Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!
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Short version:
- Car saw pedestrian in way
- Car did not emergency brake to avoid collision
- Because Uber turned off that feature since it was "erratic" to the car passengers
At 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver
was needed to mitigate a collision (see figure 2).
2 According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are
not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle
behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to
alert the operator.
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@blakeyrat said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action.
Eh ok I guess, if you get false positives all the time or something, maybe? Not great but if you at least tell the driver...
@blakeyrat said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
The system is not designed to alert the operator.
OK WTF.
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@blakeyrat What the actual fuck.
In 1.3 seconds, with no prompting, the user needs to engage the emergency brake despite not being privy to the calculation that they need to engage the emergency brake.
This is why I use Lyft.
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@blakeyrat The Sociopathic-company-full-of-psychopaths,-now-with-murder! thread is that way
Garbage is putting it mildly when it comes to Uber. Not that I agree with the murder hyperbole, but this gross negligence at least.
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@pie_flavor said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
This is why I use Lyft.
The vehicle operator was not injured.
You can't decide which car runs you over. Or at least only indirectly by not giving them business.
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@topspin said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
You can't decide which car runs you over. Or at least only indirectly by not giving them business.
Even that doesn't help with Uber since they have stinking rich Saudis giving them blood money every month.
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@blakeyrat so the 9/11 nuts were right - Saudi Arabia DOES fund terrorism!
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@pie_flavor said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
In 1.3 seconds, with no prompting, the user needs to engage the emergency brake despite not being privy to the calculation that they need to engage the emergency brake.
The operator is there to be looking out the windshield. They don't need the algorithm to alert them. And that's ignoring whether the person's reaction time combined with the braking time would allow them to stop it in time with an alert only 1.3 seconds before impact.
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@magus It's enough time to hit the brakes and/or swerve. Probably not enough time to come to a complete stop, but enough to make the difference between killing the pedestrian and injuring them, at the very least.
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@masonwheeler not to mention that alert could be issued 2.3 seconds before impact!
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@magus @masonwheeler @Gąska Normal human reaction time is usually around 200-400 ms. 1.3 seconds is plenty of time if you're paying attention. Maybe not to totally avert the problem, but certainly to mitigate the severity.
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@benjamin-hall Do you remember that episode of WKRP where they bring in a anti-drunk driving crusader to demonstrate how the more you drink, the worst your reaction time gets? And they have the DJ who's always on pot do the test, and it drives the guy nuts because his reaction times get FASTER as he drank more.
That was a good episode.
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@blakeyrat said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall Do you remember that episode of WKRP where they bring in a anti-drunk driving crusader to demonstrate how the more you drink, the worst your reaction time gets? And they have the DJ who's always on pot do the test, and it drives the guy nuts because his reaction times get FASTER as he drank more.
That was a good episode.
I don't watch TV/podcasts/youtube videos. So no.
But reaction times are screwy things. And that sounds like a cheap shot--disproving average statistics with exceptional cases is not good faith argumentation. Now if they said that intoxication always hurts reaction time, then that would matter. But that's not what they usually argue.
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@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
I don't watch TV/podcasts/youtube videos. So no.
It was before your time, anyways.
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@boomzilla said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
I don't watch TV/podcasts/youtube videos. So no.
It was before your time, anyways.
TBQH, I'm not quite sure what WKRP even is. And if it happened before about 2006, I didn't have a TV. We didn't have any such thing growing up--only books. Lots of books. I may have read the 1980 World Book Encyclopedias multiple times before high school. I was insufferable.
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@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
And if it happened before about 2006,
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
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@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
And if it happened before about 2006,
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
Ah, so the broadcast run ended when I was a grand total of 14 days old. Yeah, a bit before my time.
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@blakeyrat said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall Do you remember that episode of WKRP where they bring in a anti-drunk driving crusader to demonstrate how the more you drink, the worst your reaction time gets? And they have the DJ who's always on pot do the test, and it drives the guy nuts because his reaction times get FASTER as he drank more.
