5 ms·

There are standards, Toyota simply chose to ignore all of them. Standards such as MISRA [1] and DO-178C [2] exist for the purpose of ensuring software quality i

There are standards, Toyota simply chose to ignore all of them. Standards such as MISRA [1] and DO-178C [2] exist for the purpose of ensuring software quality in safety-critical situations. Most embedded software development environments even include tooling to help verify that you're not doing the things that are unsafe. The problem lies more in that automakers aren't required to use any such standard, unlike what the FAA has required for decades. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Industry_Software_Reliability_Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Industry_Software_Reliabi... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C

meesterdude 11y ago
Very awesome comment! I didn't know there were standards, but it's great to see there are. However, Toyota should have followed them. I mean, did they think they knew better? I think with self driving cars, the standards will become more requirements; though I doubt before a series of deaths result from software failure.
rainforest 11y ago
Given that a lot of computer vision work is based on randomised algorithms, do you think that these standards would be enough? You could demonstrate 100% MC/DC coverage through a neural net implementation, but the weights are where the faults probably exist, for example.
- mtrimpe 11y ago
  That actually leads to a very interesting point; would self driving cars be vulnerable to adversarial imagery? Neural nets are well known for being easily fooled [1] ... I wonder if you could create similar situations for self-driving cars. [1] http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling
lambdaelite 11y ago
Toyota couldn't ignore these (voluntary) standards given that MISRA-C nor the earlier DO-178 didn't exist at the time the code was developed.
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  MISRA-C dates from 1998, and DO-178B, which was the previous revision of DO-178, dates from 1992.
  - lambdaelite 11y ago
    Yeah, I mistyped (should read "...later DO-178..."). You're quite correct that DO-178B was around then, but the C revision was not. According to testimony, Toyota's coding standard was in place in 1997, before the first MISRA-C publication.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  First, you're ignoring the words "such as". Second, DO-178 was originally published in 1992.

meesterdude 11y ago

Very awesome comment! I didn't know there were standards, but it's great to see there are. However, Toyota should have followed them. I mean, did they think they knew better? I think with self driving cars, the standards will become more requirements; though I doubt before a series of deaths result from software failure.

rainforest 11y ago

Given that a lot of computer vision work is based on randomised algorithms, do you think that these standards would be enough? You could demonstrate 100% MC/DC coverage through a neural net implementation, but the weights are where the faults probably exist, for example.

mtrimpe 11y ago
That actually leads to a very interesting point; would self driving cars be vulnerable to adversarial imagery? Neural nets are well known for being easily fooled [1] ... I wonder if you could create similar situations for self-driving cars. [1] http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling

lambdaelite 11y ago

Toyota couldn't ignore these (voluntary) standards given that MISRA-C nor the earlier DO-178 didn't exist at the time the code was developed.

Sanddancer 11y ago
MISRA-C dates from 1998, and DO-178B, which was the previous revision of DO-178, dates from 1992.
- lambdaelite 11y ago
  Yeah, I mistyped (should read "...later DO-178..."). You're quite correct that DO-178B was around then, but the C revision was not. According to testimony, Toyota's coding standard was in place in 1997, before the first MISRA-C publication.
Dylan16807 11y ago
First, you're ignoring the words "such as". Second, DO-178 was originally published in 1992.