3 ms·

To all self-driving companies testing on public road, even Waymo, which is the current leader: [1] Why don’t you develop/deploy a face and eye tracking system

To all self-driving companies testing on public road, even Waymo, which is the current leader: [1] Why don’t you develop/deploy a face and eye tracking system to detect if the test driver is dozing off or otherwise not paying enough attention and act accordingly? (Warn first, and if needed, take the car to a safe spot and stop.) The system should be useful in real deployment with passenger/driver on board as well, since the self-driving car needs to know if it should obey human’s manual command, which should also depend on the person’s state of attention at the moment. [1] Waymo’s self-driving car crashed because its human driver fell asleep at the wheel https://qz.com/1410928/waymos-self-driving-car-crashed-because-its-human-driver-fell-asleep/ https://qz.com/1410928/waymos-self-driving-car-crashed-becau... [2] In addition, we all heard about the case which the test driver was watching a movie and a pedestrian was killed.

iodiniemetra 8y ago
This already exists and is being deployed as a consumer-grade feature. I think that this will be a necessity for mass rollout of self-driving cars.
bostonpete 8y ago
Driver monitoring is an area of active development.
sz4kerto 8y ago
I think many cars have fatigue detection systems already.
xoa 8y ago
>Why don’t you develop a face and eye tracking system to detect if the test driver is dozing off or otherwise not paying enough attention and act accordingly? At least in Waymo's case, because their explicit goal is to go directly to level 5. Unlike some companies who think intermediate steps are desirable, for Waymo test drivers are specifically that, for testing. The accident (which was just on HN) if anything supports the hypothesis that there should either be Level 1, maybe a little 2, or 5, and that's it. So spending time and effort on developing more complex technology like that purely for the special limited time case of R&D is probably not worth it vs just plain having better and more professional driver practices. Waymo can and should be blamed for having shifts of more then say 4 hours, insufficiently rigorous selection/training, not having a 2 person requirement, online real time observation by a control center, etc. But it's still a one-off situation. Where technology comes into play is scaling and general usage by non-professionals, but for the specific, low volume case of testing it is absolutely possible to have low-tech or no-tech handled well. For companies who claim level 3/4 are valuable stepping stones rather then a valley, yes driver attention is integral to their proposal in general deployment and thus requiring that also be part of their technology makes sense. But it's not just over engineered for a level 5 shift, it's to some extent making excuses for what is a direct and simple management failure. If managers overwork and badly train a fork lift operator or any other equipment operator and an accident results, we don't say the fork lift needs eyeball trackers, we say management failed at following best practices and is at fault.
- nopinsight 8y ago
  Even IF a level 5 self-driving becomes practical soon (I doubt it based on the fact that AI still lacks commonsense), many human riders would still want an option of manual override. In the linked article of my post above, the manual override went wrong because the driver fell asleep and that could occur to any rider as well. Obviously, one could make it harder to override the autonomous system but it would result in slower activation which could result in an accident for any car that still lacks commonsense. In fact, taking into account the commander/rider’s state of attention should be part of commonsense needed for any level 5 self-driving system.
  - xoa 8y ago
    >Even IF a level 5 self-driving becomes practical soon (I doubt it based on the fact that AI still lacks commonsense), many human riders would still want an option of manual override. And they should be accommodated why exactly? If they want manual they can just buy a standard car with l1/l2. >In the linked article of my post above, the manual override went wrong because the driver fell asleep and that could occur to any rider as well. No, not just Waymo but even GM have explicit plans for final cars to not even have so much as a steering wheel at all, and pushing for Congress to allow an exception in that case from full FMVSS-compliance. The manual override and functions are just for the development process, the whole point of level 5 is that passenger involvement is eliminated. Anything less then that isn't level 5 and gets back into the problem of almost not needing any attention, except when you suddenly do. I'm not commenting on how close they are, just on what the goal is and why developing drive attention technology purely for testing purposes makes no sense vs just having better test procedures (and paying for it). >In fact, taking into account the commander/rider’s state of attention should be part of commonsense needed for any level 5 self-driving system. Are you sure you actually understand what the "levels" are here? It's certainly widely regarded as an imperfect classification system, particularly at 2, 3, and 4, but 1 and 5 are clear enough and 5 is "start to finish without even a human in the vehicle at all, or everyone sleeping".
    - nopinsight 8y ago
      > Are you sure you actually understand what the "levels" are here? It's certainly widely regarded as an imperfect classification system, particularly at 2, 3, and 4, but 1 and 5 are clear enough and 5 is "start to finish without even a human in the vehicle at all, or everyone sleeping". I understand ‘Level 5’ and I am an active AI researcher. Do you understand what kind of technology is required to get to Level 5? Do you think level 5 can be achieved without understanding how humans behave in a vehicle? Commonsense is needed for Level 5. For an example: What if someone sleepwalking or rather sleep kicking and break the windows open then leave a leg or an arm hanging out of it? Do you think a Level 5 car should not monitor how the passengers behave at all? Do you have real information/references rather than speculation that Waymo and GM have plans to launch only after achieving Level 5 rather than Level 4 which most observers agree on? Do you have a cost/benefit calculation of why the driver detection system is “not worth it” since it is better to wait for Level 5 before launching anyway? By the way, the driver detection system is something a team of competent AI researchers can do today (perhaps imperfectly but good enough) while no one even knows for sure how to achieve Level 5. When do you expect Level 5 can be achieved? If your answer is less than 10 years, you appear to know more than most of the top AI researchers I have talked with or read their prognostications.

