4 ms·

And the amazing part is there are millions of drivers on the road right now that have absolutely no idea how to handle those cases, and do an exceedingly bad jo

by grecy 7y ago

And the amazing part is there are millions of drivers on the road right now that have absolutely no idea how to handle those cases, and do an exceedingly bad job of it. From the very new drivers, to people who simply don't drive often, to people who got their license in another country where the rules are entirely different (me!), to the very elderly who are losing their sight, reflexes and judgement and people playing with their cell phone or otherwise seriously distracted. It's a wonder only 35,000 people are killed on US roads every year.

jacquesm 7y ago
> It's a wonder only 35,000 people are killed on US roads every year. vs > do an exceedingly bad job of it. No, they're doing an amazingly good job of it. Given the cumulative number of miles driven and the conditions driven in it should impress you rather than that you come to the conclusion they are doing a very bad job. If the current crop of AI would be unleashed in those same conditions the carnage would be unbelievable. Humans are very well suited to adapting to changing environments, it is the one thing that we have over the rest of the animal kingdom. From hanging from tree limbs to riding on the autobahn with the same software.
- zarmin 7y ago
  Respectfully, it sounds like you've only read about driving and have never been in or driven a car. People are _terrible_ drivers. Cars are safer than they've ever been. The number of deaths is not the right metric to evaluate driver quality.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Respectfully, with about 30 years of driving experience and some years (fortunately long behind me) with crazy mileage, it sounds like you're wrong, and that experience includes Canada (including winter), a very large portion of the United States, Europe (both East and West) and Latin America. People are great drivers if you take into consideration the conditions that they drive in, and that traffic deaths include all vehicle types, not just cars. Yes, cars are safer than they've ever been. But there is also much more traffic than there ever was (both because there are more people, people are more affluent and some countries have been more or less designed around vehicle ownership), and infrastructure has not always kept up, and - again, in some countries - the car as a status symbol translates into 'right of way for the best protected', which leads to unnecessary accidents. The number of deaths is - indeed - not the right metric to evaluate driver quality, instead, the number of deaths per total number of miles driven is much better, and further breakdowns into occupants, pedestrians, motorcycles and so on should be made before drawing conclusions. And on that scale - again, taking into account the conditions that people drive in - they are doing very well indeed, some countries excepted. My own best tricks to avoid getting into accidents: don't drive when there is ice / snow / excessive wind, never drive when you're tired, stay away from countries where driving is a bloodsport, keep your car in excellent shape and never ever drive impaired, and that impairment includes cell phone usage. FWIW I'd be totally for a law that punishes cell phone usage while driving with immediate vehicle confiscation when spotted, as well as instant revocation of the driving license of the driver.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      >don't drive when there is ice / snow / excessive wind For me, that's been one of the big wins coming from working from home at least some of the time for almost 20 years at this point. I'm pretty much fully WFH or traveling these days but even prior to that I rarely needed to drive in if conditions were bad. Because of various circumstances, I've had to do a few fairly long drives in bad weather for personal reasons the past couple of years and it's not something I miss at all. (And I came way closer to having an accident because of ice last weekend than I am happy about.)
      - Piskvorrr 7y ago
        TBH, having driven in hailstorms, snowstorms and rainstorms, SDVs would refuse driving in such conditions - and that would have been an entirely sane decision. The conditions were literally insane for driving - yet most drivers continued, albeit slightly slower. In other words, human driving is far more dangerous than we care to admit; that's not a technical issue, that's pure denial.
        jacquesm 7y ago
        You can't always decide when you have to drive. If you're on the road and conditions worsen then it may be safer to drive until you can get off the road safely. I've been in rain squalls so heavy that you couldn't see anymore and that is when it gets tricky: you know you should stop driving but that risks being rear-ended by someone who disagrees with you. A self driving car would end up being rear ended just the same. Stopping traffic only works if everybody starts out with the same playbook in mind. But to start driving in those conditions (or even if those conditions are likely to occur) that's madness, unless you are a first responder.
    - schrodinger 7y ago
      Also, IIRC, most drivers are actually really good. A majority of accidents are caused by a small number of drivers. In other words, the median is far better than the average.
fuzzfactor 7y ago
Not long ago there was a company which failed to perform the relatively impossible themselves, and when they ceased operations their message was clearly _we could not automate that which we could not do that well manually_. I think there's an abundance of drivers that are almost always unsuitable for the most challenging situations, or for whom the roadway or conditions encountered are completely unsuitable themselves. Collisions are everywhere and are dwarfed by near-misses. Fatalities are statistically limited by hazard mitigation, safety measures, and a seemingly larger portion of miraculous good fortune. Some drivers are completely out of control and some even like it that way. There is a much smaller amount of mechanical or health failures. These all can be the riskiest due to unpredictability. We will have to admit that each out-of-control driver can exhibit perhaps completely unexpected and unique behavior from each other, because that's what they've always done. That's not a very high bar for different out-of-control AI events by comparison. Tragedies occurring from individual human driving deficiencies have been largely attributed to social effects, because the underlying mechanical engineering performance has been so overwhelmingly predictable by comparison. With AI different unforseen tragedies are to be expected, and it will not be due to any recognized or imagined individual human driver deficiency. Attribution will be squarely on the engineering team deficiencies when it comes to the programmable electronics that were overlaid onto the fundamentally predictable 20th-century-proven mechanical platform. There could be deaths that can not be dealt with using natural human social constructs. Being killed by an out-of-control robot is always going to be something that's supposed to be nearly impossible to occur, compared to being killed by an out-of-control human. Anyway, with emerging programming technologies sometimes actually achieving highly suitable goals which were only reachable when combined with ideal support, and a sales/advertising mentality that can make up the difference when the incredible engineering effort has done all it can and the goal is not quite met nor suitable, everything's looking better than ever so what could go wrong?

