5 ms·

>Self-driving vehicles must be driven for hundreds of millions of miles to demonstrate reliability, which would take 10-100 years. So we can A) accept higher f

by mLuby 8y ago

>Self-driving vehicles must be driven for hundreds of millions of miles to demonstrate reliability, which would take 10-100 years. So we can A) accept higher fatalities for convenience, B) demand much better performance from self-driving vehicles than we expect of humans, or C) wait.

dwighttk 8y ago
What’s the difference between B and C?
- manicdee 8y ago
  The difference is in how you measure "better than humans." Which also means looking closely at how we measure how "good" a human driver is. It's the same argument as "what is AI" which inevitably devolves to "must be demonstrably smarter than humans in every way before we consider it to actually be intelligent."
  - gehwartzen 8y ago
    I also suspect that the average human driver is getting worse not better. We have way more distractions available in the cabin than in the past mostly due to cell phones. I also notice a lot of younger people are either forgoing driving altogether or getting their licenses much later due to the availability of uber/lift as an alternative so would imagine they have less experience.
thx11389793 8y ago
If we have a hundred years to burn, how about reorganizing our cities into forms that obviate the need for cars (self-driving or not) in the first place? Anecdotally, I've heard people make the point that public transit is infeasible in the states because the population density is too low, and people are too spread out. I'm not sure that it is -- the US Census Bureau stats show the share of Americans living in urban areas growing steadily throughout the history of the country, with 80% of the population currently hailing from urban areas. We are and have been urbanizing since the birth of the country, I reckon if were smart about building infra now, we can remove the problem SDVs are trying to solve in approximately as long as it would take for them to become ubiquitous were we to take no action.
- chiefofgxbxl 8y ago
  Agreed. If car crashes kill so many in the U.S., wouldn't it make sense to make the country a less car-dependent nation if we want to reduce fatalities? Walking and biking generally won't get people killed, so why not promote that? I think part of the problem is that self-driving vehicles is marketed as a life-saving technology, when it is the novelty and futurism people are attracted to. (It is indeed an impressive and challenging problem.) The furthest mainstream press release I can recall making the case for autonomous vehicles was Google's efforts. This makes me wonder if they had a solution in search of a problem, so they took road deaths in the U.S to sell the idea. Maybe they were chasing the next iteration of intense computing application, e.g. Deep Blue -> Watson -> self-driving cars. The 40k+ fatalities per year is a solvable problem without autonomous vehicles: (1) promote equity in other methods of transportation, (2) enhance driver-assistance technology, (3) design roads to be built for safety rather than convenience/speed [0] Regarding point 2 above, note that Chevrolet has "teen-driver technology" which can set a maximum speed, and provide visual and audible warnings if the (teen) driver exceeds the speed limit [1]. Presumably the vehicle has cameras to read speed limit signs. Why isn't this being applied to all drivers? It seems to be the classic case of "let's blame teens for everyone's bad driving" (juvenoia). [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/25/speed-kills-so-why-do-we-keep-designing-for-it https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/25/speed-kills-so... [1] https://www.chevrolet.com/teen-driver-technology https://www.chevrolet.com/teen-driver-technology
Semirhage 8y ago
Right now I’d be thrilled with doing just as well as humans without fudging the numbers. We’re orders of magnitude away from that, so frankly this is all a non-issue. We’re far from demonstrating reliability because they’re far from reliable. Maybe someday they will be, maybe not, but for now we’re playing a dangerous game in the name of a dubious utopia. The most likely outcome is a winter. Edit: I don’t mind the downvotes, but I wish they came with a rebuttal rather than radio silence.
- dpcx 8y ago
  Pretty sure you're being downvoted by making the statement that we're orders of magnitude away, but not providing any data to back up your claim. Even with the number of accidents / injuries / deaths caused by self-driving cars, without actual data, they at least seem to being doing as well as humans - though that's completely anecdotal from my side.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    Fair enough. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/02/01/479262.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/02/01/479262... The latest disengagement report showed that Waymo vehicles, in tests conducted from December 2016 through November 2017, on average logged 5,596 miles without Waymo’s safety drivers disengaging the system and retaking the wheel. Its next closest contender was Cruise, owned by General Motors Co, at 1,214 miles on average between disengagements. And later Waymo, for example, drove 352,545 miles in the state during the period with only 63 disengagements. Cruise vehicles drove about a third less, at 127,516 miles, and had 105 disengagements. The third best performance came from Nissan Motor Co , which drove 5,007 miles and had 24 disengagements, meaning that its vehicles had disengagements on average every 208 miles. The numbers fall off sharply after Nissan, with Baidu Inc at an average rate of every 41 miles, chipmaker Nvidia Corp at 4.6 miles on average, and Mercedes, with disengagements every 1.3 miles on average. Some further discussion and context: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-autonomous-cars-really-safer-than-human-drivers/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-autonomous-ca... Between mistakes a human wouldn’t make unless impaired, such as accelerating into a crash barrier or into a fire truck, and the high rate of human intervention, compared to the rate of fatal accidents per x miles humans have (1.27 per 100 million miles even including drunks, the elderly and new drivers) the argument for “safer than humans” seems utterly insupportable at this time.

by mLuby 8y ago

dwighttk 8y ago

What’s the difference between B and C?

manicdee 8y ago
The difference is in how you measure "better than humans." Which also means looking closely at how we measure how "good" a human driver is. It's the same argument as "what is AI" which inevitably devolves to "must be demonstrably smarter than humans in every way before we consider it to actually be intelligent."
- gehwartzen 8y ago
  I also suspect that the average human driver is getting worse not better. We have way more distractions available in the cabin than in the past mostly due to cell phones. I also notice a lot of younger people are either forgoing driving altogether or getting their licenses much later due to the availability of uber/lift as an alternative so would imagine they have less experience.

thx11389793 8y ago

If we have a hundred years to burn, how about reorganizing our cities into forms that obviate the need for cars (self-driving or not) in the first place? Anecdotally, I've heard people make the point that public transit is infeasible in the states because the population density is too low, and people are too spread out. I'm not sure that it is -- the US Census Bureau stats show the share of Americans living in urban areas growing steadily throughout the history of the country, with 80% of the population currently hailing from urban areas. We are and have been urbanizing since the birth of the country, I reckon if were smart about building infra now, we can remove the problem SDVs are trying to solve in approximately as long as it would take for them to become ubiquitous were we to take no action.

chiefofgxbxl 8y ago
Agreed. If car crashes kill so many in the U.S., wouldn't it make sense to make the country a less car-dependent nation if we want to reduce fatalities? Walking and biking generally won't get people killed, so why not promote that? I think part of the problem is that self-driving vehicles is marketed as a life-saving technology, when it is the novelty and futurism people are attracted to. (It is indeed an impressive and challenging problem.) The furthest mainstream press release I can recall making the case for autonomous vehicles was Google's efforts. This makes me wonder if they had a solution in search of a problem, so they took road deaths in the U.S to sell the idea. Maybe they were chasing the next iteration of intense computing application, e.g. Deep Blue -> Watson -> self-driving cars. The 40k+ fatalities per year is a solvable problem without autonomous vehicles: (1) promote equity in other methods of transportation, (2) enhance driver-assistance technology, (3) design roads to be built for safety rather than convenience/speed [0] Regarding point 2 above, note that Chevrolet has "teen-driver technology" which can set a maximum speed, and provide visual and audible warnings if the (teen) driver exceeds the speed limit [1]. Presumably the vehicle has cameras to read speed limit signs. Why isn't this being applied to all drivers? It seems to be the classic case of "let's blame teens for everyone's bad driving" (juvenoia). [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/25/speed-kills-so-why-do-we-keep-designing-for-it https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/25/speed-kills-so... [1] https://www.chevrolet.com/teen-driver-technology https://www.chevrolet.com/teen-driver-technology

Semirhage 8y ago

Right now I’d be thrilled with doing just as well as humans without fudging the numbers. We’re orders of magnitude away from that, so frankly this is all a non-issue. We’re far from demonstrating reliability because they’re far from reliable. Maybe someday they will be, maybe not, but for now we’re playing a dangerous game in the name of a dubious utopia. The most likely outcome is a winter. Edit: I don’t mind the downvotes, but I wish they came with a rebuttal rather than radio silence.

dpcx 8y ago
Pretty sure you're being downvoted by making the statement that we're orders of magnitude away, but not providing any data to back up your claim. Even with the number of accidents / injuries / deaths caused by self-driving cars, without actual data, they at least seem to being doing as well as humans - though that's completely anecdotal from my side.
- Semirhage 8y ago
  Fair enough. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/02/01/479262.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/02/01/479262... The latest disengagement report showed that Waymo vehicles, in tests conducted from December 2016 through November 2017, on average logged 5,596 miles without Waymo’s safety drivers disengaging the system and retaking the wheel. Its next closest contender was Cruise, owned by General Motors Co, at 1,214 miles on average between disengagements. And later Waymo, for example, drove 352,545 miles in the state during the period with only 63 disengagements. Cruise vehicles drove about a third less, at 127,516 miles, and had 105 disengagements. The third best performance came from Nissan Motor Co , which drove 5,007 miles and had 24 disengagements, meaning that its vehicles had disengagements on average every 208 miles. The numbers fall off sharply after Nissan, with Baidu Inc at an average rate of every 41 miles, chipmaker Nvidia Corp at 4.6 miles on average, and Mercedes, with disengagements every 1.3 miles on average. Some further discussion and context: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-autonomous-cars-really-safer-than-human-drivers/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-autonomous-ca... Between mistakes a human wouldn’t make unless impaired, such as accelerating into a crash barrier or into a fire truck, and the high rate of human intervention, compared to the rate of fatal accidents per x miles humans have (1.27 per 100 million miles even including drunks, the elderly and new drivers) the argument for “safer than humans” seems utterly insupportable at this time.