The future with self-driving cars
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I know a lot of software engineers aren't very good at their jobs, but I would hope that someone would think to put in a check to make sure the car isn't currently driving before doing something like applying updates.
I'd figure they'd have the car in P with the parking brake set as the first thing in the update routine. I know that the I-VTMS locomotive software (aka PTC's locomotive element) will do a penalty air brake application first when it's given the green light to update itself.
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Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google said on Monday it bears "some responsibility" after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier this month.
The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle and the fault of the self-driving car. The Mountain View, California-based Internet search leader said it made changes to its software after the crash to avoid future incidents.
In a Feb. 23 report filed with California regulators, Google said the crash took place in Mountain View on Feb. 14 when a self-driving Lexus RX450h sought to get around some sandbags in a wide lane.
Google said in the filing the autonomous vehicle was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15 miles per hour.
The vehicle and the test driver "believed the bus would slow or allow the Google (autonomous vehicle) to continue," it said.
But three seconds later, as the Google car in autonomous mode re-entered the center of the lane, it struck the side of the bus, causing damage to the left front fender, front wheel and a driver side sensor. No one was injured in the car or on the bus.
Google said in a statement on Monday that "we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have been a collision. That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that."
In other news today: Apparently self-driving cars should prioritize hitting white people over people of color, if given the choice.
Recently, I saw something come up on my newsfeed that asked the question:
Should driverless cars kill their own passengers to save a pedestrian?
I think the answer isn’t too hard. If we prioritize the lives of people of color in such a situation, we are giving them a second chance. Due to patriarchy and the white supremacy found in patriarchy, people of color are usually underprivileged and deserve all the chances they can get.
I’m not saying we should program driverless to kill all the white people it sees. I’m not some kind of extremist. I’m simply suggesting that in the (unlikely) event that an accident is about to happen, there is an objective standard that the car can look to. Driverless cars ought to have algorithms that evaluate based on privilege.
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http://sans-fedora.tumblr.com
Do we think this might possibly be a case of Poe's law?
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Is this the start of the death of driverless cars?
US opens investigation into Tesla after fatal crash
US officials probe the first death potentially caused by self-driving technology, after a Tesla car collided with a lorry in Florida.
TL;DR Tesla on autopilot drives into "unseen" trailer. Tesla lists all the things the car has done successfully including the "mechanism" whereby it detects if hands are not on the steering wheel. It also states that the "...The driver cannot abdicate responsibility..."
One can only assume that the driver was aware (or asleep) and allowed car to continue the maneuver - or had no choice. As a model: Consider the plethora of stories where drivers follow "stupid" sat nav instructions...
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@Polygeekery That tumblr post is so bad, it's escaping the iframe.
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It's not clear if the bus driver wasn't an asshole here. But better account for assholes until we get rid of human drivers.
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@loose this is consistently what i try to warn people about related to automated driving: even if the company sells it as full automation (ie: Google) keep your wits about you, and watch the fucking road for danger, especially since now you have more time to do so. Computers programmed by people will always have edge cases and scenarios that are unaccounted for, because road conditions are not equal, do change, and new shit comes along all the time.
I fully support, embrace, and encourage progress towards automating driving, but you need to smack a bitch in the face if they suggest they can text, play games, watch movies or do anything other than watch the road when driving.
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@loose said in The future with self-driving cars:
Tesla on autopilot drives into "unseen" trailer.
WhyTF didn't it come to a stop instead of colliding with another vehicle? My car manages that just fine (assuming the other vehicle is moving in the same general direction as me) whether or not my hands are on the steering wheel…
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@dkf To quote from the article:
In a statement, Tesla said it appeared the Model S car was unable to recognise "the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky" that had driven across the car's path.
FTFY :)
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Seen on my way to work yesterday: A Google self-driving car stopped (there was nobody behind it, so it wasn't really a problem) to avoid hitting an object in the road. The object? A crow picking at some trash on the road. Had the car proceeded normally, the crow would have flown away unharmed, but the car stopped far enough away that it didn't spook the crow, which continued to look for food in the discarded fast-food bag while the car waited for it.
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I still don't know why we didn't "roboticize" our cities decades ago. You just need to place a special cable or painted line in the middle of the road that the cars could follow, equip them with laser or ultrasonic distance sensors to detect obstacles on the road, some signals to control the traffic, some emergency stop buttons just in case, add some signals to make them stop at traffic lights. This just leaves the problem of dealing with "manual" traffic on the same road (mostly merging), but it can't be that hard (worst case, you have to track the manual cars with a radio beacon).
Obviously there are a lot of problems involved and would require some social changes, but the benefits seem huge.
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@anonymous234 Convoying trucks along stretches of lonely freeway makes far more sense, and we've barely started that.
It'd be pretty goddamned expensive to install that system on every street of a city. But on a freeway through Nevada which is a straight line, and you only need one lane to put the truck convoys in, and the trucks gain like 40% fuel efficiency from the aerodynamic effects, that's a no-brainer.
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@Khudzlin said in The future with self-driving cars:
Somehow, I see people kicking and screaming all the way.
If so, I reserve the right to kick them back and scream at them. Especially if they're around here, because eastern Pennsylvania is home of some of the worst drivers in the entire country. (I know; I've driven in many different parts of it, and even the maniacs of LA aren't this bad!)
