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1) utilitarianism is absolutely not the same as "reason". Its one of several ethical theories, and it isn't without its fair share of problems. 2) right now se

1) utilitarianism is absolutely not the same as "reason". Its one of several ethical theories, and it isn't without its fair share of problems. 2) right now self driving cars are more deadly than human drivers by several orders of magnitude. Thats the reality.

beat 8y ago
1. I know what utilitarianism is, and its shortcomings. Do you know what humor is? 2. You're misusing statistics. There isn't enough data on autonomous driving performance to make your claim, not enough road miles.
- bildung 8y ago
  So we agree that there is no empirical base for the assumption that self driving cars really save lives?
  - beat 8y ago
    Only if we're separating empirical evidence from inferential evidence. We can't demonstrate empirically, because there is far too little data at this point (and refusing to do the thing to collect the data because we don't have enough data is not a sound moral argument). But we can infer a great deal. And I've already established grounds for inference... - Better sensors. Sensors that can detect 360 degrees at all times, and see into infrared, not to mention LIDAR. The sensors can easily outperform human eyes attached to human heads. - Better mechanics. Automation can be directly connected to steering and brakes, as opposed to modulating through human hands and feet and into other mechanical linkages. - Better reflexes. Less lag from observation to action, compared to the eyes/brain/hands system. - No distraction. Human minds wander. - No intoxication. - No sleeping! Falling asleep at the wheel causes many fatal accidents. - No emotions, no anger, no aggression. So emotionally and mechanically, autonomous systems are clearly superior to humans. The only real argument left is interpretation of the environment. Can they detect hazards more effectively than humans can? Let's look at some hazard categories... Lane drift - easily solved. Running red lights and stop signs - easily solved. Speeding - easily solved. Maintaining braking distance in traffic - easily solved. I could go through more, but you get the idea. We're focusing on "What if a pedestrian steps out in front of it and it doesn't recognize them as a hazard?", and ignoring much more common categories of accident-causing situations, categories where machines easily outperform humans. So "empirical base"? Sure, no basis. But inferentially, the argument for the superiority of autonomous driving systems is very strong.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      We do have data on accidents and human interventions preventing accidents. It just points towards current generation self driving technology being much less safe than the average human driver. Selectively listing things which technology (often fairly simple technology like cruise control which doesn't pretend to have the intelligence to drive your car) is better at than humans doesn't change that, particularly not when it is easy to draw a similar arbitrary list of things which technology is inferior to humans and far from evident that it might catch up in the foreseeable future.
      - beat 8y ago
        Even if "current generation self driving technology [is] much less safe than the average human driver" - which I will grant is a possibility, although I'm not convinced - that does not at all imply that it is "far from evident that it might catch up in the foreseeable future". I believe the evidence strongly suggests that autonomous driving will not only catch up, but greatly exceed human drivers in the foreseeable future. Mechanically, automation is superior to humans for simply operating the car. And the large categories of causes for fatal accidents are low-hanging fruit for automation - lane drift, running red lights, driving too fast for conditions, etc. And sensors can observe the environment as well as or better than eyeballs. The only real point of contention is in interpreting unexpected hazards, like the infamous bicyclist. But interpreting sensor input is subject to continuous improvement, due to programmer experience, log data, and Moore's Law. So even if that point is weak now, there's no reason to believe it will not improve substantially - in fact, it is unreasonable to believe that it will not improve.
