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Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. We all know that self-driv

by spuz 8y ago

Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. We all know that self-driving technology does not exist yet, that is why the back up driver is there. If you have driven at night you will know that a human can see much further than what is shown on the video footage of this incident and so it should be clear that the human back up driver was to blame. Unfortunately for her, the fact that she was not only not watching the road but distracted by a TV show makes any claim that she was not negligent very hard to defend.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
As a general rule all of the failure of the technology complaints that have registered in my head from HN has to do with Uber intentionally turning off safety features and doing things in such a way that the driver might have assumed things were safer than they actually were and then have decided, idiotically as humans do (humans - such as myself I assure you - being idiots), that it was totally ok to do something stupid like text on a phone or watch tv. Just because one party is neglicent does not mean other parties are cleared of their neglicence.
bkor 8y ago
> Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. Waymo specifically monitors the driver plus checks their attention span before hiring them. There's various things which went wrong for this to happen. It's not just one cause.
acdha 8y ago
It’s because this is a really well understood problem with human attention. If you put people in a position where they’re supposed to watch for something which rarely happens, they’ll get bored and distracted. People who build systems for industrial production, monitoring, security, etc. have been dealing with the for a long time and it’s one of the selling points for self-driving technology since inattention causes many accidents per year. Responsible engineers deal with this in a number of ways, such as the test images TSA screeners see throughout the day, Waymo’s reported careful monitoring of the drivers, or redesigning the process so the human is continuously engaged. Uber engineers apparently say YOLO! and disable the car manufacturer’s own safety systems.
finnthehuman 8y ago
>Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. It was well known all along that humans are poorly equipped to remain actively engaged in situations that require split-second reactions, while exerting zero effort or control for hours on end. Air traffic is as safe as it is because the accident analysis always pushes past "pilot error" as the root cause. If one pilot can make the error, why won't another? Did the system set them up to fail? Even if it didn't, could the system be enhanced such that the failure (or class of failures) could be prevented? In the case of the human in Uber's self-driving car, they were set up for failure. And in such a well known way that makes any claim Uber was not negligent very hard to defend.
- spuz 8y ago
  As far as Uber being negligent for putting an easily-distracted human in charge of a car that ostensibly (even if they claim otherwise) needs little attention, I totally agree they are negligent. The reason for that is I believe it's unreasonable to expect a human driver to pay 100% attention to the road while in a car that only requires 5% attention to the road. However, I also believe as well as telling the driver "pay attention to the road 100% of the time" she would have been told "Do not use your phone while driving" which I believe is a totally reasonable request and expectation. With this assumption and if the blame has to fall on only a single party then I think this news puts it squarely on the driver.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Aren't they required to use their phones to record diagnostic data? It's a small step from there to messing around on the phone.
    - pas 8y ago
      What? Why don't they have their hands on the fucking steering wheel?
      - 8y ago
mannykannot 8y ago
As far as I am concerned, the issue has always been, and remains, that passive alertness - the assumption underlying the claim that partial autonomy is viable - does not work. All arguments about what drivers ought to do is irrelevant in the face of what they actually do.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bryanlarsen 8y ago
This is not an either-or situation. Both the driver and Uber are fully culpable for this vehicular homicide. Both of them have to be aware that any mistake on their part may result in somebody's death and act accordingly.
Spooky23 8y ago
Probably PR spin/lobbying as the backup driver is just an excuse to beta test dangerous technology.
notheguyouthink 8y ago
> If you have driven at night you will know that a human can see much further than what is shown on the video footage This is honestly what bothers me most. Firstly, I expect self driving to have massively more information at hand than humans do. I'm talking long range, 360deg sight. I expect multiple sensors to be recording at all time, analyzing. And finally, I expect a "black box" to be able to visualize all of this for cases like this. Visualizing is something I think needs to be black-box level standardized. It's what we need to hold them accountable, I think. We're dealing with proprietary implementations - so humans should be able to review black box "footage"[1] and decide if the scenario was handled better or worse than a human. There's going to be times where this system fails, and I'm not expecting perfection. Yet, humans in non-private positions need to be able to regulate how Uber and friends are behaving on the road. A short sighted grainy video that looks like it was from 1990 is not cutting it. Fully unacceptable in my view. [1]: I say footage loosely, because I imagine a lot of the scanned data is just that, data. So it needs to be rendered in a human friendly, visual manner, fully understandable by lawmakers.
s2g 8y ago
because people have been saying for years that the idea of a backup driver is absurd and dangerous because they won't pay attention for hours on end effectively.

