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There was no emergency! The car wasn't "spinning", it was just driving around a parking lot and failing to find a location to stop. This was a navigation fail

by ajross 2y ago

There was no emergency! The car wasn't "spinning", it was just driving around a parking lot and failing to find a location to stop. This was a navigation failure, not a control failure. And the solution is to call the human operators who can control it remotely. Which is what happened, and they did. Pulling an "emergency stop" level would have made things worse and not better. Is it embarassing for Waymo? Sure. But the BBC basically lied to you here, and you bought it. The circumstance you're imagining is not what happened. Just watch the video.

belter 2y ago
So if there is no connectivity?
- ajross 2y ago
  Presumably it pulls over and stops if the backend connection drops, no? This is a kind of goalpost motion: you're countering an argument about an incorrectly-identified failure mode by positing that the condition would still obtain if there was a dual mode failure instead (i.e. that the car would get stuck in a navigation loop and have a bug in its recovery from connectivity issues). That's bad engineering, because you can always get to some kind of catastrophe if you keep piling on layers. Might as well just skip to "What if the motor circuit fails open and it accelerates forever?!" in that case.
  - kragen 2y ago
    An E-stop button would also solve the problem of the motor circuit failing closed, causing the kind of uncontrolled acceleration you're talking about.
    - ajross 2y ago
      Uh, that was sarcasm. Unintended acceleration failures are huge deals in the industry and absolutely already designed in with multiple (probably dozens) of layers of safety/redundancy at all levels up to and including human control. The point was that you can still imagine a N-mode failure that defeats all of that and use it to justifify whatever whizgig you're demanding in your local internet discussion. And that this was ridiculous, because that's not how you do engineering. And... you did.
      - kragen 2y ago
        Yes, you can always imagine failures that disable your failsafes. But you seem to be using that as an excuse for advocating omitting even basic failsafes. That's also not how you do engineering.
beanjuiceII 2y ago
i am not sure i would say it was "just driving around a parking lot" it was not spinning but it _was_ just going in circles, watch the steering wheel and the background.. right turn pause right turn pause etc you see the same buildings etc. my spouse would have probably barfed all over that back seat
kragen 2y ago
I wasn't imagining a car spinning out of control. Being trapped inside a car indefinitely is dangerous: you could get carsick and have to throw up, urgently need to use a restroom, have a painful leg cramp that causes a lasting muscle injury, miss picking up your child from school, miss your appointment with your probation officer, be unable to obtain essential medication, suffer from heatstroke, or die of dehydration. An adult should never need to "call human operators" and ask their permission to get out of a car. Unless they're being arrested or something. And if you hear that the car has run over a child that the operator didn't notice and is dragging it down the pavement under the car, it's essential for you to be able to hit the E-stop button rather than calling an operator to eventually stop the car.
- ajross 2y ago
  > Being trapped inside a car indefinitely is dangerous It was like two minutes, tops. Again, it's on video! And I love that you started from a position of needing an emergency escape button and when challenged it's... because the occupant might have to pee really bad.
  - kragen 2y ago
    By lying about my comment, you are really starting to exhaust the presumption of good faith.
    - ajross 2y ago
      You literally argue in this thread that "These cars need an emergency stop button" because the occupants might "urgently need to use a restroom". I cherry picked that because it's hilarious, but it's not a lie and you know it. Those quotes are real: those are your words. Accusing other people of lying when they point out your whoppers is... not good faith argument.
      - kragen 2y ago
        Your comment asserted that that was the only justification I gave. Even if that were true, it would still make you the kind of asshole who makes fun of elderly women with incontinence problems—in fact, who advocates omitting basic safety features from engineering designs because you think it's hilarious when elderly women with incontinence problems wet their pants. Or, interpreting your comment with more charity than the annual UNICEF budget, you think it would be hilarious if elderly women with incontinence problems had to pull down their pants and pee on the passenger seat. But it's not true, which makes you a liar as well. Comments like that one undermine my faith in the capacity of humanity for goodness. You managed to combine dishonesty, unprovoked rhetorical aggression, engineering irresponsibility, and fantasies of a breathtaking degree of sadism into a few short lines. It's honestly one of the most contemptible comments I've ever seen on HN.
sacado2 2y ago
> the solution is to call the human operators who can control it remotely Sounds like a recipe for failure, to be honest. In a potentially life or death situation, the last thing I want is to rely on a remote human being. Plus, if the device entered an erroneous state, I certainly don't trust it to correctly interpret a remote "emergency stop" signal. If the machine goes crazy (and there is no world where driving around a parking lot until the end of time is the rational expected behavior), the only safe option is a big, red, cut-circuit emergency stop button.
- kragen 2y ago
  I agree. Unfortunately just cutting circuits isn't enough; you also need to brake and possibly unlock the doors.
- ajross 2y ago
  > In a potentially life or death situation Which, once more, was not happening here. The car was lost, not out of control. And the built-in solution was applied, and worked. What do you really want here? You've never been in a Uber that took a wrong turn? Never argued with a cab driver about a route? Never been stuck in an airliner at the end of a runway waiting for clearance? Vehicles do things their occupants don't like all the time, and no one freaks out on the internet about it.
  - kragen 2y ago
    If a cab driver or Uber driver locks you into their car and doesn't allow you to get out, that's "false imprisonment", a felony in most jurisdictions, carrying a sentence of several years of prison. It is very unusual for them to even lock the doors such that you need their help to open them. The last time I had to open an Uber door in a moving car to force the driver to stop—because he'd lied about having air conditioning to get the fare—was two weeks ago. Airliners are legally required to have emergency exit doors that can be activated by anyone inside the airliner as long as the cabin isn't pressurized. You also know, before you board the airliner, that you won't be able to get off it for several hours. So, if you have an appointment with your probation officer in half an hour or need to pick up your kids from school in half an hour, you won't board in the first place. You're apparently arguing that passengers of self-driving cars should not have the same legal and mechanical protections that the passengers of these other types of vehicles have.

