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The real question is whether Google's self-driving car is better (it doesn't have to be perfect) than humans in heavy rain (humans also have difficulties in hea

The real question is whether Google's self-driving car is better (it doesn't have to be perfect) than humans in heavy rain (humans also have difficulties in heavy rain).

melling 12y ago
No, the real question is can it drive in heavy rain. I've seen humans do it.
- jfoster 12y ago
  When humans do it, are they just taking a risk that the autonomous car could take, but won't?
  - tatterdemalion 12y ago
    That seems like it might be an overgenerous treatment of autonomous vehicles' (current) risk evaluation. The article reads like humans are making the determination that the vehicle can't drive in the rain, not the machines.
    - jfoster 12y ago
      What I mean is that the autonomous vehicles probably just get very noisy signals in the rain. Isn't that also what happens to humans driving cars in heavy rain? The rain limits long-range visibility, fog limits short-range visibility, wet road increases stopping distance, and yet humans think it is safe to drive at regular speed limits. Perhaps humans are (for now) better equipped to deal with those very noisy signals, but my point is that it's also dangerous for humans to drive in heavy rain.
- jfim 12y ago
  It really depends what is meant by heavy rain. Heavy enough rain, snow or fog has zero visibility (significantly less than 100m), in which the only option is to stop the car on the shoulder and wait until the weather conditions improve.
mnx 12y ago
Humans have difficulties, but they manage it decently, driving slower, and more carefully. And the car apparently is unsafe to use in such conditions.
mathieuruellan 12y ago
Sensors and cameras can't really see something, but the eye and the brain of a human can guess, all senses are at 100% (humans are tired after driving in such conditions). Making an IA which can have the same performance/evaluation must be really tricky
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It's probably fair to say that the lidar systems they use can see things. It generates a real time 3d map of the world, which is a lot easier to sort into obstruction/road than 2d sensor data. The problem is that it doesn't work very well in the rain.
bestnameever 12y ago
That was an argument made in the "Humans need not apply" video. The question I care about is whether Google's self-driving car is better than me in heavy rain. Not all humans drive equally. I think Google's self driving car might be better for some people more than it is for others.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Most people think that they are better drivers than other people. Even the terrible drivers think this. And, really, you want other drivers to be better so Google's cars probably are what you want.
bnegreve 12y ago
True, but self driving cars have to be much better drivers than the average human for multiple reasons. If a human has bad driving habits you can fine him or revoke his driving license without impacting the rest of the drivers. A bug is a self driving software would require to stop all the self driving cars at the same time. Obviously, that would be a problem. Bad drivers only drive one car at a time and thus they have limited potential impact. Again, a bug in the deployed driving software would impact many more cars, with consequences multiplied by the number of cars. This could have disastrous human consequences, thus more care must be taken. Finally, human are legally responsible, if something bad happen they can compensate for the damage caused. This is unclear who would be responsible in case of self driving cars.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  We aren't talking about bugs, though, we're talking about cars not being able to navigate as well. That doesn't mean they're useless, it probably just means that they would have to drive very slowly at those conditions.
  - runeks 12y ago
    I think the scary parts come when we have to define the "max risk" threshold of the self-driving car. No matter how good a self-driving car is at estimating risk, it is only able to do that: estimate risk. It cannot know, beforehand, if an accident will happen. So the question becomes: if the car estimates a 0.001% risk of accidents happening at 40 mph on a certain stretch of road, and a 0.01% risk of an accident happening at 60 mph, how fast do we drive? Or do we just make the person who sets the risk tolerance of the self-driving car liable for any accidents that might happen, and let them set whichever risk tolerance they prefer?

The real question is whether Google's self-driving car is better (it doesn't have to be perfect) than humans in heavy rain (humans also have difficulties in heavy rain).

melling 12y ago

No, the real question is can it drive in heavy rain. I've seen humans do it.

jfoster 12y ago
When humans do it, are they just taking a risk that the autonomous car could take, but won't?
- tatterdemalion 12y ago
  That seems like it might be an overgenerous treatment of autonomous vehicles' (current) risk evaluation. The article reads like humans are making the determination that the vehicle can't drive in the rain, not the machines.
  - jfoster 12y ago
    What I mean is that the autonomous vehicles probably just get very noisy signals in the rain. Isn't that also what happens to humans driving cars in heavy rain? The rain limits long-range visibility, fog limits short-range visibility, wet road increases stopping distance, and yet humans think it is safe to drive at regular speed limits. Perhaps humans are (for now) better equipped to deal with those very noisy signals, but my point is that it's also dangerous for humans to drive in heavy rain.
jfim 12y ago
It really depends what is meant by heavy rain. Heavy enough rain, snow or fog has zero visibility (significantly less than 100m), in which the only option is to stop the car on the shoulder and wait until the weather conditions improve.

mnx 12y ago

Humans have difficulties, but they manage it decently, driving slower, and more carefully. And the car apparently is unsafe to use in such conditions.

mathieuruellan 12y ago

Sensors and cameras can't really see something, but the eye and the brain of a human can guess, all senses are at 100% (humans are tired after driving in such conditions). Making an IA which can have the same performance/evaluation must be really tricky

maxerickson 12y ago
It's probably fair to say that the lidar systems they use can see things. It generates a real time 3d map of the world, which is a lot easier to sort into obstruction/road than 2d sensor data. The problem is that it doesn't work very well in the rain.

bestnameever 12y ago

That was an argument made in the "Humans need not apply" video. The question I care about is whether Google's self-driving car is better than me in heavy rain. Not all humans drive equally. I think Google's self driving car might be better for some people more than it is for others.

DanBC 12y ago
Most people think that they are better drivers than other people. Even the terrible drivers think this. And, really, you want other drivers to be better so Google's cars probably are what you want.

bnegreve 12y ago

True, but self driving cars have to be much better drivers than the average human for multiple reasons. If a human has bad driving habits you can fine him or revoke his driving license without impacting the rest of the drivers. A bug is a self driving software would require to stop all the self driving cars at the same time. Obviously, that would be a problem. Bad drivers only drive one car at a time and thus they have limited potential impact. Again, a bug in the deployed driving software would impact many more cars, with consequences multiplied by the number of cars. This could have disastrous human consequences, thus more care must be taken. Finally, human are legally responsible, if something bad happen they can compensate for the damage caused. This is unclear who would be responsible in case of self driving cars.

StavrosK 12y ago
We aren't talking about bugs, though, we're talking about cars not being able to navigate as well. That doesn't mean they're useless, it probably just means that they would have to drive very slowly at those conditions.
- runeks 12y ago
  I think the scary parts come when we have to define the "max risk" threshold of the self-driving car. No matter how good a self-driving car is at estimating risk, it is only able to do that: estimate risk. It cannot know, beforehand, if an accident will happen. So the question becomes: if the car estimates a 0.001% risk of accidents happening at 40 mph on a certain stretch of road, and a 0.01% risk of an accident happening at 60 mph, how fast do we drive? Or do we just make the person who sets the risk tolerance of the self-driving car liable for any accidents that might happen, and let them set whichever risk tolerance they prefer?