5 ms·

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
        I wasn’t contesting your opinion but rather the veracity of Waymo’s “study” which is really a press release. I and others have seen Waymos in collisions (e.g. in MTV) where Waymo chase vehicles showed up and acted as private security in order to shield the scene / liability. And then there’s Levandowski’s hack to the car and resulting crash that might have ended self-driving taxis today had there been reporting requirements https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-involved-in-unreported-crashes/ https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-i... At this point I believe you are trolling and disinterested in discussion that might be critical of Waymo’s brand and safety.
        mlyle 3y ago
        Keep in mind that you're complaining about excluding some incidents with humans drivers, but it's also excluding a whole lot of miles. That is, the denominator gets smaller. We've previously had accident rates vs. total miles disclosed. Now, we have a new, better number (for reasons stated above). Of course, it's always good to look at a variety of measures. > discussion that might be critical of Waymo’s brand and safety. When someone uses the word "fatality" to obscure that they're talking about a not-at-fault accident where a dog runs in front of a vehicle and the dog dies, it convinces me that the person I'm talking to is not an honest counterparty in discussion.

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
        I wasn’t contesting your opinion but rather the veracity of Waymo’s “study” which is really a press release. I and others have seen Waymos in collisions (e.g. in MTV) where Waymo chase vehicles showed up and acted as private security in order to shield the scene / liability. And then there’s Levandowski’s hack to the car and resulting crash that might have ended self-driving taxis today had there been reporting requirements https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-involved-in-unreported-crashes/ https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-i... At this point I believe you are trolling and disinterested in discussion that might be critical of Waymo’s brand and safety.
        mlyle 3y ago
        Keep in mind that you're complaining about excluding some incidents with humans drivers, but it's also excluding a whole lot of miles. That is, the denominator gets smaller. We've previously had accident rates vs. total miles disclosed. Now, we have a new, better number (for reasons stated above). Of course, it's always good to look at a variety of measures. > discussion that might be critical of Waymo’s brand and safety. When someone uses the word "fatality" to obscure that they're talking about a not-at-fault accident where a dog runs in front of a vehicle and the dog dies, it convinces me that the person I'm talking to is not an honest counterparty in discussion.