8 ms·
Perhaps San Francisco rain is solved, but I doubt the downpours we get in the South East are solved. Zero visibility is just one thing, how about hydroplaning w
by athenot 8y ago
Perhaps San Francisco rain is solved, but I doubt the downpours we get in the South East are solved. Zero visibility is just one thing, how about hydroplaning when there is over 1" of standing water on the road because it's coming down faster than gravity can drain it away? Or spotting that your lane is fine but the opposite one is flooded so that car coming the opposite direction is going to have to borrow your lane for a bit?
These sound like edge cases but there are places where they occur very frequently and local human drivers, for all their faults, do have a way of dealing with them.
- smileysteve 8y ago> hydroplaning when there is over 1" of standing water on the road because it's coming down faster than gravity can drain it away? I'd say that's pretty calculable, and has a solution, slow down to a speed that the tires can shed water. Perhaps most telling about your qualification is the misplaced risk; the light precipitation with a little oil slick is likely more dangerous, mostly because you don't slow down for it. Anecdotally, an even harder problem is when water exceeds 4", negotiating with traffic so you won't float away or get water in your intake.
- Retra 8y agoYes, it is trivial to calculate how to respond to known hazards. What is hard to calculate is what the hazards actually are in any given situation. Humans don't merely look at the road and compute how much standing water is there, they have prior experiences and a sense of what other drivers are doing on the road and why they are doing those things.
- throwaway76543 8y agoSelf driving cars also have prior experiences and a sense of what other drivers are doing and why. That's sort of the point of machine learning. In fact, they will have a lot more prior experience than any human driver in the world.
- MortenK 8y agoUnfortunately in the realm of machine learning, quantity does not equate quality.
- killjoywashere 8y agoThe parent of any teenage driver can also attest to this.
- zaarn 8y agoMachine Learning still confuses Elephants for Cats. While it's quite fun if you pin up a cat dressed up in an elephant costume and surely amuses a few colleagues, a self-driving car is not something that should confuse an Elephant for a Cat. ML is IMO not reliable enough for use in self-driving cars, in complicated situations the driver should take over.
- throwaway76543 8y agoIt's not reliable enough now, sure. Similarly, my 6 year old is also not reliable enough to pilot a car. Both will change as they mature.
- Piskvorrr 8y agoSure, multiple decades sounds about right (as opposed to current confusing statements like "has full self driving capabilities").
- Retra 8y agoThey have a lot more experience driving, but humans do not only use their driving experiences as priors.
- LoSboccacc 8y agohumans regularly get killed misjudging how much water is in underpasses, I guess an autonomous car based on detailed mapping can measure water deep quite better comparing sensor result with its map (eventually).
- mdhen 8y agoThose conditions sound like you wouldn't be driving. So, solved. Pull over and stop
- wool_gather 8y agoThis; arguing that a computer can't drive safely in conditions where a human can't either isn't an argument against computer drivers. Just because humans sometimes get away with it doesn't make it a good idea.
- skookumchuck 8y agoWell, I don't think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.
- ghaff 8y agoIt's not always possible to pull over. If it's snowing so heavily that driving has become dangerous there probably is no shoulder to pull over to, much less a shoulder you can safely pull over to. Source: I've been in these conditions. You do the best you can.
- bluGill 8y agoyou should pull over before then. There is in my experience plenty of warning to find a hotel first.
- archagon 8y agoWhile probably true, "then don't do that" almost never works as an excuse to convince new adopters of your technology.
- ben509 8y agoI'm not so sure that's true. Or, maybe, "that's user error" is what works because it seems like it's far too easy to convince users to blame themselves.