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”We will eventually update markings and beacons on the roads to make it easier for the cars” We have already done this, they are called railways. Some of them

”We will eventually update markings and beacons on the roads to make it easier for the cars” We have already done this, they are called railways. Some of them evening have self driving trains. To get self driving cars on roads you need a human level AI. Trying to get away with less intelligence by restricting the environment will never get to the point where it will be safe to have automated vehicles - you can’t provide infrastructure clues to the vehicle to help it tell when a child is about to run out into the road for example (and there are many other examples too) so you would have to segregate them physically from everything else and then you might as well stick to railways

lrem 7y ago
"Human level AI" is a tricky wording. Sure, we may never get a program we would trust to serve in a jury, convince us about existence of God or just have a casual conversation with. But ask Go players how is that resistance to machines going. When I drive and there's a child walking on the sidewalk, I'm not analyzing the chances the child will jump onto the road. I'm just assuming the parents have succeeded at explaining how to not kill yourself, without that assumption I would go crazy with too much things to worry about. AI does not get crazy, nor even tired, with too much tasks. It might usually come up with the same result that I always apply - just drive slowly through roads with children on sidewalks. But it might do something I won't do - slow down even more if the child seems to be doing something suspect. One of the problems with Google-designed self-driving is that it goes slow and refuses to go if uncertain. I imagine that's why those cute little cars without driving wheel were axed. Even if the system has driven a bajillion miles without inflicting any risky situation, it won't sell if it can't guarantee doing your commute in your usual time. But it can't assume the same risk you take every day, that if that child behaves extra stupid and law misfires, then you might find yourself traumatized and without a driving license. Because when AI loses that license, it's killing the whole business. So, the bar for safety must be higher, slowing you down to a fully-controllable crawl, or constraining to high-safety situations. Hence, you get all those highway-assist features all over the place. Disclaimer: I work in Google, but have no insider information about Waymo. Just remember these marketing materials back from the Chaffeur days and still think that was the way to go.
- john_minsk 7y ago
  Or we can allow Google to have the same amount of accidents as regular drivers and not penalize them if they don't go out of certain margins. let's say if the vehicle has 1 accident on every 10m km travelled - google can go on. Sure, some people may die, but each accident will contribute to safety of the system. So called "Antifragile" property. Then you give users of the service a choice: maps where service was very reliable, where some accidents happened or where not enough data was gathered i.e. there can be problems. Let users decide where they want to go and what level of risk they are willing to take. Maybe we can have a device (smartphone?) that serves as marker for vehicles and helps them identify people/dogs/properties around them. If you ask me this can be done even now.
  - lrem 7y ago
    But we can't allow Google to have the same amount of accidents as regular drivers, because we are not allowing them to have the accidents in the first place. "Everyone" breaks the code and the police is not enforcing unless some special conditions happen (e.g. the infraction is in front of a policeman or a well marked speed trap). The code generally is designed to prevent accidents, e.g. by stating that if there is a child nearby a road, you should slow down. But how often do you see drivers going significantly below the limit because of pedestrians on the sidewalk? Now, drivers take these risks because they subconsciously learned that the probability of accident is vanishingly small, while probability of being honked at for going anything below the limit is rather large. Thus, they subconsciously balanced the expected reward/punishment to lean to the direction of taking the risk. But AI is always aware of the risk and very well able to calculate it. Now imagine the headlines "Google's AI intentionally kills X children per year" and the regulatory reaction.

lrem 7y ago

"Human level AI" is a tricky wording. Sure, we may never get a program we would trust to serve in a jury, convince us about existence of God or just have a casual conversation with. But ask Go players how is that resistance to machines going. When I drive and there's a child walking on the sidewalk, I'm not analyzing the chances the child will jump onto the road. I'm just assuming the parents have succeeded at explaining how to not kill yourself, without that assumption I would go crazy with too much things to worry about. AI does not get crazy, nor even tired, with too much tasks. It might usually come up with the same result that I always apply - just drive slowly through roads with children on sidewalks. But it might do something I won't do - slow down even more if the child seems to be doing something suspect. One of the problems with Google-designed self-driving is that it goes slow and refuses to go if uncertain. I imagine that's why those cute little cars without driving wheel were axed. Even if the system has driven a bajillion miles without inflicting any risky situation, it won't sell if it can't guarantee doing your commute in your usual time. But it can't assume the same risk you take every day, that if that child behaves extra stupid and law misfires, then you might find yourself traumatized and without a driving license. Because when AI loses that license, it's killing the whole business. So, the bar for safety must be higher, slowing you down to a fully-controllable crawl, or constraining to high-safety situations. Hence, you get all those highway-assist features all over the place. Disclaimer: I work in Google, but have no insider information about Waymo. Just remember these marketing materials back from the Chaffeur days and still think that was the way to go.

john_minsk 7y ago
Or we can allow Google to have the same amount of accidents as regular drivers and not penalize them if they don't go out of certain margins. let's say if the vehicle has 1 accident on every 10m km travelled - google can go on. Sure, some people may die, but each accident will contribute to safety of the system. So called "Antifragile" property. Then you give users of the service a choice: maps where service was very reliable, where some accidents happened or where not enough data was gathered i.e. there can be problems. Let users decide where they want to go and what level of risk they are willing to take. Maybe we can have a device (smartphone?) that serves as marker for vehicles and helps them identify people/dogs/properties around them. If you ask me this can be done even now.
- lrem 7y ago
  But we can't allow Google to have the same amount of accidents as regular drivers, because we are not allowing them to have the accidents in the first place. "Everyone" breaks the code and the police is not enforcing unless some special conditions happen (e.g. the infraction is in front of a policeman or a well marked speed trap). The code generally is designed to prevent accidents, e.g. by stating that if there is a child nearby a road, you should slow down. But how often do you see drivers going significantly below the limit because of pedestrians on the sidewalk? Now, drivers take these risks because they subconsciously learned that the probability of accident is vanishingly small, while probability of being honked at for going anything below the limit is rather large. Thus, they subconsciously balanced the expected reward/punishment to lean to the direction of taking the risk. But AI is always aware of the risk and very well able to calculate it. Now imagine the headlines "Google's AI intentionally kills X children per year" and the regulatory reaction.