5 ms·

It’s actually harder to do nothing and just watch things, it’s its own special kind of fatigue. I wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t happen more often.

aaomidi 3y ago
One of the reasons the current "Self Driving" cars kinda suck. Majority of the time you're just not doing anything, but still have to be 100% attentive.
- lambdasquirrel 3y ago
  I've found the self-steering of new cars to be not at all useful for the stated use case. In my car, the self-steering pushes back a bit and deviates from the course ever so slightly so that you have to keep your hands on the wheel. I'd rather steer it myself. But in those moments where I'm trying to find the UI for adjusting some climate setting, and I don't have my eyes on the road, that's when the self-driving is useful. Maybe technology creates its own problems. To be fair, the radar cruise control is nice for long drives.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    I think sweet spot is probably somewhere with adaptive cruise control and light lane assist. Too much beyond that and you have to be fully autonomous in all situations.
- lupire 3y ago
  It really is comically reversed. Robots are far better than humans at watching for a long time and jumping in to help instantly with an acute problem when needed (like braking or swerving to avoid an obstacle). Humans are better at interpreting a complex scene and making a high level plan.
  - nucleardog 3y ago
    And this is basically what most other manufacturers’ driver assists do. My wife’s car has adaptive cruise. It just needs to watch constantly and adjust your speed to ensure the distance between you and the car in front remains relatively constant. It has lane keeping assist and lane departure alerting. It constantly tracks where the lines on the road are and either gently nudges you back in the lane, or beeps at you if you cross a line. It has emergency braking, it’s constantly watching and if it sees you approaching something at a rate or distance that suggests you are likely to hit it, it will alert you. If you continue, it will apply the brakes for you. If you’re stopped for a period of time (like at a light) and the car in front of you pulls away and you don’t after a brief moment, it will ding to get your attention and let you know traffic is moving. Pretty much all of this is making use of the strengths of the computer (uninterrupted attention, quick reaction times) to make up for the weaknesses of the human (distractable, slower reaction times) instead of trying to do the reverse.
- fragmede 3y ago
  In the case of Waymo, you're sitting in the back seat and don't have to pay attention to the driving if you don't want to.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  > still have to be 100% attentive. Starting absolutes is poor. This just an oxymoron. Highways are designed to take attention off. On a chill highway drive I’d guess most drivers are no more than 50% attentive, driver assist or not.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Perhaps you could interpret "100% attentive" as "at the same level of attentiveness as being without the current generation of 'self driving' technology"?
    - aaomidi 3y ago
      Yeah, pedantic attacks like this just end up trolling the conversation rather than helping it.
      - dzhiurgis 3y ago
        So is comments from users who never used it
dataviz1000 3y ago
For context, I was a private yacht chef for 7 years. On long legs of a trip I had to hold watch at the helm for 3 or 4 hour shifts while everyone else rested for their watch. Staying awake while using auto pilot was a special type of mental anguish.
- taf2 3y ago
  I did delivers up and down the Atlantic in 2000s I remember it being awesome. Granted I was 20 and like the time we got too close to a us aircraft carrier and they launched a helicopter that did a fly over to check us out that was pretty great. We also always had lines out to catch fish and let me tell you when that line caught something didn’t matter if it was your shift or not it was “fish on” everyone jumping out of their bunks to help. Best fish tacos ever. I do remember the captain could be pass out drunk and still dock the 70 footer without issue and then stumble below to pass out. But yeah we slept a lot too but underway maybe 6-7 so plenty of time to fix or react big difference from an airplane or even autopilot car
  - dataviz1000 3y ago
    We passed an aircraft carrier going up the East Coast while they were doing exercises. They radioed us and made it clear not to come close to the ship. I have video of fighter jets doing low passes over our yacht every 15 minutes or so using us as a practice target. Going South once, as we came towards the inlet at Fernandina Beach on the Florida, Georgia line, a nuclear submarine was leaving port. I was at the helm in the afternoon while everyone else was sleeping. Good thing I was awake because we were met with the Coast Guard helicopter with a mounted machine gun pointed at me and a Coast Guard response (defender class) boat with a .50-caliber machine gun also fixed on me while they sat off our bow. I communicated with them on the radio; they said I should hold my position and not move. The sub came out with two large ships on each side with blast shields on the each ship.
    - tasuki 3y ago
      This is all very interesting and completely foreign to me! > Coast Guard helicopter with a mounted machine gun pointed at me and a Coast Guard response (defender class) boat with a .50-caliber machine gun also fixed on me while they sat off our bow. Why'd they do that? > they said I should hold my position and not move. Why? > The sub came out with two large ships on each side with blast shields on the each ship. ...why?
svat 3y ago
> I wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t happen more often. From context I guess you meant either "I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens more often" or "I would be surprised if this doesn’t happen more often." (https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=273 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=273 has many fun examples of this sort of thing)
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Oops. And this is what happens when you accidentally double your negatives, thanks for the point out even if it’s too late to edit.
  - svat 3y ago
    I cannot deny that your comment couldn't have failed more to displease me. Cheers,
gnyman 3y ago
A small anecdote, I learned/realised this when visiting CERN (many years ago) and seeing someone in the control room playing a computer game on a laptop next to his big displays. So I asked and they said something along the lines that yes, it's allowed because otherwise the people would fall asleep, especially during the night shifts when their job is just to sit there and let the experiment run an be ready to react if necessary. This seems like a useful solution, but I guess it's hard to do as a policy as there is a fuzzy line between the game taking too much attention and not being interesting enough.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Same must apply to many control jobs, including nuclear plants. They can run themselves for most of the time. And it is probably preferable if there is no fiddling on going.
- ephimetheus 3y ago
  So we’re actually being told not to do this, even on night shifts, but I don’t think it’s actually being enforced. I did to some work on my PhD thesis while on shift, though.
  - gnyman 3y ago
    Ok, thanks for the updated info, maybe it changed, it was over 10 years ago