by ajross 2y ago

belter 2y ago

So if there is no connectivity?

ajross 2y ago
Presumably it pulls over and stops if the backend connection drops, no? This is a kind of goalpost motion: you're countering an argument about an incorrectly-identified failure mode by positing that the condition would still obtain if there was a dual mode failure instead (i.e. that the car would get stuck in a navigation loop and have a bug in its recovery from connectivity issues). That's bad engineering, because you can always get to some kind of catastrophe if you keep piling on layers. Might as well just skip to "What if the motor circuit fails open and it accelerates forever?!" in that case.
- kragen 2y ago
  An E-stop button would also solve the problem of the motor circuit failing closed, causing the kind of uncontrolled acceleration you're talking about.
  - ajross 2y ago
    Uh, that was sarcasm. Unintended acceleration failures are huge deals in the industry and absolutely already designed in with multiple (probably dozens) of layers of safety/redundancy at all levels up to and including human control. The point was that you can still imagine a N-mode failure that defeats all of that and use it to justifify whatever whizgig you're demanding in your local internet discussion. And that this was ridiculous, because that's not how you do engineering. And... you did.
    - kragen 2y ago
      Yes, you can always imagine failures that disable your failsafes. But you seem to be using that as an excuse for advocating omitting even basic failsafes. That's also not how you do engineering.

beanjuiceII 2y ago

i am not sure i would say it was "just driving around a parking lot" it was not spinning but it _was_ just going in circles, watch the steering wheel and the background.. right turn pause right turn pause etc you see the same buildings etc. my spouse would have probably barfed all over that back seat

kragen 2y ago

I wasn't imagining a car spinning out of control. Being trapped inside a car indefinitely is dangerous: you could get carsick and have to throw up, urgently need to use a restroom, have a painful leg cramp that causes a lasting muscle injury, miss picking up your child from school, miss your appointment with your probation officer, be unable to obtain essential medication, suffer from heatstroke, or die of dehydration. An adult should never need to "call human operators" and ask their permission to get out of a car. Unless they're being arrested or something. And if you hear that the car has run over a child that the operator didn't notice and is dragging it down the pavement under the car, it's essential for you to be able to hit the E-stop button rather than calling an operator to eventually stop the car.

ajross 2y ago
> Being trapped inside a car indefinitely is dangerous It was like two minutes, tops. Again, it's on video! And I love that you started from a position of needing an emergency escape button and when challenged it's... because the occupant might have to pee really bad.
- kragen 2y ago
  By lying about my comment, you are really starting to exhaust the presumption of good faith.
  - ajross 2y ago
    You literally argue in this thread that "These cars need an emergency stop button" because the occupants might "urgently need to use a restroom". I cherry picked that because it's hilarious, but it's not a lie and you know it. Those quotes are real: those are your words. Accusing other people of lying when they point out your whoppers is... not good faith argument.
    - kragen 2y ago
      Your comment asserted that that was the only justification I gave. Even if that were true, it would still make you the kind of asshole who makes fun of elderly women with incontinence problems—in fact, who advocates omitting basic safety features from engineering designs because you think it's hilarious when elderly women with incontinence problems wet their pants. Or, interpreting your comment with more charity than the annual UNICEF budget, you think it would be hilarious if elderly women with incontinence problems had to pull down their pants and pee on the passenger seat. But it's not true, which makes you a liar as well. Comments like that one undermine my faith in the capacity of humanity for goodness. You managed to combine dishonesty, unprovoked rhetorical aggression, engineering irresponsibility, and fantasies of a breathtaking degree of sadism into a few short lines. It's honestly one of the most contemptible comments I've ever seen on HN.

sacado2 2y ago

> the solution is to call the human operators who can control it remotely Sounds like a recipe for failure, to be honest. In a potentially life or death situation, the last thing I want is to rely on a remote human being. Plus, if the device entered an erroneous state, I certainly don't trust it to correctly interpret a remote "emergency stop" signal. If the machine goes crazy (and there is no world where driving around a parking lot until the end of time is the rational expected behavior), the only safe option is a big, red, cut-circuit emergency stop button.

kragen 2y ago
I agree. Unfortunately just cutting circuits isn't enough; you also need to brake and possibly unlock the doors.
ajross 2y ago
> In a potentially life or death situation Which, once more, was not happening here. The car was lost, not out of control. And the built-in solution was applied, and worked. What do you really want here? You've never been in a Uber that took a wrong turn? Never argued with a cab driver about a route? Never been stuck in an airliner at the end of a runway waiting for clearance? Vehicles do things their occupants don't like all the time, and no one freaks out on the internet about it.
- kragen 2y ago
  If a cab driver or Uber driver locks you into their car and doesn't allow you to get out, that's "false imprisonment", a felony in most jurisdictions, carrying a sentence of several years of prison. It is very unusual for them to even lock the doors such that you need their help to open them. The last time I had to open an Uber door in a moving car to force the driver to stop—because he'd lied about having air conditioning to get the fare—was two weeks ago. Airliners are legally required to have emergency exit doors that can be activated by anyone inside the airliner as long as the cabin isn't pressurized. You also know, before you board the airliner, that you won't be able to get off it for several hours. So, if you have an appointment with your probation officer in half an hour or need to pick up your kids from school in half an hour, you won't board in the first place. You're apparently arguing that passengers of self-driving cars should not have the same legal and mechanical protections that the passengers of these other types of vehicles have.