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I sometimes get annoyed at how we talk about self driving cars, we shouldn't expect them to have a perfect track record. There will always be situations that ne

I sometimes get annoyed at how we talk about self driving cars, we shouldn't expect them to have a perfect track record. There will always be situations that neither choice is a good one but something has to happen. But to me, I often wonder about once this tech comes out what happens once theoretically all of the self driving cars can communicate with each other? So if you need to break suddenly, instead of just your car than its a series of cars that can do it together or example? I have been wondering if there has been any talk about a standard around doing this proposed since to me that is the true power of self driving cars, not just how do they operate with other unpredictable drivers.

cpeterso 3y ago
TCP for cars
sdenton4 3y ago
I think no one wants to deal with the combined effort of standardization and anti abuse...
MattRix 3y ago
That seems laegely unnecessary. Once you have mostly self driving cars on the road, there should be much fewer accidents and close calls because they will all be driving more cautiously and with proper spacing etc. On top of that, their awareness and reaction time will be so good that to an outside observer it will look like a chain of cars all stopping at once anyway. Then of course there are the issues with car-to-car communication. It would open up tons of opportunities for bugs, hacks, and other forms of abuse.
darepublic 3y ago
I have seen the 'self driving cars dont have to be perfect, just better than idiot hoomans' strawman used to deflect attention away from the fact that IMO self driving cars aren't yet as good as the idiot hoomans. Because though they may have a stellar record, it's in the context of disengaging to let safety driver take over, in carefully controlled conditions etc. Basically companies using tricks to create the right stats for their splashy marketing. That said, if Waymo _can_ drive as safe as my the typical defensive human driver, without the need for any human driver to take over, then I would applaud it. Maybe it does, I only follow this news from a distance. We all know what happened with the Tesla hype but I'm more willing to give Waymo the benefit of the doubt. Waiting patiently for self driving cars to become available in my city.
- flutas 3y ago
  > Basically companies using tricks to create the right stats for their splashy marketing. Yep, for instance: If the car gets confused and can't proceed, what is the outcome? Well it's not a "disengagement" or recorded as anything publicly. It's just "the car contacting support for directions." Wanna see how this plays out? Here's Cruise, bragging about reaching 1 disengagement per 96,000 miles[0], sounds impressive right? Meanwhile, in reality Cruise cars needed remote assistance every 4-5 miles[1]. An even more fun fact? Cruise had at least 60 vehicles stall at once in 2022[2], but somehow they claim only "9 disengagements." [0]: https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/ https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/ [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/06/cruise-confirms-robotaxis-rely-on-human-assistance-every-4-to-5-miles.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/06/cruise-confirms-robotaxis-re... [2]: https://jalopnik.com/cruise-server-crash-causes-self-driving-car-blockades-o-1849405795 https://jalopnik.com/cruise-server-crash-causes-self-driving...
  - xnx 3y ago
    Looking for the truth in statistics is very tricky. Important to note that Cruise is extremely different from Waymo and shouldn't be used to represent self-driving as a whole.
    - flutas 3y ago
      > Important to note that Cruise is extremely different from Waymo and shouldn't be used to represent self-driving as a whole. Waymo has the same problem of stalling and contacting support[0], we just don't know the numbers. As an example, [0] is video of a Waymo stalling (starting at 0:14) for 50 seconds before even contacting rider support. Rider support then takes an additional 47 seconds to reroute before the car starts moving again. The entire time (1m, 37s) the Waymo is blocking the only lane through this area. [0]: https://youtu.be/wWZGZWuUx-Y?t=13 https://youtu.be/wWZGZWuUx-Y?t=13
