6 ms·

> Never trust a computer to make life-or-death decisions for you But it will kill statistically fewer people than you will. You are a imprecise bag of mostly w

> Never trust a computer to make life-or-death decisions for you But it will kill statistically fewer people than you will. You are a imprecise bag of mostly water with slow reaction times that gets tired. The responsible thing is to know when you are not suited for a job and get out of the way, so lives can be saved. We can argue about whether Tesla is at that point of course and whether they have adequate testing and precautions, but the best way statistically to avoid killing people is to realize you should no longer drive (when the technology has matured to that point and Tesla may not have).

pdonis 3y ago
> It will kill statistically fewer people than you will. Speak for yourself. Individual human beings are not statistics. If you have evidence that someone is an unreliable driver, sure, take steps to deal with that. But don't tell people with an unblemished safety record at driving that "statistics" say they are unreliable.
forgetfreeman 3y ago
I have killed statistically 0 humans with a motor vehicle of any kind. I am a very precise bag of mostly water that has a vast corpus of knowledge on how to correctly operate a motor vehicle in any weather and traffic conditions and I can also problem solve my way out of novel situations. Additionally I can accurately model the road surface, weather conditions, current traffic pattern, and account for pedestrians without any significant mental or physical exertion on my part. IF you or others you know cannot say the same then yes, they should certainly surrender their license and find other modes of transportation. When driving AI has been produced that can provably outperform me in the rain, in ice and snow, and on the track, I'll consider stepping aside. That day hasn't arrived and isn't likely to any time soon.
- bruce511 3y ago
  You may be great. Others -should- turn in their license. But clearly this approach has failed, as a million dead people every year can testify to. You're right, replacement day has not arrived yet. (Especially not by tesla). But it is coming. And I suspect this generation of drivers wont consider stepping aside, much less actually doing so. But my kids didn't have the same desire to drive that I did. For them it wasn't a big deal, there were alternatives (like uber). They did learn, but only pretty much cause they had to. My grandkids probably won't learn. My great grand kids certainly won't. No more than I can ride a horse.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    I hear you. I'm not great, just a product of my generation. I was expected to be able to operate literally anything with wheels and most things with treads by the time I was 18, that's pretty normal for folks growing up rural in the 80s. I'm not trying to fight the tide here, the point I'm trying to underline (and that we appear to agree on) is that the tech simply is not on a level where replacement of human operators is sanely viable.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      One day Mavrick, your kind will be extinct. We don't need drivers who make mistakes, need to rest, make bad judgement calls, have no patience or consideration. Sure, it's not today, butvyhe day is coming. Its not far away now (on human time lines, not necessarily tech time lines). Until then, enjoy the ride ;)
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > We don't need drivers who make mistakes, need to rest, make bad judgement calls, have no patience or consideration. But eliminating human drivers isn't just eliminating that. It's also eliminating humans who are not tired, who are making good judgment calls, and who do have the patience and consideration to drive responsibly. Unless you are claiming there are no such humans anywhere, which is ridiculous (the majority of human drivers meet the requirements the majority of the time). For self-driving technology to be truly viable, in other words, it's not enough for it to outperform humans who are tired and impaired. It has to outperform humans at their best. Otherwise the humans who aren't tired and impaired will have no good reason to use it, and will have an ironclad objection to being forced to.
        forgetfreeman 3y ago
        You stated that much more articulately than I was able to and I thank you for it.
      - forgetfreeman 3y ago
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  > When driving AI has been produced that can provably outperform me in the rain, in ice and snow, and on the track, I'll consider stepping aside. That day hasn't arrived and isn't likely to any time soon. This is a different argument from the one in the article. You are arguing that you will outperform the AI and therefore should remain the driver. And you want proof to change your mind. Both are reasonable and I agree. The author isn't demanding proof that it is statistically better before switching. They object to giving up control and view that as a moral imperative, "no matter how “safe” the computerized features are."
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    True, which doesn't invalidate the author's point. I'm merely adding a second set of considerations to the discussion. I think it's worth drilling down a little harder on the author's point though. They correctly note that there are no life-or-death systems that are wholly computerized with no human supervision. To me that speaks rather strongly to either a lack of awareness or lack of ethics on the part of drive AI advocates, as they're cheerleading something the military, aerospace, and medical industries have rejected on merit.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      Most industries don't have a million deaths a year as incentive. For most industries zero deaths is the norm, so clearly computers have to be at least that good. Frankly we're so collectively bad at driving that we'd be an order of magnitude better if the computers only killed 100 000 a year. In over 100 years of driving humans have, at best, gotten worse. We continue to kill despite cars being better and safer. On the other hand 100 years of improvement to self-driving cars will (I predict) drop those deaths to under 1000.
      - Dah00n 3y ago
        How have we gotten worse? Deaths have plummeted.
      - forgetfreeman 3y ago
- enigmurl 3y ago
  Even the majority of people who are so called bad drivers have killed zero people, and no one is going to call themselves a bad driver, fewer are going to admit an AI is better at them (even if it's statistically true).
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    Do you have a statistic to show this last part? The only stats I have seen are with self-drive in "clean" areas versus a stat from "everywhere". Most self-driving cars don't run in bad areas of Detroit or Bombay but people driven stats count these areas too.
    - enigmurl 3y ago
      I was speaking somewhat hypothetically, as for now I would agree that it's tenuous at best to call self driving cars safer. My point was more that even if they were provably safer, people would have ego problems in claiming they are more dangerous than self driving cars.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    All very true and valid points. I, for one, am willing to put my money where my mouth is. If there comes a time where a general purpose driving AI can consistently outperform my track times and not drop the plot in weird suburban situations I'll gleefully take the back seat and catch a nap while the car drives.
- saberience 3y ago
  This is classic “I’m special”ism and it’s all an illusion. You are human, you make mistakes, you get tired, you overestimate your capabilities and your reaction times are much much slower than a computer. There is nothing special about you that makes you more able to drive cars than anyone else and especially compared to a computer. In a few years it will considered crazy and unsafe to drive your own car and comments like this will be chuckled at.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > In a few years it will considered crazy and unsafe to drive your own car In a few years? Surely you jest. Self-driving tech is nowhere near being able to outperform all human drivers, which is what would be required for your statement to make sense.
II2II 3y ago
> But it will kill statistically fewer people than you will. A post from another article claims that these vehicles have undergone 3 million miles of testing without causing death or serious injury. The annual loss of lift due to human operated vehicles is estimated to be 50 thousand, across 3 trillion miles of driving. There has not been enough testing done to prove that self-driving cars are any safer in this regard. If you have data suggesting otherwise, please provide it. > The responsible thing is to know when you are not suited for a job and get out of the way, so lives can be saved. The introduction to this article suggests that it is people who must make the final decision because machines are fallible. They may have super-human attention spans and be able to make precise calculations regarding a scenario, but they lack judgement. They cannot determine whether something is reasonable, like 300 missiles being launched from the Arctic ocean. Humans may be imperfect, and they certainly make bad judgement calls, but the reality is that we don't have sufficient evidence to suggest that self-driving cars will be any safer. Until we have enough evidence to prove their safety, there should be a human making that final call.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

pdonis 3y ago

> It will kill statistically fewer people than you will. Speak for yourself. Individual human beings are not statistics. If you have evidence that someone is an unreliable driver, sure, take steps to deal with that. But don't tell people with an unblemished safety record at driving that "statistics" say they are unreliable.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

I have killed statistically 0 humans with a motor vehicle of any kind. I am a very precise bag of mostly water that has a vast corpus of knowledge on how to correctly operate a motor vehicle in any weather and traffic conditions and I can also problem solve my way out of novel situations. Additionally I can accurately model the road surface, weather conditions, current traffic pattern, and account for pedestrians without any significant mental or physical exertion on my part. IF you or others you know cannot say the same then yes, they should certainly surrender their license and find other modes of transportation. When driving AI has been produced that can provably outperform me in the rain, in ice and snow, and on the track, I'll consider stepping aside. That day hasn't arrived and isn't likely to any time soon.

bruce511 3y ago
You may be great. Others -should- turn in their license. But clearly this approach has failed, as a million dead people every year can testify to. You're right, replacement day has not arrived yet. (Especially not by tesla). But it is coming. And I suspect this generation of drivers wont consider stepping aside, much less actually doing so. But my kids didn't have the same desire to drive that I did. For them it wasn't a big deal, there were alternatives (like uber). They did learn, but only pretty much cause they had to. My grandkids probably won't learn. My great grand kids certainly won't. No more than I can ride a horse.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  I hear you. I'm not great, just a product of my generation. I was expected to be able to operate literally anything with wheels and most things with treads by the time I was 18, that's pretty normal for folks growing up rural in the 80s. I'm not trying to fight the tide here, the point I'm trying to underline (and that we appear to agree on) is that the tech simply is not on a level where replacement of human operators is sanely viable.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    One day Mavrick, your kind will be extinct. We don't need drivers who make mistakes, need to rest, make bad judgement calls, have no patience or consideration. Sure, it's not today, butvyhe day is coming. Its not far away now (on human time lines, not necessarily tech time lines). Until then, enjoy the ride ;)
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > We don't need drivers who make mistakes, need to rest, make bad judgement calls, have no patience or consideration. But eliminating human drivers isn't just eliminating that. It's also eliminating humans who are not tired, who are making good judgment calls, and who do have the patience and consideration to drive responsibly. Unless you are claiming there are no such humans anywhere, which is ridiculous (the majority of human drivers meet the requirements the majority of the time). For self-driving technology to be truly viable, in other words, it's not enough for it to outperform humans who are tired and impaired. It has to outperform humans at their best. Otherwise the humans who aren't tired and impaired will have no good reason to use it, and will have an ironclad objection to being forced to.
      - forgetfreeman 3y ago
        You stated that much more articulately than I was able to and I thank you for it.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
MattGaiser 3y ago
> When driving AI has been produced that can provably outperform me in the rain, in ice and snow, and on the track, I'll consider stepping aside. That day hasn't arrived and isn't likely to any time soon. This is a different argument from the one in the article. You are arguing that you will outperform the AI and therefore should remain the driver. And you want proof to change your mind. Both are reasonable and I agree. The author isn't demanding proof that it is statistically better before switching. They object to giving up control and view that as a moral imperative, "no matter how “safe” the computerized features are."
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  True, which doesn't invalidate the author's point. I'm merely adding a second set of considerations to the discussion. I think it's worth drilling down a little harder on the author's point though. They correctly note that there are no life-or-death systems that are wholly computerized with no human supervision. To me that speaks rather strongly to either a lack of awareness or lack of ethics on the part of drive AI advocates, as they're cheerleading something the military, aerospace, and medical industries have rejected on merit.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Most industries don't have a million deaths a year as incentive. For most industries zero deaths is the norm, so clearly computers have to be at least that good. Frankly we're so collectively bad at driving that we'd be an order of magnitude better if the computers only killed 100 000 a year. In over 100 years of driving humans have, at best, gotten worse. We continue to kill despite cars being better and safer. On the other hand 100 years of improvement to self-driving cars will (I predict) drop those deaths to under 1000.
    - Dah00n 3y ago
      How have we gotten worse? Deaths have plummeted.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
enigmurl 3y ago
Even the majority of people who are so called bad drivers have killed zero people, and no one is going to call themselves a bad driver, fewer are going to admit an AI is better at them (even if it's statistically true).
- Dah00n 3y ago
  Do you have a statistic to show this last part? The only stats I have seen are with self-drive in "clean" areas versus a stat from "everywhere". Most self-driving cars don't run in bad areas of Detroit or Bombay but people driven stats count these areas too.
  - enigmurl 3y ago
    I was speaking somewhat hypothetically, as for now I would agree that it's tenuous at best to call self driving cars safer. My point was more that even if they were provably safer, people would have ego problems in claiming they are more dangerous than self driving cars.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  All very true and valid points. I, for one, am willing to put my money where my mouth is. If there comes a time where a general purpose driving AI can consistently outperform my track times and not drop the plot in weird suburban situations I'll gleefully take the back seat and catch a nap while the car drives.
saberience 3y ago
This is classic “I’m special”ism and it’s all an illusion. You are human, you make mistakes, you get tired, you overestimate your capabilities and your reaction times are much much slower than a computer. There is nothing special about you that makes you more able to drive cars than anyone else and especially compared to a computer. In a few years it will considered crazy and unsafe to drive your own car and comments like this will be chuckled at.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > In a few years it will considered crazy and unsafe to drive your own car In a few years? Surely you jest. Self-driving tech is nowhere near being able to outperform all human drivers, which is what would be required for your statement to make sense.

II2II 3y ago

> But it will kill statistically fewer people than you will. A post from another article claims that these vehicles have undergone 3 million miles of testing without causing death or serious injury. The annual loss of lift due to human operated vehicles is estimated to be 50 thousand, across 3 trillion miles of driving. There has not been enough testing done to prove that self-driving cars are any safer in this regard. If you have data suggesting otherwise, please provide it. > The responsible thing is to know when you are not suited for a job and get out of the way, so lives can be saved. The introduction to this article suggests that it is people who must make the final decision because machines are fallible. They may have super-human attention spans and be able to make precise calculations regarding a scenario, but they lack judgement. They cannot determine whether something is reasonable, like 300 missiles being launched from the Arctic ocean. Humans may be imperfect, and they certainly make bad judgement calls, but the reality is that we don't have sufficient evidence to suggest that self-driving cars will be any safer. Until we have enough evidence to prove their safety, there should be a human making that final call.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]