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> If we believe that self-driving cars are inevitable I am a programmer and I would never ever get in a self-driving car if I had a choice. I don't trust other
by batteryhorse 8y ago
> If we believe that self-driving cars are inevitable
I am a programmer and I would never ever get in a self-driving car if I had a choice. I don't trust other programmers, I don't know if a backdoor has been put in by someone, and I don't want to get into a vehicle that can be hacked.
I believe self-driving cars will be a catastrophic failure.
- gok 8y agoDo you not get into regular cars where safety features are controlled by software? (That is, any car from the last 30 years?)
- ColanR 8y agoThere's a big difference in user control between safety features and a self-driving car.
- drngdds 8y agoI mean, not really. You're already trusting software to decide how your car should steer (automatic lane keeping), brake (automatic emergency braking), and accelerate (adaptive cruise control).
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoYou're assuming people actually use those features.
- slimsag 8y agoIs there anybody driving a car that does not use acceleration and braking? I could understand your argument for lane control, but otherwise your argument makes zero sense. Everyone's car is controlled by software, period.
- sp00ls 8y agoThe person you were replying to was talking about adaptive cruise control and automatic breaking. The majority of cars on the road do not have those features. Very different than plain acceleration and braking and much more likely to have glitches.
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoBraking systems are controlled by a dedicated embedded software system that's extremely well-understood and well-tested (probably even formally verified). All it does is check the ABS (and anti-skid) sensors and moderate the braking pressure to avoid locking the wheels. It also has a fail-safe system that gets rigorously tested, e.g. if a sensor fails. All possible values of all inputs are known, and the configurational space of those inputs is small enough that you can exhaustively test correctness. It's plainly obvious that a braking system controller software is a very different beast from an autonomous car software, and I have no problem understanding why someone would trust th former and not the latter.
- charleslmunger 8y ago> Braking systems are controlled by a dedicated embedded software system that's extremely well-understood and well-tested (probably even formally verified). Are you sure? That code is closed source, and the peek behind the curtain we saw with Toyota's investigation did not inspire confidence: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-“spaghetti”-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende...
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoThat's a really interesting article for sure. But it does highlight that Toyota was being unusual in not following industry-wide (voluntary) coding standards for safety-critical embedded systems in cars, and they ended up losing big in court. So I do think (hope) that this example is worst-case, not normal.
- dwighttk 8y agoThose are not in every car from the last 30 years.
- gok 8y agoI mean more like... brakes.
- saagarjha 8y agoWhich are also controlled by software. That’s literally what an ABS is.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoI’m a programmer and I would have absolutely no problem getting in a self driving car even at the level of current Waymo in Phoenix right now. I wouldn’t trust a car on that level to drive me around a windy cliff road when it’s snowing yet, but as is if I were in Arizona I already trust those Waymo-level cars more than my buddy who might not be paying attention 100% of the time.
- slg 8y agoIf you don't trust the abilities of other people, who do you think is currently driving cars? You are trusting everyone else on the road with your life every time you get in a car. You ever look at other drivers when you are stuck in traffic? You will see people looking at their phones. You will see people eating. You will see people shaving. You will see people doing their makeup. You will see people reading books. You will see people with dogs on their laps. And that is just the people who might accidentally kill you due to carelessness. Vehicular suicide is more common than most people expect and there is no telling if you might be collateral damage in one of those collisions. Self driving cars don't have to be perfect to be dramatically safer than human drivers.
- Stratoscope 8y agoComment deleted. I would have been happy to discuss the point in a calm and respectful manner. But I don't appreciate being accused of intellectual dishonesty and being told that what I said was "ridiculous". And "buff neck", really? What did that have to do with anything I said, except as a way to shut down the conversation?
