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I think you might be confusing "defensively" with perfectly. There are situations even defensive driving cannot prevent. For example, any car going 35 mph will

I think you might be confusing "defensively" with perfectly. There are situations even defensive driving cannot prevent. For example, any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. Defensive driving just accounts for one's surroundings and likely outcomes. Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe.

hnaccy 9y ago
>Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe. One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that.
- invisible 9y ago
  I wonder what the margin of error is on that one in 4 million rate since the sample size is one. Also of note: > Arizona has experienced a surge of pedestrian fatalities recently, with more than 10 in a single week of March in Phoenix alone. The state has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the United States.
  - ajb 9y ago
    The sample size is not one. The sample size is 4 million. The 5% and 95% quantiles of the posterior are roughly one in 11 million and one in 800,000.
- w0utert 9y ago
  >> One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that. And this is considering the fatality rate for all human drivers, including those that are drunk, playing on their smartphone, sleepy, speeding, street racing, etc. I would not be surprised if those cases account for a very sizable majority of fatal car accidents. Now imagine you would reduce those numbers by relatively simple measures that don't involve AI. Let the car enforce speed limits, mandate smartphone companies to have a 'car mode' that cannot be shut off, mandate attention tracking capabilities for cars, dead-zone indicators, automatic emergency braking, etc. Maybe even mandate an alcohol lock, or at the very least a black box that records driving behavior so it can be analyzed in case of a crash, with sever penalties after the fact if the black box shows signs of drunk driving, etc. The list of things you can do to improve road safety without requiring AI cars is endless, yet billions are invested in trying to fully automate driving. This just shows that self-driving cars are not about safety, but purely about business opportunities.
  - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
    And conversely, those 4 million miles will (presumably) be highly biased to safe/above-standard driving conditions. As you've basically said, the human stats include all the very worst drivers in the full range of driving conditions, whereas the auto-cars not only have the very best driving conditions, but likely also have the statistical benefit of a likely number of cases where the human actually stepped in and upped the auto-car score even further (since we can't account for the auto-car deaths/fatalities that humans have successfully stepped in and stopped).
    - w0utert 9y ago
      Yes, so far the statistics we have about the safety of AI cars are mostly meaningless to say anything useful about how they would scale if applied universally. Another thing that bothers me is how often the argument 'human drivers are terrible, far worse than computers for situations A, B, C, etc' is used to suggest that AI systems will improve road safety. I will be the first to admit that many people are terrible drivers, they make mistakes, don't pay enough attention, don't obey traffic laws, have bad reaction times, etc, no argument there. But so far I have never seen any statistics about how many of the accidents caused by these kinds of human failures actually lead to fatalities. Taking the human out of the equation could in theory improve all kinds of car accidents, but how many would be just fender-benders as opposed to road fatalities? It's not like it is super-easy to accidentally cause a fatal road accident, and everyone knows one or more people who were involved in one. Who can prove that AI cars will not decrease the total number of accidents of any kind, but increase the kinds of accidents with fatalities, like this one with the Uber car? Maybe human drivers, with all their faults, would have avoided this particular accident by driving more defensively or using social cues to be more prepared for this woman crossing the street? I'm not trying to make an argument about the viability of AI cars that are safer than humans here by the way. I personally don't believe AI cars will ever be safer overall than humans in all possible situations that people drive in, but that's a different discussion. What bugs me is that suddenly it seems as if the whole world is willing to bend over backwards to interpret statistics about the presumed safety of AI cars in the most favorable way possible, and at the same time ignore all these relatively simple things that could actually improve safety right now, at much lower costs than developing fully autonomous cars.
Cybiote 9y ago
An important observation is that the probability of death drops very rapidly with drops in speed. A rough calculation shows that at 38 mph and a near instant reaction (as a robot should) would within ~1 second of applied breaking force, allow going from a ~70% chance of death to ~5%. A very rough calculation: v(t) = -μgt + v_0. To reach 32 kph or 20 mph, t ~= 0.82/μ, guessing a fair μ=0.8 and the chart here https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle...
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  Except if the speed limit is 35, you need to drive 35. You can't drive 25 just to be more "defensive", that will get you a ticket.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Typically, no. There are some municipalities and areas of road where there is a minimum speed limit, but in the US, those are very rare. Granted, a law enforcement officer has wide jurisdiction to determine if you are 'safe' to drive and a low speed may become unsafe. But they are unlikely to ticket you and are more likely to try to help you out. Driving under the speed limit may be annoying, but it is nearly-universally not illegal.
    - DoTheNeedful 9y ago
      > Typically, no. Typically it will get you pulled over. Obstructing the flow of traffic is a thing.
    - 1812Overture 9y ago
      It's actually more dangerous as it forces other cars to change lanes to get around you.
      - galdosdi 9y ago
InclinedPlane 9y ago
I think you might not be familiar with the concept of defensive driving. Defensive driving means slowing down and paying more attention in areas of low visibility, especially if there are likely pedestrian crossings. It means increasing your following distance. It means increasing the odds that even if something unlikely happens you, the driver, will still be in a better position to react, or you will be less likely to cause harm. It's not about prevention, it's about risk management and harm reduction. This is definitely something that is likely to be difficult to teach to autonomous systems.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  > This is definitely something that is likely to be difficult to teach to autonomous systems. Why? What you listed seem like conditions that should be easy enough to recognize even with simple algorithms.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Yup. An algorithm should be in much better position to recognize its confidence about what it sees and can happen, and alter the driving speed to reduce the amount of uncertain spots that fall within its stopping range. That is, unless they use neural network magic black boxes to implement the self-driving part.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      >That is, unless they use neural network magic black boxes to implement the self-driving part. Is this actually done? I thought neural networks were more or less used for the vision system to detect parts of the scene (pedestrians, stop-signs, etc). This is the only area where to me it makes sense to take the blackbox tadeoff right now.
      - rcxdude 9y ago
        Neural nets are also likely to be used to model the behavior of other road users (i.e. 'how is this car/pedestrian/etc likely to move in the next few seconds'?). No-one seems to be seriously considering an end-to-end neural network (i.e. inputs are sensors, outputs are throttle and steering wheel), but neural nets are pervasive components of the full system.
freyir 9y ago
> any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. It seems like you're working pretty hard to justify this woman's death. She was apparently walking her bicycle through an intersection. Did she grab her bike and jump directly in front of the car? Maybe, but let's not jump to assumptions. > it seems the algorithm is pretty safe It ran at least six red lights in San Francisco and would apparently swerve into the bike lane when making turns, now it's killed a pedestrian. It just doesn't seem that good. How many similar incidents have you heard about with Waymo? They've driven more than twice as many miles in city streets.
- kwillets 9y ago
  I agree but one nitpick: merging into the bike lane before a right turn is the correct maneuver.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    At least in some jurisdictions. I remember seeing articles about Uber getting in trouble for doing this in jurisdictions where it is not the correct behavior and for not doing it in jurisdictions where it is the correct behavior.
  - freyir 9y ago
    "Rather than merging into bike lanes early to make right-hand turns, as per California state law, the Uber vehicle reportedly pulled across the bike lanes at the last second, risking collisions with oncoming cyclists" https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14020720/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lane-problem https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14020720/uber-self-drivi...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
galdosdi 9y ago
Judging based on anecdotal feelings, you find that it "seems the algorithm is pretty safe" But if you looked at the data (just numbers I've seen repeated a lot in this thread, heh), you'd find Uber's achieved 1 fatality after only around a couple million miles of driving. The average human being goes a hundred million miles between fatalities. Not a lot of data but so far Uber looks 50 times more dangerous than an average human driver. They have a lot of catching up to do

