5 ms·

If humans aren't the baseline then what is?

by PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

RC_ITR 3y ago
IDK, no fatalities caused by cars?
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  you're describing a goal or a requirement, not a baseline. baseline in this case means minimum to be considered acceptable. We have been allowing humans to drive vehicles for as long as there have been vehicles. Why would we not use that as the baseline? Do autonomous vehicles need to be absolutely perfect before they're allowed on our roads? or just be as good as humans, with the possibility of being better?
- stickfigure 3y ago
  Cars are large masses moving at high velocity. If there are humans in the vicinity, "no fatalaties" is simply not an option.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  That's a fine baseline if your plan is to otherwise eliminate cars. Otherwise "it's better than humans" is in fact a win. When I had Hodgkins, I found out there is no baseline data for untreated patients. Scientific medicine was invented after the first cures for Hodgkins, so by the time anybody knew "We should measure properly what happens if you do nothing so we know whether we're improving on that outcome" it would be unethical because you're giving people a death sentence in order to do science, which, you know, we outlawed that because of the Nazis. We can assume not treating Hodgkins is extremely bad but we don't have scientific data, because all the untreated people in a civilised country self-selected - they said "No" having been told that means they'll almost certainly die, and right soon if they say "No". That's not a normal sample, that's... crazy people maybe? Very religious people? Not normal. But we don't have actual baseline numbers. However, although we don't have a baseline, we do run trials, they compare against what we're currently doing, called the Gold Standard, in my case ABVD. When I was treated, trials were investigating Stanford V, the fifth attempt by a team at Stanford to improve on the existing treatment regime. It was similarly effective at curing Hodgkins, but the side effects were, if anything, worse, so, no dice. For cars that "Gold Standard" in the US is basically every adult except the very poor and the blind. If an AI can do better than the Gold Standard, even if it's not as good as you'd like, it's an improvement.
- Arnt 3y ago
  No. Experienced professional human drivers, driving without time pressure.
Karrot_Kream 3y ago
Public transit. We like to sensationalize every small problem on American buses and trains but they're also a lot safer than cars. Many countries have implemented transit systems around the world and while the US has been designed around the car shortsightedly for decades, transit is a well-understood mode with well-understood safety considerations.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Cities have been designed around cars (or their precursor - horses/horse and carts) for much longer than decades. Individual transport is universally useful; transit is an optimisation for certain situations.
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    > Individual transport is universally useful Indeed and the most individual form of transport is walking and most cities in the world are built around walking. Only the US lays its cities out to require cars. It never really laid its cities for horses and carts (with the exception of Salt Lake City.) Before the car, cities were being built around the streetcar, and before that around walking. It's not like people lived in suburbs and went around in horse and buggy lol.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Only the US lays its cities out to require cars I don't know where this comes from, other than the usual "US bad". Go to Johannesburg and live in a regular estate without a car.
      - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
        Why are we bringing in internet baggage here? The US lays its cities out this way due to regulations that codify this. We require that businesses have a certain amount of parking, that residential areas have a certain amount of parking. We require that homes can only be so tall, must have a certain Floor-to-Area ratio. We require that roads must be classified in a local-collector-arterial classification purely based on vehicular flow. We tell civil engineers that they should only build traffic lights if a minimum amount of pedestrian volume exists but that roads need to move a minimum number of cars by default. Sidewalks are required but not even 1/10th of the FHWA codes or the MUTCD deal with pedestrian or cyclist issues. These are all facts. I'm not familiar with South Africa, but Australia also copied a lot of US auto-centric code regulations, so have no doubt that they did as well. But they very much aren't the norm. Most of Asia (outside of Middle Eastern cities and even here it's a mixed bag with Oman being different than the rest) and Europe are built around pedestrians. If you think I'm just angry at the US due to some internet lefty baggage, then I don't know what to say. Japan shows that cars and pedestrians can coexist fine when you don't cater to just the car.
MTmind 3y ago
The baseline should be other engineering we trust with our lives, like planes, trains, ships, skyscrapers, and bridges. Society expects more from technology than from humans... that's why we use technology! Deaths from self-driving cars should be very minimal, every crash analyzed and understood, and findings publicly communicated and mandated.
- __loam 3y ago
  It's worth noting that both Waymo and Cruise do report a shit load of statistics to regulatory bodies, including all incident reports. Neither company has caused a fatality to my knowledge.
  - choppaface 3y ago
    Waymo did run over a dog https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/a-waymo-self-driving-car-killed-a-dog-in-unavoidable-accident/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/a-waymo-self-driving-car-k...
    - __loam 3y ago
      They made this public immediately and it was physically impossible to avoid. It ran out basically right in front of the vehicle between some cars. A human driver would have hit the dog too unfortunately.
      - choppaface 3y ago
        The dog fatality might not be a human fatality but it’s still a reported fatality. Also relevant is when Anthony Levandowski at Google / Waymo caused a freeway incident through unsafe testing: https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-levandowski-google-self-driving-car-crash-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-levandowski-google-s... While at the time the DMV did not require reporting, later when Levandowski was on trial Google / Waymo hid the video of the incident when it’s existence was finally reported on.
      - bumby 3y ago
aidenn0 3y ago
Assuming that self-driving cars increase the total miles driven, then we would need to pro-rate the human baseline to account for the excess deaths caused by more miles driven.

