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Reading between the lines here this just makes me think that the regulator has become captured by the industry. This is like removing human control on an auton

• walkhour 5y ago
  Driving is already a Russian roulette right? If autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers as advertised the barrel would just have more capacity.
  • pydry 5y ago
    Self driving cars will be as safe as the level of criminal liability faced by the makers. Regulatory capture means it wont be high and the potential profits to be realized from first mover advantage here means there will be a significant incentive to "move fast and break things". So to speak. I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self driving cars for 20 more years then I am totally fine with that. That would simply mean that they werent safer as promised.
    • snarf21 5y ago
      I agree that there is a significant monetary incentive to "move fast and kill people". In the end, paying out a few $MM to random families is financially minimal compared to the $BBB that are up for grabs. We will never really have executives going to jail for things like this. We've built a system of profits > anything else.
      • goodpoint 5y ago
        This has been the status quo for the whole car industry for decades. If executives were jailed for car accidents people we would have trains and trams in every corner.
        • ClumsyPilot 5y ago
          Ordinary cars are testable, we understands quality of merials, corrosion, etc. When it comes to AI droving, noone has a fucking clue what it will do in next 50 milliseconds. Teslas literally mis-classified a semi trailer for an underpass The opportunity for shenanighans is endless
        • NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
          ... and if makers of kitchen implements were jailed for knife accidents/crime then we'd be eating soup with plastic spoons for every meal. It doesn't make sense to have universal product liability in that way: there are too many creative idiots.
          • eeZah7Ux 5y ago
            In terms of complexity and security features a car is much closer to an airplane than a knife. It's very disingenuous to compare it to a knife.
            • NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
              Not really; the fact is that sharp objects and heavy objects moving at speed are both inherently hazardous because of the basic nature of the physical world, but those same attributes make them extremely useful. I don't object at all to holding manufacturers accountable for defective products; but it makes no sense to say "if your product is involved in an accident, you go to jail", which was the premise of the comment to which I responded.
              • eeZah7Ux 5y ago
                > Not really Citation needed. > was the premise of the comment to which I responded. It clearly wasn't.
    • notriddle 5y ago
      As if automakers haven't found plenty of ways to make human-piloted cars less safe in exchange for profit.
    • moduspol 5y ago
      > I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self driving cars for 20 more years then I am totally fine with that. The status quo is 139 people dying every day in the US in traffic accidents. If we replaced all cars with self-driving ones, an executive could approve a software update every single day that kills only 100 and it could very well still be a net benefit to society. These discussions always seem to implicitly presume that we're currently at zero deaths. We're not--we just don't hear about them. Every year we delay self driving cars is more people dying, not fewer.
      • pydry 5y ago
        >These discussions always seem to implicitly presume that we're currently at zero deaths. I never presumed that and never would. I do presume that if we watered down criminal liability for reckless driving then we'd get way, way more than 139. The current regulatory framework surrounding self driving cars is rather like making drink driving subject to a $30 fine. I would be surprised if it starts out safer than humans.
  • verisimi 5y ago
    Define 'safer'. If you have not paid your taxes, get in to your car, and it drives you to the local court-house or police station, this is a new risk, no?
    • bmicraft 5y ago
      Considering the people least likely to pay their taxes are those who could afford them easiest I would be all for that.
    • walkhour 5y ago
      I was thinking in terms of casualties per miles driven. Agreed that this definition doesn't capture all the danger.
      • frgtpsswrdlame 5y ago
        Casualties per miles driven is a terrible stat for current self-driving technology because as it stands, it forces drivers to take over in the most dangerous situations. And you can't generalize for all miles in cars capable of self-driving because the population who own cars like that are not representative of the average. It's a very tricky thing to accurately measure whether it's safer for an individual to drive themselves or let the car do it for them.
    • vkou 5y ago
      It would be actually be better for the car to drive itself to the repo man, if you miss payments on it / are refusing to pay your debts to the government.
  • bottled_poe 5y ago
    Statistical equivalence is one thing, but the risk will shift within the population. Let’s set the bar a bit higher than above average? The average driver is a dumbass. autonomous vehicles should be expected to consistently make better decisions than the best drivers, not just the average ones.
