The Not-So-Safe Self-Driving Car

[GunnyFreedom]

Oh but there's a fix for that. The big rig should be self driving as well and set to self destruct, killing its own human passenger (if it has one) and all of the people in nearby cars, if this ever happens. Problem solved!

Actually I wonder what would happen in this case under Azimovs laws of robotics?

AI is going to have to get a lot more intelligent before it even understands the basic concepts behind the 3 laws. By the time AI tech reaches that point, the bugs currently making self driving cars less safe than human driven cars will have already been resolved. However, once that time arrives, cars will then be able to be piloted by actual AIs instead of simple automation subroutines.

I love tech, and I'll embrace a proper (and safe) self driving car if and only if I am still able to seize full control at any moment without having to go through some big rigamarole production to do so.

[CPUd]

I think the trucks are going to be the first ones to go fully auto. It won't be on all roads at first, just on the interstate highways. The human will take the truck to the ramp, drop it off and return in a truck that has just gotten off the highway. When they are on the highway, they will form trains, unlike real trains that are physically connected, these can expand and contract as they cross exits to allow the humans to get around them. This plus cheaper alternative fuel will dramatically lower the cost of shipping, and *should* have a positive effect on the economy, if that savings is reflected in retail prices.

[GunnyFreedom]

I think the trucks are going to be the first ones to go fully auto. It won't be on all roads at first, just on the interstate highways. The human will take the truck to the ramp, drop it off and return in a truck that has just gotten off the highway. When they are on the highway, they will form trains, unlike real trains that are physically connected, these can expand and contract as they cross exits to allow the humans to get around them. This plus cheaper alternative fuel will dramatically lower the cost of shipping, and *should* have a positive effect on the economy, if that savings is reflected in retail prices.

I think we are still 50-100 years away from unmanned rigs. GenZ will need to be in full political control before such a thing is permitted, and probably a goodly portion of GenX will have to die off to make it politically feasible. Add to that extended lifespans and you are looking 50-100 years before unmanned rigs are accepted on the freeways. Automated, sure, that's coming in the next 7-12 years no question, but there will be required a human failsafe on board.

[Dr.3D]

I think the trucks are going to be the first ones to go fully auto. It won't be on all roads at first, just on the interstate highways. The human will take the truck to the ramp, drop it off and return in a truck that has just gotten off the highway. When they are on the highway, they will form trains, unlike real trains that are physically connected, these can expand and contract as they cross exits to allow the humans to get around them. This plus cheaper alternative fuel will dramatically lower the cost of shipping, and *should* have a positive effect on the economy, if that savings is reflected in retail prices.

I'm thinking the Fed will just inflate the currency more to absorb the difference.

[CPUd]

100 years and everything will be fully auto, the interaction between vehicles will be similar to:

[Danke]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/self-driv...205642937.html


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The first U.S. fatality using self-driving technology took place in May when the driver of a Tesla S sports car operating the vehicle's "Autopilot" automated driving system died after a collision with a truck in Florida, federal officials said Thursday.

The government is investigating the design and performance of Tesla's system.

Preliminary reports indicate the crash occurred when a tractor-trailer rig made a left turn in front of the Tesla at an intersection of a divided highway where there was no traffic light, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The Tesla driver died due to injuries sustained in the crash, which took place May 7 in Williston, Florida, the agency said. The city is southwest of Gainesville.

[Anti Federalist]

Was just going to post that ^^^

[Danke]

Was just going to post that ^^^

Ya, thought of you when I read it, so I chose one of your luddite threads to post it in.

[Created4]

Frank Baressi, 62, the driver of the truck and owner of Okemah Express LLC, said the Tesla driver was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" at the time of the crash and driving so quickly that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him."

The movie "was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road," Baressi told The Associated Press in an interview from his home in Palm Harbor, Florida. He acknowledged he didn't see the movie, only heard it.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/new...#storylink=cpy

[MelissaWV]

The local explanation is that the car didn't "see" the trailer against the brightness of the sky.

I will never get one, obviously, but the part that sucks is you're going to be sharing the road with people who will now pay even LESS attention to their driving.

[phill4paul]

The local explanation is that the car didn't "see" the trailer against the brightness of the sky.

I will never get one, obviously, but the part that sucks is you're going to be sharing the road with people who will now pay even LESS attention to their driving.

Which is exactly what has happened because of safety belts and air bags. Everyone thinks they are invulnerable in their cocoon.

[MelissaWV]

Which is exactly what has happened because of safety belts and air bags. Everyone thinks they are invulnerable in their cocoon.

Oh no doubt, this is just the latest biggest step. I would add that the braking assist, blind spot monitors, and so forth, all contribute more than seat belts. There's the traction control one, too, and the anti-lock brakes.

[angelatc]

Harry Potter and the Beheaded Prince.

[ChristianAnarchist]

This stupid car didn't even know it had been in an accident. It kept on driving after the top had been completely sheared off until it left the road... The truck driver said it hit him so fast that he didn't even see it. Ya, I think I'll do my own driving, thanks...

[timosman]

Time for the old legend: Cruise [Un]Control Did a driver set the cruise control on his vehicle then slip into the backseat for a nap?

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

[Zippyjuan]

Missed this thread so I posted it in the Tech forum. They said the drive was busy watching a movie so he didn't see the truck turn in front of him either. Tesla is now cautioning that their auto drive is only a "test feature".

[timosman]

Elon Musk says that the LIDAR Google uses in its self-driving car ‘doesn’t make sense in a car context’

The Google prototype’s self-driving abilities are powered mainly by a LIDAR array on top of the vehicle, which — in simple terms — measures distance by pointing lasers at targets surrounding the car and analyzing the light that’s reflected. When questioned on whether future Tesla cars would need more sensors, potentially including LIDAR, Musk suggests that this technology “doesn’t make sense” and is “unnecessary” in the context of an autonomous car.

Guess he will need to reevaluate this statement.

http://9to5google.com/2015/10/16/elo...a-car-context/

[Anti Federalist]

Along For the Ride

http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/07/0...ver-passenger/

by eric • July 2, 2016

A guy was killed by his auto-piloted Tesla last week (new story here) and Uncle is looking into it. Of course he won’t do anything about it. Because “if it saves even one life” is very selectively applied. It applies only when whatever the danger happens to be is something Uncle wants to use as an excuse to impose yet another mandate.

Never to rescind one.

See, for instance, air bags.

Or – lately – cars that drive themselves.

Uncle very much wants such cars and so is prepared to do nothing about their potential – and now actual – lethality.

Because, you see, the point is not that cars that drive themselves are “safe” (they’re not, bear with me) though that is much talked up (like air bags, which also aren’t “safe”) and used as the pretext for force-feeding them to us. Note that. We are never given the choice. Never offered whatever the thing in question is and allowed to weigh the pros and cons and then choose for ourselves. Free people are not merely allowed such latitude, they are entitled to it. It is not bequeathed, conditionally, by political parents in a remote bureaucracy but respected as an inviolable moral principle.

In a free society, that is.

But we are not free except to do as we are told.

Back to this Tesla thing.

The “driver” (who wasn’t) in the recent lethal incident was reportedly doing something else besides paying attention to what was in front of him. In this case, a big rig making a left turn in his path of travel. The Tesla’s autopilot did not grok the big rig and drove right into it.

Right under it, actually.

According to Tesla, “autopilot is getting better all the time but it is not perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert.” (Italics added.)

Really?

Then why bother with autopilot?

Isn’t the touted benefit of cars that drive themselves this idea that “drivers” no longer have to remain alert?

That they can take a siesta or play Candy Crush or watch a DVD or do some work on their laptops? If they have to remain alert, they cannot do those things, too.

Remaining alert means keeping one’s eyes on the road at all times – not occasionally. It means being prepared to react to changing conditions.

Like a tractor trailer turning left in front of you.

The imbecility of all this makes my teeth ache.

Vehicular autopilot is often likened to autopilot in commercial airplanes but the parallel doesn’t parse. Airplanes don’t just take off and fly wherever, however. Their flight plans are filed in advance and strictly adhered to, their course (speed and altitude) strictly monitored the entire time. Spur-of-the-moment deviation is not allowed. The airspace is controlled at all times to keep one airplane away from another airplane. Pilots have very little latitude to control their aircraft’s flight path.

And that’s what we’re really getting at here.

Control.

Autopilot in cars makes sense if all cars are similarly under control. If you have to file a “flight plan” before you go anywhere – and your course is monitored and subject to control the entire time. Then it might be possible to avert incidents such as the one described above. The auto-driving Tesla would have known about the big rig’s intention to turn long before the turn ever occurred – and accommodations could have been made by each vehicles’s computer brain.

Lovely, if you don’t mind mind the idea of no longer being in control of your vehicle.

Ever.

For automated cars to be “safe,” it is necessary – mandatory – that the caprice of human drivers be taken entirely out of the picture. Else, the vagaries of human imperfection will lead to accidents – and that is not “safe” and so Uncle will step in.

And human imperfection behind the wheel continues to worsen as less and less is expected of these human drivers as drivers. As even former basic competences like the ability to parallel park a car are no longer required because technology can handle that now. Every incremental dumbing-down – starting with ABS back in the 1980s through to the present day and cars that automatically brake, can come to a complete stop without the “driver” even touching the brake pedal – has been at least tacitly an effort to get the driver out of the driver’s seat.

To render him a passenger.

It is possible that Tesla and Google and the rest of the juggernaut don’t consciously grok the fact that what they are pushing requires the driver to become a passenger. You can’t, on the one hand, fit cars with systems that invite the driver to stop driving – and at the same time expect him to “remain alert.”

You’re either a driver.

Or you’re not.

What’s it going to be?

[MelissaWV]

It would be nice of Tesla or other companies putting these test cars out there to identify them somehow. I'm not talking some weird Government mandate, or large signs, or whatever, but a wrap or similar identification with the company name and explaining "this car drives itself!" or some other such thing would be reassuring. That's not very far from me, and the last place I would have figured would have a tech guru driving around in an auto-pilot vehicle would be Williston.

