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I used to live in Mountain View where Waymo tests their cars so I would observe them quite often. I sat a railroad crossing with one, thinking about what could

I used to live in Mountain View where Waymo tests their cars so I would observe them quite often. I sat a railroad crossing with one, thinking about what could go wrong. What if the signal didn't work, but you could hear the train coming and see it way off to the right or left if you looked. Are Waymo cars listening for trains? Or are they looking at railroad guards only? I suppose they could program the train schedule in, but what if the train system changes the schedule? That could be adjusted for, but how much would I trust this system? Not enough to take a nap behind the wheel.

jeffbee 6y ago
This seems like the edgiest of all possible edge case arguments against self-driving cars, considering that a meat-driven car crashed through a working barrier and into a perfectly obvious train in the Bay Area just this morning.
- mulmen 6y ago
  Obviously meat-based drivers have flaws. The question is if the FSD robots at least retain all the existing capabilities of meat-based drivers. Trading one set of deficiencies for another raises the question of which set is preferable. The reality is that for a long time we will combine both sets of capabilities and use "self driving" tech to enhance human driver capabilities. In that case self-driving first needs to be able to avoid the relatively simple case of not of smashing through a barrier and the human driver can use their wetware to figure out how to handle railroad crossings which are diverse and complicated.
- okareaman 6y ago
  This is where you're wrong because I'm obviously a far better driver than that person who drove in front of a train this morning and it would never happen to me. I trust myself more than I trust other drivers. I trust myself more than I trust Waymo. I'd be happy to have Waymo prove me wrong.
- Swenrekcah 6y ago
  I agree that it’s an edge case but there are always completely bonkers people, out of the world on drugs or just suicidal. I don’t want to risk getting figuratively in a car with one if I turn on FSD.
ErikVandeWater 6y ago
Theoretically it should be able to use side-facing lidar and cameras to sense that a big truck-like thing is crossing.
- acover 6y ago
  Why not radar?
  - adrr 6y ago
    Because radars lacks resolution. Why my Tesla phantom brakes due to low hanging signs or slow cars in the other lane. They tune it down to ignore these anomalies and it has issues running into disabled cars and emergency vehicles.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      You don't need resolution to detect train about to ram into you. Similarly, lidar resolution is a great overkill, and overcomplication over a moderatly sophisticated mm wave radar, which is on top of that will be much more durable, and reliable.
xnx 6y ago
In addition to obeying all railroad crossing signals, I'm certain the Waymo Driver has the concept of trains built in. The long-range sensors on the vehicle would project the probable path of the train and determine if it was safe to proceed along the car's planned route.
- craftinator 6y ago
  Unless the train was obscured from view by foliage at the height and angle that the lidar rests at, or if a truck pulled up next to the car, or... Well yeah, the only reason people can handle that situation reasonably well is that they have a large range of sensory input, most of that input has symbolic representation in the mind, and there's a healthy fear of dying that causes us to notice when the ground is shaking and reassess whether the train signal is working correctly.
- okareaman 6y ago
  I'm not certain the Waymo Driver has the concept of trains built in, but what if they did? How good is it? I applied at Waymo and found out they don't do well in the rain. What if they train is splashing up water in front of it? I'd like to know how it deals with falling rocks, which is a problem in California. Would they tell me or lie about self-driving, like some well known spoke persons do? What are the hackable weaknesses of Waymo? Have they tried to have visual and computer hackers fool the car and send it the wrong way? It just seems to me it's going to take awhile, maybe decades in my amatuer opinion.
ecpottinger 6y ago
In in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, a dad and his son were killed driving a car across a railway crossing with no gates. The dad (driver) was on his phone at the time and it is believed the phone blocked his view of the train and he was talking to much to hear the train. The person he was talking to said they were talking like normal and suddenly the phone cut off. Computers probably can not be worse that the people already on the road.
- glofish 6y ago
  that's not quite right. Computers currently are far worse than the good drivers out there. It is not clear if they ever could be better than a trained and cautious driver. For example you can easily avoid the situation above by not talking on the phone while driving across rails. if the AI abruptly crosses the median how are you going to avoid that?
- mrtksn 6y ago
  People are great at some things that computers suck and computers are great at some things that human suck. Machines doing horrible mistakes that no conscious person would ever do is problematic because we don’t have reliable error correction methods for that kind of mistakes. A FSD car will never accidentally press acceleration pedal whey trying to press the brakes or loose control when trying to read an SMS. Instead it will mistake a bird for a train, hit and run someone and it would be like “something slowed me down, are my batteries degrading?” How do you deal with a driver that fails to understand what’s going on?
- admax88q 6y ago
  If the bar is "better than someone talking on cell phone while crossing a railroad crossing without looking," I'll stick to manual driving. Self driving needs to be better than me, not better than average.
  - legolas2412 6y ago
    Hell, it needs to be better than you with a "train is coming, I'm going to slow down" driver assistance. If you tell me that no such driver assistance exists, just apply it to scenarios where it exists, like lane keep assists and automatic emergency assists
carlmr 6y ago
>I suppose they could program the train schedule in, but what if the train system changes the schedule? I laughed at this, thinking about how the German trains are usually ±30 mins and often off by hours. The train schedule would probably not fare better than a coin flip, except in Switzerland or Japan.
AnssiH 6y ago
> I suppose they could program the train schedule in, but what if the train system changes the schedule? Just check the train locations instead :) https://rata.digitraffic.fi/api/v1/train-locations/latest/ https://rata.digitraffic.fi/api/v1/train-locations/latest/
jonas21 6y ago
To be honest, this seems like one of the easier edge cases to handle. Before crossing tracks, check if there's anything coming down the tracks. Much easier than all of the weird edge cases related to the behavior of other drivers or pedestrians.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In England at least, if you're crossing HSR by foot, you pick up a handset and call train operations to cross. Probably overly conservative but obviously a simple thing for a car to implement along with the usual safety measures (though those would presumably involve gates or not at grade anyway).

