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Isn’t there already a mounting amount of statistics of accidents of self driving cars vs manual ones and the difference is night and day that the self driving o

Isn’t there already a mounting amount of statistics of accidents of self driving cars vs manual ones and the difference is night and day that the self driving ones are statistically safer?

occamrazor 7y ago
Self driving cars killed one pedestrian in 10 million miles driven, about an order of magnitude worse than humans
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  Is that data on self driving cars or assisted driving? I think disengagement statistics also need to be factored in.
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    That's the Uber "Level 3" accident.
- NobodyNada 7y ago
  But that’s a sample size of one, so we can’t really draw any meaningful conclusions from that data. (Also the safety driver was watching Netflix on her phone; it could be argued that the vehicle was not production-ready and not expected or intended to be able to handle every situation.)
  - scrozier 7y ago
    I'm not sure that sample size is a relevant idea here, but it's certainly misleading as you state it. One accident in many billions of miles would be a wonderful result, but you would dismiss it as a sample size of one.
  - slavik81 7y ago
    Let's say everyone replaced their current cars with self-driving vehicles and they never killed anyone ever again. If normal vehicle usage continued and fifty years passed without a single traffic death, your claim suggests we'd still be unable to say if self-driving cars were safer, as it would still be a sample size of one. I don't think your use of statistics is correct.
cultus 7y ago
Not at all. Self-driving cars cannot yet safely navigate complex or unusual scenarios. The human backups in test cars still have to take over with good regularity. That's not something you'd see if it were anywhere close to ready. Even with all their data, there aren't enough training examples of every situation. Deep learning models also have a tendency to be pathologically wrong in rare but completely unpredictable circumstances. Tesla's self driving has resulted in cars swerving into gore points, for example.
- the8472 7y ago
  > Not at all. Self-driving cars cannot yet safely navigate complex or unusual scenarios. That's assuming accidents are caused by complex and unusual scenarios instead of humans being inattentive during routine tasks. If machines fail at complex tasks but fail safely then that's not an argument against self-driving cars being safe, it's only one about their limited usefulness.
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    > If machines fail at complex tasks but fail safely then that's not an argument against self-driving cars being safe, it's only one about their limited usefulness. They don't, not at the moment. The software detects the situation is outside its capability space and says "jesus, take the wheel!". For all practical intents and purposes the only reasonable way to interpret the current self-driving car statistics is to treat every single human intervention as a would-be accident. That rate is somewhere in the 1 per 10000 km ballpark. That's - for now - orders of magnitudes worse than human drivers.
    - the8472 7y ago
      I wonder how much of that fail safe difficulty is to blame on humans too. The car can't just slow down on a highway due to the reaction time of other drivers after all.
      - cultus 7y ago
slg 7y ago
No. There is not yet enough data to say that Tesla's or anyone else's current technology is better than human drivers. You likely need tens or hundreds of billions of miles to prove that. However since accidents are a very low probability event, it would take substantially less data to prove that this technology is drastically less safe than human drivers and that hasn't shown itself in the data either. Either side that points to specific numbers as proof either doesn't understand the statistics or is intentionally trying to mislead you.
ogre_codes 7y ago
The problem is the datasets are incompatible. Tesla's numbers are very impressive until you realize that it will currently only engage in scenarios which are less prone to accidents across the board. As the number of situations where self-driving kicks in increases to include more complex environments, it's likely the numbers will shift.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Even though the numbers will shift, Tesla can't afford to have worse statistics than with human drivers. That's why it takes years to enable city level (L2 and maybe L3 in rush hours) driving. At the same time it really looks like Tesla will enable it this year, as Elon's predicted timelines are getting shorter.

Isn’t there already a mounting amount of statistics of accidents of self driving cars vs manual ones and the difference is night and day that the self driving ones are statistically safer?

occamrazor 7y ago

Self driving cars killed one pedestrian in 10 million miles driven, about an order of magnitude worse than humans

seltzered_ 7y ago
Is that data on self driving cars or assisted driving? I think disengagement statistics also need to be factored in.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  That's the Uber "Level 3" accident.
NobodyNada 7y ago
But that’s a sample size of one, so we can’t really draw any meaningful conclusions from that data. (Also the safety driver was watching Netflix on her phone; it could be argued that the vehicle was not production-ready and not expected or intended to be able to handle every situation.)
- scrozier 7y ago
  I'm not sure that sample size is a relevant idea here, but it's certainly misleading as you state it. One accident in many billions of miles would be a wonderful result, but you would dismiss it as a sample size of one.
- slavik81 7y ago
  Let's say everyone replaced their current cars with self-driving vehicles and they never killed anyone ever again. If normal vehicle usage continued and fifty years passed without a single traffic death, your claim suggests we'd still be unable to say if self-driving cars were safer, as it would still be a sample size of one. I don't think your use of statistics is correct.

cultus 7y ago

Not at all. Self-driving cars cannot yet safely navigate complex or unusual scenarios. The human backups in test cars still have to take over with good regularity. That's not something you'd see if it were anywhere close to ready. Even with all their data, there aren't enough training examples of every situation. Deep learning models also have a tendency to be pathologically wrong in rare but completely unpredictable circumstances. Tesla's self driving has resulted in cars swerving into gore points, for example.

the8472 7y ago
> Not at all. Self-driving cars cannot yet safely navigate complex or unusual scenarios. That's assuming accidents are caused by complex and unusual scenarios instead of humans being inattentive during routine tasks. If machines fail at complex tasks but fail safely then that's not an argument against self-driving cars being safe, it's only one about their limited usefulness.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > If machines fail at complex tasks but fail safely then that's not an argument against self-driving cars being safe, it's only one about their limited usefulness. They don't, not at the moment. The software detects the situation is outside its capability space and says "jesus, take the wheel!". For all practical intents and purposes the only reasonable way to interpret the current self-driving car statistics is to treat every single human intervention as a would-be accident. That rate is somewhere in the 1 per 10000 km ballpark. That's - for now - orders of magnitudes worse than human drivers.
  - the8472 7y ago
    I wonder how much of that fail safe difficulty is to blame on humans too. The car can't just slow down on a highway due to the reaction time of other drivers after all.
    - cultus 7y ago

slg 7y ago

No. There is not yet enough data to say that Tesla's or anyone else's current technology is better than human drivers. You likely need tens or hundreds of billions of miles to prove that. However since accidents are a very low probability event, it would take substantially less data to prove that this technology is drastically less safe than human drivers and that hasn't shown itself in the data either. Either side that points to specific numbers as proof either doesn't understand the statistics or is intentionally trying to mislead you.

ogre_codes 7y ago

The problem is the datasets are incompatible. Tesla's numbers are very impressive until you realize that it will currently only engage in scenarios which are less prone to accidents across the board. As the number of situations where self-driving kicks in increases to include more complex environments, it's likely the numbers will shift.

xiphias2 7y ago
Even though the numbers will shift, Tesla can't afford to have worse statistics than with human drivers. That's why it takes years to enable city level (L2 and maybe L3 in rush hours) driving. At the same time it really looks like Tesla will enable it this year, as Elon's predicted timelines are getting shorter.