[Ronin Truth]

It would be nice of Tesla or other companies putting these test cars out there to identify them somehow. I'm not talking some weird Government mandate, or large signs, or whatever, but a wrap or similar identification with the company name and explaining "this car drives itself!" or some other such thing would be reassuring. That's not very far from me, and the last place I would have figured would have a tech guru driving around in an auto-pilot vehicle would be Williston.

Even at this early stage of development I theoretically consider the "auto-drives" to be most probably much safer (and superior) to the human drivers who are drunk, phoning, texting, arguing, emotional, otherwise distracted, stupid, clueless, reckless, etc., etc., etc..

[MelissaWV]

Even at this early stage of development I theoretically consider the "auto-drives" to be most probably much safer (and superior) to the human drivers who are drunk, phoning, texting, arguing, emotional, otherwise distracted, stupid, clueless, reckless, etc., etc., etc..

Except it sometimes accidentally doesn't see a semi at all and has a driver watching Harry Potter instead of the road. I can't determine that as easily as I can see some idiot talking on their phone and driving like a moron. I guess the latter is generally easier to spot for me. The self-driving cars are more likely to do something unexpectedly stupid (like continue driving at full speed through an intersection) versus weaving around and giving me plenty of notice that they're a $#@!ty driver.

[Ronin Truth]

Except it sometimes accidentally doesn't see a semi at all and has a driver watching Harry Potter instead of the road. I can't determine that as easily as I can see some idiot talking on their phone and driving like a moron. I guess the latter is generally easier to spot for me. The self-driving cars are more likely to do something unexpectedly stupid (like continue driving at full speed through an intersection) versus weaving around and giving me plenty of notice that they're a $#@!ty driver.

Except for the occasional malfunctions and getting hacked by malicious humans, the cars will only do what their programmers program them to do.

[Anti Federalist]

Except for the occasional malfunctions and getting hacked by malicious humans, the cars will only do what their programmers program them to do.

Based on the sensor's feedback.

Which was faulty in this case.

[MelissaWV]

Except for the occasional malfunctions and getting hacked by malicious humans, the cars will only do what their programmers program them to do.

Yeah that's not comforting.

[Ronin Truth]

Yeah that's not comforting.

If you were a programmer it probably would be. FWIW, I see no insurmountable problems with the technology, to be overcome.

[MelissaWV]

If you were a programmer it probably would be. I see no insurmountable problems with the technology to be overcome.

If you had spent the last 20 or so years of your life hearing that same line, only to be tapped to "test" technology that not only never lives up to the hype, but does a far worse job than the manual version, you might understand. You sound precisely like every person that's promised me e-Proofing software only to have it miss that the box, once folded, would have a fist-sized gap through which product could spill out. For some reason, ten versions later, they scrapped the process and brought in an extra person to proof by hand.

I'm sure the programming can be debugged and corrected, but the fact that the programming has to be quite advanced simply leaves room for more bugs they haven't found yet. I don't want to be driving in a green car that can't be distinguished from background foliage and have this thing leave a Wile E Coyote style hole through the middle of my car. How's it react to vehicles pulled over on the side of the road? If I'm changing a tire, is it going to read my vehicle or me at all? How's it do with pedestrians? I don't mean the field tests that already missed this teeny tiny little fatal error. I mean in real life.

Since that's what all this road-testing is about, I was simply pointing out that it'd be nice to see a logo on the car to know what the hell I'm driving next to. Besides, if the car is as awesomely programmed as everyone seems to be thinking, then the advertising can only be a bonus.

[pcosmar]

Yeah that's not comforting.

Riding with me,, may not be comfortable, and may even be scary.

but it would be safe,, (regardless of appearances)

I may not be comforting..but I will stop if you say so.

anti lock brakes won't

[Ronin Truth]

If you had spent the last 20 or so years of your life hearing that same line, only to be tapped to "test" technology that not only never lives up to the hype, but does a far worse job than the manual version, you might understand. You sound precisely like every person that's promised me e-Proofing software only to have it miss that the box, once folded, would have a fist-sized gap through which product could spill out. For some reason, ten versions later, they scrapped the process and brought in an extra person to proof by hand.

I'm sure the programming can be debugged and corrected, but the fact that the programming has to be quite advanced simply leaves room for more bugs they haven't found yet. I don't want to be driving in a green car that can't be distinguished from background foliage and have this thing leave a Wile E Coyote style hole through the middle of my car. How's it react to vehicles pulled over on the side of the road? If I'm changing a tire, is it going to read my vehicle or me at all? How's it do with pedestrians? I don't mean the field tests that already missed this teeny tiny little fatal error. I mean in real life.

Since that's what all this road-testing is about, I was simply pointing out that it'd be nice to see a logo on the car to know what the hell I'm driving next to. Besides, if the car is as awesomely programmed as everyone seems to be thinking, then the advertising can only be a bonus.

I can't speak for your experiences, only for my own 40 years, on the job before retiring.

Be not the first on which the new is tried, nor the last to put the old aside.