3 ms·

Waymo's vehicle operators make $20 bucks an hour. The driver was about an hour into his shift when he dozed off.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
The lack of requirement for driver input is what causes the operator to drift off or fall asleep. The same reason they put test/dummy positive weapon images that aren't physically present in the xray image stream at security checkpoints; to keep the operator alert. If you have a human overseer in the seat, you want to find ways to continue to keep them engaged even if it isn't necessary for the vehicle's autonomy.
- Fricken 8y ago
  Well the driver did provide input, he touched the gas pedal, which disengaged the autonomous system and put the vehicle in manual mode, and that's presumably what you want to have happen. When it's time to disengage the vehicle you don't want to be fighting for control with the computer, manual override needs to be on a hair trigger in case the computer makes a sudden error. Unfortunately so long as there's a human in the loop, the propensity for human error is going to be there. I honestly don't know what Waymo could do to prevent this, multiple bells and whistles went off. Waymo takes this stuff very seriously, they absolutely do not want to have to face the music should one of their vehicles get into an at-fault accident or suffer some other kind of catastrophic failure. I just did a Google News search for "asleep at the wheel", and in the last week a few people have been killed, a few more hospitalized, and the more minor incidents don't even get reported. Waymo sincerely wants to solve this, but there's an awkward no-mans land between no autonomy and fully autonomous where Vigilance Decrement[1] is an issue. Fortunately this was a minor accident. Waymo's test fleet reportedly covers 25,000 miles a day, and in regular day to day driving minor accidents happen about once every 160,000 miles. So if incidents like this are happening once a week for Waymo, that's about par for the course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilance_(psychology)#Vigilance_decrement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilance_(psychology)#Vigilan...
loceng 8y ago
Which highlights the issue that if there isn't some level of engagement required (or some level of fear/stress that it might be required) your mind/body can reach a restful enough state to fall asleep; in this case of course too, the test driver may not have taken care of themselves properly, had proper sleep, or many other possibilities - which I wonder if we'll get a truthful account of (whether due to Waymo and/or the driver not being straightforward). It's an interesting edge case that you might not think of, or thinking the odds might be "one in a million" and not design for it; I wonder how many driving hours etc have occurred so far (and other statistical analysis to breakdown different contexts) before this "one in a million" event occurred.
logfromblammo 8y ago
Article implies without stating outright that the driver was working a night shift, which are problematic for sleep schedules across a wide range of industries. People fall asleep at night, even when they are expected by their bosses to be alert. Waymo responded by walking back their cut of safety drivers from 2 to 1, but only for night shifts. If you tell someone that they will be fired the literal instant they doze off, all you are doing is guaranteeing that they will get fired, especially when you also task them with a boring job and ban all means by which they might boost their orexin levels during their shift. That is one of the hormones that regulate alertness, and responds to mental engagement. It cycles up and down with the circadian period. The result: bored at night; out like a light. The occupants of a self-driving vehicle will fall asleep at night. If you aren't testing that use case, you aren't doing your job. Managing alertness levels at night is the company's problem. Bright lighting with plenty of blue light in the spectrum is part of it. Keeping the employees from getting bored is, too. Sleep countermeasures will have to be installed with user-monitored car automation, and the safety-driver/tester just saved Waymo from a future liability nightmare. Why are they no longer with the company?! I think one solution may be to gamify safety-driving such that the human safety for an autonomous driver earns points for vigilance-related tasks. Identify potential road hazards before the autonomous system does. Count blue cars. Play the 49-state license plate game. Play a trivia game over the audio system. Hear about local points of historical interest near where you are driving. Anything other than silently watching moving road lines extend beyond the range of your headlights.

The lack of requirement for driver input is what causes the operator to drift off or fall asleep. The same reason they put test/dummy positive weapon images that aren't physically present in the xray image stream at security checkpoints; to keep the operator alert. If you have a human overseer in the seat, you want to find ways to continue to keep them engaged even if it isn't necessary for the vehicle's autonomy.

Fricken 8y ago
Well the driver did provide input, he touched the gas pedal, which disengaged the autonomous system and put the vehicle in manual mode, and that's presumably what you want to have happen. When it's time to disengage the vehicle you don't want to be fighting for control with the computer, manual override needs to be on a hair trigger in case the computer makes a sudden error. Unfortunately so long as there's a human in the loop, the propensity for human error is going to be there. I honestly don't know what Waymo could do to prevent this, multiple bells and whistles went off. Waymo takes this stuff very seriously, they absolutely do not want to have to face the music should one of their vehicles get into an at-fault accident or suffer some other kind of catastrophic failure. I just did a Google News search for "asleep at the wheel", and in the last week a few people have been killed, a few more hospitalized, and the more minor incidents don't even get reported. Waymo sincerely wants to solve this, but there's an awkward no-mans land between no autonomy and fully autonomous where Vigilance Decrement[1] is an issue. Fortunately this was a minor accident. Waymo's test fleet reportedly covers 25,000 miles a day, and in regular day to day driving minor accidents happen about once every 160,000 miles. So if incidents like this are happening once a week for Waymo, that's about par for the course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilance_(psychology)#Vigilance_decrement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilance_(psychology)#Vigilan...

loceng 8y ago

Which highlights the issue that if there isn't some level of engagement required (or some level of fear/stress that it might be required) your mind/body can reach a restful enough state to fall asleep; in this case of course too, the test driver may not have taken care of themselves properly, had proper sleep, or many other possibilities - which I wonder if we'll get a truthful account of (whether due to Waymo and/or the driver not being straightforward). It's an interesting edge case that you might not think of, or thinking the odds might be "one in a million" and not design for it; I wonder how many driving hours etc have occurred so far (and other statistical analysis to breakdown different contexts) before this "one in a million" event occurred.

logfromblammo 8y ago

Article implies without stating outright that the driver was working a night shift, which are problematic for sleep schedules across a wide range of industries. People fall asleep at night, even when they are expected by their bosses to be alert. Waymo responded by walking back their cut of safety drivers from 2 to 1, but only for night shifts. If you tell someone that they will be fired the literal instant they doze off, all you are doing is guaranteeing that they will get fired, especially when you also task them with a boring job and ban all means by which they might boost their orexin levels during their shift. That is one of the hormones that regulate alertness, and responds to mental engagement. It cycles up and down with the circadian period. The result: bored at night; out like a light. The occupants of a self-driving vehicle will fall asleep at night. If you aren't testing that use case, you aren't doing your job. Managing alertness levels at night is the company's problem. Bright lighting with plenty of blue light in the spectrum is part of it. Keeping the employees from getting bored is, too. Sleep countermeasures will have to be installed with user-monitored car automation, and the safety-driver/tester just saved Waymo from a future liability nightmare. Why are they no longer with the company?! I think one solution may be to gamify safety-driving such that the human safety for an autonomous driver earns points for vigilance-related tasks. Identify potential road hazards before the autonomous system does. Count blue cars. Play the 49-state license plate game. Play a trivia game over the audio system. Hear about local points of historical interest near where you are driving. Anything other than silently watching moving road lines extend beyond the range of your headlights.