- shkkmo 3y ago
  > it's in the context of disengaging to let safety driver take over, in carefully controlled conditions. There is no safety driver. This study is discussing the fully driverless level 4 autonomous vehicles that Waymo operates in California and Arizona. This particular study show that those vehicles had accident rates 3-9x lower than human drivers, even after controlling for the limitations on where they operate (such as not operating on highways).
DevX101 3y ago
I hear you but being slightly better than humans isn't going to cut it. Every accident that happens opens up the self driving company to massive liability. If I'm a bad driver and hit you, you can sue me for a few thousand dollars. If Google is a bad driver and hits you, you could sue them for tens of millions of dollars. If we made all cars self driving and they killed 30,000 per year instead of 40,000, the story becomes "Tesla and Google" murder 30,000 Americans every year. I don't think these companies could survive that amount of bad PR and legal liability. And yes, I get that self driving cars have safety network effects, but they need to be at least 1 order of magnitude safer, if not more BEFORE those network effects start to compound.
- stocknoob 3y ago
  How often do transportation companies get sued in general? If the accident rate is the same as a bus, train, or airplane, why would this be different?
  - nabakin 3y ago
    It's because buses are controlled by people, not a computer made by the transportation company. If the transportation company wrote a program to control buses and it was responsible for an accident, the company would be at fault, but there is no transportation company which uses a program to drive buses so ofc this wouldn't apply. If the cause of the crash is the program, it's the company's fault. If the cause of the crash is a person, it's the person's fault. It's not that complicated.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>we shouldn't expect them to have a perfect track record I'm not interested in a self-driving car being better than the average person at driving. I'm already better-than-average. The cars need to be as good as the best drivers out there.
- xnx 3y ago
  Are you interested in self-driving car being better than drivers who aren't you? Even if you are the best driver on the road, your safety will be greatly improved by removing drunk, drowsy, and distracted drivers. > The cars need to be as good as the best drivers out there. They're getting there. Self-driving vehicles already have huge advantages in sensors, attention, and reaction time. Progress on reasoning is improving steadily.
jedberg 3y ago
There is already a standard for car to car communication. The brake lights and blinkers. Their signals move from one car to the next at light speed. It just takes humans a really long time to interpret the signals. But self driving cars can interpret them at the speed of light.
- cma 3y ago
  They can be obscured though, like the car one car ahead of you suddenly braking. With additional radio communication that wouldn't be an issue. Tesla used to brag about the radar being able to bounce under the car in front of you to the car in front of it, but I think stopped talking about that when they removed radar.
  - doctorwho42 3y ago
    I always find these discussions funny, we are putting so much time and attention to a problem that is solved: moving many people, multiple locations, in a repeatable way safely, while maximizing for people and speed. They are called trains
    - jedberg 3y ago
      Trains don't go to my office. And it wouldn't make sense for them to do so.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    > With additional radio communication that wouldn't be an issue. Given the life and death potential, I consider any signal I get from another car "trust but verify". Having a radio signal about a car a few cars up would maybe get me to slow down but not emergency brake until I had more information. The hacking potential is just to great.