jeffbee 6y ago

This seems like the edgiest of all possible edge case arguments against self-driving cars, considering that a meat-driven car crashed through a working barrier and into a perfectly obvious train in the Bay Area just this morning.

mulmen 6y ago
Obviously meat-based drivers have flaws. The question is if the FSD robots at least retain all the existing capabilities of meat-based drivers. Trading one set of deficiencies for another raises the question of which set is preferable. The reality is that for a long time we will combine both sets of capabilities and use "self driving" tech to enhance human driver capabilities. In that case self-driving first needs to be able to avoid the relatively simple case of not of smashing through a barrier and the human driver can use their wetware to figure out how to handle railroad crossings which are diverse and complicated.
okareaman 6y ago
This is where you're wrong because I'm obviously a far better driver than that person who drove in front of a train this morning and it would never happen to me. I trust myself more than I trust other drivers. I trust myself more than I trust Waymo. I'd be happy to have Waymo prove me wrong.
Swenrekcah 6y ago
I agree that it’s an edge case but there are always completely bonkers people, out of the world on drugs or just suicidal. I don’t want to risk getting figuratively in a car with one if I turn on FSD.

ErikVandeWater 6y ago

Theoretically it should be able to use side-facing lidar and cameras to sense that a big truck-like thing is crossing.

acover 6y ago
Why not radar?
- adrr 6y ago
  Because radars lacks resolution. Why my Tesla phantom brakes due to low hanging signs or slow cars in the other lane. They tune it down to ignore these anomalies and it has issues running into disabled cars and emergency vehicles.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    You don't need resolution to detect train about to ram into you. Similarly, lidar resolution is a great overkill, and overcomplication over a moderatly sophisticated mm wave radar, which is on top of that will be much more durable, and reliable.

xnx 6y ago

In addition to obeying all railroad crossing signals, I'm certain the Waymo Driver has the concept of trains built in. The long-range sensors on the vehicle would project the probable path of the train and determine if it was safe to proceed along the car's planned route.

craftinator 6y ago
Unless the train was obscured from view by foliage at the height and angle that the lidar rests at, or if a truck pulled up next to the car, or... Well yeah, the only reason people can handle that situation reasonably well is that they have a large range of sensory input, most of that input has symbolic representation in the mind, and there's a healthy fear of dying that causes us to notice when the ground is shaking and reassess whether the train signal is working correctly.
okareaman 6y ago
I'm not certain the Waymo Driver has the concept of trains built in, but what if they did? How good is it? I applied at Waymo and found out they don't do well in the rain. What if they train is splashing up water in front of it? I'd like to know how it deals with falling rocks, which is a problem in California. Would they tell me or lie about self-driving, like some well known spoke persons do? What are the hackable weaknesses of Waymo? Have they tried to have visual and computer hackers fool the car and send it the wrong way? It just seems to me it's going to take awhile, maybe decades in my amatuer opinion.

ecpottinger 6y ago

In in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, a dad and his son were killed driving a car across a railway crossing with no gates. The dad (driver) was on his phone at the time and it is believed the phone blocked his view of the train and he was talking to much to hear the train. The person he was talking to said they were talking like normal and suddenly the phone cut off. Computers probably can not be worse that the people already on the road.

glofish 6y ago
that's not quite right. Computers currently are far worse than the good drivers out there. It is not clear if they ever could be better than a trained and cautious driver. For example you can easily avoid the situation above by not talking on the phone while driving across rails. if the AI abruptly crosses the median how are you going to avoid that?
mrtksn 6y ago
People are great at some things that computers suck and computers are great at some things that human suck. Machines doing horrible mistakes that no conscious person would ever do is problematic because we don’t have reliable error correction methods for that kind of mistakes. A FSD car will never accidentally press acceleration pedal whey trying to press the brakes or loose control when trying to read an SMS. Instead it will mistake a bird for a train, hit and run someone and it would be like “something slowed me down, are my batteries degrading?” How do you deal with a driver that fails to understand what’s going on?
admax88q 6y ago
If the bar is "better than someone talking on cell phone while crossing a railroad crossing without looking," I'll stick to manual driving. Self driving needs to be better than me, not better than average.
- legolas2412 6y ago
  Hell, it needs to be better than you with a "train is coming, I'm going to slow down" driver assistance. If you tell me that no such driver assistance exists, just apply it to scenarios where it exists, like lane keep assists and automatic emergency assists

carlmr 6y ago

>I suppose they could program the train schedule in, but what if the train system changes the schedule? I laughed at this, thinking about how the German trains are usually ±30 mins and often off by hours. The train schedule would probably not fare better than a coin flip, except in Switzerland or Japan.

AnssiH 6y ago

> I suppose they could program the train schedule in, but what if the train system changes the schedule? Just check the train locations instead :) https://rata.digitraffic.fi/api/v1/train-locations/latest/ https://rata.digitraffic.fi/api/v1/train-locations/latest/

jonas21 6y ago

To be honest, this seems like one of the easier edge cases to handle. Before crossing tracks, check if there's anything coming down the tracks. Much easier than all of the weird edge cases related to the behavior of other drivers or pedestrians.

ghaff 6y ago
In England at least, if you're crossing HSR by foot, you pick up a handset and call train operations to cross. Probably overly conservative but obviously a simple thing for a car to implement along with the usual safety measures (though those would presumably involve gates or not at grade anyway).