aaomidi 3y ago

One of the reasons the current "Self Driving" cars kinda suck. Majority of the time you're just not doing anything, but still have to be 100% attentive.

lambdasquirrel 3y ago
I've found the self-steering of new cars to be not at all useful for the stated use case. In my car, the self-steering pushes back a bit and deviates from the course ever so slightly so that you have to keep your hands on the wheel. I'd rather steer it myself. But in those moments where I'm trying to find the UI for adjusting some climate setting, and I don't have my eyes on the road, that's when the self-driving is useful. Maybe technology creates its own problems. To be fair, the radar cruise control is nice for long drives.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I think sweet spot is probably somewhere with adaptive cruise control and light lane assist. Too much beyond that and you have to be fully autonomous in all situations.
lupire 3y ago
It really is comically reversed. Robots are far better than humans at watching for a long time and jumping in to help instantly with an acute problem when needed (like braking or swerving to avoid an obstacle). Humans are better at interpreting a complex scene and making a high level plan.
- nucleardog 3y ago
  And this is basically what most other manufacturers’ driver assists do. My wife’s car has adaptive cruise. It just needs to watch constantly and adjust your speed to ensure the distance between you and the car in front remains relatively constant. It has lane keeping assist and lane departure alerting. It constantly tracks where the lines on the road are and either gently nudges you back in the lane, or beeps at you if you cross a line. It has emergency braking, it’s constantly watching and if it sees you approaching something at a rate or distance that suggests you are likely to hit it, it will alert you. If you continue, it will apply the brakes for you. If you’re stopped for a period of time (like at a light) and the car in front of you pulls away and you don’t after a brief moment, it will ding to get your attention and let you know traffic is moving. Pretty much all of this is making use of the strengths of the computer (uninterrupted attention, quick reaction times) to make up for the weaknesses of the human (distractable, slower reaction times) instead of trying to do the reverse.
fragmede 3y ago
In the case of Waymo, you're sitting in the back seat and don't have to pay attention to the driving if you don't want to.
dzhiurgis 3y ago
> still have to be 100% attentive. Starting absolutes is poor. This just an oxymoron. Highways are designed to take attention off. On a chill highway drive I’d guess most drivers are no more than 50% attentive, driver assist or not.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Perhaps you could interpret "100% attentive" as "at the same level of attentiveness as being without the current generation of 'self driving' technology"?
  - aaomidi 3y ago
    Yeah, pedantic attacks like this just end up trolling the conversation rather than helping it.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      So is comments from users who never used it

