3 ms·

Toyota pauses Paralympics self-driving buses after one hits an athlete

28 points by kzemek 5y ago

specialist 5y ago
Does the Toyota e-Palette have any kind of underrun (underride) protection system? The esthetic front end seems designed for running over stuff. https://www.startyourimpossible.com/en-us/mobility https://www.startyourimpossible.com/en-us/mobility Trucks have extended bumpers and bars (front, side, back) to prevent stuff from going underneath. Trains had cattle scoops. School buses have crossing arms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_crossing_arm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_crossing_arm Also reminds me of exercise machines eating children. Most recently Peloton's lack of safety guards. Foreseeable, preventable, unforgivable. Looks nice though. -- Edit: Hmmm. Am now unclear which vehicle is involved. Toyota's own website states e-Palette is a prototype. https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/e-palette/5703/e-palette-main-v3_eb53199fc6ffdd4d8984cbf074ed2e16.png https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/e-palett... Whereas the blurb for the APM https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/accessible-people-mover/6207/APM_Transparent-cropped_eb53199fc6ffdd4d8984cbf074ed2e16.png https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/accessib... says: APM (Accessible People Mover) is a mobility vehicle designed expressly for use at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. With the vision of "Mobility for All," APM offers a "one-last-mile" solution that helps transport as many people as possible to events and venues, including athletes and staff related to the Games as well as all types of visitors. And here's their PR for the games: https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/28866860.html https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/28866860.html And the APM definitely looks more safe.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
This was not a fault of the self-driving car: it was the fault of the human operators. They assumed the athlete crossing the street would notice the vehicle and stop.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  Not the operators but the designers!! Yes programmers and engineering. Don't give a pass to the guilty! But you are right: moral responsibility can ONLY be a human obligation. Machines are incapable of moral judgements - it's the human that created or operate the technology only. And this is an obvious problem given there will be blind people who can't sense cues that fully-abled people can trivially.
- yummypaint 5y ago
  Pedestrians in a road always have the right of way in Japan. If a person is in or approaching a crossing, the vehicle must stop by law. Both the software and wetware failed.
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
man I saw the preview pic on this and thought it was those little ball carrying/track and field remote control things (meter long maybe) that had taken someone out on the pitch. ha This is a bigger fullsized vehicle, similar industrial design
xyzzy21 5y ago
LOL. Not remotely surprised. Real life and physical reality are far more complex than what you can encode into any algorithm or ML/NN. So by definition, this will happen. Predictive models can only be 100% accurate when they contain as much information as the system they are modeling.

28 points by kzemek 5y ago

Does the Toyota e-Palette have any kind of underrun (underride) protection system? The esthetic front end seems designed for running over stuff. https://www.startyourimpossible.com/en-us/mobility https://www.startyourimpossible.com/en-us/mobility Trucks have extended bumpers and bars (front, side, back) to prevent stuff from going underneath. Trains had cattle scoops. School buses have crossing arms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_crossing_arm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_crossing_arm Also reminds me of exercise machines eating children. Most recently Peloton's lack of safety guards. Foreseeable, preventable, unforgivable. Looks nice though. -- Edit: Hmmm. Am now unclear which vehicle is involved. Toyota's own website states e-Palette is a prototype. https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/e-palette/5703/e-palette-main-v3_eb53199fc6ffdd4d8984cbf074ed2e16.png https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/e-palett... Whereas the blurb for the APM https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/accessible-people-mover/6207/APM_Transparent-cropped_eb53199fc6ffdd4d8984cbf074ed2e16.png https://www.startyourimpossible.com/imager/products/accessib... says: APM (Accessible People Mover) is a mobility vehicle designed expressly for use at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. With the vision of "Mobility for All," APM offers a "one-last-mile" solution that helps transport as many people as possible to events and venues, including athletes and staff related to the Games as well as all types of visitors. And here's their PR for the games: https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/28866860.html https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/28866860.html And the APM definitely looks more safe.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

This was not a fault of the self-driving car: it was the fault of the human operators. They assumed the athlete crossing the street would notice the vehicle and stop.

xyzzy21 5y ago
Not the operators but the designers!! Yes programmers and engineering. Don't give a pass to the guilty! But you are right: moral responsibility can ONLY be a human obligation. Machines are incapable of moral judgements - it's the human that created or operate the technology only. And this is an obvious problem given there will be blind people who can't sense cues that fully-abled people can trivially.
yummypaint 5y ago
Pedestrians in a road always have the right of way in Japan. If a person is in or approaching a crossing, the vehicle must stop by law. Both the software and wetware failed.

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

man I saw the preview pic on this and thought it was those little ball carrying/track and field remote control things (meter long maybe) that had taken someone out on the pitch. ha This is a bigger fullsized vehicle, similar industrial design

xyzzy21 5y ago

LOL. Not remotely surprised. Real life and physical reality are far more complex than what you can encode into any algorithm or ML/NN. So by definition, this will happen. Predictive models can only be 100% accurate when they contain as much information as the system they are modeling.