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How do AI cars fare with those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years over the course of

How do AI cars fare with those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years over the course of a driver's history?? It's happened to me about 2-3 times and I've always made the "(assumedly) correct" split second swerve decision. Wondering if that is a "human/instinctual" skill and if AI cars do just as well or better, or perhaps not as good? I don't have any evidence backing this but my gut tells me these scenarios are something that a human driver would handle better than AI.

OJFord 2y ago
Probably better? 'Who' can process more data faster is likely impossible to answer, but (e.g.) Waymo can train on those scenarios and have way more 'experience' than any individual driver who's seen it once every 10-20 years of their driving career.
- indigodaddy 2y ago
  Yeah it's interesting, these scenarios are generally at high speeds on an interstate highway, and generally involve some level of predicting what the villain driver is going to do (split second prediction though mind you, it all happens in the blink of an eye), and sometimes the right thing to do is to swerve (if no one is adjacent in surrounding lanes) whilst either not using the brake at all or almost no braking. Basically avoid the brake and do your quick swerve after you've confirmed there is no one in the left/right adjacent lane or close enough behind you. Once again this all happens in the blink of an eye. Perhaps AI would be better? I'm not complete sold though..
  - creer 2y ago
    One big difference in favor of the software is your "after you've confirmed there is no one in the left/right adjacent lane or close enough behind you." The car has been looking in every direction the whole ride. The car already knows what there is to know about all the neighbours. A huge advantage over the human driver. I feel also that the car having a far better experience of its kinematics / dynamics / features is also a huge advantage - see the good old drifting parallel parking videos. After that there is the concern about computing reaction time. Can it get stuck hesitating? Clearly the cars hesitate a lot in generally safe places. But we have seen some videos already of a Waymo very smoothly dodging someone running out from in between cars (they were already tracked), and someone mentioned a scooter incident. Hopefully we'll see more videos of emergency responses. Another comment mentions "r/waymo or r/selfdrivingcars for lots of videos of Waymos avoiding objects."
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years The correct answer is almost always to hit the brakes. Not to swerve. And Waymo will hit the brakes earlier than you or me.
- ecshafer 2y ago
  I would be interested to see waymo adapt to the snow and ice, where “hit the breaks” Is the wrong answer, and the correct is to drop the car into neutral. I believe waymo will figure this out in time, nut SF and Phoenix are idealized driving conditions.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > snow and ice, where “hit the breaks” Is the wrong answer, and the correct is to drop the car into neutral This is only true with 2WD and no automatic stability control, and if you’re going down a slope. For every other case, ABs will out perform in snow and gentle braking will evenly distribute traction force with stability control doing microsecond evaluations.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      It is also the case that Waymo will be dramatically better than all humans in ice because it is going to take the aviation approach and stay in the depot, rather than fooling itself into believing it is competent at driving on ice.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      You still need to be in neutral as the ABS/stability control doesn't control the engine. 2wd makes no real difference other than rear wheel drive tends to be the most susceptible to this issue, but any wheel can lose traction.
      - jeffbee 2y ago
        > stability control doesn't control the engine Stability control is tied to power in all modern systems.
jeffbee 2y ago
It's just ape hubris that makes you think these were the right swerves instead of just dumb luck that you did not flip over the center barrier head-on into a school bus. The Waymo doesn't have to swerve as much as a human because it can see a mile away and never blinks, and it knows that the right thing to do in every swerve-worthy situation is to slam on the brakes to take the energy out of the event. It also drives around with the brakes pre-pressurized because it isn't trying to compensate for the fact that its control system is partially made of meat. Anyway you can go to r/waymo or r/selfdrivingcars for lots of videos of Waymos avoiding objects.
bwy 2y ago
They test extensively on those types of scenarios. See: https://waymo.com/research/collision-avoidance-testing-of-the-waymo-automated/ https://waymo.com/research/collision-avoidance-testing-of-th... Blog post for the paper: https://waymo.com/blog/2022/12/waymos-collision-avoidance-testing https://waymo.com/blog/2022/12/waymos-collision-avoidance-te...
warkdarrior 2y ago
I'm ok if the AI car makes an incorrect decision once every 10 years.
Mawr 2y ago
- Humans have awful reaction times, so the "AI" cars should fare 10-100x better. "split-second" is laughably slow to a computer. - How seldom these scenarios come up for human drivers is a huge disadvantage for them. For self driving, it doesn't matter, the cars' reactions can be simulated in arbitrary scenarios as many times as needed, so even the rarest of scenarios can be ensured to be handled properly. - There's nothing special about the decision to swerve vs to say, brake. I'd expect self driving cars to not need to swerve nearly as often because the need to swerve probably only ever exists due to excessive speed and/or poor following distance to the vehicle ahead. > It's happened to me about 2-3 times and I've always made the "(assumedly) correct" split second swerve decision. Easy question: Did you make that decision with full awareness that you would not end up in a collision path with another vehicle by swerving? Oops. Even if you did, how many drivers do you think would "instinctively" swerve into another lane and get hit by an oncoming vehicle because they do not maintain constant situational awareness around their vehicle? The majority, at least.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Far quicker and with better situational awareness probably. Those instinctual human responses can be wrong/misguided as well and can have pretty serious ripple effects (e.g. most chain collisions after somebody panics and steps on the breaks). And even when those instincts work correctly, they rely on driver focus and attention; which to put it mildly is not very reliable. The lack of that is a well known root cause of many accidents. People get tired, distracted, etc. or become otherwise unfocused from driving safely. And of course some drivers are simply not that competent, barely know traffic rules or how to drive safely. The barrier for getting a drivers license is pretty low. And all that is before you consider road rage, drunk drivers, elderly drivers with cognitive and visual impairments, and all the other people who really shouldn't be driving a car. If you rank AIs against most drivers, they probably hit the top percentile in terms of safety and consistency. Even if you are in that percentile (and most drivers would likely overestimate their abilities), most human drivers around you aren't and never will be. Traffic deaths in the U.S. are staggering — annually far exceeding the fatalities of most U.S. military conflicts since World War II, including the peak years of the Vietnam war. It's hard to do worse than that for AI drivers. The status quo isn't very safe. Most of that is human instincts not working as advertised. People really suck at driving.

