4 ms·

> anything except perfection in self driving cars will lead to more accidents. Only if perfection is defined as "statistically better than humans". I do agree

by burke 9y ago

> anything except perfection in self driving cars will lead to more accidents. Only if perfection is defined as "statistically better than humans". I do agree that these "assistive" technologies have the potential to do more harm than good, but the bar is actually far lower than "perfection".

bigiain 9y ago
I wonder what the "deaths per vehicle miles" stats for autonomous vs human-piloted cars look like right now? Humans kill, what, 30,000 other humans a year or so in The US? But there's a _lot_ of vehicle miles driven. My guess is this one incident has likely pushed the autonomous car death rate per vehicle mile way beyond the current human piloted death rate per vehicle mile... (Having said that, there's not much doubt in my mind that stuff like antilock brakes and autonomous emergency braking have reduced the road toll (and will reduce it further as these recent-ish technology become more common i the aged vehicle fleet) - I think the difference there is then those technologies are not nearly so inclined to make driver pay less attention to what's going on around them. I _hope_ people don't think "It's OK, I've got emergency braking - I'll just watch this tv show as I drive to work!")
- cmac2992 9y ago
  This is the exact reason why we need Nationwide disclosures of automous miles driven. California requires this stat, so it's data is the most telling. California .92 deaths per 100 million (human)vehicle miles traveled. There were only 500k autonomous miles driven in California last year. I'd bet your guess about death rate per mile is right considering waymo which has largest and most advanced fleet only drove 2 million miles nationwide last year.
  - slg 9y ago
    Does Tesla's autopilot count as autonomous? There has been one confirmed death in what is likely over half a billion miles of autopilot usage. That would seem to tip the rate back in favor of the autonomous cars over humans.
    - cmac2992 9y ago
      Autopilot does not count. I'm assuming it's because it requires people to be actively engaged in the task of driving and it only works in very specific situations. Tesla reported 0 miles of autonomous driving in CA on public roads last year.
    - newman8r 9y ago
      it's pretty amazing nobody died in this tesla crash in January http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/technology/tesla-fire-truck-crash/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/technology/tesla-fire-truck-... slammed into a parked fire truck going 65 miles per hour the solid construction of the vehicles may be compensating for shortcomings in the driver assist features.
  - vilhelm_s 9y ago
    I think Waymo is claiming 5 million miles in total, and Uber 2 million miles. [1] https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-reaches-5-million-self-driven-miles-61fba590fafe https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-reaches-5-million-self-driven... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-2-million-miles https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- ec109685 9y ago
  You can’t extrapolate off of one death. The 10th time you flip a coin, it could land on its side.
- nolemurs 9y ago
  If one incident can reverse your conclusion then the sample size isn't large enough to draw that conclusion. With only one death, the only conclusions you could reasonably reach from statistics are either "we don't know yet" or "we've gone so many miles with only one death that we know it's safe enough." There's no reasonable way to argue from the stats that we know it's not safe.
romeoEtJoliet 9y ago
There have been studies that indicate that these sorts of technology (lane keeping/departure warning, auto-brake, blind spot detection) help reduce collisions. Personally, I don't think that it's right to dismiss these systems entirely if they provide some level of safety benefit, are cheaper and easier than level 5 autonomous vehicles to develop and / or deploy. > http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/stay-within-the-lines-lane-departure-warning-blind-spot-detection-help-drivers-avoid-trouble http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/stay-within-the-li...
- cmac2992 9y ago
  I wonder if there'd be a meaningful difference in accident rates when perception of a the cars capabilities change. "My car will jump in if I fuck up"(current driver aides) seems a lot different than "I have to jump in if my car fucks up".
voussoir 9y ago
There was an excellent comment by curveship on the thread the other day [0] that really stuck with me so I want to parrot it a bit: > Our car-based transportation system is far and away the most dangerous thing any of us accept doing on a daily basis ... everyone on the jury has in the back of their mind "that could have been me" > drivers don't get punished for doing something dangerous, ... They get punished for doing something more dangerous than the norm. > self-driving cars don't just have to be safer than human drivers to be free of liability, they need to be safe period. In a trial, they don't benefit from the default "could have been me" defense. You are obviously correct that a "statistically better than humans" vehicle is an improvement over what we currently have. But this is the kind of technically correct answer that doesn't actually resonate with people, especially those outside of tech. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16624910 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16624910

