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That's an issue with the headline; not Waymo. The Waymo blog post is clear they are comparing their robo-only-driver with human-only-drivers.

choppaface 3y ago
The Waymo blog post goes so far as to talk about human under-reporting of crashes, so it's only fair that Waymo call out their under-reporting of fatalities. It's suspect to claim the AI is better than the human when a notable fatality happened with a human behind the wheel of the exact same vehicle. Waymos have also hit people / bikers but magically the safety driver was always at fault.
- mlyle 3y ago
  There's good reasons to count robo-only miles. The other measure is confounded in both directions: - Safety drivers prevent incidents - Safety drivers cause incidents Since the human+robo isn't the intended deployment mode, the only reason to count its numbers would be if there wasn't statistical power any other way. And that's no longer true.
  - choppaface 3y ago
    A robo-only study is fine, but it’s misleading to hide that the human-supervised treatment has injuries and fatalities.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I’m also unsure how a safety driver affects the robo driving unless it’s an entirely separate program or the safety driver is pressing the “damn the dogs full speed ahead” button. In my perhaps naive view a safety driver failing to act and a robo driver should be identical.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        e.g. one of the most significant Waymo incidents in autonomous mode was a human driver falling asleep, bumping the gas pedal, and disengaging autonomy. Comparing robo-only miles has the advantage of not considering incidents like this, and also not considering incidents where the safety driver prevented harm. It also prevents accusations of "you're claiming human Waymo drivers caused these accidents that you've omitted and are lying" because then they're counting 100% of miles driven without humans in the car.
        choppaface 3y ago
        Waymo calls out the under-reporting of human accidents and yet that’s exactly what they’re doing by ignoring their safety driver incidents that include a fatality.
        mlyle 3y ago
        What safety driver accident included a fatality? You're not obscuring talking about the dog with "a fatality", are you? Egads. From looking at past Waymo data, you get similar numbers (a few more incidents, but a lot more miles driven) with safety drivers included. They're just noisier and more subject to dispute.
        choppaface 3y ago
        Exactly, the numbers are subject to dispute, so this is a press release and the whole dataset is relevant including the dog that was needlessly killed. Though I’m sure the e/acc crowd don’t count it as a “real” death even though the dog really died.
        mlyle 3y ago
        I've already pointed out why I believe the "robo only" numbers are more useful, and that the broader dataset says mainly the same thing. I'm sorry, but a dog running out in front of a car is not a "traffic fatality" by any conventional sense of the world, and it's certainly not an at-fault accident for the driver. At this point, I believe you are trolling.

choppaface 3y ago

The Waymo blog post goes so far as to talk about human under-reporting of crashes, so it's only fair that Waymo call out their under-reporting of fatalities. It's suspect to claim the AI is better than the human when a notable fatality happened with a human behind the wheel of the exact same vehicle. Waymos have also hit people / bikers but magically the safety driver was always at fault.

mlyle 3y ago
There's good reasons to count robo-only miles. The other measure is confounded in both directions: - Safety drivers prevent incidents - Safety drivers cause incidents Since the human+robo isn't the intended deployment mode, the only reason to count its numbers would be if there wasn't statistical power any other way. And that's no longer true.
- choppaface 3y ago
  A robo-only study is fine, but it’s misleading to hide that the human-supervised treatment has injuries and fatalities.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I’m also unsure how a safety driver affects the robo driving unless it’s an entirely separate program or the safety driver is pressing the “damn the dogs full speed ahead” button. In my perhaps naive view a safety driver failing to act and a robo driver should be identical.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      e.g. one of the most significant Waymo incidents in autonomous mode was a human driver falling asleep, bumping the gas pedal, and disengaging autonomy. Comparing robo-only miles has the advantage of not considering incidents like this, and also not considering incidents where the safety driver prevented harm. It also prevents accusations of "you're claiming human Waymo drivers caused these accidents that you've omitted and are lying" because then they're counting 100% of miles driven without humans in the car.
      - choppaface 3y ago
        Waymo calls out the under-reporting of human accidents and yet that’s exactly what they’re doing by ignoring their safety driver incidents that include a fatality.
        mlyle 3y ago
        What safety driver accident included a fatality? You're not obscuring talking about the dog with "a fatality", are you? Egads. From looking at past Waymo data, you get similar numbers (a few more incidents, but a lot more miles driven) with safety drivers included. They're just noisier and more subject to dispute.
        choppaface 3y ago
        Exactly, the numbers are subject to dispute, so this is a press release and the whole dataset is relevant including the dog that was needlessly killed. Though I’m sure the e/acc crowd don’t count it as a “real” death even though the dog really died.
        mlyle 3y ago
        I've already pointed out why I believe the "robo only" numbers are more useful, and that the broader dataset says mainly the same thing. I'm sorry, but a dog running out in front of a car is not a "traffic fatality" by any conventional sense of the world, and it's certainly not an at-fault accident for the driver. At this point, I believe you are trolling.