OJFord 2y ago

Probably better? 'Who' can process more data faster is likely impossible to answer, but (e.g.) Waymo can train on those scenarios and have way more 'experience' than any individual driver who's seen it once every 10-20 years of their driving career.

indigodaddy 2y ago
Yeah it's interesting, these scenarios are generally at high speeds on an interstate highway, and generally involve some level of predicting what the villain driver is going to do (split second prediction though mind you, it all happens in the blink of an eye), and sometimes the right thing to do is to swerve (if no one is adjacent in surrounding lanes) whilst either not using the brake at all or almost no braking. Basically avoid the brake and do your quick swerve after you've confirmed there is no one in the left/right adjacent lane or close enough behind you. Once again this all happens in the blink of an eye. Perhaps AI would be better? I'm not complete sold though..
- creer 2y ago
  One big difference in favor of the software is your "after you've confirmed there is no one in the left/right adjacent lane or close enough behind you." The car has been looking in every direction the whole ride. The car already knows what there is to know about all the neighbours. A huge advantage over the human driver. I feel also that the car having a far better experience of its kinematics / dynamics / features is also a huge advantage - see the good old drifting parallel parking videos. After that there is the concern about computing reaction time. Can it get stuck hesitating? Clearly the cars hesitate a lot in generally safe places. But we have seen some videos already of a Waymo very smoothly dodging someone running out from in between cars (they were already tracked), and someone mentioned a scooter incident. Hopefully we'll see more videos of emergency responses. Another comment mentions "r/waymo or r/selfdrivingcars for lots of videos of Waymos avoiding objects."

