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I would feel much safer having a more advanced AI (not the current ones) driving cars. It's not like humans get better at driving with each year of driving. So

I would feel much safer having a more advanced AI (not the current ones) driving cars. It's not like humans get better at driving with each year of driving. Some become more reckless, people become old, some might think they can have some drinks before sitting behind the wheel and it takes 15 years to get 15 years of experience. What about that over-confident 19 year old who wants to show off their "skills"? And 15 years of one driver's perception of safe driving is nothing compared to swarm intelligence of AI for driving. If you have 10,000 autonomous vehicles driving for a single day and combine that data at the end of that day to improve driving, that's collectively over 25 years (assuming the human equivalent drives each day of the year) of "knowledge" in one single day. Every day. Being a father with 2 small kids who drives their kids by bike to kindergarten / school - with a large section of that road is shared by SUVs, vans and bikes (while each side is blocked by parked cars or narrow garage exits built into the building), I can't wait for safe, autonomous vehicles to become the norm.

ars 4y ago
> I would feel much safer having a more advanced AI (not the current ones) driving cars. You shouldn't, there is no AI capable of doing better than a human, and there does not appear to be any currently known method of creating one. > I can't wait for safe, autonomous vehicles to become the norm. I wish I could tell you different, but the reality is you could wait the rest of your life and it would not happen.
- xapata 4y ago
  I remember people saying no computer could ever beat the best humans at chess.
  - nmfisher 4y ago
    Would you be willing to play a computer at chess if there was a possibility on any given move that it would squash you like a pancake?
    - taeric 4y ago
      There was a kid with a broken finger recently... I mean, you aren't wrong. But we can almost certainly do better than where we currently are.
    - xapata 4y ago
      There's a possibility that all the particles in my body might leap simultaneously one foot to the left, or that I might transform into a bowl of petunias. The question is how likely playing chess or riding in a car might squash me like a pancake. We accept a not insignificant risk by driving ourselves and riding in cars driven by humans. Happily, it's not hard to estimate the risk that a machine-controlled car poses by letting them roam around. We can compare that with human-controlled cars and start shifting between controllers according to their risk profiles. I'd much rather have a machine-controlled car than a human asleep at the wheel.
  - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
    When do you remember this from? In the mid 1970's, computers playing chess had in 20 years gone from being utterly trivial to beat if you know the rules, to easily beating amateurs and playing mildly interesting games against top humans like Greenblatt vs Bobby Fischer in '77. And it was clear that the power of the chess computers would keep scaling with Moore's law as they could look further into the future and store more of a complete opening book. In the late 80's the first versions of Deep Blue were playing serious games against Kasparov under standard time control, even though it took until 1997 to beat him - one can argue that Kasparov was also still developing during this time, since his rating peaked in 1999. Can you find a citation from after 1980 from someone with a bit of understanding of chess and computers, saying that computers would never beat humans?
    - xapata 4y ago
      In the 70s, there was widespread misunderstanding of what artificial intelligence would be good at. Take a look at Hubert Dreyfus' _What Computers Can't Do_ (1972). To be fair, he was correct in some respects, but I think with flawed reasoning.
- paulgb 4y ago
