4 ms·

I live in the affected neighborhood. There were hundreds of drivers that did not know how to handle a power outage... it was a minority of drivers, but it was a

by scoofy 10mo ago

I live in the affected neighborhood. There were hundreds of drivers that did not know how to handle a power outage... it was a minority of drivers, but it was a nontrivial, but nominally large number. I even saw a Muni bus blow through a blacked out intersection. The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury, whereas the humans who failed, all fail in a way that would create potential injury. I wish the Waymos handled it better, yes, but I think that the failure state they took is preferable to the alternative.

Dylan16807 10mo ago
Locking down the roads creates a lot of potential injuries too. And "don't blow through an intersection with dead lights" is super easy to program. That's not enough for me to forgive them of all that much misbehavior.
- scoofy 10mo ago
  > is super easy to program What?!? We’re talking about autonomous vehicles here.
  - callc 10mo ago
    Specifically identifying road signs, traffic lights, and dead traffic lights is a narrow problem that has feasible solutions. To the point where we can reasonably say “yeah, this sub-component basically works perfectly.” Compared to the overall self-driving problem which is very much not a super easy problem.
  - Dylan16807 10mo ago
    The cars already know those are intersections with lights. I'm not talking about that part. Just the basic logic that you don't go through at speed unless there is a green (or yellow) light.
    - anticensor 10mo ago
      The lights out should be treated as all way red, including pedestrians.
      - Dylan16807 10mo ago
        Not all way red, that leads to exactly the problem in the story of blocking traffic. Lights out needs to be a stop sign.
        anticensor 10mo ago
        Yes, it does lead to blocking the traffic but that is the only safe action to do in such an intersection; if an intersection has traffic lights, there's enough traffic that stop&give way is not a viable operation.
        Dylan16807 10mo ago
        Very wrong. Dangerously wrong. Please don't block the road if you end up in an outage.
        prmoustache 10mo ago
        Usually in that case you would make it a priority to the right /or left so that everyone only has to look at one side (besides the pedestrians) and in a very busy intersection people with common sense and education naturally do an alternance where you give way to every other car. I don't know if waymos are programmed for that and it could very well be that there were so many pedestrian crossing it wouldn't apply it anyway.
    - scoofy 10mo ago
      >The cars already know those are intersections with lights. That's not how any of this works. You can anthropomorphize all you like, but they don't "know" things. They're only able to predictably respond to their training data. A blackout scenario is not in the training data.
  - godelski 10mo ago
    I wouldn't say "super easy" but if an autonomous vehicle isn't programmed to handle: 1: streetlight with no lights 2: streetlight with blinking red 2.5: streetlight with blinking yellow Then they are 100% not qualified to be on the road. Those are basic situations and incredibly easy to replicate, simulate, and incorporate into the training data. That is to say, they are not edge cases. Dealing with other drivers in those settings is much harder to do but that's a different problem and you should be simulating your car in a wide variety of other driver dynamics. From everyone being very nice to everyone being hyper aggressive and the full spectrum in between.
    - scoofy 10mo ago
      If you are just arguing that they're not qualified to be on the road, then I agree with you. I've been an autonomous vehicle skeptic for a long time, mainly because in think our automobile transportation system is inherently dangerous. It's going to be a tough sell though, considering that they are already -- generally -- better drivers than a nontrivial number of human beings. It's a tough question. The entire reason I'm defending this shortcoming is exactly that I prefer the fail-safe shutdown to any attempt to navigate bizarre, barely conforming to traffic code, blacked out intersections that are inherently dangerous.
freejazz 10mo ago
> The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury No one was injured this time but that's a huge assumption on your part
- scoofy 10mo ago
  I mean, yes, if the Waymo's could safely pull over, or even know how to handle every emergency situation, I think that would be better. I'd say that's a big ask though. Training autonomous vehicles for blackouts, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hail storms, landslides, sinkholes, tsunamis, floods, or even just fog is not really feasible given that most humans won't even navigate the properly. I'll keep saying it: I'm glad the cars were set to fail-safely when they encountered a situation they couldn't understand. I honestly wish the human drivers blowing through intersections that night would have done the same. It's miracle no one was killed.
  - freejazz 10mo ago
    That's a non-response response >I honestly wish the human drivers blowing through intersections that night would have done the same. It's miracle no one was killed. A bit deflective, huh?

