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Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason. In that case it would also need to tell the difference

Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason. In that case it would also need to tell the difference between a cop and someone impersonating a cop, or it's going to be really easy to mess with self-driving cars.

jcoder 4y ago
That sounds like a them problem—society won’t change any practices to accommodate these toys that are demonstrating how little value they bring every day.
- beambot 4y ago
  You mean the same society that built thoroughfares, roads, stop lights, and laws for the benefit of transporting people and goods? Why wouldn't they modify the infrastructure to save a substantial fraction of the costs? Transportation is literally the 2nd greatest household expense [1], and the cost is dominated by labor. I'm not sure how you could conclude that the potential for massive savings is a "toy". https://20somethingfinance.com/transportation-costs/ https://20somethingfinance.com/transportation-costs/
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    Because if transportation decisions were driven by total cost to society, we would already have trains and transit. Instead, the costs are split among multiple entities, and weighed by planners and politicians against cost of new things, community preferences and personal preferences and commercial desire for profit.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Ableism at its finest. If these actually deliver on driverless cars it will be a boon to people who can’t drive. And that completely ignores the value in letting people work while they commute and the reduced loss of life from wrecks.
cowmoo728 4y ago
Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. It's easy to impersonate a cop and interfere with traffic, and human drivers would be tricked too.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. That is literally the sales pitch. They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it, not just lane-keeping on well marked brightly lit highways.
  - Ukv 4y ago
    > They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it Why? Couldn't it be "better at driving than humans" by reducing the most common errors (lapses in attention), while performing about the same as humans in less common situations (cop impersonators)?
  - SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
    No, they're supposed to be approximately as good at driving as humans. The whole "sales pitch" is that it doesn't take any human effort to do.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > supposed to be approximately as good at driving as humans They're supposed to be cheaper. Being as good is the limiting factor. Being cheaper is the pitch.
uses 4y ago
I mean you could just stand in front of a self-driving car and it'll probably stop rather than swerve around you, I imagine. There was an episode of revisionist history that discussed this a bit https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/i-love-you-waymo https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/i-love-y...
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I wouldn't be willing to bet my life on any self-driving car doing either of those things.
- nineteen999 4y ago
  You first!
- cma 4y ago
  In the submitted article it says firefighters stood in front of the car to stop it and it just continuously kept creeping forward anyway.
pugworthy 4y ago
There's some truth to this. See "US Marines defeat DARPA robot by hiding under a cardboard box"[1] which is another case of fooling AI. Whether we want it to be or not, vision AI at the moment is somewhat an idiot-savant when it comes to interacting with the real world. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34518299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34518299
j16sdiz 4y ago
> someone impersonating a cop A RFID tag would do. If you prefer going dystopia, a chip implant.
- pugworthy 4y ago
  AI being able to tell an "RFID" chip is real vs fake is not much different than telling whether someone in a fake cop outfit is real or not. And I mean given RFID is only detectable from inches to feet range, what's the point? And isn't under skin chip just RFID under the skin?
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    That would go great in the US. Try to tell a cop that you're going to come close and grab their arm to check their chip after they stopped you. I'm sure they'll take it super nicely.

jcoder 4y ago

That sounds like a them problem—society won’t change any practices to accommodate these toys that are demonstrating how little value they bring every day.

beambot 4y ago
You mean the same society that built thoroughfares, roads, stop lights, and laws for the benefit of transporting people and goods? Why wouldn't they modify the infrastructure to save a substantial fraction of the costs? Transportation is literally the 2nd greatest household expense [1], and the cost is dominated by labor. I'm not sure how you could conclude that the potential for massive savings is a "toy". https://20somethingfinance.com/transportation-costs/ https://20somethingfinance.com/transportation-costs/
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Because if transportation decisions were driven by total cost to society, we would already have trains and transit. Instead, the costs are split among multiple entities, and weighed by planners and politicians against cost of new things, community preferences and personal preferences and commercial desire for profit.
kortilla 4y ago
Ableism at its finest. If these actually deliver on driverless cars it will be a boon to people who can’t drive. And that completely ignores the value in letting people work while they commute and the reduced loss of life from wrecks.

cowmoo728 4y ago

Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. It's easy to impersonate a cop and interfere with traffic, and human drivers would be tricked too.

klyrs 4y ago
> Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. That is literally the sales pitch. They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it, not just lane-keeping on well marked brightly lit highways.
- Ukv 4y ago
  > They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it Why? Couldn't it be "better at driving than humans" by reducing the most common errors (lapses in attention), while performing about the same as humans in less common situations (cop impersonators)?
- SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
  No, they're supposed to be approximately as good at driving as humans. The whole "sales pitch" is that it doesn't take any human effort to do.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > supposed to be approximately as good at driving as humans They're supposed to be cheaper. Being as good is the limiting factor. Being cheaper is the pitch.

uses 4y ago

I mean you could just stand in front of a self-driving car and it'll probably stop rather than swerve around you, I imagine. There was an episode of revisionist history that discussed this a bit https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/i-love-you-waymo https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/i-love-y...

JohnFen 4y ago
I wouldn't be willing to bet my life on any self-driving car doing either of those things.
nineteen999 4y ago
You first!
cma 4y ago
In the submitted article it says firefighters stood in front of the car to stop it and it just continuously kept creeping forward anyway.

pugworthy 4y ago

There's some truth to this. See "US Marines defeat DARPA robot by hiding under a cardboard box"[1] which is another case of fooling AI. Whether we want it to be or not, vision AI at the moment is somewhat an idiot-savant when it comes to interacting with the real world. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34518299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34518299

j16sdiz 4y ago

> someone impersonating a cop A RFID tag would do. If you prefer going dystopia, a chip implant.

pugworthy 4y ago
AI being able to tell an "RFID" chip is real vs fake is not much different than telling whether someone in a fake cop outfit is real or not. And I mean given RFID is only detectable from inches to feet range, what's the point? And isn't under skin chip just RFID under the skin?
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  That would go great in the US. Try to tell a cop that you're going to come close and grab their arm to check their chip after they stopped you. I'm sure they'll take it super nicely.