  > You shouldn't, there is no AI capable of doing better than a human, and there does not appear to be any currently known method of creating one. I don’t care that much if it’s better than the best driver, I care if it’s better than the driver checking their phone, blowing through stop signs, etc. As a cyclist, I reckon that it’s the most selfish 10% of drivers that represent 90% of the risk; if they’re replaced by self-driving I’d feel safer even if it also means the good drivers aren’t quite as good.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    The ones which are not checking their phones can't detect semis or cyclists for quite some time. So You're replacing the 10% with their electronic versions.
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    But if AI can be better than humans at driving a car, then it can also be better than you at driving a bicycle. Will you accept AI-augmented tools on your bike? I see automatic braking and speed limiters as very easy first steps. Then geofencing to prevent bicycles on pedestrian paths. All of that is dead simple with curret tech.
    - pasabagi 4y ago
      Bicyles aren't very dangerous. Cars, on the other hand, are a leading cause of death in basically every country on earth.
      - UncleEntity 4y ago
        Yeah, you only have a ~seven times higher rate of death per mile traveled as compared to a car. It’s just there are significantly more car miles traveled so more car related deaths. statistics…
        pasabagi 4y ago
        ... 'death rate', as in, the cyclist is killed by a car.
semi-extrinsic 4y ago
Your line of reasoning (which is very common on this topic) is just fascinating to me. You start with the assumption that it's possible to build something almost perfect, far better than we have today. Then you proceed to say that if we had this thing it would make life much better than today. Therefore we should work hard to build this thing. I mean, if you replace "self-driving cars" with "anti-gravity technology", your line of reasoning can be applied just the same. But nobody is pouring billions into anti gravity startups?
- kugelblitz 4y ago
  No, it doesn't have to be 'almost perfect'. Significantly better than what we have now (people with emotions and imperfect decision-making, ranging from 19 year-old newbie drivers, 45 year old over-confident CEOs with their SUVs driving in the city to 82 year old drivers who can barely walk so would rather drive) is already a HUGE improvement. "self-driving cars is" not the same as "anti-gravity technology". People - including many innocent people - get killed every day because of reckless driving or human mistakes. People-driven cars also needs more infrastructure - more signs, more roadblocks / infrastructure, cluttering up the city, making it less human-friendly. Cars clog up the city, because people don't want to drive too far to work. Concerning safety and making cities more livable, I only see upsides for autonomous cars. People can work in their cars coming from outside the city. The cars are safer and more reliable. There's less cluttering in the city (e.g. an intersection with 10 signs for each corner), because cars can also communicate in non-visual ways. Plus we've made significant headway and it's not a fantasy anymore. "anti-gravity technology"... is just a random technology. A solution looking for problems to solve, I suppose. With positive and negative consequences.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > "anti-gravity technology"... is just a random technology. A solution looking for problems to solve, I suppose. If cars drive above people instead of next to them that would also solve that problem.
  - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
    I'm saying, an AI significantly better than what humans can do today, is just as much a fantasy as anti-gravity technology. People get injured and killed every day because they don't have anti-gravity tech and are trying to lift or move heavy objects. You can make all the same arguments. And most of the "people are stupid" problems with cars are better solved by other tech like driver monitoring - Volvo is already deploying this. Self driving cars/buses is just a fairytale used by Tesla/Uber/etc. tech bros to try and defend their valuations.
onetokeoverthe 4y ago