by spuz 8y ago

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

As a general rule all of the failure of the technology complaints that have registered in my head from HN has to do with Uber intentionally turning off safety features and doing things in such a way that the driver might have assumed things were safer than they actually were and then have decided, idiotically as humans do (humans - such as myself I assure you - being idiots), that it was totally ok to do something stupid like text on a phone or watch tv. Just because one party is neglicent does not mean other parties are cleared of their neglicence.

bkor 8y ago

> Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. Waymo specifically monitors the driver plus checks their attention span before hiring them. There's various things which went wrong for this to happen. It's not just one cause.

acdha 8y ago

It’s because this is a really well understood problem with human attention. If you put people in a position where they’re supposed to watch for something which rarely happens, they’ll get bored and distracted. People who build systems for industrial production, monitoring, security, etc. have been dealing with the for a long time and it’s one of the selling points for self-driving technology since inattention causes many accidents per year. Responsible engineers deal with this in a number of ways, such as the test images TSA screeners see throughout the day, Waymo’s reported careful monitoring of the drivers, or redesigning the process so the human is continuously engaged. Uber engineers apparently say YOLO! and disable the car manufacturer’s own safety systems.

finnthehuman 8y ago

>Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. It was well known all along that humans are poorly equipped to remain actively engaged in situations that require split-second reactions, while exerting zero effort or control for hours on end. Air traffic is as safe as it is because the accident analysis always pushes past "pilot error" as the root cause. If one pilot can make the error, why won't another? Did the system set them up to fail? Even if it didn't, could the system be enhanced such that the failure (or class of failures) could be prevented? In the case of the human in Uber's self-driving car, they were set up for failure. And in such a well known way that makes any claim Uber was not negligent very hard to defend.

spuz 8y ago
As far as Uber being negligent for putting an easily-distracted human in charge of a car that ostensibly (even if they claim otherwise) needs little attention, I totally agree they are negligent. The reason for that is I believe it's unreasonable to expect a human driver to pay 100% attention to the road while in a car that only requires 5% attention to the road. However, I also believe as well as telling the driver "pay attention to the road 100% of the time" she would have been told "Do not use your phone while driving" which I believe is a totally reasonable request and expectation. With this assumption and if the blame has to fall on only a single party then I think this news puts it squarely on the driver.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Aren't they required to use their phones to record diagnostic data? It's a small step from there to messing around on the phone.
  - pas 8y ago
    What? Why don't they have their hands on the fucking steering wheel?
    - 8y ago

mannykannot 8y ago

As far as I am concerned, the issue has always been, and remains, that passive alertness - the assumption underlying the claim that partial autonomy is viable - does not work. All arguments about what drivers ought to do is irrelevant in the face of what they actually do.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bryanlarsen 8y ago

This is not an either-or situation. Both the driver and Uber are fully culpable for this vehicular homicide. Both of them have to be aware that any mistake on their part may result in somebody's death and act accordingly.

Spooky23 8y ago

Probably PR spin/lobbying as the backup driver is just an excuse to beta test dangerous technology.

notheguyouthink 8y ago

> If you have driven at night you will know that a human can see much further than what is shown on the video footage This is honestly what bothers me most. Firstly, I expect self driving to have massively more information at hand than humans do. I'm talking long range, 360deg sight. I expect multiple sensors to be recording at all time, analyzing. And finally, I expect a "black box" to be able to visualize all of this for cases like this. Visualizing is something I think needs to be black-box level standardized. It's what we need to hold them accountable, I think. We're dealing with proprietary implementations - so humans should be able to review black box "footage"[1] and decide if the scenario was handled better or worse than a human. There's going to be times where this system fails, and I'm not expecting perfection. Yet, humans in non-private positions need to be able to regulate how Uber and friends are behaving on the road. A short sighted grainy video that looks like it was from 1990 is not cutting it. Fully unacceptable in my view. [1]: I say footage loosely, because I imagine a lot of the scanned data is just that, data. So it needs to be rendered in a human friendly, visual manner, fully understandable by lawmakers.

s2g 8y ago

because people have been saying for years that the idea of a backup driver is absurd and dangerous because they won't pay attention for hours on end effectively.