I've seen a similar video as part of driving license course. They took three "random" people from a local bar and checked their reaction times by putting them behind the wheel (sober) and seeing if they hit a mannequin suddenly crossing the road. All three passed. Then they let them drink some alcohol and try again. One guy drank four beers, another took half dozen shots, the last one had two fancy drinks. In the second test, everyone killed the pedestrian.
I mean, duh!
I really wish they performed this experiment with quarter as much alcohol. It would at least be informative, no matter which way it would go.
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@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
And if it happened before about 2006,
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
Ah, so the broadcast run ended when I was a grand total of 14 days old. Yeah, a bit before my time.
Some of us around here are old... We watched it as it aired. (That was a show my parents enjoyed too - imagine - kids and parents watching and enjoying the same program!)
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@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
One of the best sitcoms of all time, easily.
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@magus said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
The operator is there to be looking out the windshield. They don't need the algorithm to alert them.
I seriously doubt a person just sitting there and not actively driving the car could be always so vigilant and react fast.
When I walk or drive or ride the bicycle, the part of the brain dealing with spatial awareness and path planning is working, the reaction can be automatic (I don't have to be very focused not to walk into a wall).
When I sit in a bus, its just pretty pictures passing by in the window.
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@adynathos said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@magus said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
The operator is there to be looking out the windshield. They don't need the algorithm to alert them.
I seriously doubt a person just sitting there and not actively driving the car could be always so vigilant and react fast.
When I walk or drive or ride the bicycle, the part of the brain dealing with spatial awareness and path planning is working, the reaction can be automatic (I don't have to be very focused not to walk into a wall).
When I sit in a bus, its just pretty pictures passing by in the window.Very true, and that's why I'm not sanguine about self-driving cars being able to actively transfer control in an emergency.
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@magus said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
The operator is there to be looking out the windshield. They don't need the algorithm to alert them.
Apparently, the operator is also there to monitor system status, note interesting system messages, perhaps situations that should have generated messages but didn't. That seems to me to be somewhat, if not fundamentally, incompatible with maintaining the level of situational awareness needed to take control in a split-second emergency, at least without an alert. If the operator is looking at the console and thinking, I've never seen that message before..., he/she is, at best, going to have to context-switch and analyze the situation before being able to assume a useful degree of control, and may be so focused on the system task that he/she doesn't even realize that an emergency exists until it's too late. An alert would at least eliminate the latter problem.
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@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
And if it happened before about 2006,
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
Ah, so the broadcast run ended when I was a grand total of 14 days old. Yeah, a bit before my time.
Some of us around here are old... We watched it as it aired. (That was a show my parents enjoyed too - imagine - kids and parents watching and enjoying the same program!)
I was in college when that was on the air. I feel old. I am old. Sigh.
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@adynathos My point is, if someone is vigilant enough that a 1.3 second warning signal is enough to help avoid anything, they're vigilant enough to avoid the obstacle themselves, despite the pushback of the automated steering.
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Ok everything is cool and all that but who actually goes to prison in these circumstances?
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@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
I may have read the 1980 World Book Encyclopedias multiple times before high school. I was insufferable.
— BTW, I'm still insufferable 
Edit— Also, it was the 1970 WBE for me, taught myself to write in cursive and print face from the 1970 WBE Dictionary before kindergarten, so very insufferable.
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@stillwater black people and the poors.
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@hardwaregeek said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@dcon said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@benjamin-hall said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
And if it happened before about 2006,
Way before (September 18, 1978 – April 21, 1982). Funny as hell as I remember...
Ah, so the broadcast run ended when I was a grand total of 14 days old. Yeah, a bit before my time.
Some of us around here are old... We watched it as it aired. (That was a show my parents enjoyed too - imagine - kids and parents watching and enjoying the same program!)
I was in college when that was on the air. I feel old. I am old. Sigh.
Cheer up, man, You are still kicking and somewhat running, no?
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I was born well after the show ended and I feel old. Sigh.