iodiniemetra 8y ago

This already exists and is being deployed as a consumer-grade feature. I think that this will be a necessity for mass rollout of self-driving cars.

bostonpete 8y ago

Driver monitoring is an area of active development.

sz4kerto 8y ago

I think many cars have fatigue detection systems already.

xoa 8y ago

>Why don’t you develop a face and eye tracking system to detect if the test driver is dozing off or otherwise not paying enough attention and act accordingly? At least in Waymo's case, because their explicit goal is to go directly to level 5. Unlike some companies who think intermediate steps are desirable, for Waymo test drivers are specifically that, for testing. The accident (which was just on HN) if anything supports the hypothesis that there should either be Level 1, maybe a little 2, or 5, and that's it. So spending time and effort on developing more complex technology like that purely for the special limited time case of R&D is probably not worth it vs just plain having better and more professional driver practices. Waymo can and should be blamed for having shifts of more then say 4 hours, insufficiently rigorous selection/training, not having a 2 person requirement, online real time observation by a control center, etc. But it's still a one-off situation. Where technology comes into play is scaling and general usage by non-professionals, but for the specific, low volume case of testing it is absolutely possible to have low-tech or no-tech handled well. For companies who claim level 3/4 are valuable stepping stones rather then a valley, yes driver attention is integral to their proposal in general deployment and thus requiring that also be part of their technology makes sense. But it's not just over engineered for a level 5 shift, it's to some extent making excuses for what is a direct and simple management failure. If managers overwork and badly train a fork lift operator or any other equipment operator and an accident results, we don't say the fork lift needs eyeball trackers, we say management failed at following best practices and is at fault.

nopinsight 8y ago
Even IF a level 5 self-driving becomes practical soon (I doubt it based on the fact that AI still lacks commonsense), many human riders would still want an option of manual override. In the linked article of my post above, the manual override went wrong because the driver fell asleep and that could occur to any rider as well. Obviously, one could make it harder to override the autonomous system but it would result in slower activation which could result in an accident for any car that still lacks commonsense. In fact, taking into account the commander/rider’s state of attention should be part of commonsense needed for any level 5 self-driving system.
- xoa 8y ago
  >Even IF a level 5 self-driving becomes practical soon (I doubt it based on the fact that AI still lacks commonsense), many human riders would still want an option of manual override. And they should be accommodated why exactly? If they want manual they can just buy a standard car with l1/l2. >In the linked article of my post above, the manual override went wrong because the driver fell asleep and that could occur to any rider as well. No, not just Waymo but even GM have explicit plans for final cars to not even have so much as a steering wheel at all, and pushing for Congress to allow an exception in that case from full FMVSS-compliance. The manual override and functions are just for the development process, the whole point of level 5 is that passenger involvement is eliminated. Anything less then that isn't level 5 and gets back into the problem of almost not needing any attention, except when you suddenly do. I'm not commenting on how close they are, just on what the goal is and why developing drive attention technology purely for testing purposes makes no sense vs just having better test procedures (and paying for it). >In fact, taking into account the commander/rider’s state of attention should be part of commonsense needed for any level 5 self-driving system. Are you sure you actually understand what the "levels" are here? It's certainly widely regarded as an imperfect classification system, particularly at 2, 3, and 4, but 1 and 5 are clear enough and 5 is "start to finish without even a human in the vehicle at all, or everyone sleeping".
  - nopinsight 8y ago
    > Are you sure you actually understand what the "levels" are here? It's certainly widely regarded as an imperfect classification system, particularly at 2, 3, and 4, but 1 and 5 are clear enough and 5 is "start to finish without even a human in the vehicle at all, or everyone sleeping". I understand ‘Level 5’ and I am an active AI researcher. Do you understand what kind of technology is required to get to Level 5? Do you think level 5 can be achieved without understanding how humans behave in a vehicle? Commonsense is needed for Level 5. For an example: What if someone sleepwalking or rather sleep kicking and break the windows open then leave a leg or an arm hanging out of it? Do you think a Level 5 car should not monitor how the passengers behave at all? Do you have real information/references rather than speculation that Waymo and GM have plans to launch only after achieving Level 5 rather than Level 4 which most observers agree on? Do you have a cost/benefit calculation of why the driver detection system is “not worth it” since it is better to wait for Level 5 before launching anyway? By the way, the driver detection system is something a team of competent AI researchers can do today (perhaps imperfectly but good enough) while no one even knows for sure how to achieve Level 5. When do you expect Level 5 can be achieved? If your answer is less than 10 years, you appear to know more than most of the top AI researchers I have talked with or read their prognostications.