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It would be much easier to countenance arguments that self driving cars will save us all if humans weren't such good drivers. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t

It would be much easier to countenance arguments that self driving cars will save us all if humans weren't such good drivers. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... In Massachussetts, the number of deaths per 100 million miles driven is 0.66. Those are the massholes. By contrast, it was reported that Uber required human intervention once in thirteen miles while Waymo required human intervention once every 5000+. Those are not directly comparable to fatality statistics because the interventions are also for things like avoiding disturbing events like hard braking, but they are still illustrative. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/leaked-data-suggests-uber-self-driving-car-program-years-behind-waymo/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/leaked-data-suggests-ub... Let those orders of magnitude sink in. The humans are driving in all weather conditions all over the country while self-driving cars are in (generally) sunny relatively controlled areas. Personally, I have hope that we can eventually beat humans, but these kinds of statistics call for a careful, deliberative introduction of this technology.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
So you think it's reasonable to compare the rates that humans not only get into crashes, but actually die (or kill) in crashes - to the rates that a human takes over for an early alpha tech version of self driving vehicles? Your stats not even remotely "illustrative" of anything other than what they say of the presenter.
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  This would be academic if someone hadn't actually died. I don't know the numbers, but I'm fairly sure that just tanked the self-driving stats pretty hard. EDIT: Also, consider what avoiding "hard braking", which was a large reason for human interventions iirc, actually means. It means either that the computer jams on the brakes hard for no reason or that it only realized it needed to brake substantially after a human would have realized the necessity. EDIT2: Uber had driven 3 million miles at the time of the death according to the below article. A single incident does not statistics make, but based on the NSTB analysis so far, that version of the software made a systematic error. That puts Uber's score at very handwavy 33.33 per 100 million miles. I'm sure the number will change with software revisions and just from random chance. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverles... EDIT3: I should mention that I was initially hesitant to compute this "statistic" because it's so raw and will wildly fluctuate. Interventions are more solid statistically. I don't think it's crazy for someone to look at a heavy box of metal that requires constant supervision to do the right thing and conclude in the absence of (appropriately) extensive testing that it's dangerous.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    And now you're just making up stuff. I'm shocked... Disengagements have absolutely nothing to do with "avoiding hard braking". Disengagement numbers and analysis are completely open you can find them here [1] along with the reasons, miles driven, etc. A disengagement is defined as, "a deactivation of the autonomous mode when a failure of the autonomous technology is detected or when the safe operation of the vehicle requires that the autonomous vehicle test driver disengage the autonomous mode and take immediate manual control of the vehicle." So for instance if the software is providing a buggy output and the car is stopped for debugging, recalibration, etc that counts as a disengagement. And that is indeed, by far, the most common occurrence. It's extremely rarely to actually avoid a crash - let alone your fixation with "hard braking." Some companies, such as Nvidia, specifically clarify that literally 0 of their disengagements (in their case out of 109) had anything to do with extraneous conditions such as road surface, construction, emergencies, etc. [1] - https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2017 https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...
    - jadedhacker 8y ago
      Hard braking was discussed in a news article I have read some time ago about Uber specifically. Your attitude is not helpful. The list you linked does not include Uber though it does include many others. Thanks for the link. EDIT: I'm looking at Waymo's totals, whom I consider to be a safer player than Uber. The data totals come from your link on their page 2 Table 2: Disengagements by Cause. The time period spans Dec. 2016 to Nov. 2017. Disengage for a recklessly behaving road user: 1 Disengage for hardware discrepancy: 13 Disengage for unwanted maneuver of the vehicle: 19 Disengage for a perception discrepancy: 16 Disengage for incorrect behavior prediction of other traffic participants: 5 Disengage for a software discrepancy: 9
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        News articles on this topic tend to be less than worthless - an increasingly typical state of affairs. In this case the reason is quite direct: people are scared of revolutionary technology, and especially self driving vehicles -- and nothing gets clicks like fear mongering. Don't believe everything you read, let alone parrot it. You'll also notice the paragraph in Waymo's report, which is typical: "Note that, while we have used, where applicable, the causes mentioned in the DMV rule (weather conditions, road surface conditions, construction, emergencies, accidents or collisions), those causes were infrequent in our experience. Far more frequent were the additional causes we have labeled as unwanted maneuver, perception discrepancy, software discrepancy, hardware discrepancy, incorrect behavior prediction, or other road users behaving recklessly." In other words, they ended up disengaging because of "emergencies", which your imminent hard braking would apply as - exactly 0 times.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