    • cannaceo 5y ago
      Why is beating the existing standard not enough?
      • NikolaNovak 5y ago
        Presumably, if a specific person is a very good driver, entering an automated vehicle that is merely better than average driver, with no controls to interject, results in a net reduction of safety for this individual. More specifically, what IF or rather WHEN there is an incident that could've been prevented by human interjection, but wasn't? Other aspect is, why are we only ever discussing these separately? What is the safety of a automation-assisted human? Can we get to the point where safety is better than either system alone?
        • throwaway894345 5y ago
          > Presumably, if a specific person is a very good driver, entering an automated vehicle that is merely better than average driver, with no controls to interject, results in a net reduction of safety for this individual. But for far more individuals there will be a net increase in safety, moreover, since traffic accidents don't only imperil drivers, pedestrians and safe drivers will also experience an increase in safety due to average drivers using just-above-average automation. > What is the safety of a automation-assisted human? That's where we're at today with systems like Tesla's Autopilot.
        • john_minsk 5y ago
          We will. For consumers like you there will be a $100k option to increase safety by adding sensors/compute power or something else on top of a base model. But the ultimate game here is to free people from the need to drive cars for a living or pay someone to do so. This will also open a lot of other optimisations to human life, which exist now due to cost of human labor. If human stays in the car - this mission is failed. + It's not like if you are the most careful driver you are safe - if a drunk no-licensed jerk aims for your car - you are dead due to his lack of driving ability, not yours.
  • bcrosby95 5y ago
    Car accidents kill someone every 100 million miles driven in the US. Anyone claiming they're safer now is either selling something or doesn't know what they're talking about.
    • abecedarius 5y ago
      Being safer now is not a necessary claim to support the above (whether or not it's true). We don't ban student drivers from the roads.
    • nindalf 5y ago
      Could you share how many accidents happen, rather than deaths? With a source as well, if you happen to be looking it up.
      • bushbaba 5y ago
        Would you use an autonomous car if the death rate increases but accident rate decreases? I figure deaths per million miles is a good stat
        • tshaddox 5y ago
          Most people choose to use cars despite that increasing both death rate and accident rate.
          • nobody9999 5y ago
            >Most people choose to use cars despite that increasing both death rate and accident rate. In most of the US (not where I live, thankfully) the "choice" is use a car or stay home. Not much of a choice.
            • tshaddox 5y ago
              Sure, the fact that people choose the more appealing option doesn't mean there wasn't a choice. That's just what people do when they have multiple options: they choose the one that's best according to whatever their criteria are. And many people might make a similar choice to reclaim multiple hours per day of driving time to do other things (like sleep, work, relax, etc.) while their car drives itself.
  • pizza 5y ago
    I'm assuming a couple things here, but 1. isn't a steering wheel the only plausible failsafe control for somebody supervising these experimental machines? Not sure what other control interface would be better in life-or-death instants/moments, plus any driver can carry over their preexisting skills in that situation. If better emergency controls than steering wheels exist, fine, I guess. 2. Isn't the question not safety(autonomous vehicle) > safety(human driver) but rather safety(autonomous vehicle + human control fail-safe) > safety(autonomous vehicle alone) Just don't understand why, on the face of it, the law is being changed in a way that I guess to me personally implies trials without common-sense-interface human intervention controls is legal?
• cinquemb 5y ago
  It's always been like this, I've seen enough industry insiders write their own laws at the local government level, just a bigger game at the national level :P
• trainedforthis 5y ago
  I find it rather fascinating that we require a human-in-the-loop for a train but not for a car.
  • Someone1234 5y ago
    New train lines don't require human drivers, but legacy ones do for socio-political reasons rather than logistical or technological ones. This Wikipedia article kind of shows the mishmash of automated/half-measures/full measures situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation_of_the_London_Underground#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation_of_the_London_Under...
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    It's the same for airplanes. Why is it fascinating?
