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>That is what happens now with phantom braking. Uber seemed to have programmed an artificial delay when the system got confused. There's a good breakdown of th

by bumby 5y ago

>That is what happens now with phantom braking. Uber seemed to have programmed an artificial delay when the system got confused. There's a good breakdown of the timeline showing how the system kept misclassifying the bicyclist who was killed, but I couldn't immediately find it. That breakdown shows their strategy at implementing delays in the decision process. According to the NTSB report[1]: >"According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior" When I read that in the context of the programmed delays it seems to indicate "we wanted to avoid nuisance braking so we put in a delay when the system was confused." As someone who used to work in safety-critical software, it blows my mind that you would deliberately hobble one of your main risk mitigations because your system gets confused. While TSLA may be focusing on a platform that gets better data with better sensors, they still need to translate it to better decisions. [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY18MH010-prelim.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...

baud147258 5y ago
> "we wanted to avoid nuisance braking so we put in a delay when the system was confused." As someone who used to work in safety-critical software, it blows my mind that you would deliberately hobble one of your main risk mitigations because your system gets confused Maybe it was put in place to avoid erratic braking in absence of obstacle, in order to avoid getting hit in the rear by other vehicles (whose driver wouldn't see any obstacle and be unprepared for the Tesla car braking).
- bumby 5y ago
  That's a good point and might have been their rationale, but I would argue it wasn't a very good risk mitigation because while they reduced the risk in one area (being rear ended) they increased their risk elsewhere. Worse yet, it increased the risk in an area more prone to higher severity incidents (e.g., hitting pedestrians - I assume - carries a higher severity than being rear-ended)
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    There’s a big risk of spine injuries, and a rear end collision might not activate the airbag. Not a simple trade off.
    - bumby 5y ago
      I’m not saying there’s no risk. I’m saying the risk is lower. The same hazards you mentioned are also present to the pedestrian, plus the risk of TBI or death. The way this analysis is done is that a hazard gets assigned a risk score based severity x probability. I’m saying the severity of hitting a pedestrian is higher. Put another way, if you had to choose between being struck as a pedestrian or rear ended as a driver, which would you choose?

by bumby 5y ago

baud147258 5y ago

> "we wanted to avoid nuisance braking so we put in a delay when the system was confused." As someone who used to work in safety-critical software, it blows my mind that you would deliberately hobble one of your main risk mitigations because your system gets confused Maybe it was put in place to avoid erratic braking in absence of obstacle, in order to avoid getting hit in the rear by other vehicles (whose driver wouldn't see any obstacle and be unprepared for the Tesla car braking).

bumby 5y ago
That's a good point and might have been their rationale, but I would argue it wasn't a very good risk mitigation because while they reduced the risk in one area (being rear ended) they increased their risk elsewhere. Worse yet, it increased the risk in an area more prone to higher severity incidents (e.g., hitting pedestrians - I assume - carries a higher severity than being rear-ended)
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  There’s a big risk of spine injuries, and a rear end collision might not activate the airbag. Not a simple trade off.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I’m not saying there’s no risk. I’m saying the risk is lower. The same hazards you mentioned are also present to the pedestrian, plus the risk of TBI or death. The way this analysis is done is that a hazard gets assigned a risk score based severity x probability. I’m saying the severity of hitting a pedestrian is higher. Put another way, if you had to choose between being struck as a pedestrian or rear ended as a driver, which would you choose?