- diab0lic 8y agoYou're being incredibly intellectually dishonest with yourself here. Suggesting that shaving makes you swivel your head and become more aware of traffic is akin to suggesting that shoulder checking during lane changes is going to give you a buff neck. It's ridiculous.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago> Self driving cars don't have to be perfect to be dramatically safer than human drivers. This statement is technically correct, but it severely downplays how close to perfect the autonomous cars have to be to be significantly better than human-driven cars. If you look at European countries, current statistics are around 2 fatalities per billion km. The US is around twice that number. Either way it's actually a quite safe mode of transportation. In fact, if you compare it to travelling by train, the average over European train travel over the past decade is around 0.2 deaths per billion passenger km. Trains are driven by professionals, still accidents happen. In other words, the fatality rate for cars per billion passenger-kilometers is in the same order of magnitude as for trains driven by professional drivers. How much do you really expect autonomous cars to be able to improve on that?
- rorykoehler 8y agoCars are already mostly software controlled drive by wire systems. Self driving cars will also be easily safer than meat bucket controlled ones. You should try roding a bicycle regularly. It's scary how bad people are at driving. Most shouldn't be on the road. It's like they think what they learned to pass their test isn't relevant one you have your license.
- uluyol 8y agoHow are cars drive by wire? Sure, newer cars have electric power steering, but I would guess that 99% of cars older than 10 years use hydraulic power steering and brakes. Even then, it takes very little software to do electric power steering, so I'm not sure how you would consider this at all comparable to autonomous driving.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago> Self driving cars will also be easily safer than meat bucket controlled ones. This is a pretty generous assumption you're granting here.
- gbear605 8y agoWe’re already granting the assumption that these self driving cars are generally popular. For that to be the case, they’ll have to be safer than humans or people won’t be okay with letting them on the roads in large numbers.
- darpa_escapee 8y agoThat's another mighty assumption. The new shiny doesn't have to be better or safer for it to be popular.
- rorykoehler 8y agoHuman drivers are atrocious. It won't be hard to be better than them.
- 8y ago
- briandear 8y agoI am assuming you have flown on a modern airliner? Anytime you land in instrument conditions, you are trusting programmers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mandeepj 8y ago> I don't trust other programmers Then how are you commuting currently? Almost every part of the vehicle is electronically controlled nowadays. All the components are connected - one way or another. So, it's easy to traverse around and make your way to CAN. Once, you are there, you can control the car. https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/blackhat-jeep-cherokee-hack-explained/9493/ https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/blackhat-jeep-cherokee-hack-e...
- njarboe 8y agoProbably drives a 1967 Pontiac GTO.
- jacquesm 8y agoThe simplest solution is to stay away from cars that have networking ability.
- pps43 8y agoSteering and brakes should work even if there's no electricity.
- heeen 8y agoput your car in neutral and turn off your engine, see what happens. You can still steer and brake, but for a sharp turn or down an incline you would be surprised how hard it is without servo steering and the vacuum servo.
- 8y ago
- wvenable 8y agoSome other driver, right now, could decide to pull out their phone and text and you could be dead instantly. Worrying about backdoors and hacking is like worrying about dying in terrorist attack. It's not like it won't happen to someone but there are more mundane ways to die. Ironically, getting into a car is a very common way to die.
- lloeki 8y agoI was rear-ended once because of that: stopped smoothly at a just toggled red light, driver behind received a phone call and compulsively looked at his phone briefly, not paying attention to neither the light nor me being fully stopped for a split second, covered the distance which should have been safe were he paying due attention, and impacted without braking. Luckily he was going below the legal speed or else both cars would have to be written off.
- visarga 8y agoYou don't trust it now, but when everyone will happily ride autonomous vehicles and will have demonstrated they are safer, then you will change your mind. That's how we were convinced to go into metal tubes with wings hurtling through the air.
- mikejb 8y agoIf you don't trust software, don't look at reality. So many things that can directly or indirectly kill you are run by (often shitty) software, you won't leave the house again. And those systems aren't looked at as closely as self-driving cars.
- madeofpalk 8y agoOf course you do. Do you ever fly? Do you drive in _current cars_, that are ran by software?
- douglaswlance 8y agoDo you fly...? Do you use electricity...? Do you use indoor plumbing...? All of those things are controlled by ... computers!
- Angostura 8y agoYou may feel differently when you get to 80 and feel you can no-longer driver reliably.