by scoofy 10mo ago

Dylan16807 10mo ago

Locking down the roads creates a lot of potential injuries too. And "don't blow through an intersection with dead lights" is super easy to program. That's not enough for me to forgive them of all that much misbehavior.

scoofy 10mo ago
> is super easy to program What?!? We’re talking about autonomous vehicles here.
- callc 10mo ago
  Specifically identifying road signs, traffic lights, and dead traffic lights is a narrow problem that has feasible solutions. To the point where we can reasonably say “yeah, this sub-component basically works perfectly.” Compared to the overall self-driving problem which is very much not a super easy problem.
- Dylan16807 10mo ago
  The cars already know those are intersections with lights. I'm not talking about that part. Just the basic logic that you don't go through at speed unless there is a green (or yellow) light.
  - anticensor 10mo ago
    The lights out should be treated as all way red, including pedestrians.
    - Dylan16807 10mo ago
      Not all way red, that leads to exactly the problem in the story of blocking traffic. Lights out needs to be a stop sign.
      - anticensor 10mo ago
        Yes, it does lead to blocking the traffic but that is the only safe action to do in such an intersection; if an intersection has traffic lights, there's enough traffic that stop&give way is not a viable operation.
        Dylan16807 10mo ago
        Very wrong. Dangerously wrong. Please don't block the road if you end up in an outage.
        prmoustache 10mo ago
        Usually in that case you would make it a priority to the right /or left so that everyone only has to look at one side (besides the pedestrians) and in a very busy intersection people with common sense and education naturally do an alternance where you give way to every other car. I don't know if waymos are programmed for that and it could very well be that there were so many pedestrian crossing it wouldn't apply it anyway.
  - scoofy 10mo ago
    >The cars already know those are intersections with lights. That's not how any of this works. You can anthropomorphize all you like, but they don't "know" things. They're only able to predictably respond to their training data. A blackout scenario is not in the training data.
- godelski 10mo ago
  I wouldn't say "super easy" but if an autonomous vehicle isn't programmed to handle: 1: streetlight with no lights 2: streetlight with blinking red 2.5: streetlight with blinking yellow Then they are 100% not qualified to be on the road. Those are basic situations and incredibly easy to replicate, simulate, and incorporate into the training data. That is to say, they are not edge cases. Dealing with other drivers in those settings is much harder to do but that's a different problem and you should be simulating your car in a wide variety of other driver dynamics. From everyone being very nice to everyone being hyper aggressive and the full spectrum in between.
  - scoofy 10mo ago
    If you are just arguing that they're not qualified to be on the road, then I agree with you. I've been an autonomous vehicle skeptic for a long time, mainly because in think our automobile transportation system is inherently dangerous. It's going to be a tough sell though, considering that they are already -- generally -- better drivers than a nontrivial number of human beings. It's a tough question. The entire reason I'm defending this shortcoming is exactly that I prefer the fail-safe shutdown to any attempt to navigate bizarre, barely conforming to traffic code, blacked out intersections that are inherently dangerous.

freejazz 10mo ago

> The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury No one was injured this time but that's a huge assumption on your part

scoofy 10mo ago
I mean, yes, if the Waymo's could safely pull over, or even know how to handle every emergency situation, I think that would be better. I'd say that's a big ask though. Training autonomous vehicles for blackouts, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hail storms, landslides, sinkholes, tsunamis, floods, or even just fog is not really feasible given that most humans won't even navigate the properly. I'll keep saying it: I'm glad the cars were set to fail-safely when they encountered a situation they couldn't understand. I honestly wish the human drivers blowing through intersections that night would have done the same. It's miracle no one was killed.
- freejazz 10mo ago
  That's a non-response response >I honestly wish the human drivers blowing through intersections that night would have done the same. It's miracle no one was killed. A bit deflective, huh?