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> 12 crashes into vehicles with flashing lights on them doesn't sound like great success from Autopilot, gonna be honest. I'm sorry, but how can you form an op

> 12 crashes into vehicles with flashing lights on them doesn't sound like great success from Autopilot, gonna be honest. I'm sorry, but how can you form an opinion so quickly? 12 crashes out of what? Any number? 12 crashes out of 10000000 scenarios sound like a pretty good record, while 12 crashes out of 15 scenarios indeed doesn't sound like a great success. But what information do you have that the rest of us doesn't?

swiley 5y ago
yes. 12 crashes out of the maximum possible number of encounters.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
I still remember the days when the SciFi of the day sold robotic drivers as "they don't get tired, they don't make mistakes, they are relentless in their pursuit". Instead of that, we got robots that are apparently unable to avoid crashing into large vehicles with flashing lights. Sometimes. As usual, the future never ceases to disappoint me.
- leesec 5y ago
  Well if you're basing your expectations of reality on SciFi books than I expect you will be dissapointed quite often.
  - Gravityloss 5y ago
    There's always dystopian scifi as well.
    - sslayer 5y ago
      Yes! - This has not failed to disappoint, rather it has exceeded all expectations!
- DennisP 5y ago
  Maybe we just haven't reached that future yet.
  - brk 5y ago
    I heard it's tomorrow.
- bloqs 5y ago
  Ah yes the 1960s. Where politics and economics were also utopian and dishonest. When your average American job could impossibly support a family of 4. 16 year olds drove dodge chargers and the economy was so strong from all of the various nefarious engineering that you could buy products that were made to last 50 years.
  - Filligree 5y ago
    Stories from back then are pretty unrealistic, but that’s true for fiction in general. Dunno why we should point at that in particular.
- mikestew 5y ago
  "they don't get tired, they don't make mistakes, they are relentless in their pursuit". I believe you're thinking of terminators, not automated drivers: https://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/the-terminator/1136/ https://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/the-terminator/1136... Though the "will not stop, ever...", even for an emergency vehicle, might be relevant.
- CultMember001 5y ago
  I believe that occasional fatal accidents are a small price to pay for the advancement of humanity into a multi-planetary species.
eganist 5y ago
"I'm sorry, but how can you form an opinion so quickly?" It doesn't really matter. They're stationary objects; there's absolutely no reason, good or bad, for the algorithm to determine that the correct trajectory change is into the stationary object. Humans crash into stationary objects because they're lacking attention almost 100% of the time, whether it's because they're half asleep, drunk, texting, or distracted by just about anything else. Autopilot shouldn't have this issue, so there's no reason for it to fail to recognize the obstacles unless it's been poorly trained, and there's absolutely no reason for it to recognize an obstacle as a valid path or destination.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  There is absolutely a good reason for adaptove cruise control systems to ignore stationary objects: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-systems-sometimes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-s...
  - Filligree 5y ago
    Is the “good reason” here that they have insufficient sensors?
  - Piskvorrr 5y ago
    Which is...linking a Wikipedia article? Doesn't quite compute.
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      Was a copy / paste failure. Meant to grab this link: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-systems-sometimes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-s...
      - Piskvorrr 5y ago
        If you mean "the software is too stupid to be useful here, so let's ignore a whole class of issues, potentially with lethal consequences; abracadabra, it's SEP now", I agree. OTOH, this stretches the meaning of "good" a little bit. (thanks for the link correction)
a_square_peg 5y ago
There is enough information here though. These are situations where failure is not suppose to happen when the driver is paying attention. Given that the auto-pilot is always paying attention when operational, this becomes an unacceptable failure mode because it failed in the most rudimentary way - failure to perceive stationary obstacles and a display of complete lack of situational awareness. For emergency responders on highways, there are means to reduce the risk of additional collisions by increasing visibility to oncoming drivers (markers, lights, etc.). If the auto-pilot is not able to perceive these even when paying attention, we do have a problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Someone 5y ago
It’s not that simple. 12 out of ten million is extremely bad if the average driver takes part in that lottery 100,000 times a day. 12 out of 15 is nothing to worry about if the event is extremely rare. I guess this lies somewhere between these extremes, but wouldn’t know. We also don’t know how many of these accidents were prevented by attentive drivers.
shadofx 5y ago
When human drivers cause accidents, the causes are collected and analyzed, and laws are proposed to prevent future accidents from happening. It doesn't matter if it's 12 or 12 thousand, or even zero crashes... if there's fear, then society will demand something be done. The fact that AI can give no easily understood excuses, and improvements to the algorithms is a trade secret means that any fear cannot be abated, aside from outright banning of AI driving.

