4 ms·

> The system isn't AI based... It's currently based on static programming. This is why a development team would have to think of every possible scenario that co

by baddox 7y ago

> The system isn't AI based... It's currently based on static programming. This is why a development team would have to think of every possible scenario that could happen on roads to make self driving cars really work. I'm not really sure what this dichotomy is that you're describing. It certainly looks like they're using computer vision to detect the bounding boxes of cars, and the field of computer vision is widely described as being either a subset of artificial intelligence or a cross-disciplinary approach combining artificial intelligence with a handful of other fields. > You'd have to ask all kinds of wild questions too like: > "What if kids played a prank and re-painted road lanes on a highway at 50MPH?" This sort of thing actually happens with real humans, and the legal system has to (and does) handle it. In the 1990s three people removed a stop sign as a prank and were sentenced to 15 years in prison after a human driver drove into the intersection and hit another vehicle, killing three teenagers. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/21/us/3-are-sentenced-to-15-years-in-fatal-stop-sign-prank.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/21/us/3-are-sentenced-to-15-.... The fact that it's possible for humans to illegally modify road markings and end up killing people is a challenge and a tragedy, but it's not anything new or particularly game-changing for self-driving cars. > "What if a sand storm happened?" That sounds like one of the easiest possible problems. What do humans do when they suddenly have nearly zero visibility on a road? In most places I assume they are supposed to (and do) pull over to the side of the road and stop. I've been in rain that is so heavy that all the nearby cars on the highway had to pull over. > "What would the car do if a tire blows out at 55MPH?" Again, that's another thing that happens a lot, and probably causes a lot of injuries and deaths. Again, I'm not minimizing that loss, but it's not some huge "gotcha" for self-driving cars. In this particular example, I would expect self-driving cars to be vastly better than most human drivers in this situation at maintaining control while pulling over and stopping.

thedance 7y ago
> What do humans do when they suddenly have nearly zero visibility on a road? They cause gigantic pile-ups, because humans are unbelievably bad at driving. https://abcnews.go.com/US/50-people-injured-69-vehicle-pileup-virginia-interstate/story?id=67884949 https://abcnews.go.com/US/50-people-injured-69-vehicle-pileu...
winternett 7y ago
You replied to the 4 scenarios I posted, but forgot the thousands of others left while you missed my point. They were rhetorical to illustrate that nothing yet can replace a trained, experienced, and attentive driver effectively yet. There are no simple answers to the above questions, but if a driver causes the accident, they are accountable. Companies want to launch this tech but not own accountability for accidents when it could well be faulty logic and or code that contributes to deadly incidents. In a ship... less of a risk... In a car, surrounded by 4-10 other cars, the risk is much higher. Profit making should not drive this blatant hubris... We forget how history reminds us of an over-reliance on technology and intelligent design.
- optimiz3 7y ago
  > You replied to the 4 scenarios I posted, but forgot the thousands of others left while you missed my point. try { while (true) { if (IsScenarioOutsideOfUnderstanding()) { throw NotUnderstoodException() } } } catch (NotUnderstoodException) { SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); }
  - lolc 7y ago
    Patch for car stopping way too often: catch (NotUnderstoodException) { - SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); + // FIXME TODO let the safety driver handle it for now + // SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); }
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Go watch Elon's presentation Autonomy Day. He pointedly addresses it. Specifically, he shows an orders-of-magnitude chart, each point accompanied by a picture of a car presented at that magnitude of occurrence. At one extreme is "car" as they appear with most common frequency (in front of you, rear visible). At other extreme is "car" in an extremely unlikely occurrence (airborne, bottom view prominent). The system Tesla implements addresses such a broad range of information & occurrences. Tesla has upwards of a million "full self driving" vehicles on the road now, all gathering video, all processing that data, all feeding what they learn & experience back to Tesla. The computers, even if not actually driving, are constantly observing situations, categorizing, and comparing to what humans do as a response. Extreme situations (crashes etc) are flagged and routed to Tesla for incident analysis; the AI is corrected & taught to handle the situations, and all vehicles updated accordingly in short order. Upshot: Tesla DOES have a system for addressing, learning, encoding, and improving the "thousands of other" scenarios. By the time "full self driving" is unleashed, the Tesla AI system will already be trained to extremes by a million "trained, experienced, and attentive drivers"; insofar as some cases may be insufficiently covered, they will be statistically less common & dangerous than the baseline error rate of human drivers (distracted, drunk, debilitated, dumb). As far as accountability, Tesla is working hard to build a decisive system & case that if bad happens, it is a statistical anomaly which is still better than the alternative of not using self-driving tech. There is a legal principle whereby one may violate the law when obeying it would cause greater harm; autonomous vehicles are close to crossing that line for the better. And yes, great profit is due those who improve humanity via technology.
outworlder 7y ago
> In this particular example, I would expect self-driving cars to be vastly better than most human drivers in this situation at maintaining control while pulling over and stopping. Cars today are vastly better at maintaining control in this situation even without self-driving. If the car has traction control, as long as the driver doesn't panic they will have a much greater chance of keeping control of their vehicle, compared to cars without a computer assisting them.
- Smoosh 7y ago
  This is an area which I am interested in. While most interest/discussion in self-driving surrounds the interpretation of the environment viz other road users, road markings and signage, I am following the (too slowly developing) Roborace, Stanford's MARTY and similar efforts to automate expert car control including handling the loss of control. I look forward to the day when passengers can be confident that they are safer than with even the best human driver. And not just statistically safer, but demonstrably so.