dataviz1000 3y ago

For context, I was a private yacht chef for 7 years. On long legs of a trip I had to hold watch at the helm for 3 or 4 hour shifts while everyone else rested for their watch. Staying awake while using auto pilot was a special type of mental anguish.

taf2 3y ago
I did delivers up and down the Atlantic in 2000s I remember it being awesome. Granted I was 20 and like the time we got too close to a us aircraft carrier and they launched a helicopter that did a fly over to check us out that was pretty great. We also always had lines out to catch fish and let me tell you when that line caught something didn’t matter if it was your shift or not it was “fish on” everyone jumping out of their bunks to help. Best fish tacos ever. I do remember the captain could be pass out drunk and still dock the 70 footer without issue and then stumble below to pass out. But yeah we slept a lot too but underway maybe 6-7 so plenty of time to fix or react big difference from an airplane or even autopilot car
- dataviz1000 3y ago
  We passed an aircraft carrier going up the East Coast while they were doing exercises. They radioed us and made it clear not to come close to the ship. I have video of fighter jets doing low passes over our yacht every 15 minutes or so using us as a practice target. Going South once, as we came towards the inlet at Fernandina Beach on the Florida, Georgia line, a nuclear submarine was leaving port. I was at the helm in the afternoon while everyone else was sleeping. Good thing I was awake because we were met with the Coast Guard helicopter with a mounted machine gun pointed at me and a Coast Guard response (defender class) boat with a .50-caliber machine gun also fixed on me while they sat off our bow. I communicated with them on the radio; they said I should hold my position and not move. The sub came out with two large ships on each side with blast shields on the each ship.
  - tasuki 3y ago
    This is all very interesting and completely foreign to me! > Coast Guard helicopter with a mounted machine gun pointed at me and a Coast Guard response (defender class) boat with a .50-caliber machine gun also fixed on me while they sat off our bow. Why'd they do that? > they said I should hold my position and not move. Why? > The sub came out with two large ships on each side with blast shields on the each ship. ...why?

svat 3y ago

> I wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t happen more often. From context I guess you meant either "I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens more often" or "I would be surprised if this doesn’t happen more often." (https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=273 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=273 has many fun examples of this sort of thing)

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Oops. And this is what happens when you accidentally double your negatives, thanks for the point out even if it’s too late to edit.
- svat 3y ago
  I cannot deny that your comment couldn't have failed more to displease me. Cheers,

gnyman 3y ago

A small anecdote, I learned/realised this when visiting CERN (many years ago) and seeing someone in the control room playing a computer game on a laptop next to his big displays. So I asked and they said something along the lines that yes, it's allowed because otherwise the people would fall asleep, especially during the night shifts when their job is just to sit there and let the experiment run an be ready to react if necessary. This seems like a useful solution, but I guess it's hard to do as a policy as there is a fuzzy line between the game taking too much attention and not being interesting enough.

Ekaros 3y ago
Same must apply to many control jobs, including nuclear plants. They can run themselves for most of the time. And it is probably preferable if there is no fiddling on going.
ephimetheus 3y ago
So we’re actually being told not to do this, even on night shifts, but I don’t think it’s actually being enforced. I did to some work on my PhD thesis while on shift, though.
- gnyman 3y ago
  Ok, thanks for the updated info, maybe it changed, it was over 10 years ago