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Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone - I don’t think no-fail (0 deaths) is a reasonable requirement, just being safer than h

Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone - I don’t think no-fail (0 deaths) is a reasonable requirement, just being safer than humans is enough. I do agree with the OPs skepticism though - full autonomy is 10 years away.

mehrdadn 8y ago
> Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone - I don’t think no-fail (0 deaths) is a reasonable requirement, just being safer than humans is enough. This is a fallacy. People don't just look at safety statistics. The actual manner/setting in which something can kill you matters a ton too. There's a huge difference between a computer that crashes in even the most benign situations and one that only crashes in truly difficult situations, even if the the first one isn't any more frequent than the second. Hypothetical example: you've stopped behind a red light and your car randomly starts moving, and you get hit by another car. Turns out your car has a habit of glitching like this every 165,000 miles or so (which seems to be the average accident rate) for no apparent reason. Would you be fine this car? I don't think most people would even come close to finding this acceptable. They want to be safe when they haven't done anything dangerous -- they want to be in reasonable control of their destiny. P.S. people are also more forgiving of each other than computers. E.g. a 1-second reaction time can be pretty acceptable for a human but, but if the computer I'd trusted with my life had that kind of reaction time it would get defenestrated pretty quickly.
- grey-area 8y ago
  > This is a fallacy. Please do point out where the statement is incorrect. I wasn't talking about perception, people have all kinds of ideas about machines (mostly unfounded), but typically safety records drive policy, not whether drivers think they are better than the machine. I believe machine assisted driving is safer than unassisted already and will continue to improve such that in 10 or 20 years human drivers will be the exception, not the norm. That will happen because computers are already safer in most conditions - the switch will happen when they are demonstrably far safer in all conditions. Remember they don't have to beat the best human driver, just the average.
  - llukas 8y ago
    > That will happen because computers are already safer in most conditions - the switch will happen when they are demonstrably far safer in all conditions. Computers currently can disengage in any conditions for any reason - how did you come with conclusion computers are already safer?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  If that was actually the case, i.e. it had a lower accident rate than humans buts its accidents were silly bugs, it wouldn't be a "huge difference" -- it would be a slight improvement that would become a major improvement when the bug gets fixed. If the average person thinks they're better than the computer when the computer is better than the average person, the average person is incorrect. > They want to be safe when they haven't done anything dangerous -- they want to be in reasonable control of their destiny. If you don't trust the computer, does that mean you won't trust another driver, if the computer is better than the average driver? Then how do you drive at all, when the roads are full of average drivers who could hit you at any time?
  - notahacker 8y ago
    > If the average person thinks they're better than the computer when the computer is better than the average person, the average person is incorrect. Until you remember that to obtain statistically significant evidence that the latest version number of Tesla (or any other firm's) software is safer than the average driver entails hundreds of millions of miles of driving. And for that matter that the "average driver" accident rates are skewed upwards by the number of incidents involving people who you'd never, ever volunteer to be driven by [in their state of intoxication]. In the mean time, the human heuristic that a car which tries to kill you by accelerating at lane dividers isn't safer than your own average level of driving skill in many circumstances is probably better than trusting exponential curves and the Elon Musk reality distortion field.