hnaccy 9y ago

>Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe. One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that.

invisible 9y ago
I wonder what the margin of error is on that one in 4 million rate since the sample size is one. Also of note: > Arizona has experienced a surge of pedestrian fatalities recently, with more than 10 in a single week of March in Phoenix alone. The state has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the United States.
- ajb 9y ago
  The sample size is not one. The sample size is 4 million. The 5% and 95% quantiles of the posterior are roughly one in 11 million and one in 800,000.
w0utert 9y ago
>> One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that. And this is considering the fatality rate for all human drivers, including those that are drunk, playing on their smartphone, sleepy, speeding, street racing, etc. I would not be surprised if those cases account for a very sizable majority of fatal car accidents. Now imagine you would reduce those numbers by relatively simple measures that don't involve AI. Let the car enforce speed limits, mandate smartphone companies to have a 'car mode' that cannot be shut off, mandate attention tracking capabilities for cars, dead-zone indicators, automatic emergency braking, etc. Maybe even mandate an alcohol lock, or at the very least a black box that records driving behavior so it can be analyzed in case of a crash, with sever penalties after the fact if the black box shows signs of drunk driving, etc. The list of things you can do to improve road safety without requiring AI cars is endless, yet billions are invested in trying to fully automate driving. This just shows that self-driving cars are not about safety, but purely about business opportunities.
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  And conversely, those 4 million miles will (presumably) be highly biased to safe/above-standard driving conditions. As you've basically said, the human stats include all the very worst drivers in the full range of driving conditions, whereas the auto-cars not only have the very best driving conditions, but likely also have the statistical benefit of a likely number of cases where the human actually stepped in and upped the auto-car score even further (since we can't account for the auto-car deaths/fatalities that humans have successfully stepped in and stopped).
  - w0utert 9y ago
    Yes, so far the statistics we have about the safety of AI cars are mostly meaningless to say anything useful about how they would scale if applied universally. Another thing that bothers me is how often the argument 'human drivers are terrible, far worse than computers for situations A, B, C, etc' is used to suggest that AI systems will improve road safety. I will be the first to admit that many people are terrible drivers, they make mistakes, don't pay enough attention, don't obey traffic laws, have bad reaction times, etc, no argument there. But so far I have never seen any statistics about how many of the accidents caused by these kinds of human failures actually lead to fatalities. Taking the human out of the equation could in theory improve all kinds of car accidents, but how many would be just fender-benders as opposed to road fatalities? It's not like it is super-easy to accidentally cause a fatal road accident, and everyone knows one or more people who were involved in one. Who can prove that AI cars will not decrease the total number of accidents of any kind, but increase the kinds of accidents with fatalities, like this one with the Uber car? Maybe human drivers, with all their faults, would have avoided this particular accident by driving more defensively or using social cues to be more prepared for this woman crossing the street? I'm not trying to make an argument about the viability of AI cars that are safer than humans here by the way. I personally don't believe AI cars will ever be safer overall than humans in all possible situations that people drive in, but that's a different discussion. What bugs me is that suddenly it seems as if the whole world is willing to bend over backwards to interpret statistics about the presumed safety of AI cars in the most favorable way possible, and at the same time ignore all these relatively simple things that could actually improve safety right now, at much lower costs than developing fully autonomous cars.

