7 ms·
So what is the solution? Let emergency services have a remote control STOP button? But it would have many implications for passengers too
by cuteboy19 4y ago
So what is the solution? Let emergency services have a remote control STOP button? But it would have many implications for passengers too
- nonfamous 4y agoEscalators have big red “Emergency Stop” buttons anyone can press when things go wrong. Why not one for autonomous vehicles, too?
- epicureanideal 4y agoCarjackings and other crimes where people could press the button in a bad part of town and pull the riders out.
- mmcconnell1618 4y agoOr just jump in front of the car which is supposed to stop and then your companions handle carjacking the immobilized vehicle. There are many ways to normally stop or trick an autonomous vehicle without needing a big red button to stop it. Spike strips are used by police to stop human driven vehicles all the time.
- defen 4y agoWhat about if someone triggers it when you're traveling 75 mph on the highway?
- rootusrootus 4y agoI.e. what if someone pulls in front of you on the highway and then stands on the brakes?
- goodpoint 4y agoDo you have a bulletproof car that can effectively protect the driver? Or are you just imagining Mad Max?
- defen 4y agoBecause it would take about 5 minutes for people to figure out how to use that for nefarious purposes.
- drdaeman 4y agoPassenger safety concerns? If anyone would be able to stop an autonomous vehicle, it may be not always in the passenger's best interest. Could be OK if the passenger has an override, though - if they decide to tell the car to not comply with a legitimate stop request, it should be treated as if they'd be driving themselves and refused to stop. And, obviously, emergency stop should initiate stopping, but the vehicle should do so only when it's safe. It's not an escalator that's safe to halt immediately and at any moment. For an completely unmanned vehicle (driving to pick up or to recharge/park for the night) - probably no big deal.
- lalopalota 4y agoEven while unmanned it could be exploited. A robo-taxi's competitor could hit the emergency stop on any vehicles they see driving empty.
- bernawil 4y agoThe point is that would be illegal and prosecuted. A competitor could also shoot them with guns but we don't worry about that, don't we?
- goodpoint 4y ago> it may be not always in the passenger's best interest What is a realistic scenario here? Unless you are in a tank in a warzone... How is a traditional, non-self driving car protecting you from someone pointing a gun at you? Do you have bullet-proof glass and bodywork?
- ctoth 4y agoHere[0] is a realistic scenario from last week near me. Just checked. No tanks involved. You can decide for yourself if it is a warzone. Note: OP edited the post after my response. Would be good if HN indicated this. [0]: Cherry Creek carjacking prompts other victims to come forward https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/cherry-creek-carjacking-prompts-other-victims-come-forward/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/cherry-creek-carjackin...
- numpad0 4y agoTrains too. There are abusers but not many.
- hyperpape 4y agoSounds like a good question to ask Cruise and Waymo--it's their responsibility to do something about the issue.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mkl 4y agoMaybe emergency services should have the ability to block autonomous vehicles from particular areas in real time. Certainly the companies should collaborate with them to produce a lot more training data for this kind of scenario.
- nicoburns 4y agoSeems like this would be super useful for allowing emergency services access in the kind of scenarios where human drivers are expected to pull over and let them through. I'm kinda surprised this kind of integration wasn't a condition on the permit to run them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Veen 4y agoPerhaps some sort of beacon emergency services can deploy which would tell self-driving vehicles to avoid an area.
- a4isms 4y agoThe solution is recognizing that we are nowhere near ready for driverless cars. With "ordinary" software, you can look at all of the use cases and if you solve 5% of them in a really good way, you can be successful, users will self-select whether those 5% of the use cases are valuable for them, and then not use your software for anything else. With driverless self-driving vehicles, you have no such comfort. Even if your software correctly handles 99.9% of the use cases, the remaining .1% will get someone injured or killed, and people climbing into taxis cannot self-select whether their route will pass by a fire, in which case "take a cab with a human driver." Driverless cars have a huge moral hazard here. Their incentives are all around serving their passengers, but the downsides are offloaded onto pedestrians, cyclists, other automobile users, and now firefighters and the citizens they are protecting. No "solution" should "beg the question" by taking it as axiomatic that driverless cars at the current level of capability are necessary. They are not. We are not curing cancer or feeding the world here, we are trying to make people get rich by eliminating the cost of labour for a human driver. No way this calculus should prioritize investors over human lives in any sane society.
- buzzert 4y agoI really believe that with that attitude, we'll never be "ready" for driverless cars. > We are not curing cancer or feeding the world here, we are trying to make people get rich by eliminating the cost of labour for a human driver. No way this calculus should prioritize investors over human lives in any sane society. How about, we're trying to make transportation cheaper for everyone by eliminating the most expensive part of taxi cabs (human labor)? Transportation being cheaper means people can get better jobs further away from where they live, see family more often, etc. Before you mention public transportation, realize that it would benefit from driverless technologies as well (aka, not zero sum).
- zimpenfish 4y ago> Before you mention public transportation, realize that it would benefit from driverless technologies as well Which has been in place for years in some places (ie Docklands Light Railway). > we're trying to make transportation cheaper for everyone Call me an old cynic but I'll believe it when I see it - I'm old enough to have seen many, many events where the supply cost of something has gone down but the consumer cost has not (or even gone up in some cases.) Why will driverless taxis be any different?
- notch898a 4y agoPut a human being inside the car
- chrisco255 4y agoThis is not a serious solution but it would probably work: place a fake traffic light in the road in front of the hose.
- cuteboy19 4y agoShadows would also work in that case
- rootusrootus 4y agoI didn't see it mentioned in the article, but given they had time to break the window, my guess is that's more or less what they did -- without the light. Might take a little courage, but standing in front of the car should make it stop, yes? You'd have to stick around until another solution is found, of course.
- bakugo 4y agoThe solution is to have a person inside the car controlling it. A revolutionary idea indeed.
- JohnFen 4y agoThe solution is to not allow these cars on the road until/unless they can behave properly.
- aendruk 4y agoIf you must, you can do this when reading: “So what is the solution?” → “So what is the proper behavior?”
- TheCoelacanth 4y agoThe proper behavior is to not run over fire hoses, and more broadly not to violate traffic laws.
- 7952 4y agoThe problem of chaotic vehicle interactions exist irrespective of self driving cars. What stops progress is the glacial pace of legacy car companies and the libertarian nature of car culture.