5 ms·

This is indeed a problem, but Denmark's highways right now have 1/6 of the death rate of US highways, so if saving lives actually was the goal, AI isn't exactly

This is indeed a problem, but Denmark's highways right now have 1/6 of the death rate of US highways, so if saving lives actually was the goal, AI isn't exactly the low hanging fruit.

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
What’s the point of comparing the US to countries that are as populous as the DC metro area? There are so many factors at play the comparison is completely meaningless.
- bildung 5y ago
  Death rate is calculated as deaths per billion miles driven, so I don't see how the respective populations matter here. One could make the argument that population density is important to consider, but in the US the less populated states have higher death rates IIRC.
  - jcims 5y ago
    Where are you getting those stats? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Denmark (like most countries) are definitely better at not getting killed on the road, but closer to a factor of two by miles driven and four per capita.
    - bildung 5y ago
      From here (and my number was indeed wrong, its 1/5, not 1/6): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#United_States_compared_to_other_nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
  - martin8412 5y ago
    Don't worry about it to be honest. The guy is just giving the typical American response. Nothing that works in every single other country in the world could possibly work in the US due to their size. Nevermind the fact that it works in less or more populated countries. It just can't possibly work in the US. For other examples look at how the only way to deal with trash in New York is to throw it on the street or how California has huge forest fires almost every year due to powerlines falling.. If only there was a solution to those already solved problems
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      No, it is a typical response of a guy who spent two years and countless nights studying econometrics and the issues of specification and identification. But thank you for wrongly assuming my nationality and disregarding my response based on that.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    > I don't see how the respective populations matter here. They don’t matter per se. It is just a stat I had in my head that I could provide without googling anything to show how different both countries are. There are so many factors to consider with regards to driving infrastructure and habits, even density is not enough.
    - bildung 5y ago
      I fully agree, it's really hard to compare things like these across national boundaries. The actual countries don't really matter for the point I tried to make anyway: There are large cross-country differences between countries right now, so it seems prudent to look into those if one wants to decrease traffic deaths. Waiting for L5, even if it actually is achieved in the current AI cycle, will introduce a whole new class of problems once self driving cars become a meaningful share of traffic, e.g. coordination/cooperation between cars and so on.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
I think it would be a lot easier to develop full self-driving than to get Americans to accept and implement the road safety measures that are in place in Denmark. And that's not even counting if there are cultural factors that make Danes better drivers other things being equal. I can't even imagine how many billions of dollars it would take.
- piva00 5y ago
  So it's easier for us to teach a computer to think than to teach people to think and act differently? Not sure if I agree with that statement, they require very different solutions, one is technical and the other social. I don't think just because the social solution is hard that it makes the technical one easier...
  - jacobmischka 5y ago
    Maybe not objectively, but probably for some people. While some could be, many expert engineers wouldn't be expert social scientists or public servants.
  - boringg 5y ago
    Go look up changing to the metric system in the US. Failed effort billions of dollars. Definitely agree with the prior commentators statement. Technical solitarily already seems in the wild by enhancing driving capability...
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    Agree. I expect 2050, easily, before there's even the remotest hope of even parity with human drivers. I'm always astonished at how those most skilled at software, turn around and explain how software is better than humans at task $x. Yet, I've never used a piece of software without bugs. I've never seen a piece of software, not real world capable, which even remotely close to dealing with things, as well as humans. And the more complex the software, the more bugs. Bugs abound in complex software. Full self driving is as complex as the linux kernel, easily. How many bugs are in the Linux kernel? Right now? To even hope, even begin to hope that things will be mostly bug free, bug free beyond human "bugs" when driving, we'd: - Need to 100% freeze the platform, so the car has zero changes. Ever. Like a Volvo, 10+, 20+ years with only fixes for flaws. No change in drive train. No change in how the car handles, etc. - A 100% feature freeze fix for years and years, only bug fixes, no feature add. It's just not happening overnight. And when it does, cars are going to require an addition of massive sensors, it's not going to be camera or radar, it's going to be camera, radar, lidar, motion, wind, and 50 other environmental sensors. It's going to be mainine computing power in triplicate. Connectivity and sensors in triplicate. 100%, no way is the AI CPU even slightly network connected. No over-the-air updates. Bugs cannot happen. Bugs kill. Bad hardware kills. I do get that having a car self drive, in the desert, in constantly warm temp is an easy thing. Try it at -40C, in a snow storm, with a snow filled road, in the country with no ditches, no lines to see (due to snow), in the dark, when windy, periodic white-outs, and more. Heck, I'll say there's a chance when AI can drive on a frozen lake. And yes, humans do and can. So far, all AI driving is monoculture. Not to mention, how about a 20 year old car? Or even 10? "Buy new?" Now you hate the environment! And 20 year old cars are driven daily by humans, no they aren't the primary cause of accidents, because, when driving you notice issues in the feel of how the car drives. Can AI "feel" that? Sure! But that means loads and loads of sensors! And cost! ANd repair bills! To be honest, my 2050 thing is likely mostly due to this. Cost.
yarcob 5y ago
When I was in Sweden on vacation, I was surprised that almost all except the most minor roads have a central divider. To allow overtaking, they have 2+1 lanes, and then after a few km they switch to 1+2 lanes (extra lane in the other direction). This eliminates the most deadly accidents (head on collisions) and makes overtaking completely stress free. It's a simple intervention that you can do almost anywhere, and it saves lives immediately. You only need to invest a bit in concrete barriers and paint. I wonder why almost no other country does that.
- halikular 5y ago
  Sweden has the lowest traffic related deaths of any country [1]. There must be something to it, however it's strange how lackluster the government response was to covid in comparison. Edit: You think our covid restrictions was successful? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    I imagine you're getting the downvotes because the covid point isn't really relevant to the thread at all. They're talking about road layouts.
    - halikular 5y ago
      I was making an off topic comment but it was related to the information I gave comparing the wide differences of effort and in turn success of these independent issues. Maybe they weren't interested in that.
  - sim_card_map 5y ago
    yes it was very successful: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate...
- bratcomplex 5y ago
  they set standards for what a street, road, and highway are. and they do not mix them. As a result they are safer, cheaper, and land use has a higher tax revenue. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

This is indeed a problem, but Denmark's highways right now have 1/6 of the death rate of US highways, so if saving lives actually was the goal, AI isn't exactly the low hanging fruit.

LudwigNagasena 5y ago

What’s the point of comparing the US to countries that are as populous as the DC metro area? There are so many factors at play the comparison is completely meaningless.

bildung 5y ago
Death rate is calculated as deaths per billion miles driven, so I don't see how the respective populations matter here. One could make the argument that population density is important to consider, but in the US the less populated states have higher death rates IIRC.
- jcims 5y ago
  Where are you getting those stats? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Denmark (like most countries) are definitely better at not getting killed on the road, but closer to a factor of two by miles driven and four per capita.
  - bildung 5y ago
    From here (and my number was indeed wrong, its 1/5, not 1/6): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#United_States_compared_to_other_nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
- martin8412 5y ago
  Don't worry about it to be honest. The guy is just giving the typical American response. Nothing that works in every single other country in the world could possibly work in the US due to their size. Nevermind the fact that it works in less or more populated countries. It just can't possibly work in the US. For other examples look at how the only way to deal with trash in New York is to throw it on the street or how California has huge forest fires almost every year due to powerlines falling.. If only there was a solution to those already solved problems
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    No, it is a typical response of a guy who spent two years and countless nights studying econometrics and the issues of specification and identification. But thank you for wrongly assuming my nationality and disregarding my response based on that.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  > I don't see how the respective populations matter here. They don’t matter per se. It is just a stat I had in my head that I could provide without googling anything to show how different both countries are. There are so many factors to consider with regards to driving infrastructure and habits, even density is not enough.
  - bildung 5y ago
    I fully agree, it's really hard to compare things like these across national boundaries. The actual countries don't really matter for the point I tried to make anyway: There are large cross-country differences between countries right now, so it seems prudent to look into those if one wants to decrease traffic deaths. Waiting for L5, even if it actually is achieved in the current AI cycle, will introduce a whole new class of problems once self driving cars become a meaningful share of traffic, e.g. coordination/cooperation between cars and so on.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

I think it would be a lot easier to develop full self-driving than to get Americans to accept and implement the road safety measures that are in place in Denmark. And that's not even counting if there are cultural factors that make Danes better drivers other things being equal. I can't even imagine how many billions of dollars it would take.

piva00 5y ago
So it's easier for us to teach a computer to think than to teach people to think and act differently? Not sure if I agree with that statement, they require very different solutions, one is technical and the other social. I don't think just because the social solution is hard that it makes the technical one easier...
- jacobmischka 5y ago
  Maybe not objectively, but probably for some people. While some could be, many expert engineers wouldn't be expert social scientists or public servants.
- boringg 5y ago
  Go look up changing to the metric system in the US. Failed effort billions of dollars. Definitely agree with the prior commentators statement. Technical solitarily already seems in the wild by enhancing driving capability...
- bbarnett 5y ago
  Agree. I expect 2050, easily, before there's even the remotest hope of even parity with human drivers. I'm always astonished at how those most skilled at software, turn around and explain how software is better than humans at task $x. Yet, I've never used a piece of software without bugs. I've never seen a piece of software, not real world capable, which even remotely close to dealing with things, as well as humans. And the more complex the software, the more bugs. Bugs abound in complex software. Full self driving is as complex as the linux kernel, easily. How many bugs are in the Linux kernel? Right now? To even hope, even begin to hope that things will be mostly bug free, bug free beyond human "bugs" when driving, we'd: - Need to 100% freeze the platform, so the car has zero changes. Ever. Like a Volvo, 10+, 20+ years with only fixes for flaws. No change in drive train. No change in how the car handles, etc. - A 100% feature freeze fix for years and years, only bug fixes, no feature add. It's just not happening overnight. And when it does, cars are going to require an addition of massive sensors, it's not going to be camera or radar, it's going to be camera, radar, lidar, motion, wind, and 50 other environmental sensors. It's going to be mainine computing power in triplicate. Connectivity and sensors in triplicate. 100%, no way is the AI CPU even slightly network connected. No over-the-air updates. Bugs cannot happen. Bugs kill. Bad hardware kills. I do get that having a car self drive, in the desert, in constantly warm temp is an easy thing. Try it at -40C, in a snow storm, with a snow filled road, in the country with no ditches, no lines to see (due to snow), in the dark, when windy, periodic white-outs, and more. Heck, I'll say there's a chance when AI can drive on a frozen lake. And yes, humans do and can. So far, all AI driving is monoculture. Not to mention, how about a 20 year old car? Or even 10? "Buy new?" Now you hate the environment! And 20 year old cars are driven daily by humans, no they aren't the primary cause of accidents, because, when driving you notice issues in the feel of how the car drives. Can AI "feel" that? Sure! But that means loads and loads of sensors! And cost! ANd repair bills! To be honest, my 2050 thing is likely mostly due to this. Cost.

yarcob 5y ago

When I was in Sweden on vacation, I was surprised that almost all except the most minor roads have a central divider. To allow overtaking, they have 2+1 lanes, and then after a few km they switch to 1+2 lanes (extra lane in the other direction). This eliminates the most deadly accidents (head on collisions) and makes overtaking completely stress free. It's a simple intervention that you can do almost anywhere, and it saves lives immediately. You only need to invest a bit in concrete barriers and paint. I wonder why almost no other country does that.

halikular 5y ago
Sweden has the lowest traffic related deaths of any country [1]. There must be something to it, however it's strange how lackluster the government response was to covid in comparison. Edit: You think our covid restrictions was successful? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  I imagine you're getting the downvotes because the covid point isn't really relevant to the thread at all. They're talking about road layouts.
  - halikular 5y ago
    I was making an off topic comment but it was related to the information I gave comparing the wide differences of effort and in turn success of these independent issues. Maybe they weren't interested in that.
- sim_card_map 5y ago
  yes it was very successful: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate...
bratcomplex 5y ago
they set standards for what a street, road, and highway are. and they do not mix them. As a result they are safer, cheaper, and land use has a higher tax revenue. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM