5 ms·

You can impede manned vehicles with traffic cones in exactly the same way. Randomly put them on roads, and people will stop, causing traffic jams. Throw them un

You can impede manned vehicles with traffic cones in exactly the same way. Randomly put them on roads, and people will stop, causing traffic jams. Throw them under the wheels of moving cars, and people will crash and likely die. Allowing people to drive 2-tonne death traps around dense urban areas seems like a bigger mistake.

cvoss 3y ago
No, you cannot impede manned vehicles in the same way. If you put a traffic cone on the hood of a manned vehicle at a stop light, the driver will simply get out (when safe), remove the cone, and continue. It takes all of a minute to recover. Whereas the unmanned vehicle requires the responsible person to be notified and to arrive from who knows how far away to resolve the situation. The fact that this prank can be done quickly, cheaply, safely, and without property damage means the car software needs to be prepared to deal with it without becoming a public nuisance. If the software is not prepared, the car is not fit for widespread deployment on public roads. The equal possibility, which you raise, of dangerous impediments on both manned and unmanned vehicles is not relevant here, because the argument has not been made that the cars inadequately deal with dangerous impediments. Finally, our society is largely comfortable with the current level of risk that manned vehicles entail, together with the ongoing progress of safety improvements. Not many would agree that the concept is a big mistake.
- foota 3y ago
  Being able to maliciously interfere in something isn't proof that we shouldn't do it.
  - kylebyproxy 3y ago
    I think the point is that if the vehicle's software can't figure out how to cope with something as simple as a cone on its hood, it's woefully unprepared for real driving conditions and a liability to everyone
    - foota 3y ago
      I had largely the opposite takeaway, the cars are built to prioritize safety in unexpected situations, and are doing this here. It might seem trivial, but it's not too hard to imagine a traffic cone on the windshield actually being a fairly dangerous situation if the car simply drove off, for instance if could roll over the top of the car and impact another vehicle behind it. And that's even assuming that the traffic cone can be identified as 100% being a normal traffic cone, and not something else (say, a heavy object suspended in some meansm, in which case driving into it would damage the car) or a person or animal that happens to look like a traffic cone. So by demonstrating that the cars stop under unexpected situations they are showing that the cars successfully identify a potentially dangerous situation and prioritize safety over navigation.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      The cone is placed close to the windshield and sensors, I seriously doubt a cone would wind up in that spot pretty frequently in normal driving conditions. Also, I doubt it's a software problem: the cone is blocking a pretty substantial field of view. No amount of software can fix an occluded sensor. They might as well be spray painting over the cameras.

cvoss 3y ago

No, you cannot impede manned vehicles in the same way. If you put a traffic cone on the hood of a manned vehicle at a stop light, the driver will simply get out (when safe), remove the cone, and continue. It takes all of a minute to recover. Whereas the unmanned vehicle requires the responsible person to be notified and to arrive from who knows how far away to resolve the situation. The fact that this prank can be done quickly, cheaply, safely, and without property damage means the car software needs to be prepared to deal with it without becoming a public nuisance. If the software is not prepared, the car is not fit for widespread deployment on public roads. The equal possibility, which you raise, of dangerous impediments on both manned and unmanned vehicles is not relevant here, because the argument has not been made that the cars inadequately deal with dangerous impediments. Finally, our society is largely comfortable with the current level of risk that manned vehicles entail, together with the ongoing progress of safety improvements. Not many would agree that the concept is a big mistake.

foota 3y ago
Being able to maliciously interfere in something isn't proof that we shouldn't do it.
- kylebyproxy 3y ago
  I think the point is that if the vehicle's software can't figure out how to cope with something as simple as a cone on its hood, it's woefully unprepared for real driving conditions and a liability to everyone
  - foota 3y ago
    I had largely the opposite takeaway, the cars are built to prioritize safety in unexpected situations, and are doing this here. It might seem trivial, but it's not too hard to imagine a traffic cone on the windshield actually being a fairly dangerous situation if the car simply drove off, for instance if could roll over the top of the car and impact another vehicle behind it. And that's even assuming that the traffic cone can be identified as 100% being a normal traffic cone, and not something else (say, a heavy object suspended in some meansm, in which case driving into it would damage the car) or a person or animal that happens to look like a traffic cone. So by demonstrating that the cars stop under unexpected situations they are showing that the cars successfully identify a potentially dangerous situation and prioritize safety over navigation.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    The cone is placed close to the windshield and sensors, I seriously doubt a cone would wind up in that spot pretty frequently in normal driving conditions. Also, I doubt it's a software problem: the cone is blocking a pretty substantial field of view. No amount of software can fix an occluded sensor. They might as well be spray painting over the cameras.