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It is not clear to me that the metrics of attention people traditionally use are optimally desirable when evaluating Autopilot-like systems. Anecdotally, I have

It is not clear to me that the metrics of attention people traditionally use are optimally desirable when evaluating Autopilot-like systems. Anecdotally, I have found myself not staring forward anywhere as much, but in fact I am more attentive at what other drivers are doing and taking control where necessary--in effect delegating the lowly work to the machine. I do feel this is much safer than constantly forcing me to look at the road in front of me or touching something.

nojito 5y ago
Given that there really is scant proof that backup cameras work in keeping people safe, the hypothesis that autopilot makes people safe is shaky at best.
- romwell 5y ago
  We can test this hypothesis by looking at fatalities per mile driven, aaaaaaaand humans are still better drivers at this point.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    Source?
    - romwell 5y ago
      Source of what? Parent comment's purely unsubstantiated hypothesizing? Ask them, or find out yourself. The search engine is that way. I will respond with sources to claims made with sources.
      - belltaco 5y ago
        Source of what you claimed, I'll copy paste your entire comment for your convenience and memory >We can test this hypothesis by looking at fatalities per mile driven, aaaaaaaand humans are still better drivers at this point. What makes you think humans are better based on fatalities per mile driven? Is that just a guess or do you have any sources?
        mewpmewp2 5y ago
        All I found Googling is that Tesla's autopilot seems to have more miles per fatality than average so I would like to see the source as well.
        romwell 5y ago
        Why don't you post yours then? As I said, I respond with sources to comments that cite theirs.
droopyEyelids 5y ago
Heres a biology point: accurate self-assessment is extremely difficult for the human brain, because the ability to assess yourself is one of the first things to suffer a loss of performance with external stimuli or sleep deprivation. All you can really say is that you _feel_ more attentive.
- mehrdada 5y ago
  The self-evaluation aspect is kind of beside the point. The core question is given a fixed amount of "attention", do you want to spend most of it staring forward to keep yourself in the lane and avoid rear-ending the next car? Current Tesla Autopilot does that particular task almost perfectly today, on highway at least.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Given a fixed amount of attention, I do want to spend most of it on making sure my car is not about to crash into an obstacle, like another car, or highway divider. Because Tesla requires people to do that, as there are no guarantees that the autopilot won't [1]. [1] https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/02/25/ntsb-teslas-autopilot-steered-model-x-into-highway-median-causing-fatal-mountain-view-crash https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/02/25/ntsb-teslas-a...
    - oliwary 5y ago
      This seems sensible, but I do wonder whether actively steering the car is as attention intensive as merely verifying that the car is steering correctly. This is pure speculation, but it feels like humans have a very robust model to determine when something is about to go wrong (i.e. this car is about to crash into an obstacle). If it takes less attention to determine that the car steers correctly as opposed to steering the car, this would leave more attention available to, for example, monitor other cars behavior.
      - mwint 5y ago
        It’s akin to sitting in the passenger seat of a car - you can be idly looking out the windshield, not really thinking about driving, and your brain will freak out the moment the driver doesn’t do what you expect. It’s like my brain always has a predicted path and velocity, and deviation from that is so easy for me to detect I do it subconsciously. Maybe other people aren’t like that, but I certainly am. I find myself wishing there was an FSD-like depiction of what’s going on in the driver’s brain, to answer the “you _are_ planning to stop eventually, right?” question.
spike021 5y ago
>Anecdotally, I have found myself not staring forward anywhere as much, but in fact I am more attentive at what other drivers are doing and taking control where necessary This honestly sounds exactly why it's a bad thing. It's not just cars to worry about ahead of you. Have you never driven anywhere that people didn't just spontaneously cross the road outside of a crosswalk? Especially at night? Not wearing anything remotely reflective or easy to see? I've seen this happen on the freeway too. Guy wearing beige/dark green jacket, tan pants who should not have been there, yet was being dangerous to any drivers out on the road. Broad daylight. If I hadn't been looking ahead I would've missed him and at least thankfully in my scenario he didn't enter my lane. While it's extremely important to (as my dad labeled it) "drive for other drivers" (as in, observe cars in your surroundings and anticipate any dumb actions they may make), that does not mean you should take focus off everything else, not least of which things you'd see by "staring forward" as much as possible.
- macintux 5y ago
  I encountered a woman running down the middle of the interstate at 2am once, trying to get away from her customer. That was an interesting night.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    I had a similar situation one night, in a bad part of town a attractive woman jumped into the road ahead of me trying to flag me down. My primate brain told me something was off, she didn't seem afraid or in need but more like she was luring me. I got in the other lane, as it was either that or lock up my brakes and went around her. Watching in my rear view she did the same to the car behind me but they slowed down, as I turned the corner I noticed a man with a baseball bat come out of the bushes. No idea what happened next. If I had something like autopilot my car might've stopped like theirs did.
- mehrdada 5y ago
  Would you automatically assume Autopilot is not able to see and brake for the pedestrian at night and a human pair of eyes would see better? It’s unclear to me that will be the case. Either way that is a straw-man argument: even in manual driving you have to pay attention to surroundings but that comes at a much bigger cost of briefly letting go of what’s forward. Autopilot is an additional “pair of eyes” if you will and one more safety layer in that scenario (and one that is lower latency once it sees the pedestrian). Either one of you can brake and that might be an argument strongly in favor of such driver assistance systems.

nojito 5y ago

Given that there really is scant proof that backup cameras work in keeping people safe, the hypothesis that autopilot makes people safe is shaky at best.

romwell 5y ago
We can test this hypothesis by looking at fatalities per mile driven, aaaaaaaand humans are still better drivers at this point.
- belltaco 5y ago
  Source?
  - romwell 5y ago
    Source of what? Parent comment's purely unsubstantiated hypothesizing? Ask them, or find out yourself. The search engine is that way. I will respond with sources to claims made with sources.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      Source of what you claimed, I'll copy paste your entire comment for your convenience and memory >We can test this hypothesis by looking at fatalities per mile driven, aaaaaaaand humans are still better drivers at this point. What makes you think humans are better based on fatalities per mile driven? Is that just a guess or do you have any sources?
      - mewpmewp2 5y ago
        All I found Googling is that Tesla's autopilot seems to have more miles per fatality than average so I would like to see the source as well.
        romwell 5y ago
        Why don't you post yours then? As I said, I respond with sources to comments that cite theirs.

droopyEyelids 5y ago

Heres a biology point: accurate self-assessment is extremely difficult for the human brain, because the ability to assess yourself is one of the first things to suffer a loss of performance with external stimuli or sleep deprivation. All you can really say is that you _feel_ more attentive.

mehrdada 5y ago
The self-evaluation aspect is kind of beside the point. The core question is given a fixed amount of "attention", do you want to spend most of it staring forward to keep yourself in the lane and avoid rear-ending the next car? Current Tesla Autopilot does that particular task almost perfectly today, on highway at least.
- romwell 5y ago
  Given a fixed amount of attention, I do want to spend most of it on making sure my car is not about to crash into an obstacle, like another car, or highway divider. Because Tesla requires people to do that, as there are no guarantees that the autopilot won't [1]. [1] https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/02/25/ntsb-teslas-autopilot-steered-model-x-into-highway-median-causing-fatal-mountain-view-crash https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/02/25/ntsb-teslas-a...
  - oliwary 5y ago
    This seems sensible, but I do wonder whether actively steering the car is as attention intensive as merely verifying that the car is steering correctly. This is pure speculation, but it feels like humans have a very robust model to determine when something is about to go wrong (i.e. this car is about to crash into an obstacle). If it takes less attention to determine that the car steers correctly as opposed to steering the car, this would leave more attention available to, for example, monitor other cars behavior.
    - mwint 5y ago
      It’s akin to sitting in the passenger seat of a car - you can be idly looking out the windshield, not really thinking about driving, and your brain will freak out the moment the driver doesn’t do what you expect. It’s like my brain always has a predicted path and velocity, and deviation from that is so easy for me to detect I do it subconsciously. Maybe other people aren’t like that, but I certainly am. I find myself wishing there was an FSD-like depiction of what’s going on in the driver’s brain, to answer the “you _are_ planning to stop eventually, right?” question.

spike021 5y ago

>Anecdotally, I have found myself not staring forward anywhere as much, but in fact I am more attentive at what other drivers are doing and taking control where necessary This honestly sounds exactly why it's a bad thing. It's not just cars to worry about ahead of you. Have you never driven anywhere that people didn't just spontaneously cross the road outside of a crosswalk? Especially at night? Not wearing anything remotely reflective or easy to see? I've seen this happen on the freeway too. Guy wearing beige/dark green jacket, tan pants who should not have been there, yet was being dangerous to any drivers out on the road. Broad daylight. If I hadn't been looking ahead I would've missed him and at least thankfully in my scenario he didn't enter my lane. While it's extremely important to (as my dad labeled it) "drive for other drivers" (as in, observe cars in your surroundings and anticipate any dumb actions they may make), that does not mean you should take focus off everything else, not least of which things you'd see by "staring forward" as much as possible.

macintux 5y ago
I encountered a woman running down the middle of the interstate at 2am once, trying to get away from her customer. That was an interesting night.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  I had a similar situation one night, in a bad part of town a attractive woman jumped into the road ahead of me trying to flag me down. My primate brain told me something was off, she didn't seem afraid or in need but more like she was luring me. I got in the other lane, as it was either that or lock up my brakes and went around her. Watching in my rear view she did the same to the car behind me but they slowed down, as I turned the corner I noticed a man with a baseball bat come out of the bushes. No idea what happened next. If I had something like autopilot my car might've stopped like theirs did.
mehrdada 5y ago
Would you automatically assume Autopilot is not able to see and brake for the pedestrian at night and a human pair of eyes would see better? It’s unclear to me that will be the case. Either way that is a straw-man argument: even in manual driving you have to pay attention to surroundings but that comes at a much bigger cost of briefly letting go of what’s forward. Autopilot is an additional “pair of eyes” if you will and one more safety layer in that scenario (and one that is lower latency once it sees the pedestrian). Either one of you can brake and that might be an argument strongly in favor of such driver assistance systems.