4 ms·

In my mind this accident is on Uber no matter how you interpret the video. Scenario 1: Lets say the pedestrian was visible to the naked eye and sensors. The mo

In my mind this accident is on Uber no matter how you interpret the video. Scenario 1: Lets say the pedestrian was visible to the naked eye and sensors. The model and safety operator still didn't "see" her and act in time. Who to blame? Uber. Scenario 2: The lighting and environment was in a condition where neither the model nor the safety operator could see the road more than 10 feet in front of the car, yet neither thought it to be irresponsible to go at full speed. Who to blame? Uber. I believe that: 1. The sensors should have detected the pedestrian from far away even if the lighting was bad at the time. I mean that's sort of the point with autonomous vehicles, that they are better at perceiving their surroundings and can make better decisions on how to act quicker than any human could. 2. The safety operators are not engaged enough in their tasks to be effective. I think people underestimate how boring it must have a job where 99% of the time you should do absolutely nothing other than stare straight ahead and be ready for a situation like this. This problem is hard to solve. Maybe we should be training the model on closed tracks and only release on the real roads when it passes some sort of test where it is put through various scenarios. Like a driving instructor for AIs. For those of you who think the pedestrian is to blame. I agree that the pedestrian might have made a bad decision by expecting the cars to brake, however these situations occur all the time. She didn't dart across the road or jump in front of the car suddenly. Yesterday I helped an elderly guy across 4 lanes of traffic which took about 1 minute. All you can do in that situation is to hope you are visible to the drivers and that they will stop before running you over.

yaps8 9y ago
This. Many people comment that the lighting is poor and that a human might understand what's happening too late. This is debatable and misses the point: if visibility is bad, you (and it applies with full force to automated drivers) should reduce your speed accordingly, maybe with the exception of freeways where you are not expected to encounter pedestrians.
- singingboyo 9y ago
  > maybe with the exception of freeways where you are not expected to encounter pedestrians. Freeways require you to reduce speed in those cases as well, possibly even more so. This is pretty well demonstrated by the pileups that occur every winter, and similar (if rarer) incidents caused by dense fog or similar. Pileups at freeway speeds are much worse than the 2, maybe 3 car crashes that occur on city streets. Yes, there's no pedestrians, but one person hitting a pothole or large puddle and spinning out is all it takes to get a pileup if you're not careful.
icc97 9y ago
I think we should be able to transfer the guidelines that apply to train drivers. There they spend hours and hours on end doing practically nothing and certainly not steering. However I'm guessing that the Uber test drivers don't get paid anywhere near as much as a train driver or given the same kind of training.
PunchTornado 9y ago
Why on uber? It should be on the driver. That driver kept looking down almost the whole time. He is not employed to watch movies or something else. If he needs to watch some data then maybe 2 of them should be there.
- JohannesH 9y ago
  It is entirely too easy for companies to hire poor people and call them "safeguards" with no regulation. I'll put my money on that the "safeguards" are poorly paid, poorly trained, over worked, and that the Uber are disregarding the many studies showing how incapable people are at doing a job like this (i.e. never ending monotonous surveillance interrupted by intense split second decisions). Come on, Uber implemented this system and put people in harms way, and their "safeguards" are not working and they should know that and take responsibility for that.

yaps8 9y ago

This. Many people comment that the lighting is poor and that a human might understand what's happening too late. This is debatable and misses the point: if visibility is bad, you (and it applies with full force to automated drivers) should reduce your speed accordingly, maybe with the exception of freeways where you are not expected to encounter pedestrians.

singingboyo 9y ago
> maybe with the exception of freeways where you are not expected to encounter pedestrians. Freeways require you to reduce speed in those cases as well, possibly even more so. This is pretty well demonstrated by the pileups that occur every winter, and similar (if rarer) incidents caused by dense fog or similar. Pileups at freeway speeds are much worse than the 2, maybe 3 car crashes that occur on city streets. Yes, there's no pedestrians, but one person hitting a pothole or large puddle and spinning out is all it takes to get a pileup if you're not careful.

icc97 9y ago

I think we should be able to transfer the guidelines that apply to train drivers. There they spend hours and hours on end doing practically nothing and certainly not steering. However I'm guessing that the Uber test drivers don't get paid anywhere near as much as a train driver or given the same kind of training.

PunchTornado 9y ago

Why on uber? It should be on the driver. That driver kept looking down almost the whole time. He is not employed to watch movies or something else. If he needs to watch some data then maybe 2 of them should be there.

JohannesH 9y ago
It is entirely too easy for companies to hire poor people and call them "safeguards" with no regulation. I'll put my money on that the "safeguards" are poorly paid, poorly trained, over worked, and that the Uber are disregarding the many studies showing how incapable people are at doing a job like this (i.e. never ending monotonous surveillance interrupted by intense split second decisions). Come on, Uber implemented this system and put people in harms way, and their "safeguards" are not working and they should know that and take responsibility for that.