5 ms·

>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

>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.
- spike021 5y ago
  "Would you automatically assume Autopilot is able to see and brake for the pedestrian at night and a human pair of eyes wouldn't see better?" Honestly that's a terrible argument. We haven't reached any kind of semblance that Autopilot or similar systems are capable of that. Not only that, but it's meant as a supplement; it's not one or the other. We're simply not there yet, and may never be.
  - mehrdada 5y ago
    > We haven't reached any kind of semblance that Autopilot or similar systems are capable of that. Oh, I was not suggesting that AP would more intelligent overall than humans, rather the vision stack might (or might not) be more sensitive to such pedestrian/background contrast at night than human eyes, simply due to the sensory differences.

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.

spike021 5y ago
"Would you automatically assume Autopilot is able to see and brake for the pedestrian at night and a human pair of eyes wouldn't see better?" Honestly that's a terrible argument. We haven't reached any kind of semblance that Autopilot or similar systems are capable of that. Not only that, but it's meant as a supplement; it's not one or the other. We're simply not there yet, and may never be.
- mehrdada 5y ago
  > We haven't reached any kind of semblance that Autopilot or similar systems are capable of that. Oh, I was not suggesting that AP would more intelligent overall than humans, rather the vision stack might (or might not) be more sensitive to such pedestrian/background contrast at night than human eyes, simply due to the sensory differences.