Cybiote 9y ago

An important observation is that the probability of death drops very rapidly with drops in speed. A rough calculation shows that at 38 mph and a near instant reaction (as a robot should) would within ~1 second of applied breaking force, allow going from a ~70% chance of death to ~5%. A very rough calculation: v(t) = -μgt + v_0. To reach 32 kph or 20 mph, t ~= 0.82/μ, guessing a fair μ=0.8 and the chart here https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle...

sol_remmy 9y ago
Except if the speed limit is 35, you need to drive 35. You can't drive 25 just to be more "defensive", that will get you a ticket.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Typically, no. There are some municipalities and areas of road where there is a minimum speed limit, but in the US, those are very rare. Granted, a law enforcement officer has wide jurisdiction to determine if you are 'safe' to drive and a low speed may become unsafe. But they are unlikely to ticket you and are more likely to try to help you out. Driving under the speed limit may be annoying, but it is nearly-universally not illegal.
  - DoTheNeedful 9y ago
    > Typically, no. Typically it will get you pulled over. Obstructing the flow of traffic is a thing.
  - 1812Overture 9y ago
    It's actually more dangerous as it forces other cars to change lanes to get around you.
    - galdosdi 9y ago

InclinedPlane 9y ago

I think you might not be familiar with the concept of defensive driving. Defensive driving means slowing down and paying more attention in areas of low visibility, especially if there are likely pedestrian crossings. It means increasing your following distance. It means increasing the odds that even if something unlikely happens you, the driver, will still be in a better position to react, or you will be less likely to cause harm. It's not about prevention, it's about risk management and harm reduction. This is definitely something that is likely to be difficult to teach to autonomous systems.

danmaz74 9y ago
> This is definitely something that is likely to be difficult to teach to autonomous systems. Why? What you listed seem like conditions that should be easy enough to recognize even with simple algorithms.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Yup. An algorithm should be in much better position to recognize its confidence about what it sees and can happen, and alter the driving speed to reduce the amount of uncertain spots that fall within its stopping range. That is, unless they use neural network magic black boxes to implement the self-driving part.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    >That is, unless they use neural network magic black boxes to implement the self-driving part. Is this actually done? I thought neural networks were more or less used for the vision system to detect parts of the scene (pedestrians, stop-signs, etc). This is the only area where to me it makes sense to take the blackbox tadeoff right now.
    - rcxdude 9y ago
      Neural nets are also likely to be used to model the behavior of other road users (i.e. 'how is this car/pedestrian/etc likely to move in the next few seconds'?). No-one seems to be seriously considering an end-to-end neural network (i.e. inputs are sensors, outputs are throttle and steering wheel), but neural nets are pervasive components of the full system.

freyir 9y ago

> any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. It seems like you're working pretty hard to justify this woman's death. She was apparently walking her bicycle through an intersection. Did she grab her bike and jump directly in front of the car? Maybe, but let's not jump to assumptions. > it seems the algorithm is pretty safe It ran at least six red lights in San Francisco and would apparently swerve into the bike lane when making turns, now it's killed a pedestrian. It just doesn't seem that good. How many similar incidents have you heard about with Waymo? They've driven more than twice as many miles in city streets.

kwillets 9y ago
I agree but one nitpick: merging into the bike lane before a right turn is the correct maneuver.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  At least in some jurisdictions. I remember seeing articles about Uber getting in trouble for doing this in jurisdictions where it is not the correct behavior and for not doing it in jurisdictions where it is the correct behavior.
- freyir 9y ago
  "Rather than merging into bike lanes early to make right-hand turns, as per California state law, the Uber vehicle reportedly pulled across the bike lanes at the last second, risking collisions with oncoming cyclists" https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14020720/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lane-problem https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14020720/uber-self-drivi...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

galdosdi 9y ago

Judging based on anecdotal feelings, you find that it "seems the algorithm is pretty safe" But if you looked at the data (just numbers I've seen repeated a lot in this thread, heh), you'd find Uber's achieved 1 fatality after only around a couple million miles of driving. The average human being goes a hundred million miles between fatalities. Not a lot of data but so far Uber looks 50 times more dangerous than an average human driver. They have a lot of catching up to do