by baddox 7y ago

thedance 7y ago

> What do humans do when they suddenly have nearly zero visibility on a road? They cause gigantic pile-ups, because humans are unbelievably bad at driving. https://abcnews.go.com/US/50-people-injured-69-vehicle-pileup-virginia-interstate/story?id=67884949 https://abcnews.go.com/US/50-people-injured-69-vehicle-pileu...

winternett 7y ago

You replied to the 4 scenarios I posted, but forgot the thousands of others left while you missed my point. They were rhetorical to illustrate that nothing yet can replace a trained, experienced, and attentive driver effectively yet. There are no simple answers to the above questions, but if a driver causes the accident, they are accountable. Companies want to launch this tech but not own accountability for accidents when it could well be faulty logic and or code that contributes to deadly incidents. In a ship... less of a risk... In a car, surrounded by 4-10 other cars, the risk is much higher. Profit making should not drive this blatant hubris... We forget how history reminds us of an over-reliance on technology and intelligent design.

optimiz3 7y ago
> You replied to the 4 scenarios I posted, but forgot the thousands of others left while you missed my point. try { while (true) { if (IsScenarioOutsideOfUnderstanding()) { throw NotUnderstoodException() } } } catch (NotUnderstoodException) { SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); }
- lolc 7y ago
  Patch for car stopping way too often: catch (NotUnderstoodException) { - SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); + // FIXME TODO let the safety driver handle it for now + // SlowDownAndStopLikeAnyoneElseWould(); }
ctdonath 7y ago
Go watch Elon's presentation Autonomy Day. He pointedly addresses it. Specifically, he shows an orders-of-magnitude chart, each point accompanied by a picture of a car presented at that magnitude of occurrence. At one extreme is "car" as they appear with most common frequency (in front of you, rear visible). At other extreme is "car" in an extremely unlikely occurrence (airborne, bottom view prominent). The system Tesla implements addresses such a broad range of information & occurrences. Tesla has upwards of a million "full self driving" vehicles on the road now, all gathering video, all processing that data, all feeding what they learn & experience back to Tesla. The computers, even if not actually driving, are constantly observing situations, categorizing, and comparing to what humans do as a response. Extreme situations (crashes etc) are flagged and routed to Tesla for incident analysis; the AI is corrected & taught to handle the situations, and all vehicles updated accordingly in short order. Upshot: Tesla DOES have a system for addressing, learning, encoding, and improving the "thousands of other" scenarios. By the time "full self driving" is unleashed, the Tesla AI system will already be trained to extremes by a million "trained, experienced, and attentive drivers"; insofar as some cases may be insufficiently covered, they will be statistically less common & dangerous than the baseline error rate of human drivers (distracted, drunk, debilitated, dumb). As far as accountability, Tesla is working hard to build a decisive system & case that if bad happens, it is a statistical anomaly which is still better than the alternative of not using self-driving tech. There is a legal principle whereby one may violate the law when obeying it would cause greater harm; autonomous vehicles are close to crossing that line for the better. And yes, great profit is due those who improve humanity via technology.

outworlder 7y ago

> In this particular example, I would expect self-driving cars to be vastly better than most human drivers in this situation at maintaining control while pulling over and stopping. Cars today are vastly better at maintaining control in this situation even without self-driving. If the car has traction control, as long as the driver doesn't panic they will have a much greater chance of keeping control of their vehicle, compared to cars without a computer assisting them.

Smoosh 7y ago
This is an area which I am interested in. While most interest/discussion in self-driving surrounds the interpretation of the environment viz other road users, road markings and signage, I am following the (too slowly developing) Roborace, Stanford's MARTY and similar efforts to automate expert car control including handling the loss of control. I look forward to the day when passengers can be confident that they are safer than with even the best human driver. And not just statistically safer, but demonstrably so.