3 ms·

Other edge cases include: Amish buggies, rotaries in Boston, Syracuse's upside down traffic light (green is on top), etc. The possibilities are endless; how can

Other edge cases include: Amish buggies, rotaries in Boston, Syracuse's upside down traffic light (green is on top), etc. The possibilities are endless; how can you test them all? Humans are really good about adapting to novel situations on the fly, not so much computers.

neumann 8y ago
I mean, you are right about humans as a species, but oh god, not as drivers. As a cyclist commuter, pass/get passed by a lot of cars and see a lot of irregular/irrational behavior. Everytime there is a change in the traffic rules along my route (detour, construction, closed lane, new signalling) you will get a pretty high rate of people who either ignore the change, panic and drive recklessly, or panic and come to a confused stop. Maybe we need driverless cars that can show panic faces when they don't know what to do and be coached by a friendly citizen what to do? It would be super cute.
- xnx 8y ago
  Agree. It's a fun game to think up edge cases that would challenge a self-driving car. On average these cars will far outperform human drivers. I see human drivers blow through stop signs every day completely unaware that they did so.
  - mantas 8y ago
    Didn't Uber car did exactly that? Perfect robot would outperform average human. Sure. Average robot to average human? That's much more interesting...
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      An uber car also killed someone and the emergency automatic braking system was disabled.
- 100ideas 8y ago
  Chernikov tail lights
- prawn 8y ago
  Zoox has hinted that their vehicles will use sounds (at least) to signal intent and reactions.
100ideas 8y ago
One approach would be to record 100-to-1000 trials of how human drivers navigate each particular edge case in vehicles instrumented for autonomous driving. Sadly, no one seems to have figured out a way to economically motivate human drivers to do this.
- glaberficken 8y ago
  The problem are not the expected edge cases, but the unexpected ones. No amount of hard coded reactions are going to do for those.
- eitland 8y ago
  Isn't this part of what Tesla has been doing though? At least they sell cars that simultaneously has: - human drivers in demanding situations - sensor and compute package planned for autonomous driving From there it is mostly a question of 1. getting permissions to collect the data 2. finding some efficient way to store -> sift for interesting situations -> magic happens here -> lots of regression testing -> self driving car -> profit! I would think?

neumann 8y ago

I mean, you are right about humans as a species, but oh god, not as drivers. As a cyclist commuter, pass/get passed by a lot of cars and see a lot of irregular/irrational behavior. Everytime there is a change in the traffic rules along my route (detour, construction, closed lane, new signalling) you will get a pretty high rate of people who either ignore the change, panic and drive recklessly, or panic and come to a confused stop. Maybe we need driverless cars that can show panic faces when they don't know what to do and be coached by a friendly citizen what to do? It would be super cute.

xnx 8y ago
Agree. It's a fun game to think up edge cases that would challenge a self-driving car. On average these cars will far outperform human drivers. I see human drivers blow through stop signs every day completely unaware that they did so.
- mantas 8y ago
  Didn't Uber car did exactly that? Perfect robot would outperform average human. Sure. Average robot to average human? That's much more interesting...
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    An uber car also killed someone and the emergency automatic braking system was disabled.
100ideas 8y ago
Chernikov tail lights
prawn 8y ago
Zoox has hinted that their vehicles will use sounds (at least) to signal intent and reactions.

100ideas 8y ago

One approach would be to record 100-to-1000 trials of how human drivers navigate each particular edge case in vehicles instrumented for autonomous driving. Sadly, no one seems to have figured out a way to economically motivate human drivers to do this.

glaberficken 8y ago
The problem are not the expected edge cases, but the unexpected ones. No amount of hard coded reactions are going to do for those.
eitland 8y ago
Isn't this part of what Tesla has been doing though? At least they sell cars that simultaneously has: - human drivers in demanding situations - sensor and compute package planned for autonomous driving From there it is mostly a question of 1. getting permissions to collect the data 2. finding some efficient way to store -> sift for interesting situations -> magic happens here -> lots of regression testing -> self driving car -> profit! I would think?