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This article is about cars driving in simulation, not on the real streets. But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulatio

This article is about cars driving in simulation, not on the real streets. But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulations. I don't know anything about self driving cars, but it seems like solving self driving cars isn't far off having general artificial intelligence. How well does a car react when there is a construction flagger telling it to turn around, or when there is no signs and the traffic lights go down due to a power failure? As an aside, my recent experience ordering a burrito from a virtual assistant over the phone did not leave me too dazzled with the state of the AI industry. Of course, Chipotle's phone robots are probably not training on 100 years of simulated burritos...

dmortin 6y ago
> How well does a car react when there is a construction flagger telling it to turn around, or when there is no signs and the traffic lights go down due to a power failure? It tells the driver to take over when it can't interpret the situation. Total self driving is far in the future. Realistically in a few years we can get to the point where the car can drive itself in usual situations, but the human is needed for anything unusual.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The problem in the meantime is that you have to keep the driver alert the whole time. Deaths involving Teslas almost always are because the driver had Autopilot on and was ignoring the “take control” warning.
coribuci 6y ago
> This article is about cars driving in simulation, not on the real streets. But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulations. Like normal SW: Requirement: navigate this road with those signs. Test: Put the same signs as in requirement. Check that car navigates correctly. > I don't know anything about self driving cars, but it seems like solving self driving cars isn't far off having general artificial intelligence. How well does a car react when there is a construction flagger telling it to turn around, or when there is no signs and the traffic lights go down due to a power failure? It either continues or stops. When the traffic lights go off it uses the computed right of way. > Also, my recent experience trying to order a chipotle burrito from an AI assistant over the phone did not leave me too dazzled with the state of the AI industry. It's the same for self driving cars. It is like every SW designed after a set of requirements: you feed it with something not specified in requirements and whatch it crash or spitting an error message.
aledalgrande 6y ago
> But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulations. They could make it a MMORPG and get people to drive or walk around?
adrianmonk 6y ago
A widely-held view is that self-driving cars must be able to function in an environment that doesn't cater to them. The reasoning is that world isn't willing to bear the cost of rebuilding roads around SDCs, so SDCs must adapt to roads as-is. I think there's a lot of wisdom in this, but I think the endgame might be to deviate from it a little bit. Maybe SDCs don't need to make 100% of the changes. Maybe if they can handle 99% of situations, they will have proven their usefulness, and the world will be willing to close the gap by making some changes to the road network to make the remaining 1% of situations easier on SDCs. So suppose SDCs are in regular use and make up 20% of cars on the road, but they can't handle the construction flagger. Maybe by that point the highway department would be willing to change rules about how construction crews must manage cars going through a construction site. And/or, maybe SDCs also try to avoid routes that go through construction sites. If it occasionally takes you 20 minutes longer to get to your destination because the SDC has to go the long way around, that might not be bad enough to make you give up your SDC.

dmortin 6y ago

> How well does a car react when there is a construction flagger telling it to turn around, or when there is no signs and the traffic lights go down due to a power failure? It tells the driver to take over when it can't interpret the situation. Total self driving is far in the future. Realistically in a few years we can get to the point where the car can drive itself in usual situations, but the human is needed for anything unusual.

colejohnson66 6y ago
The problem in the meantime is that you have to keep the driver alert the whole time. Deaths involving Teslas almost always are because the driver had Autopilot on and was ignoring the “take control” warning.

coribuci 6y ago

> This article is about cars driving in simulation, not on the real streets. But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulations. Like normal SW: Requirement: navigate this road with those signs. Test: Put the same signs as in requirement. Check that car navigates correctly. > I don't know anything about self driving cars, but it seems like solving self driving cars isn't far off having general artificial intelligence. How well does a car react when there is a construction flagger telling it to turn around, or when there is no signs and the traffic lights go down due to a power failure? It either continues or stops. When the traffic lights go off it uses the computed right of way. > Also, my recent experience trying to order a chipotle burrito from an AI assistant over the phone did not leave me too dazzled with the state of the AI industry. It's the same for self driving cars. It is like every SW designed after a set of requirements: you feed it with something not specified in requirements and whatch it crash or spitting an error message.

aledalgrande 6y ago

> But I do wonder how they can introduce truly "unpredictable" events in the simulations. They could make it a MMORPG and get people to drive or walk around?

adrianmonk 6y ago

A widely-held view is that self-driving cars must be able to function in an environment that doesn't cater to them. The reasoning is that world isn't willing to bear the cost of rebuilding roads around SDCs, so SDCs must adapt to roads as-is. I think there's a lot of wisdom in this, but I think the endgame might be to deviate from it a little bit. Maybe SDCs don't need to make 100% of the changes. Maybe if they can handle 99% of situations, they will have proven their usefulness, and the world will be willing to close the gap by making some changes to the road network to make the remaining 1% of situations easier on SDCs. So suppose SDCs are in regular use and make up 20% of cars on the road, but they can't handle the construction flagger. Maybe by that point the highway department would be willing to change rules about how construction crews must manage cars going through a construction site. And/or, maybe SDCs also try to avoid routes that go through construction sites. If it occasionally takes you 20 minutes longer to get to your destination because the SDC has to go the long way around, that might not be bad enough to make you give up your SDC.