    - creato 8y ago
      > And for that matter that the "average driver" accident rates are skewed upwards by the number of incidents involving people who you'd never, ever volunteer to be driven by [in their state of intoxication]. And they include driving in a huge range of conditions and roads that driving automation does not function in. The conditions in which automated driving technology gets used (good weather, highway driving) must have far lower rates of accidents than average.
      - 8y ago
- fattire 8y ago
  Let's say there are two cars with two drivers. The first, with a human driver, is deadly under traditional human scenarios-- the driver could be drunk, texting or eating or distracted. They could make a slow decision, be looking the wrong way, stomp on the wrong pedal, etc. The second driver is a machine. It sees all around it at all times and never gets drunk. But when it fails it does so in a way that to a human looks incredibly stupid. A way that is unthinkable for a human to screw up- making an obviously bad decision that would be trivial for a human to avoid. Now let's say that statistically it can be proven that the first type of driver (human) is ten times more likely to be at fault for killing their passengers than the second in real world driving. So if you die, and it's the machine's fault, it will be in a easily avoidable and probably embarrassingly stupid way. But it's far less likely to happen. Which type of driver do you choose?
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    If that were the only options, we could choose the second. But you have the option of assistive technologies. Have the human drive and the machine supervise it. The mistakes made when the human falls asleep can be prevented. The mistakes that the machine makes, well those won't be made at all as human is the active driver.
  - sorokod 8y ago
    I would choose the "machine" driver if it is two ( not one ) orders of magnitude safer. By the way, your examples are not very good as the drunk/texting driver makes a choice and to some extent her passengers too. No such choice is given with the car is autonomous.
    - magduf 8y ago
      Drunk drivers don't just kill their passengers; they kill other drivers and pedestrians. You have no control over that.
      - Piskvorrr 8y ago
        As opposed to...well. RIP EH.
- badpun 8y ago
  > Turns out your car has a habit of glitching like this every 165,000 miles or so (which seems to be the average accident rate) for no apparent reason. People do equally inexplicably stupid things as well, due to distraction, tiredness or just a plain brain fart.
bostonpete 8y ago
> Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone They also drive 8-9 billion miles per day. That's around 1 death per 90 million miles of driving. Given the number of AV miles that are driven annually right now, we actually would expect to see ~0 deaths per year if AVs were as safe as humans...
- fattire 8y ago
  FWIW, Tesla claims to have logged 1.2 billion autopilot (primarily freeway only) miles as of last summer: https://electrek.co/2018/07/17/tesla-autopilot-miles-shadow-mode-report/ https://electrek.co/2018/07/17/tesla-autopilot-miles-shadow-... It is probably best to categorize these as autopilot PLUS human supervision, but anyway, Wikipedia cites 3 autopilot-caused deaths worldwide over 3 years or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatal...
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    It's all worth subcategorizing. Highway driving is substantially safer than surface streets, and if you stick to awake, sober, daytime drivers in good weather, the safety of human drivers is even higher. Given that autopilot can handle nighttime, but not the others, it's completely possible that 1/300 million miles is above the sober good weather highway human driver fatality rate.
rayiner 8y ago
Humans drive 8 billion miles per day in the US, through a variety of conditions, crazy weather, crazy traffic, crazy pedestrians, etc. “Just being safer than humans” is an extremely tall order.
DrScump 8y ago
just being safer than humans is enough "Enough" for a statistician... but not if you're the one killed in an "acceptable" edge case that most humans handle fine.
Piskvorrr 8y ago
Full autonomy has been 10 years away for half a century. If driving still exists in a century, I'd wager that full autonomy would still be 10 years away then.

mehrdadn 8y ago

> Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone - I don’t think no-fail (0 deaths) is a reasonable requirement, just being safer than humans is enough. This is a fallacy. People don't just look at safety statistics. The actual manner/setting in which something can kill you matters a ton too. There's a huge difference between a computer that crashes in even the most benign situations and one that only crashes in truly difficult situations, even if the the first one isn't any more frequent than the second. Hypothetical example: you've stopped behind a red light and your car randomly starts moving, and you get hit by another car. Turns out your car has a habit of glitching like this every 165,000 miles or so (which seems to be the average accident rate) for no apparent reason. Would you be fine this car? I don't think most people would even come close to finding this acceptable. They want to be safe when they haven't done anything dangerous -- they want to be in reasonable control of their destiny. P.S. people are also more forgiving of each other than computers. E.g. a 1-second reaction time can be pretty acceptable for a human but, but if the computer I'd trusted with my life had that kind of reaction time it would get defenestrated pretty quickly.

grey-area 8y ago
> This is a fallacy. Please do point out where the statement is incorrect. I wasn't talking about perception, people have all kinds of ideas about machines (mostly unfounded), but typically safety records drive policy, not whether drivers think they are better than the machine. I believe machine assisted driving is safer than unassisted already and will continue to improve such that in 10 or 20 years human drivers will be the exception, not the norm. That will happen because computers are already safer in most conditions - the switch will happen when they are demonstrably far safer in all conditions. Remember they don't have to beat the best human driver, just the average.
- llukas 8y ago
  > That will happen because computers are already safer in most conditions - the switch will happen when they are demonstrably far safer in all conditions. Computers currently can disengage in any conditions for any reason - how did you come with conclusion computers are already safer?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
If that was actually the case, i.e. it had a lower accident rate than humans buts its accidents were silly bugs, it wouldn't be a "huge difference" -- it would be a slight improvement that would become a major improvement when the bug gets fixed. If the average person thinks they're better than the computer when the computer is better than the average person, the average person is incorrect. > They want to be safe when they haven't done anything dangerous -- they want to be in reasonable control of their destiny. If you don't trust the computer, does that mean you won't trust another driver, if the computer is better than the average driver? Then how do you drive at all, when the roads are full of average drivers who could hit you at any time?
- notahacker 8y ago
  > If the average person thinks they're better than the computer when the computer is better than the average person, the average person is incorrect. Until you remember that to obtain statistically significant evidence that the latest version number of Tesla (or any other firm's) software is safer than the average driver entails hundreds of millions of miles of driving. And for that matter that the "average driver" accident rates are skewed upwards by the number of incidents involving people who you'd never, ever volunteer to be driven by [in their state of intoxication]. In the mean time, the human heuristic that a car which tries to kill you by accelerating at lane dividers isn't safer than your own average level of driving skill in many circumstances is probably better than trusting exponential curves and the Elon Musk reality distortion field.
  - creato 8y ago
    > And for that matter that the "average driver" accident rates are skewed upwards by the number of incidents involving people who you'd never, ever volunteer to be driven by [in their state of intoxication]. And they include driving in a huge range of conditions and roads that driving automation does not function in. The conditions in which automated driving technology gets used (good weather, highway driving) must have far lower rates of accidents than average.
    - 8y ago
fattire 8y ago
Let's say there are two cars with two drivers. The first, with a human driver, is deadly under traditional human scenarios-- the driver could be drunk, texting or eating or distracted. They could make a slow decision, be looking the wrong way, stomp on the wrong pedal, etc. The second driver is a machine. It sees all around it at all times and never gets drunk. But when it fails it does so in a way that to a human looks incredibly stupid. A way that is unthinkable for a human to screw up- making an obviously bad decision that would be trivial for a human to avoid. Now let's say that statistically it can be proven that the first type of driver (human) is ten times more likely to be at fault for killing their passengers than the second in real world driving. So if you die, and it's the machine's fault, it will be in a easily avoidable and probably embarrassingly stupid way. But it's far less likely to happen. Which type of driver do you choose?
- rohit2412 8y ago
  If that were the only options, we could choose the second. But you have the option of assistive technologies. Have the human drive and the machine supervise it. The mistakes made when the human falls asleep can be prevented. The mistakes that the machine makes, well those won't be made at all as human is the active driver.
- sorokod 8y ago
  I would choose the "machine" driver if it is two ( not one ) orders of magnitude safer. By the way, your examples are not very good as the drunk/texting driver makes a choice and to some extent her passengers too. No such choice is given with the car is autonomous.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Drunk drivers don't just kill their passengers; they kill other drivers and pedestrians. You have no control over that.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      As opposed to...well. RIP EH.
badpun 8y ago
> Turns out your car has a habit of glitching like this every 165,000 miles or so (which seems to be the average accident rate) for no apparent reason. People do equally inexplicably stupid things as well, due to distraction, tiredness or just a plain brain fart.

bostonpete 8y ago

> Humans kill over 100 people per day in traffic accidents in the US alone They also drive 8-9 billion miles per day. That's around 1 death per 90 million miles of driving. Given the number of AV miles that are driven annually right now, we actually would expect to see ~0 deaths per year if AVs were as safe as humans...

fattire 8y ago
FWIW, Tesla claims to have logged 1.2 billion autopilot (primarily freeway only) miles as of last summer: https://electrek.co/2018/07/17/tesla-autopilot-miles-shadow-mode-report/ https://electrek.co/2018/07/17/tesla-autopilot-miles-shadow-... It is probably best to categorize these as autopilot PLUS human supervision, but anyway, Wikipedia cites 3 autopilot-caused deaths worldwide over 3 years or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatal...
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  It's all worth subcategorizing. Highway driving is substantially safer than surface streets, and if you stick to awake, sober, daytime drivers in good weather, the safety of human drivers is even higher. Given that autopilot can handle nighttime, but not the others, it's completely possible that 1/300 million miles is above the sober good weather highway human driver fatality rate.

rayiner 8y ago

Humans drive 8 billion miles per day in the US, through a variety of conditions, crazy weather, crazy traffic, crazy pedestrians, etc. “Just being safer than humans” is an extremely tall order.

DrScump 8y ago

just being safer than humans is enough "Enough" for a statistician... but not if you're the one killed in an "acceptable" edge case that most humans handle fine.

Piskvorrr 8y ago

Full autonomy has been 10 years away for half a century. If driving still exists in a century, I'd wager that full autonomy would still be 10 years away then.