ars 4y ago

> I would feel much safer having a more advanced AI (not the current ones) driving cars. You shouldn't, there is no AI capable of doing better than a human, and there does not appear to be any currently known method of creating one. > I can't wait for safe, autonomous vehicles to become the norm. I wish I could tell you different, but the reality is you could wait the rest of your life and it would not happen.

xapata 4y ago
I remember people saying no computer could ever beat the best humans at chess.
- nmfisher 4y ago
  Would you be willing to play a computer at chess if there was a possibility on any given move that it would squash you like a pancake?
  - taeric 4y ago
    There was a kid with a broken finger recently... I mean, you aren't wrong. But we can almost certainly do better than where we currently are.
  - xapata 4y ago
    There's a possibility that all the particles in my body might leap simultaneously one foot to the left, or that I might transform into a bowl of petunias. The question is how likely playing chess or riding in a car might squash me like a pancake. We accept a not insignificant risk by driving ourselves and riding in cars driven by humans. Happily, it's not hard to estimate the risk that a machine-controlled car poses by letting them roam around. We can compare that with human-controlled cars and start shifting between controllers according to their risk profiles. I'd much rather have a machine-controlled car than a human asleep at the wheel.
- semi-extrinsic 4y ago
  When do you remember this from? In the mid 1970's, computers playing chess had in 20 years gone from being utterly trivial to beat if you know the rules, to easily beating amateurs and playing mildly interesting games against top humans like Greenblatt vs Bobby Fischer in '77. And it was clear that the power of the chess computers would keep scaling with Moore's law as they could look further into the future and store more of a complete opening book. In the late 80's the first versions of Deep Blue were playing serious games against Kasparov under standard time control, even though it took until 1997 to beat him - one can argue that Kasparov was also still developing during this time, since his rating peaked in 1999. Can you find a citation from after 1980 from someone with a bit of understanding of chess and computers, saying that computers would never beat humans?
  - xapata 4y ago
    In the 70s, there was widespread misunderstanding of what artificial intelligence would be good at. Take a look at Hubert Dreyfus' _What Computers Can't Do_ (1972). To be fair, he was correct in some respects, but I think with flawed reasoning.
paulgb 4y ago
> You shouldn't, there is no AI capable of doing better than a human, and there does not appear to be any currently known method of creating one. I don’t care that much if it’s better than the best driver, I care if it’s better than the driver checking their phone, blowing through stop signs, etc. As a cyclist, I reckon that it’s the most selfish 10% of drivers that represent 90% of the risk; if they’re replaced by self-driving I’d feel safer even if it also means the good drivers aren’t quite as good.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  The ones which are not checking their phones can't detect semis or cyclists for quite some time. So You're replacing the 10% with their electronic versions.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  But if AI can be better than humans at driving a car, then it can also be better than you at driving a bicycle. Will you accept AI-augmented tools on your bike? I see automatic braking and speed limiters as very easy first steps. Then geofencing to prevent bicycles on pedestrian paths. All of that is dead simple with curret tech.
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    Bicyles aren't very dangerous. Cars, on the other hand, are a leading cause of death in basically every country on earth.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      Yeah, you only have a ~seven times higher rate of death per mile traveled as compared to a car. It’s just there are significantly more car miles traveled so more car related deaths. statistics…
      - pasabagi 4y ago
        ... 'death rate', as in, the cyclist is killed by a car.

semi-extrinsic 4y ago

Your line of reasoning (which is very common on this topic) is just fascinating to me. You start with the assumption that it's possible to build something almost perfect, far better than we have today. Then you proceed to say that if we had this thing it would make life much better than today. Therefore we should work hard to build this thing. I mean, if you replace "self-driving cars" with "anti-gravity technology", your line of reasoning can be applied just the same. But nobody is pouring billions into anti gravity startups?

kugelblitz 4y ago
No, it doesn't have to be 'almost perfect'. Significantly better than what we have now (people with emotions and imperfect decision-making, ranging from 19 year-old newbie drivers, 45 year old over-confident CEOs with their SUVs driving in the city to 82 year old drivers who can barely walk so would rather drive) is already a HUGE improvement. "self-driving cars is" not the same as "anti-gravity technology". People - including many innocent people - get killed every day because of reckless driving or human mistakes. People-driven cars also needs more infrastructure - more signs, more roadblocks / infrastructure, cluttering up the city, making it less human-friendly. Cars clog up the city, because people don't want to drive too far to work. Concerning safety and making cities more livable, I only see upsides for autonomous cars. People can work in their cars coming from outside the city. The cars are safer and more reliable. There's less cluttering in the city (e.g. an intersection with 10 signs for each corner), because cars can also communicate in non-visual ways. Plus we've made significant headway and it's not a fantasy anymore. "anti-gravity technology"... is just a random technology. A solution looking for problems to solve, I suppose. With positive and negative consequences.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > "anti-gravity technology"... is just a random technology. A solution looking for problems to solve, I suppose. If cars drive above people instead of next to them that would also solve that problem.
- semi-extrinsic 4y ago
  I'm saying, an AI significantly better than what humans can do today, is just as much a fantasy as anti-gravity technology. People get injured and killed every day because they don't have anti-gravity tech and are trying to lift or move heavy objects. You can make all the same arguments. And most of the "people are stupid" problems with cars are better solved by other tech like driver monitoring - Volvo is already deploying this. Self driving cars/buses is just a fairytale used by Tesla/Uber/etc. tech bros to try and defend their valuations.

onetokeoverthe 4y ago