So you think it's reasonable to compare the rates that humans not only get into crashes, but actually die (or kill) in crashes - to the rates that a human takes over for an early alpha tech version of self driving vehicles? Your stats not even remotely "illustrative" of anything other than what they say of the presenter.

jadedhacker 8y ago
This would be academic if someone hadn't actually died. I don't know the numbers, but I'm fairly sure that just tanked the self-driving stats pretty hard. EDIT: Also, consider what avoiding "hard braking", which was a large reason for human interventions iirc, actually means. It means either that the computer jams on the brakes hard for no reason or that it only realized it needed to brake substantially after a human would have realized the necessity. EDIT2: Uber had driven 3 million miles at the time of the death according to the below article. A single incident does not statistics make, but based on the NSTB analysis so far, that version of the software made a systematic error. That puts Uber's score at very handwavy 33.33 per 100 million miles. I'm sure the number will change with software revisions and just from random chance. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverles... EDIT3: I should mention that I was initially hesitant to compute this "statistic" because it's so raw and will wildly fluctuate. Interventions are more solid statistically. I don't think it's crazy for someone to look at a heavy box of metal that requires constant supervision to do the right thing and conclude in the absence of (appropriately) extensive testing that it's dangerous.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  And now you're just making up stuff. I'm shocked... Disengagements have absolutely nothing to do with "avoiding hard braking". Disengagement numbers and analysis are completely open you can find them here [1] along with the reasons, miles driven, etc. A disengagement is defined as, "a deactivation of the autonomous mode when a failure of the autonomous technology is detected or when the safe operation of the vehicle requires that the autonomous vehicle test driver disengage the autonomous mode and take immediate manual control of the vehicle." So for instance if the software is providing a buggy output and the car is stopped for debugging, recalibration, etc that counts as a disengagement. And that is indeed, by far, the most common occurrence. It's extremely rarely to actually avoid a crash - let alone your fixation with "hard braking." Some companies, such as Nvidia, specifically clarify that literally 0 of their disengagements (in their case out of 109) had anything to do with extraneous conditions such as road surface, construction, emergencies, etc. [1] - https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2017 https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...
  - jadedhacker 8y ago
    Hard braking was discussed in a news article I have read some time ago about Uber specifically. Your attitude is not helpful. The list you linked does not include Uber though it does include many others. Thanks for the link. EDIT: I'm looking at Waymo's totals, whom I consider to be a safer player than Uber. The data totals come from your link on their page 2 Table 2: Disengagements by Cause. The time period spans Dec. 2016 to Nov. 2017. Disengage for a recklessly behaving road user: 1 Disengage for hardware discrepancy: 13 Disengage for unwanted maneuver of the vehicle: 19 Disengage for a perception discrepancy: 16 Disengage for incorrect behavior prediction of other traffic participants: 5 Disengage for a software discrepancy: 9
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      News articles on this topic tend to be less than worthless - an increasingly typical state of affairs. In this case the reason is quite direct: people are scared of revolutionary technology, and especially self driving vehicles -- and nothing gets clicks like fear mongering. Don't believe everything you read, let alone parrot it. You'll also notice the paragraph in Waymo's report, which is typical: "Note that, while we have used, where applicable, the causes mentioned in the DMV rule (weather conditions, road surface conditions, construction, emergencies, accidents or collisions), those causes were infrequent in our experience. Far more frequent were the additional causes we have labeled as unwanted maneuver, perception discrepancy, software discrepancy, hardware discrepancy, incorrect behavior prediction, or other road users behaving recklessly." In other words, they ended up disengaging because of "emergencies", which your imminent hard braking would apply as - exactly 0 times.