• ttmb 5y ago
  This regulation is saying that if you did build an autonomous Russian roulette revolver, there's no requirement to outfit it with a pistol grip and a trigger. If there is a fully driverless (not driving itself with a human still in it) truck - as companies tell us is their goal - it does not increase or decrease safety to have or not have a seat and a steering wheel in it. The argument here is that building an autonomous Russian roulette revolver is a stupid thing to do, which is orthogonal.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • lordfrito 5y ago
    This. I have some experience in navigating NHTSA when bringing new automotive tech to market. The following reflects my experience. When working on cutting edge tech that have associated hazards (cars hurt people) what companies want is a clear set of standards to meet, as this goes a long way to showing due-diligence when things go wrong and lawsuits start showing up. But with new tech there are no standards, no generally accepted way of doing things. So how do you know if the system is capable/safe-enough to deploy in volume on our roads? How do you know you've done enough due diligence to confidently launch new tech without putting your company at financial risk? Let's face it, a big enough software bug (and associated liability) could potentially put Tesla completely out of business. When dealing with hazardous new tech, the threat of recalls and lawsuits weighs heavily on a company's decision making process. When it comes to new tech, NHTSA is in no position to answer these questions. And they know it. If they knew better then they'd be the ones driving innovation. As it stands under capitalism the innovators are all working for private companies hoping for the big pay out. Knowing this, it would be counterproductive for NHTSA to say "we know better than to let a self driving car on the road". They don't know better and they don't want to get in the way of innovation. So instead NHTSAs job is to setup a regulatory framework and set of rules to help these companies bring tech to market, while helping identify/limit bad actors. When lessons are learned (ex. ABS systems provide a clear benefit, and should generally do X Y and Z) these lessons get integrated back into the regulations as a guide to all players in the space. The regulations and standards improve over time as more-and-more millions-of-miles are driven and the tech/algorithms mature. In my experience, NHTSAs attitude seems to be best summarized as: Innovation is good for America and the last thing we want to do is stop you from developing cool new things. But we have no idea what your new tech should/shouldn't do. The risk is all on you, your company ultimately bears the legal responsibility for your products. You'll have to determine if your product is ready for market all on your own -- and failure carries a high price tag. Now... if/when the tech matures, and the industry seems to generally agree that "new tech X" should include "X Y and Z" as part of the safety/risk equation, then we'll add that to the regulatory framework. But until the tech matures and the clear path forward is known we don't want to stifle innovation. This is about the best you can do in this situation. ADAS is new, and no one knows where we'll end up. No one, including you and me, knows if these systems can be deployed safely. Personally I don't trust ADAS systems, and believe the financial risk would be too high to risk my company. But what do I know? It seems that the message being sent here is: "We're ready to start dealing with cars that don't have human controls. Best of luck to all those who dare play in the space."
• briantakita 5y ago
  This was part of the plan for the market. Remove human drivers & owner operators to have tighter control over the markets. The appearance of safety using coarse statistical samples (is is really safer?) is pretense for the real reasons.
• ravenstine 5y ago
  I get what you're saying, but the Russian roulette analogy is a kind of straw man. Do you agree? Or is it that you think that we shouldn't allow potentially dangerous technologies to perform without human supervision?
• twblalock 5y ago
  At least the government isn't standing in the way of innovation this time. The market will still decide if these vehicles sell. I wouldn't buy one, would you? Plus, it's never too late to crack down. If there are a lot of accidents, you can bet members of Congress will thrive on the outrage. So, there's really nothing to see here. Just the government getting out of the way, a little bit, for now.
  • jedberg 5y ago
    > I wouldn't buy one, would you? Absolutely! In a heartbeat. Because I know it's a tool to enhance my driving, not replace me, and I still need to pay attention. I already have an add-on for my car that gives me level 3 on the freeway (no hands on the wheel needed). I still keep my hand on the wheel though and I still pay attention, but it definitely helps because I don't have to use brain power staying in the lane or maintaining speed. I can give 100% of my brain power to looking for danger.
    • twblalock 5y ago
      What I meant was, would you buy a car without controls? Without a steering wheel?
      • jedberg 5y ago
        Ah, today, probably not. But if it was proven safe enough to not need one, sure. I'd look at the safety data and decide. But the point is, no manufacturer would sell one without a wheel either because they know it wouldn't sell. This is just a change to not require one to pass safety tests. The car still has to actually pass the safety tests though.