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The one that gets me, is how to make decisions regarding people doing traffic direction. What happens when there is someone standing in front of you, wearing a

The one that gets me, is how to make decisions regarding people doing traffic direction. What happens when there is someone standing in front of you, wearing a traffic-safety vest, directing traffic down a lane. Do you go down that lane. Do you ignore them and keep driving forward, potentially running over the person if they don't get out of the way. Do you hit the brakes and accelerate backwards? Depending on the context, any of those decisions might be correct - but I doubt that any "Automated Driving" system will know how to handle it in the next 30 years. Now, Driver Assist, in which the car keeps you in your lane, brakes before hitting the care in front of you, swerves into the emergency lane in the event someone is about to side swipe you, stops at traffic light/stop sign - these are solved problems, and I expect will be rolled out (already are in many cases) in most cars over the next 10 years.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Actually, it sounds simple. You never run over the person directing traffic because of the usual anti-running-over mechanisms that the car will have. You can teach the car to recognize the signs policemen use to wave, and it seems feasible to learn the car to recognize gestures - after all, AFAIR, Google already solved that for recognizing hand signals that cyclists give. And OTOH, if you want to direct traffic in the world of mixed driver/driverless cars, it's on you to know you might be dealing with a machine and make sure you gesture clearly.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  The point I was trying to make, is depending on the situation, all three responses are entirely reasonable. If it's some idiot/kid/whackjob playing games, you keep moving forward, making it clear he needs to clear out of the way. Maybe lay on the horn. If it's East Palo Alto (or wherever the high-crime area is in the United States right now), and you are about to get jacked, you hit the brakes, reverse, and get the hell out of dodge. If it's a normal traffic situation (Construction, Police Officer, etc...) - you follow their directions. A human can make that assessment in a few hundreds of milliseconds - it's going to be 20+ years at least before any automated driving system is going to figure out what to do in situations like these. (Please don't get overly focussed on the "Some random person pretending to direct traffic situation" - I'm sure you can come up with a hundred other scenarios which require executive, not tactical assessment.) This is why I believe DriverAssist is going to be incredible, particularly on freeways - and already is today - It's an awesome thing to have a recent model BMW brake from 85 mph to a complete stop when the car in front of them slams on the brakes. An entire category of accidents is going to be virtually eliminated as DriverAssist is added to Vehicles.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Actually, it sounds simple. You never run over the person directing traffic because of the usual anti-running-over mechanisms that the car will have. You can teach the car to recognize the signs policemen use to wave, and it seems feasible to learn the car to recognize gestures - after all, AFAIR, Google already solved that for recognizing hand signals that cyclists give. And OTOH, if you want to direct traffic in the world of mixed driver/driverless cars, it's on you to know you might be dealing with a machine and make sure you gesture clearly.

ghshephard 12y ago
The point I was trying to make, is depending on the situation, all three responses are entirely reasonable. If it's some idiot/kid/whackjob playing games, you keep moving forward, making it clear he needs to clear out of the way. Maybe lay on the horn. If it's East Palo Alto (or wherever the high-crime area is in the United States right now), and you are about to get jacked, you hit the brakes, reverse, and get the hell out of dodge. If it's a normal traffic situation (Construction, Police Officer, etc...) - you follow their directions. A human can make that assessment in a few hundreds of milliseconds - it's going to be 20+ years at least before any automated driving system is going to figure out what to do in situations like these. (Please don't get overly focussed on the "Some random person pretending to direct traffic situation" - I'm sure you can come up with a hundred other scenarios which require executive, not tactical assessment.) This is why I believe DriverAssist is going to be incredible, particularly on freeways - and already is today - It's an awesome thing to have a recent model BMW brake from 85 mph to a complete stop when the car in front of them slams on the brakes. An entire category of accidents is going to be virtually eliminated as DriverAssist is added to Vehicles.