4 ms·

I think the L4/L5 debate can be greatly helped by people realizing that the majority of human drivers on the road are not L5-capable. A sizeable chunk are L3s a

I think the L4/L5 debate can be greatly helped by people realizing that the majority of human drivers on the road are not L5-capable. A sizeable chunk are L3s and not many are L5s. The way it works is that people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them (comfortably driving in suburbia, but never attempting to drive in NYC, not renting a car abroad, etc) The bar for autonomous cars is not "is it superhuman" but merely "is it useful enough at the given price". Thus to make a massive impact, you could have a cheap L3, an expensive L4 and L5s need never appear (although, I am personally pretty sure they will). The question to ask is, how many people do you know that will refuse to drive in SF, or lack the ability to do it trouble-free for 1hr? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a5fUrjn0Hw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a5fUrjn0Hw

HideousKojima 4y ago
I see L3 as the most dangerous level, and would prefer to see it skipped entirely. Anything that enables drivers to completely stop paying attention while continuing to drive safely, but that also requires them to be able to immediately take over control in certain circumstance is a recipe for disaster.
- xani_ 4y ago
  It's more than that. We've seen spike in accidents after covid restrictions loosened because few months of little/no driving dulled people's skills. Imagine if most drivers don't touch wheel at all for 99% of their commute. On top of the reaction time (no doubt delayed by being distracted on the phone) you now have driver that barely remembers how to drive, let alone react correctly in emergency
kube-system 4y ago
> people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them Regarding snow squalls, I don’t think it is a reasonable interpretation of L5 to say that the vehicle must be “smart enough” to do things it physically is incapable of doing. I think the difference between 4 and 5 is that 4 may refuse to operate in scenarios that the vehicle could otherwise safely operate. Part of human refusal to drive is also a significant advantage to human judgement: if the road is a sheet of ice and the car is sporting all-season tires, even an L5 should refuse to operate. The bad drivers you talk about are an L4 not an L3. L3s can just stop driving the car at any moment, the human equivalent is like someone suffering a medical emergency while driving.
- martythemaniak 4y ago
  The SAE levels don't really have exceptions like that: https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update Some other quotes from wikipedia: "Level 5 ("steering wheel optional"): No human intervention is required at all. An example would be a robotic vehicle that works on all kinds of surfaces, all over the world, all year around, in all weather conditions." "Under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver" I've driven in all sorts of conditions - thick fog on the highway, dangerously heavy snowfall (no lanes), fresh snow without winter tires, etc. These things are not physically impossible they just have a higher probability of killing you. So what is a reasonable definition then? A brash, foolish, broke 19 year old? A stogy, conservative 70 year old? And how do you even quantify these risks, without actually taking a ton of risks, then walking back when bad things happen? As long as there's someone out there willing to take more risks, they'll be more "capable" than an L5, thus L5s can never technically exist, since there'll always be more capable (but in actuality just plain risky) human drivers.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    I understand the SAE levels, I am saying that extreme interpretations of that sentence is silly. J3016 is about a driver automation system on an otherwise normal automobile. It's not about the inherent physical capabilities of the vehicle. Level 5 doesn't require a vehicle to have studded tires to operate on ice, amphibious capabilities to operate in floods, or other extraordinary physical capabilities beyond the normal abilities of an otherwise typical underlying vehicle. We have a while before we get anywhere close to having to consider this -- but at some point we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that a significant problem with human drivers is that they often choose to operate their vehicles in conditions beyond the safe capabilities of the vehicle given particular conditions. Neither road conditions nor the laws of physics disappear at any SAE level. These things are always something that will be taken into account. There will always be some amount of risk that cannot be determined in advance. Even I do not know when the snow plow will go down my street, and that may determine whether I can fully make it home or not. I'm sure the folks at the SAE have driven in inclement conditions before, so it makes sense to interpret those definitions with a reasonable lens.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
L1-L4 don't inherently have anything to do with safety or anything else. They're simply terms to define different divisions of responsibilities between humans and computers while driving. L5 mostly exists to have a term for "it's a computerized chauffeur without caveats". An L4 system with shitty safety metrics is still L4, simply unsafe. Likewise, a superhumanly safe L4 system still isn't L5. The whole level system isn't applicable to humans, except that humans are almost universally as capable as hypothetical L5 systems by definition.