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The pedestrian is not entirely blameless in this (though Uber deserves plenty of blame): she was dressed in dark clothing and crossed out of direct illumination; and more, she didn't look at the oncoming car before impact
You don't cross a fucking road without looking about for fucking vehicles, for fuck's sake.
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@blakeyrat said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@topspin said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
You can't decide which car runs you over. Or at least only indirectly by not giving them business.
Even that doesn't help with Uber since they have stinking rich Saudis giving them blood money every month.
Well...
If Uber are bleeding the Saudi of money, that is the one thing they do that is good for the world at large about them.
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@khudzlin said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
You don't cross a fucking road without looking about for fucking vehicles, for fuck's sake.You also don't ignore the signs that say "don't cross here, there's a crosswalk a hundred yards down the road".
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@planar said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:>
You also don't ignore the signs that say "don't cross here, there's a crosswalk a hundred yards down the road".
I don't see any crosswalks in the picture. And given the road widens again beyond where the pedestrian crossed (the text mentions right-turning lanes being added), I don't think there's one close in that direction.
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@planar said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@khudzlin said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
You don't cross a fucking road without looking about for fucking vehicles, for fuck's sake.You also don't ignore the signs that say "don't cross here, there's a crosswalk a hundred yards down the road".
Apparently you do if you're high on meth and weed, which she was, according to the NTSB.
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@khudzlin said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@planar said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:>
You also don't ignore the signs that say "don't cross here, there's a crosswalk a hundred yards down the road".
I don't see any crosswalks in the picture. And given the road widens again beyond where the pedestrian crossed (the text mentions right-turning lanes being added), I don't think there's one close in that direction.
The NTSB report states where the nearest crosswalk is. I could read the report again, but
.
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@hardwaregeek said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
Apparently you do if you're high on meth and weed, which she was, according to the NTSB.
Look there's more than one issue here:
- Was the woman crossing illegally with not visible-enough clothing? Yes.
- Was the accident avoidable by a human being driver who was paying attention? Hard to say, but it very well may not have been
3) Is Uber completely staffed with fucking human garbage for TURNING OFF both Volvo's and their own safety features on the car in an attempt to get a smoother ride? FUCK YES.
The third point is what we're discussing here.
(Markdown: boldfacing a list item breaks the list. Great. Fuck Markdown and anybody who likes Markdown.)
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@blakeyrat Not too hard to work around:
- Test
- icle
Though I agree, yes, it should really also work if you begin the line with the asterisks.
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meh. My merc alerts me of an obstacle ahead with a beep. Volvo does that too, I imagine (unless you turn it off, as fscking uber did...)
That should be enough to raise awareness of a possible problem ahead and give
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@carnage said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
Well...
If Uber are bleeding the Saudi of money, that is the one thing they do that is good for the world at large about them.If Uber is taking enough money from them for it to actually qualify as "bleeding," I'm not sure if that's actually good or not, on balance. :O
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@masonwheeler said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
@carnage said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
Well...
If Uber are bleeding the Saudi of money, that is the one thing they do that is good for the world at large about them.If Uber is taking enough money from them for it to actually qualify as "bleeding," I'm not sure if that's actually good or not, on balance. :O
Well... It's bad that Uber survives, but it's good that something is draining Saudi funds. :P
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@kurt-c-pause said in Speaking of garbage Silicon Valley companies, here's Uber!:
Volvo does that too
They've got an automatic braking system too, which would have at least mitigated most of the problem in this case.
That was one of the safety systems that Uber specifically disabled.
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@dkf To be fair, I can kinda understand that if their cars do the kind of stupid things I've seen
GoogleWaymo cars do. You really don't want your car to slam on the brakes because there's a crow picking at fast-food trash in the middle of the road. (Ok, it didn't actually slam on the brakes, but it did stop in traffic to let the crow eat its breakfast.) Although if you're going to disable what may be the second most important (after steering, maybe) thing a self-driving system can do, you really want to have the human operator maintaining as much situational awareness as if he/she were doing the driving, not looking at the system console. If you need someone doing that, you need two people in the car.
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