        notahacker 8y ago
        It is unreasonable to believe the current technology will not improve in any way. It is also unreasonable to expect people to accept an increased chance of death resulting from relaxation of test safety guidelines because some futurists have essentially blind faith that exponential curves will prevail over diminishing returns in the very near future. Large categories of potential causes for fatal accidents are things which humans very seldom have issues with but computer programs often struggle with like inferring intent and identifying whether something is animate, which can easily cancel out reductions in other types of accident due to (e.g.) better average lane discipline. Especially when you consider the benchmark for fatalities per billion km driven is around 3.5[1] including fatalities caused by humans considered unfit to drive, and humans who are considerably less experienced and safety-conscious than the likely early adopters of SDVs. SDVs have already had one fatality and several incidents where human intervention prevented accidents in a few million miles of low speed, good condition driving. I think we're a very long way from seeing any indication computers alone will ever beat that benchmark, still less a plausible case that the additional deaths resulting from riskier testing programmes will be cancelled out by lives saved if the first few SDV models go on sale a few months earlier. [1]a few European countries; it's double that in the US, which also suggests that if you want to reduce road deaths there's a lot of other steps that can be taken which don't involve risky technology experiments.
- whatok 8y ago
  2. How are you claiming that they are safer than driving as is then?
lobotryas 8y ago
Are you joking or is there a study I missed? You have seen statistics for accidents and fatalities when human drovers are involved, yes?
- Karrot_Kream 8y ago
  Right now, per mile, self-driving cars are much less safe than humans. As has been noted before though, we don't have that many miles of data on self-driving cars, and the tech is still quite young and there's (probably) a lot of room for improvement.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    Not all self driving car programs were created equal. Tesla and Uber have been acting like cowboys from the start. Most of the advanced lane keeping type setups GM supercruise and Nissan Propilot are exposed to similar risk as Autopilot, but excepting the gong show that is Uber, all the other companies developing L4 have a pretty stellar track record. And, as you mentioned, we need to accumulate billions of test miles before we'll have statistically comprehensive data.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    You can't compare statistics unless the underlying miles are comparable, though. The only miles that humans drive which should be compared are those that a given AI is capable of driving.
- bildung 8y ago
  The fatality rate for human drivers is 1 death per 141 million km driven (US only, many other industrialized countries are significantly better)[1] There are currently at least 4 confirmed deaths from autonomous vehicles[2]. While beat is correct in stating that those are not enough deaths to draw reliable conclusions from (and Model S owners are not like the average driver), there would have to be more than 600 million km driven autonomously to be comparable to the death rate of normal cars. Probably significantly more, as the cohort of human drivers that is equivalent to Model S owners is way less often involved in accidents in the first place. [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... [2] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalit...

