4 ms·

Yes and no. Yes, because I agree with what you said. No, because it assumes self-driving has to rely purely on normal vision/cameras, which is just garbage². Th

Yes and no. Yes, because I agree with what you said. No, because it assumes self-driving has to rely purely on normal vision/cameras, which is just garbage². Think LiDAR and other such means to detect obstacles, but things like that are (currently) pretty expensive, so there is the attempt to just do it with (more or less) normal cameras, which leads to what you said (and I fully agree with that). Aside of the fact that safety assumptions+validations towards cameras are complicated in itself already, not only the technology in all its aspects, but also dirty lenses and things like that.

williamcotton 4y ago
LiDAR can't tell you mass of an object as it is headed towards your vehicle. Imagine you're driving down the road and you see: 1.) A kid throw a rubber playground ball into the road and at your windshield. 2.) A kid heave a bowling ball into the road and at your windshield. How would you react in each case? How do you distinguish between the two? As a kid is heaving the bowling ball you can tell that it has a lot more mass by how the kid had to move his body to throw the ball. You learned that because you spent the first few years of your life experiencing the basic physics of reality. You've internalized the motion of the human body. LiDAR can also have a dirty lens!
- kortex 4y ago
  Same for both: brake. I don't want either hitting my windshield. The kickball may be bouncy, sure, but it may have gotten rocks stuck to it, which can create a point stress and scratch paint or chip the windshield. Humans can't intuit mass unless the object meets certain criteria, either. What if it's an opaque cardboard box in the road? Generally the strategy is the same: avoid it.
  - williamcotton 4y ago
    In certain circumstances with a playground ball you would have to choose between extensive damage to the body of your car by swerving out of the way or to just take the risk of a chipped windshield from a playground ball that somehow has rocks stuck to the outside. And have you seen ever seen a rubber playground ball with rocks stuck to the outside? Do you really hesitate to barefoot kick an unexamined playground ball that is bouncing in your direction? I mean, I literally did this yesterday. I was out barefoot in the neighborhood with my 1 year old and the neighbor kids were kicking a ball around and it bounced in my direction and I kicked it back to them. "Treat every object as the same" is not at all intelligent behavior for a man or a machine!
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      In case of a car, the thrown object is the easy case. Now imagine you spot a person walking down the road on a pavement. Suddenly, the person turns towards the edge. What do you do? See, a human driver would look at the gait of the person from far away to evaluate for instance if they're sober, or if it's a child who might be expected to run in. Whether it is near a crossing or a potential crossing. Whether the person was walking or standing... Many other obvious and less obvious indicators. AI currently sees a moving blob of pixels in a shape of a person. No advanced inference. When interviewed in case of an accident, say because they got rear ended due to braking, a person can explain why they braked most of the time. AI now couldn't even say which features it weighted.
      - williamcotton 4y ago
        I agree! My pet theory is that we'll need supervised training of androids that go through the experience of having to learn how to move their human-like bodies through space in order to make human-like intelligent decisions about objects moving through spaces primarily designed for humans. My other historically motivated pet theory is that we're going to stumble across sentient machines and then enslave them. Put another way, I'm more worried about what humans do to artificial sentient life than what artificial sentient life does to humans.

williamcotton 4y ago

LiDAR can't tell you mass of an object as it is headed towards your vehicle. Imagine you're driving down the road and you see: 1.) A kid throw a rubber playground ball into the road and at your windshield. 2.) A kid heave a bowling ball into the road and at your windshield. How would you react in each case? How do you distinguish between the two? As a kid is heaving the bowling ball you can tell that it has a lot more mass by how the kid had to move his body to throw the ball. You learned that because you spent the first few years of your life experiencing the basic physics of reality. You've internalized the motion of the human body. LiDAR can also have a dirty lens!

kortex 4y ago
Same for both: brake. I don't want either hitting my windshield. The kickball may be bouncy, sure, but it may have gotten rocks stuck to it, which can create a point stress and scratch paint or chip the windshield. Humans can't intuit mass unless the object meets certain criteria, either. What if it's an opaque cardboard box in the road? Generally the strategy is the same: avoid it.
- williamcotton 4y ago
  In certain circumstances with a playground ball you would have to choose between extensive damage to the body of your car by swerving out of the way or to just take the risk of a chipped windshield from a playground ball that somehow has rocks stuck to the outside. And have you seen ever seen a rubber playground ball with rocks stuck to the outside? Do you really hesitate to barefoot kick an unexamined playground ball that is bouncing in your direction? I mean, I literally did this yesterday. I was out barefoot in the neighborhood with my 1 year old and the neighbor kids were kicking a ball around and it bounced in my direction and I kicked it back to them. "Treat every object as the same" is not at all intelligent behavior for a man or a machine!
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    In case of a car, the thrown object is the easy case. Now imagine you spot a person walking down the road on a pavement. Suddenly, the person turns towards the edge. What do you do? See, a human driver would look at the gait of the person from far away to evaluate for instance if they're sober, or if it's a child who might be expected to run in. Whether it is near a crossing or a potential crossing. Whether the person was walking or standing... Many other obvious and less obvious indicators. AI currently sees a moving blob of pixels in a shape of a person. No advanced inference. When interviewed in case of an accident, say because they got rear ended due to braking, a person can explain why they braked most of the time. AI now couldn't even say which features it weighted.
    - williamcotton 4y ago
      I agree! My pet theory is that we'll need supervised training of androids that go through the experience of having to learn how to move their human-like bodies through space in order to make human-like intelligent decisions about objects moving through spaces primarily designed for humans. My other historically motivated pet theory is that we're going to stumble across sentient machines and then enslave them. Put another way, I'm more worried about what humans do to artificial sentient life than what artificial sentient life does to humans.