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Just been reading about the crash they’re talking about in the article - it seems like a kid walked out from between two parked cars. Rather than being a bad t
by jonplackett 8mo ago
Just been reading about the crash they’re talking about in the article - it seems like a kid walked out from between two parked cars.
Rather than being a bad thing, this is probably Waymo saving his life.
It says the car reduced speed from 17mph to 6mph before contact. This is the kind of reaction-speed safety an AI car should have over a human driver - instead it’s just ‘waymo hit a kid’.
- TurdF3rguson 8mo agoReducing speed is great, but isn't a swerve called for in that situation?
- 0xDEFACED 8mo agonot if the swerve would put you headlong into oncoming traffic
- TurdF3rguson 8mo agoIt wouldn't be headlong, possibly sidelong though. Seems worth it to save a kid, no?
- dekhn 8mo agoneither cars nor humans are expected to solve trolley problems during real-time incidents.
- mothballed 8mo agoCars, no, but truckers have been damned for not just sacrificing themselves when their brakes failed. There was a recent incident where a truck had its brakes fail on its way into Denver from the Rockies and killed several people. They should have taken an off ramp, but IIRC, both in public opinion and in court it was argued that failing that they should have just committed suicide by going off the road before they hit a family.
- unsnap_biceps 8mo agoThere's a difference in expectation between the reactions of a person that has under 10 seconds to react and a truck driver that had minutes of time to plan, including bypassing an emergency ramp designed specifically for runaway trucks. After passing the Genesee exit, Aguilera Mederos's truck began to smoke as he passed a runaway truck ramp, without taking it, and instead drifted into the left lane nearly clipping a white Chevy Silverado, and passed the next exit as well. For the next few minutes, Aguilera Mederos reached speeds upwards of 100 miles per hour (161 km/h)[6] and passed the next four exits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Lakewood_semi-truck_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Lakewood_semi-truck_crash
- TurdF3rguson 8mo agoAn AI driver would have done it, that's one point for autonomous driving.
- dekhn 8mo agoI'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion. it sounds like there were a lot of heated emotions going around in that court case. (I try not to pay close attention to lawyer's arguments when they are histrionic)
- unsnap_biceps 8mo agoDo we know if there was space to swerve? I'm wondering if there was a vehicle next to the car, would swerving into it help slow down the Waymo or would it cause lose of breaking power and end up hitting the person at a faster speed?
- TurdF3rguson 8mo agoA human doesn't have time to consider all that, it just seems to me that the instinctual move is to swerve. Hopefully the other cars are paying attention and swerve too.
- lern_too_spel 8mo agoAlternatively, maybe the car should have been driving more slowly. There is not enough information to know whether a human driver would have had a better outcome.
- unsnap_biceps 8mo ago17 MPH is already pretty slow. School zones near me have a 25 mph speed limit.
- lern_too_spel 8mo agoIf I know kids are likely to be running around, I drive well below the speed limit. I'm not saying a human driver would have done better. I'm disputing the claim that a human driver would have necessarily done worse. There is not enough information given to reach either conclusion.