6 ms·

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.
- Karrot_Kream 8y ago
  You're severely armchair architecting here. What happens if sensors fail? How often do sensors need to be replaced? Do sensors behave well under inclement weather conditions (snow is a common source of glare). What if an emergency vehicle flashes their sirens and floods the street with light? There's a lot we don't know, and while there may be satisfying solutions to these problems, we're not there yet. In the meantime, subjecting humans to this insanity due to some "inferential evidence" that doesn't hold water is highly reckless. Your argument is "Sensors are better than humans!", and that's a non-argument, inferential or otherwise.
  - vntok 8y ago
    Do you seriously think that the much qualified software engineers and other specialists working on these projects are not thinking through all these points? There's a lot of problems we don't know the solutions to, but that certainly does not mean that these teams don't know the solutions either.
    - thousandautumns 8y ago
      > Do you seriously think that the much qualified software engineers and other specialists working on these projects are not thinking through all these points? You are commenting in a thread about how a team of those "much qualified software engineers and other specialists" failed to do simulation testing. So yes, there is reason to believe that these companies are failing to address many of these potential problems.
    - w_t_payne 8y ago
      I know a lot of people working in the space who know very well what (some of) the problems are -- but are unable to do anything about it because of organisational politics. :-(
  - beat 8y ago
    I once had a retinal vein occlusion (basically, a stroke in my retina) while driving. I recognized that my vision had deteriorated and got off the road. Humans have heart attacks, strokes, seizures, and other systemic failures while driving, too. Detecting sensor failure is child's play. We have over a half-century of experience at detecting and handling sensor failures in computer systems. Hell, I left the gas cap off my car once, and every idiot light in the car flipped out on me. Cruise control stopped working. Etc. Detecting glare, flashing lights, and other visual interference is likewise well-established technology. And how does the autonomous car respond? By slowing down, staying within safe parameters. Meanwhile, one of the most common causes of fatal accidents is humans driving too fast for conditions, often due to poor visibility. I trust the self-driving car more than the human driver for that.
- darkerside 8y ago
  Inferential evidence, aka magical thinking!

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.
Karrot_Kream 8y ago
You're severely armchair architecting here. What happens if sensors fail? How often do sensors need to be replaced? Do sensors behave well under inclement weather conditions (snow is a common source of glare). What if an emergency vehicle flashes their sirens and floods the street with light? There's a lot we don't know, and while there may be satisfying solutions to these problems, we're not there yet. In the meantime, subjecting humans to this insanity due to some "inferential evidence" that doesn't hold water is highly reckless. Your argument is "Sensors are better than humans!", and that's a non-argument, inferential or otherwise.
- vntok 8y ago
  Do you seriously think that the much qualified software engineers and other specialists working on these projects are not thinking through all these points? There's a lot of problems we don't know the solutions to, but that certainly does not mean that these teams don't know the solutions either.
  - thousandautumns 8y ago
    > Do you seriously think that the much qualified software engineers and other specialists working on these projects are not thinking through all these points? You are commenting in a thread about how a team of those "much qualified software engineers and other specialists" failed to do simulation testing. So yes, there is reason to believe that these companies are failing to address many of these potential problems.
  - w_t_payne 8y ago
    I know a lot of people working in the space who know very well what (some of) the problems are -- but are unable to do anything about it because of organisational politics. :-(
- beat 8y ago
  I once had a retinal vein occlusion (basically, a stroke in my retina) while driving. I recognized that my vision had deteriorated and got off the road. Humans have heart attacks, strokes, seizures, and other systemic failures while driving, too. Detecting sensor failure is child's play. We have over a half-century of experience at detecting and handling sensor failures in computer systems. Hell, I left the gas cap off my car once, and every idiot light in the car flipped out on me. Cruise control stopped working. Etc. Detecting glare, flashing lights, and other visual interference is likewise well-established technology. And how does the autonomous car respond? By slowing down, staying within safe parameters. Meanwhile, one of the most common causes of fatal accidents is humans driving too fast for conditions, often due to poor visibility. I trust the self-driving car more than the human driver for that.
darkerside 8y ago
Inferential evidence, aka magical thinking!