swiley 5y ago

yes. 12 crashes out of the maximum possible number of encounters.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

I still remember the days when the SciFi of the day sold robotic drivers as "they don't get tired, they don't make mistakes, they are relentless in their pursuit". Instead of that, we got robots that are apparently unable to avoid crashing into large vehicles with flashing lights. Sometimes. As usual, the future never ceases to disappoint me.

leesec 5y ago
Well if you're basing your expectations of reality on SciFi books than I expect you will be dissapointed quite often.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  There's always dystopian scifi as well.
  - sslayer 5y ago
    Yes! - This has not failed to disappoint, rather it has exceeded all expectations!
DennisP 5y ago
Maybe we just haven't reached that future yet.
- brk 5y ago
  I heard it's tomorrow.
bloqs 5y ago
Ah yes the 1960s. Where politics and economics were also utopian and dishonest. When your average American job could impossibly support a family of 4. 16 year olds drove dodge chargers and the economy was so strong from all of the various nefarious engineering that you could buy products that were made to last 50 years.
- Filligree 5y ago
  Stories from back then are pretty unrealistic, but that’s true for fiction in general. Dunno why we should point at that in particular.
mikestew 5y ago
"they don't get tired, they don't make mistakes, they are relentless in their pursuit". I believe you're thinking of terminators, not automated drivers: https://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/the-terminator/1136/ https://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/the-terminator/1136... Though the "will not stop, ever...", even for an emergency vehicle, might be relevant.
CultMember001 5y ago
I believe that occasional fatal accidents are a small price to pay for the advancement of humanity into a multi-planetary species.

eganist 5y ago

"I'm sorry, but how can you form an opinion so quickly?" It doesn't really matter. They're stationary objects; there's absolutely no reason, good or bad, for the algorithm to determine that the correct trajectory change is into the stationary object. Humans crash into stationary objects because they're lacking attention almost 100% of the time, whether it's because they're half asleep, drunk, texting, or distracted by just about anything else. Autopilot shouldn't have this issue, so there's no reason for it to fail to recognize the obstacles unless it's been poorly trained, and there's absolutely no reason for it to recognize an obstacle as a valid path or destination.

fallingknife 5y ago
There is absolutely a good reason for adaptove cruise control systems to ignore stationary objects: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-systems-sometimes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-s...
- Filligree 5y ago
  Is the “good reason” here that they have insufficient sensors?
- Piskvorrr 5y ago
  Which is...linking a Wikipedia article? Doesn't quite compute.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Was a copy / paste failure. Meant to grab this link: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-systems-sometimes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-braking-s...
    - Piskvorrr 5y ago
      If you mean "the software is too stupid to be useful here, so let's ignore a whole class of issues, potentially with lethal consequences; abracadabra, it's SEP now", I agree. OTOH, this stretches the meaning of "good" a little bit. (thanks for the link correction)

a_square_peg 5y ago

There is enough information here though. These are situations where failure is not suppose to happen when the driver is paying attention. Given that the auto-pilot is always paying attention when operational, this becomes an unacceptable failure mode because it failed in the most rudimentary way - failure to perceive stationary obstacles and a display of complete lack of situational awareness. For emergency responders on highways, there are means to reduce the risk of additional collisions by increasing visibility to oncoming drivers (markers, lights, etc.). If the auto-pilot is not able to perceive these even when paying attention, we do have a problem.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Someone 5y ago

It’s not that simple. 12 out of ten million is extremely bad if the average driver takes part in that lottery 100,000 times a day. 12 out of 15 is nothing to worry about if the event is extremely rare. I guess this lies somewhere between these extremes, but wouldn’t know. We also don’t know how many of these accidents were prevented by attentive drivers.

shadofx 5y ago

When human drivers cause accidents, the causes are collected and analyzed, and laws are proposed to prevent future accidents from happening. It doesn't matter if it's 12 or 12 thousand, or even zero crashes... if there's fear, then society will demand something be done. The fact that AI can give no easily understood excuses, and improvements to the algorithms is a trade secret means that any fear cannot be abated, aside from outright banning of AI driving.