ago
  One of the most oft-discussed questions around self-driving cars is what should happen if your car can choose between two options: 1) An action that will have a better chance of protecting the people inside the car, 2) An action that will protect people outside of the car, with a whole bunch of variations. For example - What if someone steps out into the road and you can either hit them, or run into a wall? The former makes it far more likely the occupants of the car will be safe, the latter saves the life of a pedestrian at the expense of possible injury to people in the car. It is kind of an interesting question, because people can't generally react quickly and rationally enough in a situation like that for it to matter, but in theory, a computer can. But it also dominates the discussion in a way that likely far overstates how frequently this will actually be a decision a computer has to make. I think that is what the person you're replying to is asking. Given that this occurred at night and on (very likely) uncrowded streets, I feel like its far more likely the car (and backup driver) just somehow missed the pedestrian.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
toofy 9y ago
Yeah, it will be interesting to see if this was an intentional (algorithmic) response or a failure of sensors somewhere. I go back and forth with thinking the algorithms in things like self-driving cars should be public. Anything which must make a choice such as smash into bus or smash into bicycle — the public should be aware of the choices the company chooses to implement. Obviously this example is simplistic but it illustrates my point. Today I’m definitely leaning towards it should be public and scrutinized. Next month I may be worried this would hamper progress.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure everyone involved and observing also vacillate between those two mindsets. Regardless, events like this will likely hamper progress.

cek 9y ago

There's an old saying around gun owners: "There's no such thing as a firearms accident. Only negligence." I think the same thing applies to autonomous things.

si1entstill 9y ago
I feel that this sentiment could be applied to almost anything and isn't really meaningful. Almost every accident ever could be attributed to negligence somewhere.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I try pretty hard to refer to "vehicle collisions" and things like that instead of "car accidents". So yeah.
- SllX 9y ago
  I think the point here is a firearm in particular is designed to project deadly force and should be treated as such. If someone "accidentally" shoots someone, it means they were negligent in their treatment of the instrument in their hand. Autonomous vehicles are expected to be able to safely navigate a large variety of streets and highways, and possibly trails and countryside in the future, without killing anybody else around or killing the people inside, nor destroying the fixtures and buildings that make up your typical city street. The only problem is cars are inherently deadly, go look up the number of people that have died in automobile "accidents" since the automobile was invented, total it up for just one country. They need to be treated with and afforded the same respect as any other instrument intended to project deadly force, because they do, as do whatever algorithms are controlling the instrument.
jaxbot 9y ago
In NYC the urbanists have a trend of saying "crash" instead of "accident" when referring to traffic collisions. They feel that "accident" gives the driver too much credit in situations where they were completely at fault for not looking, going too fast, running a light, etc.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > In NYC the urbanists have a trend of saying "crash" instead of "accident" when referring to traffic collisions. Everyone I've known in law enforcement, especially CHP officers, does this by default (though they tend to prefer “collision”) when referring to an event where a car hit something. As one of them explained, “collision” or “crash” is a readily discernable physical fact; “accident” is a conclusion about the mental state of the participants.
- gowld 9y ago
  Which by the way is idiotic. Last century, people switched from "crash" to "accident" for exactly the same reason -- to shift liability from the machine to the operator. IT's a nonsensical euphemism treadmill. The idea that an "accident" isn't the drivers false is an absurd premise. Drivers are obligated to be diligent. "Crash" is a neutral term that doesn't assign liability to anyone.
neon_electro 9y ago
Agreed; more generally, there's a movement to avoid calling these incidents "crashes" instead of "accidents", since it's arguable that crashes are avoidable: https://www.crashnotaccident.com/ https://www.crashnotaccident.com/
- gowld 9y ago
  Accidents are avoidable. Legislating euphemisms is feelgood nonsense.
bitxbitxbitcoin 9y ago
I agree completely. Here, there's perhaps negligence of the system, and the driver that was supposed to be overriding it in situations like this.
jakelazaroff 9y ago
This is a dumb saying that ignores the fact that humans are fallible beings who make mistakes. Sure, you might shoot yourself because you're just careless with your gun. Or you might be also thinking of an argument you had with your spouse, or you might be tired when you're handling your everyday carry on your way to work, or you might get startled, or a million and one other things that might prevent you from singly focusing your attention the gun you're handling. Machines exist to serve us, not the other way around. If a product doesn't take human habits and flaws into account, it's a bad product, because over a large enough sample size someone will make a mistake.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > This is a dumb saying that ignores the fact that humans are fallible beings who make mistakes. It's not, because the basic rules of gun handling are designed in such a way that failing to obey one of them will not result in injury. They are: * Never point a gun at anything you don't wish to destroy * Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire * Always assume the gun is loaded * Know your target and what's beyond it. > Machines exist to serve us, not the other way around. If a product doesn't take human habits and flaws into account, it's a bad product, because over a large enough sample size someone will make a mistake. Modern firearms are absolutely designed to this criteria - it takes a willful act to discharge them. If someone "mistakenly" fires a gun and hits someone, it requires multiple failures and clearly rises to the point of negligence.
  - jakelazaroff 9y ago
    As long as you follow the basic rules of car safety, you won't crash. Stay within the speed limit, be aware of your surroundings, keep a safe distance from the car in front of you, signal 100 feet before a turn. Unless someone else doesn't follow the basic rules of car safety! You know what system we've come up with to improve car safety that has only one rule to remember? Always wear your seatbelt. You know what we've come up with that requires zero effort from the driver? Laminated glass. Crumple zones. Airbags. Automatic braking. This isn't about whether people use a product negligently — put it in enough hands and it will happen. The point is to design products such that the consequence of negligence is not injury or death.

xexers 9y ago

Forgive me, I don't understand what you mean. Please elaborate.

bennyg 9y ago
They're basically asking if the car avoided doing something that would have been more destructive (e.g not hitting 2 people but only hitting one person instead). Or if there was no conflict decision making that happened and the car accidentally ran into the person and it resulted in a fatality. - AI decides between one life lost as a better potential outcome - AI made no decision and just happened to hurt someone
delete2 9y ago
Please don't, he's going to launch into some philosophical dilemma that's not relevant because these cars aren't making decisions.
- xexers 9y ago
  No, I'm not going to do that. I just didnt know what they meant.
hughes 9y ago
I think it's a reference to the imaginary trolley problem, which is often raised as an objection to self-driving capability. The idea is that making a decision between killing one person vs killing something more valuable than one person (eg. multiple people) is something that drivers do on a regular basis. Computers may not be capable of correctly evaluating the ethics of that decision.
suresk 9y ago
One of the most oft-discussed questions around self-driving cars is what should happen if your car can choose between two options: 1) An action that will have a better chance of protecting the people inside the car, 2) An action that will protect people outside of the car, with a whole bunch of variations. For example - What if someone steps out into the road and you can either hit them, or run into a wall? The former makes it far more likely the occupants of the car will be safe, the latter saves the life of a pedestrian at the expense of possible injury to people in the car. It is kind of an interesting question, because people can't generally react quickly and rationally enough in a situation like that for it to matter, but in theory, a computer can. But it also dominates the discussion in a way that likely far overstates how frequently this will actually be a decision a computer has to make. I think that is what the person you're replying to is asking. Given that this occurred at night and on (very likely) uncrowded streets, I feel like its far more likely the car (and backup driver) just somehow missed the pedestrian.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

toofy 9y ago

Yeah, it will be interesting to see if this was an intentional (algorithmic) response or a failure of sensors somewhere. I go back and forth with thinking the algorithms in things like self-driving cars should be public. Anything which must make a choice such as smash into bus or smash into bicycle — the public should be aware of the choices the company chooses to implement. Obviously this example is simplistic but it illustrates my point. Today I’m definitely leaning towards it should be public and scrutinized. Next month I may be worried this would hamper progress.

bitxbitxbitcoin 9y ago
I'm pretty sure everyone involved and observing also vacillate between those two mindsets. Regardless, events like this will likely hamper progress.