cpeterso 3y ago

TCP for cars

sdenton4 3y ago

I think no one wants to deal with the combined effort of standardization and anti abuse...

MattRix 3y ago

That seems laegely unnecessary. Once you have mostly self driving cars on the road, there should be much fewer accidents and close calls because they will all be driving more cautiously and with proper spacing etc. On top of that, their awareness and reaction time will be so good that to an outside observer it will look like a chain of cars all stopping at once anyway. Then of course there are the issues with car-to-car communication. It would open up tons of opportunities for bugs, hacks, and other forms of abuse.

darepublic 3y ago

I have seen the 'self driving cars dont have to be perfect, just better than idiot hoomans' strawman used to deflect attention away from the fact that IMO self driving cars aren't yet as good as the idiot hoomans. Because though they may have a stellar record, it's in the context of disengaging to let safety driver take over, in carefully controlled conditions etc. Basically companies using tricks to create the right stats for their splashy marketing. That said, if Waymo _can_ drive as safe as my the typical defensive human driver, without the need for any human driver to take over, then I would applaud it. Maybe it does, I only follow this news from a distance. We all know what happened with the Tesla hype but I'm more willing to give Waymo the benefit of the doubt. Waiting patiently for self driving cars to become available in my city.

flutas 3y ago
> Basically companies using tricks to create the right stats for their splashy marketing. Yep, for instance: If the car gets confused and can't proceed, what is the outcome? Well it's not a "disengagement" or recorded as anything publicly. It's just "the car contacting support for directions." Wanna see how this plays out? Here's Cruise, bragging about reaching 1 disengagement per 96,000 miles[0], sounds impressive right? Meanwhile, in reality Cruise cars needed remote assistance every 4-5 miles[1]. An even more fun fact? Cruise had at least 60 vehicles stall at once in 2022[2], but somehow they claim only "9 disengagements." [0]: https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/ https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/ [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/06/cruise-confirms-robotaxis-rely-on-human-assistance-every-4-to-5-miles.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/06/cruise-confirms-robotaxis-re... [2]: https://jalopnik.com/cruise-server-crash-causes-self-driving-car-blockades-o-1849405795 https://jalopnik.com/cruise-server-crash-causes-self-driving...
- xnx 3y ago
  Looking for the truth in statistics is very tricky. Important to note that Cruise is extremely different from Waymo and shouldn't be used to represent self-driving as a whole.
  - flutas 3y ago
    > Important to note that Cruise is extremely different from Waymo and shouldn't be used to represent self-driving as a whole. Waymo has the same problem of stalling and contacting support[0], we just don't know the numbers. As an example, [0] is video of a Waymo stalling (starting at 0:14) for 50 seconds before even contacting rider support. Rider support then takes an additional 47 seconds to reroute before the car starts moving again. The entire time (1m, 37s) the Waymo is blocking the only lane through this area. [0]: https://youtu.be/wWZGZWuUx-Y?t=13 https://youtu.be/wWZGZWuUx-Y?t=13
shkkmo 3y ago
> it's in the context of disengaging to let safety driver take over, in carefully controlled conditions. There is no safety driver. This study is discussing the fully driverless level 4 autonomous vehicles that Waymo operates in California and Arizona. This particular study show that those vehicles had accident rates 3-9x lower than human drivers, even after controlling for the limitations on where they operate (such as not operating on highways).

DevX101 3y ago

I hear you but being slightly better than humans isn't going to cut it. Every accident that happens opens up the self driving company to massive liability. If I'm a bad driver and hit you, you can sue me for a few thousand dollars. If Google is a bad driver and hits you, you could sue them for tens of millions of dollars. If we made all cars self driving and they killed 30,000 per year instead of 40,000, the story becomes "Tesla and Google" murder 30,000 Americans every year. I don't think these companies could survive that amount of bad PR and legal liability. And yes, I get that self driving cars have safety network effects, but they need to be at least 1 order of magnitude safer, if not more BEFORE those network effects start to compound.

stocknoob 3y ago
How often do transportation companies get sued in general? If the accident rate is the same as a bus, train, or airplane, why would this be different?
- nabakin 3y ago
  It's because buses are controlled by people, not a computer made by the transportation company. If the transportation company wrote a program to control buses and it was responsible for an accident, the company would be at fault, but there is no transportation company which uses a program to drive buses so ofc this wouldn't apply. If the cause of the crash is the program, it's the company's fault. If the cause of the crash is a person, it's the person's fault. It's not that complicated.

itsoktocry 3y ago

>we shouldn't expect them to have a perfect track record I'm not interested in a self-driving car being better than the average person at driving. I'm already better-than-average. The cars need to be as good as the best drivers out there.

xnx 3y ago
Are you interested in self-driving car being better than drivers who aren't you? Even if you are the best driver on the road, your safety will be greatly improved by removing drunk, drowsy, and distracted drivers. > The cars need to be as good as the best drivers out there. They're getting there. Self-driving vehicles already have huge advantages in sensors, attention, and reaction time. Progress on reasoning is improving steadily.

jedberg 3y ago

There is already a standard for car to car communication. The brake lights and blinkers. Their signals move from one car to the next at light speed. It just takes humans a really long time to interpret the signals. But self driving cars can interpret them at the speed of light.

cma 3y ago
They can be obscured though, like the car one car ahead of you suddenly braking. With additional radio communication that wouldn't be an issue. Tesla used to brag about the radar being able to bounce under the car in front of you to the car in front of it, but I think stopped talking about that when they removed radar.
- doctorwho42 3y ago
  I always find these discussions funny, we are putting so much time and attention to a problem that is solved: moving many people, multiple locations, in a repeatable way safely, while maximizing for people and speed. They are called trains
  - jedberg 3y ago
    Trains don't go to my office. And it wouldn't make sense for them to do so.
- jedberg 3y ago
  > With additional radio communication that wouldn't be an issue. Given the life and death potential, I consider any signal I get from another car "trust but verify". Having a radio signal about a car a few cars up would maybe get me to slow down but not emergency brake until I had more information. The hacking potential is just to great.