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years The correct answer is almost always to hit the brakes. Not to swerve. And Waymo will hit the brakes earlier than you or me.

ecshafer 2y ago
I would be interested to see waymo adapt to the snow and ice, where “hit the breaks” Is the wrong answer, and the correct is to drop the car into neutral. I believe waymo will figure this out in time, nut SF and Phoenix are idealized driving conditions.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > snow and ice, where “hit the breaks” Is the wrong answer, and the correct is to drop the car into neutral This is only true with 2WD and no automatic stability control, and if you’re going down a slope. For every other case, ABs will out perform in snow and gentle braking will evenly distribute traction force with stability control doing microsecond evaluations.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    It is also the case that Waymo will be dramatically better than all humans in ice because it is going to take the aviation approach and stay in the depot, rather than fooling itself into believing it is competent at driving on ice.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    You still need to be in neutral as the ABS/stability control doesn't control the engine. 2wd makes no real difference other than rear wheel drive tends to be the most susceptible to this issue, but any wheel can lose traction.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      > stability control doesn't control the engine Stability control is tied to power in all modern systems.

jeffbee 2y ago

It's just ape hubris that makes you think these were the right swerves instead of just dumb luck that you did not flip over the center barrier head-on into a school bus. The Waymo doesn't have to swerve as much as a human because it can see a mile away and never blinks, and it knows that the right thing to do in every swerve-worthy situation is to slam on the brakes to take the energy out of the event. It also drives around with the brakes pre-pressurized because it isn't trying to compensate for the fact that its control system is partially made of meat. Anyway you can go to r/waymo or r/selfdrivingcars for lots of videos of Waymos avoiding objects.

bwy 2y ago

They test extensively on those types of scenarios. See: https://waymo.com/research/collision-avoidance-testing-of-the-waymo-automated/ https://waymo.com/research/collision-avoidance-testing-of-th... Blog post for the paper: https://waymo.com/blog/2022/12/waymos-collision-avoidance-testing https://waymo.com/blog/2022/12/waymos-collision-avoidance-te...

warkdarrior 2y ago

I'm ok if the AI car makes an incorrect decision once every 10 years.

Mawr 2y ago

- Humans have awful reaction times, so the "AI" cars should fare 10-100x better. "split-second" is laughably slow to a computer. - How seldom these scenarios come up for human drivers is a huge disadvantage for them. For self driving, it doesn't matter, the cars' reactions can be simulated in arbitrary scenarios as many times as needed, so even the rarest of scenarios can be ensured to be handled properly. - There's nothing special about the decision to swerve vs to say, brake. I'd expect self driving cars to not need to swerve nearly as often because the need to swerve probably only ever exists due to excessive speed and/or poor following distance to the vehicle ahead. > It's happened to me about 2-3 times and I've always made the "(assumedly) correct" split second swerve decision. Easy question: Did you make that decision with full awareness that you would not end up in a collision path with another vehicle by swerving? Oops. Even if you did, how many drivers do you think would "instinctively" swerve into another lane and get hit by an oncoming vehicle because they do not maintain constant situational awareness around their vehicle? The majority, at least.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Far quicker and with better situational awareness probably. Those instinctual human responses can be wrong/misguided as well and can have pretty serious ripple effects (e.g. most chain collisions after somebody panics and steps on the breaks). And even when those instincts work correctly, they rely on driver focus and attention; which to put it mildly is not very reliable. The lack of that is a well known root cause of many accidents. People get tired, distracted, etc. or become otherwise unfocused from driving safely. And of course some drivers are simply not that competent, barely know traffic rules or how to drive safely. The barrier for getting a drivers license is pretty low. And all that is before you consider road rage, drunk drivers, elderly drivers with cognitive and visual impairments, and all the other people who really shouldn't be driving a car. If you rank AIs against most drivers, they probably hit the top percentile in terms of safety and consistency. Even if you are in that percentile (and most drivers would likely overestimate their abilities), most human drivers around you aren't and never will be. Traffic deaths in the U.S. are staggering — annually far exceeding the fatalities of most U.S. military conflicts since World War II, including the peak years of the Vietnam war. It's hard to do worse than that for AI drivers. The status quo isn't very safe. Most of that is human instincts not working as advertised. People really suck at driving.