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I think computers will become superhuman at driving under the right conditions. However, there will inevitably be conditions that require the use of general in

I think computers will become superhuman at driving under the right conditions. However, there will inevitably be conditions that require the use of general intelligence (rather than driving heuristics), and in those situations all you can do is pray the computer acts rationally despite not having GI. I think self driving cars have already passed the test of "number of crashes" or "number of fatalities" per mile driven. But I don't think that's enough to sway the public, if every once in a billion miles a self driving car slowly drives off a cliff for no apparent reason.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
>I think self driving cars have already passed the test of "number of crashes" or "number of fatalities" per mile driven. This is not definitively known. The distribution of conditions under which self driving cars operate is very different from the distribution of human driving. Self driving car miles are disproportionately on the highway, with little traffic, in perfect weather (i.e. by far the safest driving conditions). In addition, we don’t know how many disengagements (or remote interventions) would have resulted in an accident.
- subroutine 4y ago
  True, true. However, if I had to bet... I'd bet in a fully self driving world (using today's tech) there'd be overall far fewer fatal accidents. However there'd also be a lot of bullshit we are simply unwilling to deal with (e.g. cars going 10mph in the rain; slow motion fender benders; car unwilling to turn left; gridlock at intersections; lots of random oddities). I guess my point is that safety metrics are certainly important stats to gauge self driving progress, but certainly not the only metrics that matter, and perhaps not even the most important.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I think that’s underestimating just how bad people are at driving. There is little meaningful difference for other drivers from a bunch of self driving cars suddenly blocking traffic and an actual traffic accident. People aren’t going to trust cars to safely do level 5 if they can’t do level 4 99.999% of the time. So sure there will be occasional stories of i95 blocked for 3 hours due to software bug, but how is that different from a major accident that occurs regularly?
    - subroutine 4y ago
      This is the argument self driving car companies are currently trying to make. My contention is this reason doesn't seem compelling to the general public. For whatever reason the public seems more tolerant of human error than machine error. At this point anyway. I foresee a long period of trust-building before widespread adoption. An interesting experiment would be for Uber to send two cars for pickup, one human and one self driving. And let people choose.
      - Retric 4y ago
        That’s fair. I suspect we are at least 30 years from a drunk to be legally able to order their self driving car home without issue simply due to cultural inertia. Assuming we get to that point it will probably be another 20 years after that before non self driving is seen in the same way as driving a motorcycle is today. Aka something that’s not suicidal, but defiantly excessively dangerous.
        subroutine 4y ago
        I'd agree with that estimate. But sheesh, 50 years from now seems like forever. Two final thoughts... (1) Maybe within the next 50 years devs can instill into AI, some meaning of death. As it is, I find some comfort knowing my driver realizes the difference between a field and a 40-foot cliff along the coast of Big Sur, and our shared theory of mind regarding the consequence of swerving to avoid something in those situations. (2) Regarding humans being more tolerant of human error. I think this might be because when a human gets in an accident, there is always the ability to reason that person is different than us: old, tired, drunk, distracted, etc. And both the situation and the cognition are unique to one person. Naturally, we would have done something different to avoid the accident, we reason. If an AI gets into an accident, and we know that same exact AI is driving 10 million cars, including our own, that freaks us out a little.
        Retric 4y ago
        I think (2) is more cultural than that. People reacted poorly to automatic elevators when they where first introduced and now people just don’t think about them as much more complicated than a light switch. The elevator broke and my light broke have the same feel of an inanimate object not working even though elevators are a lot more complicated.
Retric 4y ago
Nothing says self driving cars can’t phone a call center for the 0.001% edge cases. Just add a cellphone connection and a Starlink receiver in the roof for a backup. At which point we would need to add some cell reception to some tunnels and cars can have literally global coverage. High drips the problem drops from near AGI to not outrunning the cars ability to stop without hitting anything.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago

>I think self driving cars have already passed the test of "number of crashes" or "number of fatalities" per mile driven. This is not definitively known. The distribution of conditions under which self driving cars operate is very different from the distribution of human driving. Self driving car miles are disproportionately on the highway, with little traffic, in perfect weather (i.e. by far the safest driving conditions). In addition, we don’t know how many disengagements (or remote interventions) would have resulted in an accident.

subroutine 4y ago
True, true. However, if I had to bet... I'd bet in a fully self driving world (using today's tech) there'd be overall far fewer fatal accidents. However there'd also be a lot of bullshit we are simply unwilling to deal with (e.g. cars going 10mph in the rain; slow motion fender benders; car unwilling to turn left; gridlock at intersections; lots of random oddities). I guess my point is that safety metrics are certainly important stats to gauge self driving progress, but certainly not the only metrics that matter, and perhaps not even the most important.
- Retric 4y ago
  I think that’s underestimating just how bad people are at driving. There is little meaningful difference for other drivers from a bunch of self driving cars suddenly blocking traffic and an actual traffic accident. People aren’t going to trust cars to safely do level 5 if they can’t do level 4 99.999% of the time. So sure there will be occasional stories of i95 blocked for 3 hours due to software bug, but how is that different from a major accident that occurs regularly?
  - subroutine 4y ago
    This is the argument self driving car companies are currently trying to make. My contention is this reason doesn't seem compelling to the general public. For whatever reason the public seems more tolerant of human error than machine error. At this point anyway. I foresee a long period of trust-building before widespread adoption. An interesting experiment would be for Uber to send two cars for pickup, one human and one self driving. And let people choose.
    - Retric 4y ago
      That’s fair. I suspect we are at least 30 years from a drunk to be legally able to order their self driving car home without issue simply due to cultural inertia. Assuming we get to that point it will probably be another 20 years after that before non self driving is seen in the same way as driving a motorcycle is today. Aka something that’s not suicidal, but defiantly excessively dangerous.
      - subroutine 4y ago
        I'd agree with that estimate. But sheesh, 50 years from now seems like forever. Two final thoughts... (1) Maybe within the next 50 years devs can instill into AI, some meaning of death. As it is, I find some comfort knowing my driver realizes the difference between a field and a 40-foot cliff along the coast of Big Sur, and our shared theory of mind regarding the consequence of swerving to avoid something in those situations. (2) Regarding humans being more tolerant of human error. I think this might be because when a human gets in an accident, there is always the ability to reason that person is different than us: old, tired, drunk, distracted, etc. And both the situation and the cognition are unique to one person. Naturally, we would have done something different to avoid the accident, we reason. If an AI gets into an accident, and we know that same exact AI is driving 10 million cars, including our own, that freaks us out a little.
        Retric 4y ago
        I think (2) is more cultural than that. People reacted poorly to automatic elevators when they where first introduced and now people just don’t think about them as much more complicated than a light switch. The elevator broke and my light broke have the same feel of an inanimate object not working even though elevators are a lot more complicated.

Retric 4y ago

Nothing says self driving cars can’t phone a call center for the 0.001% edge cases. Just add a cellphone connection and a Starlink receiver in the roof for a backup. At which point we would need to add some cell reception to some tunnels and cars can have literally global coverage. High drips the problem drops from near AGI to not outrunning the cars ability to stop without hitting anything.