4 ms·

Of course, self-driving cars don't have to be perfect, they only have to be better than human drivers. Then they'll go mainstream, and they'll keep getting bet

by grecy 8y ago

Of course, self-driving cars don't have to be perfect, they only have to be better than human drivers. Then they'll go mainstream, and they'll keep getting better and better, while human drivers don't.

sorenjan 8y ago
No, they have to be much better than human drivers, close to perfect. We all know and expect that people make mistakes, and if a driver kills themselves by mistake that's on them. But if you buy a machine to drive you and it kills you because the engineers made a mistake, that's a different thing. That's much less tolerated, and rightly so, even if it isn't 100% logical by your standard. It's not just about mean number of accidents per driven km, it's also about accountability and blame.
- grecy 8y ago
  I understand that many people will view it that way, but there is another way to view it. Every single time I get in a vehicle, the people coming towards me might be talking on their phone, drunk or whatever. There is a very real chance I will be injured or killed on a daily basis even if I drive perfectly, and nothing beyond my abilities happens. In the same way that seat belts and airbags and automatic braking improved safety, imperfect self-driving cars will improve overall safety. The important thing to note is that seat belts, airbags and automatic braking a far from perfect, and thousands of people a year still die even though they are using them. People still use them, because it is safer than the alternative - which imperfect self driving cars will be too.
  - ivanbakel 8y ago
    So what? People will not accept a computer driver, even if it manages a significant improvement on the current rate of car accidents, because there is a real psychological barrier. Your counterargument of "but it's an improvement" would miss that point. Humans are prone to all sorts of fallacies, especially surrounding "destiny" and our own influence over our lives - that's why ideas like "bad things happen to bad people" are so popular. That kind of problem is not surmountable by statistical fact. You cannot sway the majority of road users to trust a machine that way. They want to be in control, because it makes them feel something that the computer can't - safe in their own hands.
    - grecy 8y ago
      > People will not accept a computer driver, even if it manages a significant improvement on the current rate of car accidents, because there is a real psychological barrier In your opinion. We can't know what people will accept, because we've never tried something like this before. I've pointed out my view, and you've pointed out yours. Time will be the only way to see what people are willing to accept, or not.
    - eyeundersand 8y ago
      Are you also one of these 'people' that will not accept a computer driver? Those people are using a poor emotional argument.
      - ivanbakel 8y ago
        That's exactly what I'm saying. The poor emotional argument is very important, and you can't just attack it with statistics.
      - magduf 8y ago
        >Those people are using a poor emotional argument. Yes, they certainly are, but those people also vote. You can't just ignore them and their idiotic arguments, unless you live in a techno-authoritarian nation where things like this are forced on the populace against their will (even if their will is stupid). This is the whole problem here; you can't just convince everyone with a technical argument, because most people are non-technical, emotional, and frequently quite stupid, but they also have a say in decisions.
    - matz1 8y ago
      Sure, for some people but certainly not me. I even will accept computer driver if it only slightly worse than human driver
  - twodave 8y ago
    I would rather compare an auto-driving failure more to an airbag that failed to deploy or was otherwise rendered useless. An airbag that is inadequate for the amount of force applied might still save your life, and is still serving its intended purpose. Auto-driving incidents are so outrageous because they represent systematic failures.
rayiner 8y ago
What does it mean to be “better than human drivers?” One of the features of humans is that while they make mistakes, those mistakes tend to be pretty randomly distributed. In any given unusual scenario, most people will be fine most of the time. Sometimes we get tired and veer into the incoming lane, but you could get rid of the lane markings entirely and almost everyone would still be able to figure out what to do. A self driving car might never get tired and veer into oncoming traffic on a well marked highway on a sunny day. But we don’t know what phenomena will emerge if a particular stretch of weirdly painted lines causes every vehicle to veer into oncoming traffic during rush hour. “Better than human drivers” is not an analytically useful criterion. The question is, can you handle all the corner cases human drivers manage to handle every day?
- grecy 8y ago
  > What does it mean to be “better than human drivers?” It's extremely simple, and the same criteria they use to determine if driving is safer with many safety devices (ie. airbags or seat belts) than without them. Injuries or deaths per x miles or x hours driven. It's very important to note that in some cases airbags and seat belts actually result in more severe injuries or deaths than without them, but overall they are better because they reduce the fatalities per x miles driven. Just because airbags sometimes kill people, it doesn't mean I'm going to choose a car that doesn't have them. Overall, I'm better off to have them.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    That’s not an incorrect metric, but it’s not a very useful one. Or put differently, you’ll need to be a lot more “perfect” than you think in order to get to an ultimate injury/death rate lower than human drivers. You need to be able to handle all the corner cases humans handle routinely, otherwise you’re going to get catastrophic effects. For example, right now Teslas cannot detect stationary obstacles. They slam right into them at highway speeds: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-features-automatic-braking-system-tested-explained https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-featu.... This is not a matter of just tweaking the algorithms to get better and better error rates—it’s a fundamental problem with the system Tesla uses to detect obstacles. In order to actually get close to the accident rate of human drivers on average, you have to be “perfect” in the sense you have to be able to handle every edge case a human driver is likely to ever run into in their entire lives.

