Self Driving Uber Fatality - Thread III 4

[drawoh]

This thread is continued from thread815-437388.

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JHG

 

[drawoh]

cranky108,

Robot cars are a solution to bad drivers who either recognize they are bad drivers, or who have been legally banned from driving. The manual for one of the cars I bought stated that 80% of drivers regard themselves as "better than average".

I am actually wondering about this. If a really determined, aggressive driver realizes that a robot always will back down when someone forces his way into the lane, he will systematically force his way into robot occupied lanes. This makes for an interesting AI and ethics discussion.

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JHG

 

[IRstuff]

Not unlike trying to game Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics from his novels.

The more interesting question, as posed in the "Good Place," is given a choice between killing one set of humans vs. another, how will the AV deal with that?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[BrianPetersen]

I guarantee that other drivers (and pedestrians, and teenagers) will bully automated vehicles around if they know it's being operated in an automated mode. They won't be treated nicely at 4-way stops, nor in merges. On roads with speed limits that are generally viewed as being too low (which is most of them, where I live), they will be the slowest things on the road, overtaken all the time with no respect given.

You can't tell from outside if a Tesla is on autopilot, but those grey bubble Google things don't have driver controls, so everyone will know that they're automated.

 

[dik]

Groups will spring up specialising in 'monkeywrenching' robots...

 

[dik]

See how fast the NTSB has been for letting information out on the Miami Pedestrian Bridge failure... No wonder why Tesla provided his information to the public, much to the chagrin of the NTSB.

Dik

 

[MatthewDB]

I guarantee that other drivers (and pedestrians, and teenagers) will bully automated vehicles around if they know it's being operated in an automated mode. They won't be treated nicely at 4-way stops, nor in merges. On roads with speed limits that are generally viewed as being too low (which is most of them, where I live), they will be the slowest things on the road, overtaken all the time with no respect given.

I do have many questions about how autonomous vehicles will behave. There are subtle things that will influence how others treat them.

Take the 4 way stop for example. When an intersection is busy, but law only one vehicle has right of way but often one or more vehicles can move without interfering with the vehicle that has the right of way, so often people will go. If the self driving car is dumb and waits around till it's "turn" instead of taking the earlier opportunity, count on people bullying the car.

I think the worst will be rural roads. I suspect the self driving cars will have the greatest difficulty there with such a difficult environments to navigate. They'll go slow, in an environment where people have a habit of ridiculous speeds due to a lack of law enforcement. If crawling up the backside at breakneck speed scares the car out of the way, people will do it. If the car pokes along slowly, people will film it and get tickets issued for failure to yield (doing that is illegal in my state).

You can't tell from outside if a Tesla is on autopilot

Scare it, and if it reacts, it's on autopilot.

 

[drawoh]

Groups will spring up specialising in 'monkeywrenching' robots...

It is inevitable that robot cars will run over children and puppies, and inevitably, the manufacturers will be sued for it. This is why robot cars will be a service, not a possession. I expect that the machinery will be placed in locked enclosures. Maintenance and repairs will be done in manufacturer controlled shops by very carefully vetted and trained workers. Everything possible will be done to ensure ordinary mortals cannot get at and edit the software. There may be serious criminal charges for unauthorised people trying to open these things up.

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JHG

 

[dik]

drawoh... I wouldn't hold my breath on that... just, another challenge.

Dik

 

[BrianPetersen]

Then "automated" would be synonymous with "car-sharing", basically they're just taxis.

That model might work for some people but it doesn't work for me. My daily-driver / work vehicle has all the stuff in it that I use on a day-to-day basis to ensure that I don't forget it. My camper has most of the camping stuff left in it so that we don't forget it. That doesn't work if the vehicle belongs to someone else and other people can use it.

 

[dik]

From the BBC, "A driver who moved into the passenger seat after putting his electric car into autopilot while at 40mph on a motorway has been banned from driving.

Bhavesh Patel, 39, of Alfreton Road, Nottingham, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at St Albans Crown Court.

A witness in another car filmed him sitting in the passenger seat of his Tesla S 60 on the M1 between junctions 8 and 9 near Hemel Hempstead.

Patel said he was the "unlucky one who got caught", the court was told.

The footage was posted on social media before it was reported to the police."

 

[VEBill]

It is inevitable that robot cars will run over children...

A (very-) dark-comedy "ad":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP2DK4pEYS4

 

[drawoh]

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JHG

 

[BrianPetersen]

Update ... unsurprising to anyone here.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/uber-vehicle-reportedly-saw-but-ignored-woman-it-struck/

Commentary from my own observations. Is it me, or has there been much less hype about self-driving vehicles in the last couple of months? Is it sinking in, that this is a much, much greater challenge than many had anticipated?

 

[Lou Scannon]

That is certainly my take.
They mention "training processes for vehicle operators"...
What they really need are akin to aviation test pilots, i.e., way above average-skilled professional drivers, not only able competently to take over in a split second in the event of a malfunction, but also able to give informed feedback on routine operational characteristics.
What they actually have, I fear, are unskilled lay-persons, with no greater qualification than a state driver's license.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[BrianPetersen]

I suspect that Uber's actual criteria for the babysitter-drivers was that they had a pulse, and Uber was only satisfying the letter of the law as opposed to having the babysitter be someone involved in the engineering or programming of the system. Of course, this puts a spotlight on what the average person (who is no more qualified) will be doing while a quasi-self-driving system drives: they'll be sleeping. Or texting, or playing video games.

 

[drawoh]

BrianPetersen,

They didn't do that driver any favors. She cannot be feeling good right now. How rapidly can any driver transition from passenger to vehicle operator?

As I noted above, I cannot seriously conceive of any scenario in which the car should run into any moving object.

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JHG

 

[GregLocock]

Subtext of that article: the video that was released was entirely irrelevant.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[drawoh]

VE1BLL,

I just looked at that video. Quite a long time ago, National Lampoon ran a gag ad with a picture of a Volkswagen Beetle floating in a pond. The caption stated that if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagen, he would be president now. I believe Volkswagen sued and won.

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JHG

 

[dik]

The caption stated that if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagen, he would be president now. I believe Volkswagen sued and won.

Great anecdote...

Dik