by burke 9y ago

bigiain 9y ago

I wonder what the "deaths per vehicle miles" stats for autonomous vs human-piloted cars look like right now? Humans kill, what, 30,000 other humans a year or so in The US? But there's a _lot_ of vehicle miles driven. My guess is this one incident has likely pushed the autonomous car death rate per vehicle mile way beyond the current human piloted death rate per vehicle mile... (Having said that, there's not much doubt in my mind that stuff like antilock brakes and autonomous emergency braking have reduced the road toll (and will reduce it further as these recent-ish technology become more common i the aged vehicle fleet) - I think the difference there is then those technologies are not nearly so inclined to make driver pay less attention to what's going on around them. I _hope_ people don't think "It's OK, I've got emergency braking - I'll just watch this tv show as I drive to work!")

cmac2992 9y ago
This is the exact reason why we need Nationwide disclosures of automous miles driven. California requires this stat, so it's data is the most telling. California .92 deaths per 100 million (human)vehicle miles traveled. There were only 500k autonomous miles driven in California last year. I'd bet your guess about death rate per mile is right considering waymo which has largest and most advanced fleet only drove 2 million miles nationwide last year.
- slg 9y ago
  Does Tesla's autopilot count as autonomous? There has been one confirmed death in what is likely over half a billion miles of autopilot usage. That would seem to tip the rate back in favor of the autonomous cars over humans.
  - cmac2992 9y ago
    Autopilot does not count. I'm assuming it's because it requires people to be actively engaged in the task of driving and it only works in very specific situations. Tesla reported 0 miles of autonomous driving in CA on public roads last year.
  - newman8r 9y ago
    it's pretty amazing nobody died in this tesla crash in January http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/technology/tesla-fire-truck-crash/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/technology/tesla-fire-truck-... slammed into a parked fire truck going 65 miles per hour the solid construction of the vehicles may be compensating for shortcomings in the driver assist features.
- vilhelm_s 9y ago
  I think Waymo is claiming 5 million miles in total, and Uber 2 million miles. [1] https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-reaches-5-million-self-driven-miles-61fba590fafe https://medium.com/waymo/waymo-reaches-5-million-self-driven... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-2-million-miles https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
ec109685 9y ago
You can’t extrapolate off of one death. The 10th time you flip a coin, it could land on its side.
nolemurs 9y ago
If one incident can reverse your conclusion then the sample size isn't large enough to draw that conclusion. With only one death, the only conclusions you could reasonably reach from statistics are either "we don't know yet" or "we've gone so many miles with only one death that we know it's safe enough." There's no reasonable way to argue from the stats that we know it's not safe.

romeoEtJoliet 9y ago

There have been studies that indicate that these sorts of technology (lane keeping/departure warning, auto-brake, blind spot detection) help reduce collisions. Personally, I don't think that it's right to dismiss these systems entirely if they provide some level of safety benefit, are cheaper and easier than level 5 autonomous vehicles to develop and / or deploy. > http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/stay-within-the-lines-lane-departure-warning-blind-spot-detection-help-drivers-avoid-trouble http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/stay-within-the-li...

cmac2992 9y ago
I wonder if there'd be a meaningful difference in accident rates when perception of a the cars capabilities change. "My car will jump in if I fuck up"(current driver aides) seems a lot different than "I have to jump in if my car fucks up".

voussoir 9y ago

There was an excellent comment by curveship on the thread the other day [0] that really stuck with me so I want to parrot it a bit: > Our car-based transportation system is far and away the most dangerous thing any of us accept doing on a daily basis ... everyone on the jury has in the back of their mind "that could have been me" > drivers don't get punished for doing something dangerous, ... They get punished for doing something more dangerous than the norm. > self-driving cars don't just have to be safer than human drivers to be free of liability, they need to be safe period. In a trial, they don't benefit from the default "could have been me" defense. You are obviously correct that a "statistically better than humans" vehicle is an improvement over what we currently have. But this is the kind of technically correct answer that doesn't actually resonate with people, especially those outside of tech. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16624910 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16624910