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I'm actually in complete agreement! What sticks out to me is your assessment that the flight environment is "embarrassingly simple from an automation perspectiv

I'm actually in complete agreement! What sticks out to me is your assessment that the flight environment is "embarrassingly simple from an automation perspective", which I agree as well (as compared to cars). And yet despite that simplicity and decades at it, we still run it with an incredible robust infrastructure to have a human oversee the tech. We have super robust procedures for checking and cross-checking the automation, defined minimus and tolerances for when the automation needs to cease to operate the aircraft, training solely focused on operating the automation etc. But with cars, we somehow are super comfortable with cars severely altering behavior in a split-second, super poor driver insight or feedback on the automation, no training at all, with a human behind the wheel who in every marketing material known to man has been encouraged to trust the system far more than the tech (or law), would ever have you prudently do. I'm with you that they are super different, and that the auto case is likely much, much harder. But I see that and can't help but think that the path we should be following here is one with a much greater and healthy skepticism (and far greater human agency) in this automation journey than we are currently thinking is needed.

_moof 5y ago
I agree completely. It's a very difficult problem from a technical perspective, and from a systems perspective, we've got untrained operators who can't even stay off their phones in a non-self-driving car. (Not high-horsing it here; I'm as guilty of this as anyone.) Frankly I'll be amazed if anyone can get this to actually work without significant changes to the total system. Right now self-driving car folks are working in isolation - they're only working on the car - and I just don't think it's going to happen until everyone else in the system gets involved.
yunohn 5y ago
> we still run it with an incredible robust infrastructure to have a human oversee the tech Airplanes are responsible for 200-300+ lives at a time, so it’s quite incomparable to road vehicles. Of course it makes sense to have human oversight in case something goes wrong. On the flip side, the average car driver is not very skilled nor equipped to deal with most surprises - hence the ever present danger of road traffic. I’m not sure why AI drivers are held to such insanely high standards.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  The claim that self-driving cars are being held-up to a higher standard than human drivers is simply false. Self-driving cars so far have a far worse record than the average of human drivers, which is remarkably good. Human accidents are measure in term of "per million miles driven". Self-driving cars have driven a tiny total distance compared to all the miles human drivers have driven. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
  - zwily 5y ago
    What’s the “accidents per million miles driven” metric at for self driving cars?
- quantified 5y ago
  I’m reminded of GWB’s “soft bigotry of low expectations”. (Even if you didn’t like him, it remains apt.) Sorry, most drivers I’ve seen avoid the kid that follows the bouncing ball into the street and all the other random events. A few drivers are crap. But justifying automation based on that few is lazy and incorrect. Elon is just full of his own crap on Tesla’s autopilot.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > most drivers I’ve seen avoid the kid that follows the bouncing ball into the street and all the other random events I've seen many poor drivers over the decades, but can't think of any human drivers who would reliably and repeatably crash into a stationary fire truck in their lane. "Full Self Driving" vehicles, on the other hand... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/spotting-a-fire-truck-ahead-is-easy-for-people-not-so-for-cars https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/spotting-... https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/teslas-allegedly-hitting-emergency-vehicles-why-it-could-be-happening.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/teslas-allegedly-hittin...
- 5y ago

_moof 5y ago

I agree completely. It's a very difficult problem from a technical perspective, and from a systems perspective, we've got untrained operators who can't even stay off their phones in a non-self-driving car. (Not high-horsing it here; I'm as guilty of this as anyone.) Frankly I'll be amazed if anyone can get this to actually work without significant changes to the total system. Right now self-driving car folks are working in isolation - they're only working on the car - and I just don't think it's going to happen until everyone else in the system gets involved.

yunohn 5y ago

> we still run it with an incredible robust infrastructure to have a human oversee the tech Airplanes are responsible for 200-300+ lives at a time, so it’s quite incomparable to road vehicles. Of course it makes sense to have human oversight in case something goes wrong. On the flip side, the average car driver is not very skilled nor equipped to deal with most surprises - hence the ever present danger of road traffic. I’m not sure why AI drivers are held to such insanely high standards.

joe_the_user 5y ago
The claim that self-driving cars are being held-up to a higher standard than human drivers is simply false. Self-driving cars so far have a far worse record than the average of human drivers, which is remarkably good. Human accidents are measure in term of "per million miles driven". Self-driving cars have driven a tiny total distance compared to all the miles human drivers have driven. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
- zwily 5y ago
  What’s the “accidents per million miles driven” metric at for self driving cars?
quantified 5y ago
I’m reminded of GWB’s “soft bigotry of low expectations”. (Even if you didn’t like him, it remains apt.) Sorry, most drivers I’ve seen avoid the kid that follows the bouncing ball into the street and all the other random events. A few drivers are crap. But justifying automation based on that few is lazy and incorrect. Elon is just full of his own crap on Tesla’s autopilot.
- logifail 5y ago
  > most drivers I’ve seen avoid the kid that follows the bouncing ball into the street and all the other random events I've seen many poor drivers over the decades, but can't think of any human drivers who would reliably and repeatably crash into a stationary fire truck in their lane. "Full Self Driving" vehicles, on the other hand... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/spotting-a-fire-truck-ahead-is-easy-for-people-not-so-for-cars https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/spotting-... https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/teslas-allegedly-hitting-emergency-vehicles-why-it-could-be-happening.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/teslas-allegedly-hittin...
5y ago