by grecy 8y ago

sorenjan 8y ago

No, they have to be much better than human drivers, close to perfect. We all know and expect that people make mistakes, and if a driver kills themselves by mistake that's on them. But if you buy a machine to drive you and it kills you because the engineers made a mistake, that's a different thing. That's much less tolerated, and rightly so, even if it isn't 100% logical by your standard. It's not just about mean number of accidents per driven km, it's also about accountability and blame.

grecy 8y ago
I understand that many people will view it that way, but there is another way to view it. Every single time I get in a vehicle, the people coming towards me might be talking on their phone, drunk or whatever. There is a very real chance I will be injured or killed on a daily basis even if I drive perfectly, and nothing beyond my abilities happens. In the same way that seat belts and airbags and automatic braking improved safety, imperfect self-driving cars will improve overall safety. The important thing to note is that seat belts, airbags and automatic braking a far from perfect, and thousands of people a year still die even though they are using them. People still use them, because it is safer than the alternative - which imperfect self driving cars will be too.
- ivanbakel 8y ago
  So what? People will not accept a computer driver, even if it manages a significant improvement on the current rate of car accidents, because there is a real psychological barrier. Your counterargument of "but it's an improvement" would miss that point. Humans are prone to all sorts of fallacies, especially surrounding "destiny" and our own influence over our lives - that's why ideas like "bad things happen to bad people" are so popular. That kind of problem is not surmountable by statistical fact. You cannot sway the majority of road users to trust a machine that way. They want to be in control, because it makes them feel something that the computer can't - safe in their own hands.
  - grecy 8y ago
    > People will not accept a computer driver, even if it manages a significant improvement on the current rate of car accidents, because there is a real psychological barrier In your opinion. We can't know what people will accept, because we've never tried something like this before. I've pointed out my view, and you've pointed out yours. Time will be the only way to see what people are willing to accept, or not.
  - eyeundersand 8y ago
    Are you also one of these 'people' that will not accept a computer driver? Those people are using a poor emotional argument.
    - ivanbakel 8y ago
      That's exactly what I'm saying. The poor emotional argument is very important, and you can't just attack it with statistics.
    - magduf 8y ago
      >Those people are using a poor emotional argument. Yes, they certainly are, but those people also vote. You can't just ignore them and their idiotic arguments, unless you live in a techno-authoritarian nation where things like this are forced on the populace against their will (even if their will is stupid). This is the whole problem here; you can't just convince everyone with a technical argument, because most people are non-technical, emotional, and frequently quite stupid, but they also have a say in decisions.
  - matz1 8y ago
    Sure, for some people but certainly not me. I even will accept computer driver if it only slightly worse than human driver
- twodave 8y ago
  I would rather compare an auto-driving failure more to an airbag that failed to deploy or was otherwise rendered useless. An airbag that is inadequate for the amount of force applied might still save your life, and is still serving its intended purpose. Auto-driving incidents are so outrageous because they represent systematic failures.

rayiner 8y ago

What does it mean to be “better than human drivers?” One of the features of humans is that while they make mistakes, those mistakes tend to be pretty randomly distributed. In any given unusual scenario, most people will be fine most of the time. Sometimes we get tired and veer into the incoming lane, but you could get rid of the lane markings entirely and almost everyone would still be able to figure out what to do. A self driving car might never get tired and veer into oncoming traffic on a well marked highway on a sunny day. But we don’t know what phenomena will emerge if a particular stretch of weirdly painted lines causes every vehicle to veer into oncoming traffic during rush hour. “Better than human drivers” is not an analytically useful criterion. The question is, can you handle all the corner cases human drivers manage to handle every day?

grecy 8y ago
> What does it mean to be “better than human drivers?” It's extremely simple, and the same criteria they use to determine if driving is safer with many safety devices (ie. airbags or seat belts) than without them. Injuries or deaths per x miles or x hours driven. It's very important to note that in some cases airbags and seat belts actually result in more severe injuries or deaths than without them, but overall they are better because they reduce the fatalities per x miles driven. Just because airbags sometimes kill people, it doesn't mean I'm going to choose a car that doesn't have them. Overall, I'm better off to have them.
- rayiner 8y ago
  That’s not an incorrect metric, but it’s not a very useful one. Or put differently, you’ll need to be a lot more “perfect” than you think in order to get to an ultimate injury/death rate lower than human drivers. You need to be able to handle all the corner cases humans handle routinely, otherwise you’re going to get catastrophic effects. For example, right now Teslas cannot detect stationary obstacles. They slam right into them at highway speeds: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-features-automatic-braking-system-tested-explained https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-featu.... This is not a matter of just tweaking the algorithms to get better and better error rates—it’s a fundamental problem with the system Tesla uses to detect obstacles. In order to actually get close to the accident rate of human drivers on average, you have to be “perfect” in the sense you have to be able to handle every edge case a human driver is likely to ever run into in their entire lives.