If humans aren't the baseline then what is?

RC_ITR 3y ago

IDK, no fatalities caused by cars?

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
you're describing a goal or a requirement, not a baseline. baseline in this case means minimum to be considered acceptable. We have been allowing humans to drive vehicles for as long as there have been vehicles. Why would we not use that as the baseline? Do autonomous vehicles need to be absolutely perfect before they're allowed on our roads? or just be as good as humans, with the possibility of being better?
stickfigure 3y ago
Cars are large masses moving at high velocity. If there are humans in the vicinity, "no fatalaties" is simply not an option.
tialaramex 3y ago
That's a fine baseline if your plan is to otherwise eliminate cars. Otherwise "it's better than humans" is in fact a win. When I had Hodgkins, I found out there is no baseline data for untreated patients. Scientific medicine was invented after the first cures for Hodgkins, so by the time anybody knew "We should measure properly what happens if you do nothing so we know whether we're improving on that outcome" it would be unethical because you're giving people a death sentence in order to do science, which, you know, we outlawed that because of the Nazis. We can assume not treating Hodgkins is extremely bad but we don't have scientific data, because all the untreated people in a civilised country self-selected - they said "No" having been told that means they'll almost certainly die, and right soon if they say "No". That's not a normal sample, that's... crazy people maybe? Very religious people? Not normal. But we don't have actual baseline numbers. However, although we don't have a baseline, we do run trials, they compare against what we're currently doing, called the Gold Standard, in my case ABVD. When I was treated, trials were investigating Stanford V, the fifth attempt by a team at Stanford to improve on the existing treatment regime. It was similarly effective at curing Hodgkins, but the side effects were, if anything, worse, so, no dice. For cars that "Gold Standard" in the US is basically every adult except the very poor and the blind. If an AI can do better than the Gold Standard, even if it's not as good as you'd like, it's an improvement.
Arnt 3y ago
No. Experienced professional human drivers, driving without time pressure.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

Public transit. We like to sensationalize every small problem on American buses and trains but they're also a lot safer than cars. Many countries have implemented transit systems around the world and while the US has been designed around the car shortsightedly for decades, transit is a well-understood mode with well-understood safety considerations.

robertlagrant 3y ago
Cities have been designed around cars (or their precursor - horses/horse and carts) for much longer than decades. Individual transport is universally useful; transit is an optimisation for certain situations.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  > Individual transport is universally useful Indeed and the most individual form of transport is walking and most cities in the world are built around walking. Only the US lays its cities out to require cars. It never really laid its cities for horses and carts (with the exception of Salt Lake City.) Before the car, cities were being built around the streetcar, and before that around walking. It's not like people lived in suburbs and went around in horse and buggy lol.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Only the US lays its cities out to require cars I don't know where this comes from, other than the usual "US bad". Go to Johannesburg and live in a regular estate without a car.
    - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
      Why are we bringing in internet baggage here? The US lays its cities out this way due to regulations that codify this. We require that businesses have a certain amount of parking, that residential areas have a certain amount of parking. We require that homes can only be so tall, must have a certain Floor-to-Area ratio. We require that roads must be classified in a local-collector-arterial classification purely based on vehicular flow. We tell civil engineers that they should only build traffic lights if a minimum amount of pedestrian volume exists but that roads need to move a minimum number of cars by default. Sidewalks are required but not even 1/10th of the FHWA codes or the MUTCD deal with pedestrian or cyclist issues. These are all facts. I'm not familiar with South Africa, but Australia also copied a lot of US auto-centric code regulations, so have no doubt that they did as well. But they very much aren't the norm. Most of Asia (outside of Middle Eastern cities and even here it's a mixed bag with Oman being different than the rest) and Europe are built around pedestrians. If you think I'm just angry at the US due to some internet lefty baggage, then I don't know what to say. Japan shows that cars and pedestrians can coexist fine when you don't cater to just the car.

MTmind 3y ago

The baseline should be other engineering we trust with our lives, like planes, trains, ships, skyscrapers, and bridges. Society expects more from technology than from humans... that's why we use technology! Deaths from self-driving cars should be very minimal, every crash analyzed and understood, and findings publicly communicated and mandated.

__loam 3y ago
It's worth noting that both Waymo and Cruise do report a shit load of statistics to regulatory bodies, including all incident reports. Neither company has caused a fatality to my knowledge.
- choppaface 3y ago
  Waymo did run over a dog https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/a-waymo-self-driving-car-killed-a-dog-in-unavoidable-accident/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/a-waymo-self-driving-car-k...
  - __loam 3y ago
    They made this public immediately and it was physically impossible to avoid. It ran out basically right in front of the vehicle between some cars. A human driver would have hit the dog too unfortunately.
    - choppaface 3y ago
      The dog fatality might not be a human fatality but it’s still a reported fatality. Also relevant is when Anthony Levandowski at Google / Waymo caused a freeway incident through unsafe testing: https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-levandowski-google-self-driving-car-crash-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-levandowski-google-s... While at the time the DMV did not require reporting, later when Levandowski was on trial Google / Waymo hid the video of the incident when it’s existence was finally reported on.
    - bumby 3y ago

aidenn0 3y ago

Assuming that self-driving cars increase the total miles driven, then we would need to pro-rate the human baseline to account for the excess deaths caused by more miles driven.