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That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. There is nothing unnatural about that. Lots of

That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. There is nothing unnatural about that. Lots of people do similar or more boring tasks just fine. This isn't a truck driver falling asleep from exhaustion caused by aggressive scheduling. You don't "accidentally" take out your phone when your job is looking ahead. That's deliberate negligence. If you want to require eye sensors to detect distraction, by all means, pass a law about it. Maybe include regular non-AI cars too. #1 cause of accidents over here.

vkou 6y ago
> That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. Doing that for five minutes is easy. Can you do that for eight hours? Day after day? Without a single lapse in attention? This is a much harder job then the truck driver has - because he constantly has to make microadjustments, to correct for road conditions. People's brains don't work the way you think they do.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  Many people write this notion in this thread. Do you have any data for this BTW? How are you claiming this confidently? Have you driven a self-driving car? Many people (myself included) find it quite easy to monitor the road in it for long periods of time. If the driver was not one of them, she shouldn't have taken the job and risked innocent lives.
  - vkou 6y ago
    How are you so confident that you are different from all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects, fire trucks, semis, etc? What makes you confident that you are actually good at it, and are not the victim of Dunning-Kruger? Do you regularly find yourself in the process of stopping your self-serving car from crashing into things? Or has your car simply not crashed yet?
    - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
      > all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects All the 3 of them? Among millions of Tesla vehicles out there and the hundreds of millions of miles driven? Is that even a considerable risk when compared to the general (non-zero!) risks of driving? For me personally I simply know when I watch the road and when I don't. For some people this might be hard, for others - not so much. I am aware of when I pull out my phone or distract myself and when not.
      - vkou 6y ago
        I'm sure you're aware of when you've pulled out your phone, or are playing with your infotainment system. (You should also stop doing it, it's negligent and illegal.) But are you just watching or are you seeing the road? How many times have you taken control from your car doing something stupid and dangerous? Unless the answer to that second question is 'I do it all[1] the time, and I'm batting 20/20', what makes you confident that you'll catch the next instance? [1] If that's really the case, you should probably short TSLA, it doesn't sound like their car can safely operate.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pr-3426-lessons-lost-nothing-can-go-wrong-automation-induced-complacency.pdf https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pr-3426-lesson... is a 2019 literature review of the phenomenon - section 2, reaction times in response to deviations in automated tasks, is of particular relevance here. (Summary: humans are bad at this)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- clusterfish 6y ago
  It is rather unlikely, statistically, that this was a single lapse. Or that a single lapse would cause an accident. It's not like the driver's finger was hovering over a nuclear launch button. Yes, I think I would be able to do this job safely. Not everyone has problems with focus to such an extent that you can't help but be on the phone when you need to be paying attention.
- misja111 6y ago
  The driver wouldn't be prosecuted if she just had a lapse of attention. She had taken her phone and was watching a TV show. That's a deliberate act.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I'm not saying the driver wasn't negligent in watching TV, instead of the road. In fact, I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that. I am saying that passively watching the road for hours on end is much harder than actively driving.
ardy42 6y ago
> That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. There is nothing unnatural about that. Statements like this seem to indicate a failure to understand what the difficult part of the task was. In short: a boring monitoring task that was practically unnecessary 99.99000% of the time, but absolutely critical maybe 0.00001% of the time. The typical-case lack of necessity would strongly re-enforce engaging with distractions over time (i.e. distraction more rewarding, and nearly all of the time no negative feedback of any kind). > This isn't a truck driver falling asleep from exhaustion caused by aggressive scheduling. You don't "accidentally" take out your phone when your job is looking ahead. That's deliberate negligence. I'm not saying there was no negligence here on the part of the driver, just that Uber itself was at least as negligent if not more so for designing the system in the way it did. Focusing too much on the driver is an error. Honestly, watching a show was egregious, but I wouldn't be surprised if the drivers would end up falling asleep on a regular basis if all distractions were removed from their environment. Half paying attention to something I wasn't interested in has always been the best way to get me to fall asleep.

vkou 6y ago

> That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. Doing that for five minutes is easy. Can you do that for eight hours? Day after day? Without a single lapse in attention? This is a much harder job then the truck driver has - because he constantly has to make microadjustments, to correct for road conditions. People's brains don't work the way you think they do.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
Many people write this notion in this thread. Do you have any data for this BTW? How are you claiming this confidently? Have you driven a self-driving car? Many people (myself included) find it quite easy to monitor the road in it for long periods of time. If the driver was not one of them, she shouldn't have taken the job and risked innocent lives.
- vkou 6y ago
  How are you so confident that you are different from all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects, fire trucks, semis, etc? What makes you confident that you are actually good at it, and are not the victim of Dunning-Kruger? Do you regularly find yourself in the process of stopping your self-serving car from crashing into things? Or has your car simply not crashed yet?
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    > all the Tesla owners whose self-crashing autopilots drove their vehicles into stationary objects All the 3 of them? Among millions of Tesla vehicles out there and the hundreds of millions of miles driven? Is that even a considerable risk when compared to the general (non-zero!) risks of driving? For me personally I simply know when I watch the road and when I don't. For some people this might be hard, for others - not so much. I am aware of when I pull out my phone or distract myself and when not.
    - vkou 6y ago
      I'm sure you're aware of when you've pulled out your phone, or are playing with your infotainment system. (You should also stop doing it, it's negligent and illegal.) But are you just watching or are you seeing the road? How many times have you taken control from your car doing something stupid and dangerous? Unless the answer to that second question is 'I do it all[1] the time, and I'm batting 20/20', what makes you confident that you'll catch the next instance? [1] If that's really the case, you should probably short TSLA, it doesn't sound like their car can safely operate.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pr-3426-lessons-lost-nothing-can-go-wrong-automation-induced-complacency.pdf https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pr-3426-lesson... is a 2019 literature review of the phenomenon - section 2, reaction times in response to deviations in automated tasks, is of particular relevance here. (Summary: humans are bad at this)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
clusterfish 6y ago
It is rather unlikely, statistically, that this was a single lapse. Or that a single lapse would cause an accident. It's not like the driver's finger was hovering over a nuclear launch button. Yes, I think I would be able to do this job safely. Not everyone has problems with focus to such an extent that you can't help but be on the phone when you need to be paying attention.
misja111 6y ago
The driver wouldn't be prosecuted if she just had a lapse of attention. She had taken her phone and was watching a TV show. That's a deliberate act.
- vkou 6y ago
  I'm not saying the driver wasn't negligent in watching TV, instead of the road. In fact, I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that. I am saying that passively watching the road for hours on end is much harder than actively driving.

ardy42 6y ago

> That "unnatural amount of vigilance" is just sitting in a comfy seat and looking at the road ahead of you go by. There is nothing unnatural about that. Statements like this seem to indicate a failure to understand what the difficult part of the task was. In short: a boring monitoring task that was practically unnecessary 99.99000% of the time, but absolutely critical maybe 0.00001% of the time. The typical-case lack of necessity would strongly re-enforce engaging with distractions over time (i.e. distraction more rewarding, and nearly all of the time no negative feedback of any kind). > This isn't a truck driver falling asleep from exhaustion caused by aggressive scheduling. You don't "accidentally" take out your phone when your job is looking ahead. That's deliberate negligence. I'm not saying there was no negligence here on the part of the driver, just that Uber itself was at least as negligent if not more so for designing the system in the way it did. Focusing too much on the driver is an error. Honestly, watching a show was egregious, but I wouldn't be surprised if the drivers would end up falling asleep on a regular basis if all distractions were removed from their environment. Half paying attention to something I wasn't interested in has always been the best way to get me to fall asleep.