HideousKojima 4y ago

I see L3 as the most dangerous level, and would prefer to see it skipped entirely. Anything that enables drivers to completely stop paying attention while continuing to drive safely, but that also requires them to be able to immediately take over control in certain circumstance is a recipe for disaster.

xani_ 4y ago
It's more than that. We've seen spike in accidents after covid restrictions loosened because few months of little/no driving dulled people's skills. Imagine if most drivers don't touch wheel at all for 99% of their commute. On top of the reaction time (no doubt delayed by being distracted on the phone) you now have driver that barely remembers how to drive, let alone react correctly in emergency

kube-system 4y ago

> people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them Regarding snow squalls, I don’t think it is a reasonable interpretation of L5 to say that the vehicle must be “smart enough” to do things it physically is incapable of doing. I think the difference between 4 and 5 is that 4 may refuse to operate in scenarios that the vehicle could otherwise safely operate. Part of human refusal to drive is also a significant advantage to human judgement: if the road is a sheet of ice and the car is sporting all-season tires, even an L5 should refuse to operate. The bad drivers you talk about are an L4 not an L3. L3s can just stop driving the car at any moment, the human equivalent is like someone suffering a medical emergency while driving.

martythemaniak 4y ago
The SAE levels don't really have exceptions like that: https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update Some other quotes from wikipedia: "Level 5 ("steering wheel optional"): No human intervention is required at all. An example would be a robotic vehicle that works on all kinds of surfaces, all over the world, all year around, in all weather conditions." "Under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver" I've driven in all sorts of conditions - thick fog on the highway, dangerously heavy snowfall (no lanes), fresh snow without winter tires, etc. These things are not physically impossible they just have a higher probability of killing you. So what is a reasonable definition then? A brash, foolish, broke 19 year old? A stogy, conservative 70 year old? And how do you even quantify these risks, without actually taking a ton of risks, then walking back when bad things happen? As long as there's someone out there willing to take more risks, they'll be more "capable" than an L5, thus L5s can never technically exist, since there'll always be more capable (but in actuality just plain risky) human drivers.
- kube-system 4y ago
  I understand the SAE levels, I am saying that extreme interpretations of that sentence is silly. J3016 is about a driver automation system on an otherwise normal automobile. It's not about the inherent physical capabilities of the vehicle. Level 5 doesn't require a vehicle to have studded tires to operate on ice, amphibious capabilities to operate in floods, or other extraordinary physical capabilities beyond the normal abilities of an otherwise typical underlying vehicle. We have a while before we get anywhere close to having to consider this -- but at some point we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that a significant problem with human drivers is that they often choose to operate their vehicles in conditions beyond the safe capabilities of the vehicle given particular conditions. Neither road conditions nor the laws of physics disappear at any SAE level. These things are always something that will be taken into account. There will always be some amount of risk that cannot be determined in advance. Even I do not know when the snow plow will go down my street, and that may determine whether I can fully make it home or not. I'm sure the folks at the SAE have driven in inclement conditions before, so it makes sense to interpret those definitions with a reasonable lens.

AlotOfReading 4y ago

L1-L4 don't inherently have anything to do with safety or anything else. They're simply terms to define different divisions of responsibilities between humans and computers while driving. L5 mostly exists to have a term for "it's a computerized chauffeur without caveats". An L4 system with shitty safety metrics is still L4, simply unsafe. Likewise, a superhumanly safe L4 system still isn't L5. The whole level system isn't applicable to humans, except that humans are almost universally as capable as hypothetical L5 systems by definition.