by grecy 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago

> It's a wonder only 35,000 people are killed on US roads every year. vs > do an exceedingly bad job of it. No, they're doing an amazingly good job of it. Given the cumulative number of miles driven and the conditions driven in it should impress you rather than that you come to the conclusion they are doing a very bad job. If the current crop of AI would be unleashed in those same conditions the carnage would be unbelievable. Humans are very well suited to adapting to changing environments, it is the one thing that we have over the rest of the animal kingdom. From hanging from tree limbs to riding on the autobahn with the same software.

zarmin 7y ago
Respectfully, it sounds like you've only read about driving and have never been in or driven a car. People are _terrible_ drivers. Cars are safer than they've ever been. The number of deaths is not the right metric to evaluate driver quality.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Respectfully, with about 30 years of driving experience and some years (fortunately long behind me) with crazy mileage, it sounds like you're wrong, and that experience includes Canada (including winter), a very large portion of the United States, Europe (both East and West) and Latin America. People are great drivers if you take into consideration the conditions that they drive in, and that traffic deaths include all vehicle types, not just cars. Yes, cars are safer than they've ever been. But there is also much more traffic than there ever was (both because there are more people, people are more affluent and some countries have been more or less designed around vehicle ownership), and infrastructure has not always kept up, and - again, in some countries - the car as a status symbol translates into 'right of way for the best protected', which leads to unnecessary accidents. The number of deaths is - indeed - not the right metric to evaluate driver quality, instead, the number of deaths per total number of miles driven is much better, and further breakdowns into occupants, pedestrians, motorcycles and so on should be made before drawing conclusions. And on that scale - again, taking into account the conditions that people drive in - they are doing very well indeed, some countries excepted. My own best tricks to avoid getting into accidents: don't drive when there is ice / snow / excessive wind, never drive when you're tired, stay away from countries where driving is a bloodsport, keep your car in excellent shape and never ever drive impaired, and that impairment includes cell phone usage. FWIW I'd be totally for a law that punishes cell phone usage while driving with immediate vehicle confiscation when spotted, as well as instant revocation of the driving license of the driver.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >don't drive when there is ice / snow / excessive wind For me, that's been one of the big wins coming from working from home at least some of the time for almost 20 years at this point. I'm pretty much fully WFH or traveling these days but even prior to that I rarely needed to drive in if conditions were bad. Because of various circumstances, I've had to do a few fairly long drives in bad weather for personal reasons the past couple of years and it's not something I miss at all. (And I came way closer to having an accident because of ice last weekend than I am happy about.)
    - Piskvorrr 7y ago
      TBH, having driven in hailstorms, snowstorms and rainstorms, SDVs would refuse driving in such conditions - and that would have been an entirely sane decision. The conditions were literally insane for driving - yet most drivers continued, albeit slightly slower. In other words, human driving is far more dangerous than we care to admit; that's not a technical issue, that's pure denial.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        You can't always decide when you have to drive. If you're on the road and conditions worsen then it may be safer to drive until you can get off the road safely. I've been in rain squalls so heavy that you couldn't see anymore and that is when it gets tricky: you know you should stop driving but that risks being rear-ended by someone who disagrees with you. A self driving car would end up being rear ended just the same. Stopping traffic only works if everybody starts out with the same playbook in mind. But to start driving in those conditions (or even if those conditions are likely to occur) that's madness, unless you are a first responder.
  - schrodinger 7y ago
    Also, IIRC, most drivers are actually really good. A majority of accidents are caused by a small number of drivers. In other words, the median is far better than the average.

fuzzfactor 7y ago

Not long ago there was a company which failed to perform the relatively impossible themselves, and when they ceased operations their message was clearly _we could not automate that which we could not do that well manually_. I think there's an abundance of drivers that are almost always unsuitable for the most challenging situations, or for whom the roadway or conditions encountered are completely unsuitable themselves. Collisions are everywhere and are dwarfed by near-misses. Fatalities are statistically limited by hazard mitigation, safety measures, and a seemingly larger portion of miraculous good fortune. Some drivers are completely out of control and some even like it that way. There is a much smaller amount of mechanical or health failures. These all can be the riskiest due to unpredictability. We will have to admit that each out-of-control driver can exhibit perhaps completely unexpected and unique behavior from each other, because that's what they've always done. That's not a very high bar for different out-of-control AI events by comparison. Tragedies occurring from individual human driving deficiencies have been largely attributed to social effects, because the underlying mechanical engineering performance has been so overwhelmingly predictable by comparison. With AI different unforseen tragedies are to be expected, and it will not be due to any recognized or imagined individual human driver deficiency. Attribution will be squarely on the engineering team deficiencies when it comes to the programmable electronics that were overlaid onto the fundamentally predictable 20th-century-proven mechanical platform. There could be deaths that can not be dealt with using natural human social constructs. Being killed by an out-of-control robot is always going to be something that's supposed to be nearly impossible to occur, compared to being killed by an out-of-control human. Anyway, with emerging programming technologies sometimes actually achieving highly suitable goals which were only reachable when combined with ideal support, and a sales/advertising mentality that can make up the difference when the incredible engineering effort has done all it can and the goal is not quite met nor suitable, everything's looking better than ever so what could go wrong?