beat 8y ago

1. I know what utilitarianism is, and its shortcomings. Do you know what humor is? 2. You're misusing statistics. There isn't enough data on autonomous driving performance to make your claim, not enough road miles.

bildung 8y ago
So we agree that there is no empirical base for the assumption that self driving cars really save lives?
- beat 8y ago
  Only if we're separating empirical evidence from inferential evidence. We can't demonstrate empirically, because there is far too little data at this point (and refusing to do the thing to collect the data because we don't have enough data is not a sound moral argument). But we can infer a great deal. And I've already established grounds for inference... - Better sensors. Sensors that can detect 360 degrees at all times, and see into infrared, not to mention LIDAR. The sensors can easily outperform human eyes attached to human heads. - Better mechanics. Automation can be directly connected to steering and brakes, as opposed to modulating through human hands and feet and into other mechanical linkages. - Better reflexes. Less lag from observation to action, compared to the eyes/brain/hands system. - No distraction. Human minds wander. - No intoxication. - No sleeping! Falling asleep at the wheel causes many fatal accidents. - No emotions, no anger, no aggression. So emotionally and mechanically, autonomous systems are clearly superior to humans. The only real argument left is interpretation of the environment. Can they detect hazards more effectively than humans can? Let's look at some hazard categories... Lane drift - easily solved. Running red lights and stop signs - easily solved. Speeding - easily solved. Maintaining braking distance in traffic - easily solved. I could go through more, but you get the idea. We're focusing on "What if a pedestrian steps out in front of it and it doesn't recognize them as a hazard?", and ignoring much more common categories of accident-causing situations, categories where machines easily outperform humans. So "empirical base"? Sure, no basis. But inferentially, the argument for the superiority of autonomous driving systems is very strong.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    We do have data on accidents and human interventions preventing accidents. It just points towards current generation self driving technology being much less safe than the average human driver. Selectively listing things which technology (often fairly simple technology like cruise control which doesn't pretend to have the intelligence to drive your car) is better at than humans doesn't change that, particularly not when it is easy to draw a similar arbitrary list of things which technology is inferior to humans and far from evident that it might catch up in the foreseeable future.
    - beat 8y ago
      Even if "current generation self driving technology [is] much less safe than the average human driver" - which I will grant is a possibility, although I'm not convinced - that does not at all imply that it is "far from evident that it might catch up in the foreseeable future". I believe the evidence strongly suggests that autonomous driving will not only catch up, but greatly exceed human drivers in the foreseeable future. Mechanically, automation is superior to humans for simply operating the car. And the large categories of causes for fatal accidents are low-hanging fruit for automation - lane drift, running red lights, driving too fast for conditions, etc. And sensors can observe the environment as well as or better than eyeballs. The only real point of contention is in interpreting unexpected hazards, like the infamous bicyclist. But interpreting sensor input is subject to continuous improvement, due to programmer experience, log data, and Moore's Law. So even if that point is weak now, there's no reason to believe it will not improve substantially - in fact, it is unreasonable to believe that it will not improve.
      - notahacker 8y ago
        It is unreasonable to believe the current technology will not improve in any way. It is also unreasonable to expect people to accept an increased chance of death resulting from relaxation of test safety guidelines because some futurists have essentially blind faith that exponential curves will prevail over diminishing returns in the very near future. Large categories of potential causes for fatal accidents are things which humans very seldom have issues with but computer programs often struggle with like inferring intent and identifying whether something is animate, which can easily cancel out reductions in other types of accident due to (e.g.) better average lane discipline. Especially when you consider the benchmark for fatalities per billion km driven is around 3.5[1] including fatalities caused by humans considered unfit to drive, and humans who are considerably less experienced and safety-conscious than the likely early adopters of SDVs. SDVs have already had one fatality and several incidents where human intervention prevented accidents in a few million miles of low speed, good condition driving. I think we're a very long way from seeing any indication computers alone will ever beat that benchmark, still less a plausible case that the additional deaths resulting from riskier testing programmes will be cancelled out by lives saved if the first few SDV models go on sale a few months earlier. [1]a few European countries; it's double that in the US, which also suggests that if you want to reduce road deaths there's a lot of other steps that can be taken which don't involve risky technology experiments.
whatok 8y ago
2. How are you claiming that they are safer than driving as is then?

lobotryas 8y ago

Are you joking or is there a study I missed? You have seen statistics for accidents and fatalities when human drovers are involved, yes?

Karrot_Kream 8y ago
Right now, per mile, self-driving cars are much less safe than humans. As has been noted before though, we don't have that many miles of data on self-driving cars, and the tech is still quite young and there's (probably) a lot of room for improvement.
- Fricken 8y ago
  Not all self driving car programs were created equal. Tesla and Uber have been acting like cowboys from the start. Most of the advanced lane keeping type setups GM supercruise and Nissan Propilot are exposed to similar risk as Autopilot, but excepting the gong show that is Uber, all the other companies developing L4 have a pretty stellar track record. And, as you mentioned, we need to accumulate billions of test miles before we'll have statistically comprehensive data.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  You can't compare statistics unless the underlying miles are comparable, though. The only miles that humans drive which should be compared are those that a given AI is capable of driving.
bildung 8y ago
The fatality rate for human drivers is 1 death per 141 million km driven (US only, many other industrialized countries are significantly better)[1] There are currently at least 4 confirmed deaths from autonomous vehicles[2]. While beat is correct in stating that those are not enough deaths to draw reliable conclusions from (and Model S owners are not like the average driver), there would have to be more than 600 million km driven autonomously to be comparable to the death rate of normal cars. Probably significantly more, as the cohort of human drivers that is equivalent to Model S owners is way less often involved in accidents in the first place. [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... [2] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalit...