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I have to comment on the incredible discrepancy between HN threads about self-driving cars and threads about driver-safety technologies (like this one). Thread

I have to comment on the incredible discrepancy between HN threads about self-driving cars and threads about driver-safety technologies (like this one). Threads on self-driving are often enthusiastically supportive, with many comments about how computer control will ultimately be safer because computers don’t get tired, distracted, drunk, etc. and people do. But then threads like this one are usually highly skeptical about how well the safety technologies will work, and over losing control over one’s machine. Maybe these are just totally different sets of people commenting; I recognize that HN has a big and diverse audience. But even if that is so, it seems interesting to think about who chooses to comment on which topics. Because ultimately these sort of “smart” safety technologies, and self-driving technologies, are qualitatively the same: you’re ceding manual control to a computerized system. It’s just how much: does the ML system have to reliably interpret “impaired” driving, or does it have to interpret everything about driving? It seems like there is some sort of uncanny valley where ML-powered technologies are perceived as bad when implemented partially, but good when fully placed in control. That doesn’t make logical sense to me but I’d be interested to hear different views.

rpaddock 5y ago
I attended a Presidential Commission on Robotics meeting at Carnegie Mellon University during the Obama administration. UBER, Google, and a whole lot of government acronyms such as IARPA were present. What they spent most of the day obsessing about was: “We know, statistically, our technology WILL kill a child. How do we handle the public and political fall out of that?” In my view they were more concerned about that than looking for technical solutions. I brought up a personal experience: I once almost had a accident on Interstate 80, in a construction zone. Somehow a car that was over packed pulled from between some construction equipment, in front of me. This driver could not see out any window but right in front of him, and he was pulling *across* the interstate traffic, not going with the flow. He could not see out the passenger window, that was facing me, it had a sleeping bag in it. He shot out from between the construction equipment about twenty feet in front of me, while I was doing 45 MPH, remember it was a construction zone. The correct solutions to the problem was to floor the gas, so that I could get in front of him while there was still space, and get off on the right hand berm of the road. Any solution the applied the brakes would have caused a collision. The experts in the room replied that Aircraft Autopilot software may have been able to avoid a collision in this example. No one was sure and few seemed to care.
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  You were there and I wasn’t. But from your description it just sounds like liability was the main topic of that conference. That’s not a group of people who are going to be able to workshop technical solutions for one particular driving scenario. In general I agree with your point that human drivers can create complex risks requiring sophisticated mitigations. But I also agree that ML systems are going to kill people at some point (arguably they already have) and policy will need to be created for that.
  - rpaddock 5y ago
    It was a mixed group from technical to non-tech, with the tech side best represented by Industry. The Government people were non-tech and I don't know about the military brass that was there. As far as I know there were no lawyers present. "liability was the main topic of that conference." More like underlying current of each session. It was not the intent of the conference.
    - snowwrestler 5y ago
      Thanks for clarifying
  - sagarm 5y ago
    Tesla has killed a half dozen of their customers, and it's been surprisingly not much of an issue.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      But this is because their "full self driving" is anything but. They just blame it on the driver who should have been in control. With real full self driving where the driver is not supposed to have control, the legal situation will have to be decided indeed. I wonder if this is holding back progress there.
caseysoftware 5y ago
If I buy a self-driving car (or one with those capabilities and enable them), I'm willingly giving up control. I've weighed my choices and am making a specific decision. If I buy a "regular car" and self-driving capabilities take over for me, my control is being taken. Maybe it's justified because my driving has been erratic in a "he must be tired" kind of way so there are some immediate benefits but maybe not. It comes down to control and choice. Without me being able to decide and turn it on or off, I'm subject to the rules, interpretation, and controls of a black box system that I'm not allowed to understand.
vegadw 5y ago
I think it's the idea of a manual override being lost that people are unhappy about. Even in a fully self driving cars, I think people would express anger at having no way to override the car and steer themselves. I'm a huge proponet of slef driving (if we can get it right) but the driver needs to be able to have ultimate control over the car if wanted. The example here is going to a hospital even if slightly intoxicated and I know Ive heard escaping domestic violence; however, I thik it can be much more mundane than that- what if your car thinks you have a flat tire because a air pressure sensor has gone bad and so simply refuses to move until it reads more than 15 psi or something, despite being full in reality? What if your car sounds like it's about to suffer sudden extreme mechanical failure, but you're a mile from home and don't want to call a tow. The driver should always be able to tell the car the driver's intent. This is a matter of keeping the car useful, secure, safe, and respectful of the basic idea of object ownership. Failure to recognize this and implimenting nanny tech like this will always have the effect of making things less safe and pissing people off. It's just particularly bad when there's not even the benefit of total self driving to accompany it.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  This is certainly the bucket I fall in. I feel we are sliding into the same future TVs have arrived at: You get the 'smart' version whether you want it or not. I like the idea of a self driving car for most of my trips, but I also love to just go for a drive sometime, and it feels like the later has its days numbered.
  - ixwt 5y ago
    I've thought for a while now that driving a car (and probably gas powered cars) will go the way of horses. A leisure activity that some will enjoy, but will pass from the conciseness of society with time.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      I wish we were there. I hate driving. If my car could actually drive itself competently and I would be free to do what I wish eg read a book or watch a movie like any other passenger, I'd be very happy. I don't really want to ever drive again. But a computer looking over my shoulder and second guessing me makes the process of driving even more awful and complex.
throwaway9870 5y ago
Maybe driving becomes tiered where a person's ability to access overrides are based on tests and their driving record. Not saying it is a good idea, but with computer controlled driving systems, it becomes plausible. For example, if you had a DUI in the last year, no overrides for you.
- Steltek 5y ago
  This is unlikely to happen for the same reason that we don't apply a tiered system to larger SUVs and pickups, which are clearly more dangerous than smaller, practical cars. People will subconsciously fight any self reflection and resist even trivial self-sacrifice for the greater good of society.
marcosdumay 5y ago
Losing autonomy to a machine concerned at fulfilling your goals is completely different from losing it to one build for judging and automatically punishing you (as reasonable the punishment part may be).
buttonpusher 5y ago
For me, it's about what I want to do. If I want to drive, then I want to drive my own car, over which I have full authority. I don't want any automation beyond ABS. If I just want to get somewhere, then I'd rather hop in a self-driving taxi. It doesn't even need a steering wheel. I won't be satisfied with any awkward compromise between the two.
lamontcg 5y ago
If a woman hops into a driverless car and tells it to take her to someplace safe the driverless vehicle just goes there. It doesn't mistake her levels of fear for intoxication and impairment and refuse to start, allowing someone to break the window, drag her out of the vehicle and rape and murder her. An actual FSD vehicle won't care if you're drunk because it is the one that is driving. That's the right way to solve the problem. And yeah there's is a middle-ground where you're having to get into an argument with an algorithm to get what you really want out of it.

rpaddock 5y ago

I attended a Presidential Commission on Robotics meeting at Carnegie Mellon University during the Obama administration. UBER, Google, and a whole lot of government acronyms such as IARPA were present. What they spent most of the day obsessing about was: “We know, statistically, our technology WILL kill a child. How do we handle the public and political fall out of that?” In my view they were more concerned about that than looking for technical solutions. I brought up a personal experience: I once almost had a accident on Interstate 80, in a construction zone. Somehow a car that was over packed pulled from between some construction equipment, in front of me. This driver could not see out any window but right in front of him, and he was pulling *across* the interstate traffic, not going with the flow. He could not see out the passenger window, that was facing me, it had a sleeping bag in it. He shot out from between the construction equipment about twenty feet in front of me, while I was doing 45 MPH, remember it was a construction zone. The correct solutions to the problem was to floor the gas, so that I could get in front of him while there was still space, and get off on the right hand berm of the road. Any solution the applied the brakes would have caused a collision. The experts in the room replied that Aircraft Autopilot software may have been able to avoid a collision in this example. No one was sure and few seemed to care.

snowwrestler 5y ago
You were there and I wasn’t. But from your description it just sounds like liability was the main topic of that conference. That’s not a group of people who are going to be able to workshop technical solutions for one particular driving scenario. In general I agree with your point that human drivers can create complex risks requiring sophisticated mitigations. But I also agree that ML systems are going to kill people at some point (arguably they already have) and policy will need to be created for that.
- rpaddock 5y ago
  It was a mixed group from technical to non-tech, with the tech side best represented by Industry. The Government people were non-tech and I don't know about the military brass that was there. As far as I know there were no lawyers present. "liability was the main topic of that conference." More like underlying current of each session. It was not the intent of the conference.
  - snowwrestler 5y ago
    Thanks for clarifying
- sagarm 5y ago
  Tesla has killed a half dozen of their customers, and it's been surprisingly not much of an issue.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    But this is because their "full self driving" is anything but. They just blame it on the driver who should have been in control. With real full self driving where the driver is not supposed to have control, the legal situation will have to be decided indeed. I wonder if this is holding back progress there.

caseysoftware 5y ago

If I buy a self-driving car (or one with those capabilities and enable them), I'm willingly giving up control. I've weighed my choices and am making a specific decision. If I buy a "regular car" and self-driving capabilities take over for me, my control is being taken. Maybe it's justified because my driving has been erratic in a "he must be tired" kind of way so there are some immediate benefits but maybe not. It comes down to control and choice. Without me being able to decide and turn it on or off, I'm subject to the rules, interpretation, and controls of a black box system that I'm not allowed to understand.

vegadw 5y ago

I think it's the idea of a manual override being lost that people are unhappy about. Even in a fully self driving cars, I think people would express anger at having no way to override the car and steer themselves. I'm a huge proponet of slef driving (if we can get it right) but the driver needs to be able to have ultimate control over the car if wanted. The example here is going to a hospital even if slightly intoxicated and I know Ive heard escaping domestic violence; however, I thik it can be much more mundane than that- what if your car thinks you have a flat tire because a air pressure sensor has gone bad and so simply refuses to move until it reads more than 15 psi or something, despite being full in reality? What if your car sounds like it's about to suffer sudden extreme mechanical failure, but you're a mile from home and don't want to call a tow. The driver should always be able to tell the car the driver's intent. This is a matter of keeping the car useful, secure, safe, and respectful of the basic idea of object ownership. Failure to recognize this and implimenting nanny tech like this will always have the effect of making things less safe and pissing people off. It's just particularly bad when there's not even the benefit of total self driving to accompany it.

BobbyJo 5y ago
This is certainly the bucket I fall in. I feel we are sliding into the same future TVs have arrived at: You get the 'smart' version whether you want it or not. I like the idea of a self driving car for most of my trips, but I also love to just go for a drive sometime, and it feels like the later has its days numbered.
- ixwt 5y ago
  I've thought for a while now that driving a car (and probably gas powered cars) will go the way of horses. A leisure activity that some will enjoy, but will pass from the conciseness of society with time.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I wish we were there. I hate driving. If my car could actually drive itself competently and I would be free to do what I wish eg read a book or watch a movie like any other passenger, I'd be very happy. I don't really want to ever drive again. But a computer looking over my shoulder and second guessing me makes the process of driving even more awful and complex.

throwaway9870 5y ago

Maybe driving becomes tiered where a person's ability to access overrides are based on tests and their driving record. Not saying it is a good idea, but with computer controlled driving systems, it becomes plausible. For example, if you had a DUI in the last year, no overrides for you.

Steltek 5y ago
This is unlikely to happen for the same reason that we don't apply a tiered system to larger SUVs and pickups, which are clearly more dangerous than smaller, practical cars. People will subconsciously fight any self reflection and resist even trivial self-sacrifice for the greater good of society.

marcosdumay 5y ago

Losing autonomy to a machine concerned at fulfilling your goals is completely different from losing it to one build for judging and automatically punishing you (as reasonable the punishment part may be).

buttonpusher 5y ago

For me, it's about what I want to do. If I want to drive, then I want to drive my own car, over which I have full authority. I don't want any automation beyond ABS. If I just want to get somewhere, then I'd rather hop in a self-driving taxi. It doesn't even need a steering wheel. I won't be satisfied with any awkward compromise between the two.

lamontcg 5y ago

If a woman hops into a driverless car and tells it to take her to someplace safe the driverless vehicle just goes there. It doesn't mistake her levels of fear for intoxication and impairment and refuse to start, allowing someone to break the window, drag her out of the vehicle and rape and murder her. An actual FSD vehicle won't care if you're drunk because it is the one that is driving. That's the right way to solve the problem. And yeah there's is a middle-ground where you're having to get into an argument with an algorithm to get what you really want out of it.