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I'd suggest reading the NTSB report on the pedestrian killed by Uber's "self-driving" vehicle [0]. The vehicle misclassified Elaine Herzberg so many times in t

I'd suggest reading the NTSB report on the pedestrian killed by Uber's "self-driving" vehicle [0]. The vehicle misclassified Elaine Herzberg so many times in the seconds leading up to taking her out at 40 mph - its clear to me that none of this is ready for public use. We are so normalised to vehicular violence. This would never be allowed in any other sector, say healthcare for instance. [0] https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2019-HWY18MH010-BMG.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2019-HWY18MH010-BMG.a...

jcims 7y ago
Medical errors and omissions kill way more people than vehicles every year [1]. There's no evidence a human driver wouldn't have killed Elaine. An intoxicated one probably would have and we have direct evidence that a distracted one would have. On average two bicyclists get killed every day in the US. [2] [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su... [2] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/bicyclists https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/bicyc...
strbean 7y ago
To be fair, jaywalking at night away from any streetlights on a road with a 45 mph speed limit is a risky endeavor whether or not there are autonomous cars on the road. It seems likely the outcome would have been the same if the car was being operated by a typical human driver.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  The car spotted the pedestrian 5.6 seconds before the crash, but didn't have the brains to know what to do. The main argument for self driving cars is that they have better sensors and reaction time than humans, but clearly those things aren't enough.
brokenmachine 7y ago
Which document describes where it "misclassified Elaine Herzberg so many times"?
- rahulnair23 7y ago
  Here is a revised link [1] to the full report. Table 1, on Page 10 shows a summary. [1] https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/document.cfm?docID=477717&docketID=62978&mkey=96894 https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/document.cfm?docID=477717...
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    Wow, that was interesting. At every change of identification of an object it becomes "static" again. That seems very stupid if you've already estimated the path of an object. The human driver didn't do too badly I think. The auditory alert only came at -0.2s until impact, and they braked at 0.7s after impact. From relaxing and playing with your phone to braking in only 0.9 seconds. Of course they were supposed to be paying attention, but I fully understand how it would be difficult to pay attention for hours without having to do anything, then suddenly be expected to react immediately. That's the most dangerous thing about these half-driving cars.

jcims 7y ago

Medical errors and omissions kill way more people than vehicles every year [1]. There's no evidence a human driver wouldn't have killed Elaine. An intoxicated one probably would have and we have direct evidence that a distracted one would have. On average two bicyclists get killed every day in the US. [2] [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su... [2] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/bicyclists https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/bicyc...

strbean 7y ago

To be fair, jaywalking at night away from any streetlights on a road with a 45 mph speed limit is a risky endeavor whether or not there are autonomous cars on the road. It seems likely the outcome would have been the same if the car was being operated by a typical human driver.

brokenmachine 7y ago
The car spotted the pedestrian 5.6 seconds before the crash, but didn't have the brains to know what to do. The main argument for self driving cars is that they have better sensors and reaction time than humans, but clearly those things aren't enough.

brokenmachine 7y ago

Which document describes where it "misclassified Elaine Herzberg so many times"?

rahulnair23 7y ago
Here is a revised link [1] to the full report. Table 1, on Page 10 shows a summary. [1] https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/document.cfm?docID=477717&docketID=62978&mkey=96894 https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/document.cfm?docID=477717...
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  Wow, that was interesting. At every change of identification of an object it becomes "static" again. That seems very stupid if you've already estimated the path of an object. The human driver didn't do too badly I think. The auditory alert only came at -0.2s until impact, and they braked at 0.7s after impact. From relaxing and playing with your phone to braking in only 0.9 seconds. Of course they were supposed to be paying attention, but I fully understand how it would be difficult to pay attention for hours without having to do anything, then suddenly be expected to react immediately. That's the most dangerous thing about these half-driving cars.