@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
@anonymous234 Convoying trucks along stretches of lonely freeway makes far more sense, and we've barely started that.
It'd be pretty goddamned expensive to install that system on every street of a city. But on a freeway through Nevada which is a straight line, and you only need one lane to put the truck convoys in, and the trucks gain like 40% fuel efficiency from the aerodynamic effects, that's a no-brainer.
So you'd bring them up from an abysmal 6 MPG to a still-abysmal 8.4 MPG? And to get this minuscule fuel efficiency boost, you'd have them drive close enough together that they feel aerodynamic effects from drafting?
In most contexts, this is known as "tailgating". It's illegal and extremely dangerous because of the way it decreases your reaction time and stopping distance.
So what, you might ask. The automated system would tell the trucks to stop at the same time! Well sure, right up until the brakes fail on one of the trucks somewhere in the convoy. Then you get a massive pileup. And remember that these are semi trucks, where brake failure is a common enough problem that they build special turn-off ramps specifically to help them deal with it!
So yeah, this is a no-brainer: only someone with no brains would consider it! If you really want to improve things, build Hyperloops to take the dangerous, inefficient semi trucks off the roads entirely!
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So you'd bring them up from an abysmal 6 MPG to a still-abysmal 8.4 MPG?
Why not? Considering the amount of trucks on the freeways that would be a huge savings.
@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
In most contexts, this is known as "tailgating". It's illegal and extremely dangerous because of the way it decreases your reaction time and stopping distance.
Except that wouldn't apply in a convoy with vehicles in communication because the "reaction time" would be virtually zero. I mean, that would be the entire point, the lead truck controls the 9-10 trucks behind it.
@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So yeah, this is a no-brainer: only someone with no brains would consider it! If you really want to improve things, build Hyperloops to take the dangerous, inefficient semi trucks off the roads entirely!
Right; screw the solution that'd take a few million to implement in a couple years, because we have a great solution that takes a few BILLION to implement in a few decades!!!
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
Right; screw the solution that'd take a few million to implement in a couple years, because we have a great solution that takes a few BILLION to implement in a few decades!!!
yeah, that sounds a lot like congress. why solve the problem today when you can blame the left or the right (whichever you do not self identify with) for the problem and then pass the problem off onto the next set of congresspeople so they can redo from start?
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So you'd bring them up from an abysmal 6 MPG to a still-abysmal 8.4 MPG?
That's nothing to scoff at. It's better than the gas mileage I get while heading down the 1/4 mile!
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So what, you might ask. The automated system would tell the trucks to stop at the same time! Well sure, right up until the brakes fail on one of the trucks somewhere in the convoy. Then you get a massive pileup. And remember that these are semi trucks, where brake failure is a common enough problem that they build special turn-off ramps specifically to help them deal with it!
Yeah because if their brakes fail then even a normal "safe" following distance is nowhere close to enough. So you still end up with a huge pileup. ... unless, just maybe, those brake failures tend to only really happen in some very specific places, and that's why they've built the special turn-off ramps in those places.
So the fact that there aren't huge trucks regularly causing huge pileups because their brakes failed pretty much just invalidates your argument.
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@anotherusername said in The future with self-driving cars:
So the fact that there aren't huge trucks regularly causing huge pileups because their brakes failed pretty much just invalidates your argument.
In all fairness, huge trucks do regularly cause huge pileups... when some asshat cuts in front of one and brakes suddenly because s/he's about to miss an exit and would rather risk killing about ten people instead of driving five miles to turn around.
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@Groaner that's a different scenario than the one I described, though: "causing huge pileups because their brakes failed".
That's "failed" as in "not working correctly", not "failed to magically stop when physically impossible to do so".
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So you'd bring them up from an abysmal 6 MPG to a still-abysmal 8.4 MPG?
That's because you're looking at MPG instead of ton-miles per gallon.
Trains get even worse MPG, but they more than make up for it by hauling a shitload more stuff per trip.
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@anotherusername said in The future with self-driving cars:
@Groaner that's a different scenario than the one I described, though: "causing huge pileups because their brakes failed".
That's "failed" as in "not working correctly", not "failed to magically stop when physically impossible to do so".
Agreed. I'm not one to miss an opportunity to point out egregious driving anti-patterns, however.
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
Right; screw the solution that'd take a few million to implement in a couple years, because we have a great solution that takes a few BILLION to implement in a few decades!!!
First, I think you're severely underestimating the cost, in both money and time, of the project in question, which would involve refitting not only the highways but also the trucks. Second, if a solution that gives far greater rewards requires a larger up-front investment, what's so strange about that? Why make it out to be ridiculous?
@Groaner said in The future with self-driving cars:
@anotherusername said in The future with self-driving cars:
In all fairness, huge trucks do regularly cause huge pileups... when some asshat cuts in front of one and brakes suddenly because s/he's about to miss an exit and would rather risk killing about ten people instead of driving five miles to turn around.Yeah, I've seen the sort of truckers that that happens to, the ones who hate to acknowledge that they need to share the road with anyone else. And it's them more than anyone else that society would benefit from obsoleting and taking off the road!
Protip: If someone is ahead of you in the other lane and is signaling to change into your lane, back off! Now! It doesn't matter what you're driving, back off and give them room. If not, you're just asking to end up in a wreck.
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
First, I think you're severely underestimating the cost, in both money and time, of the project in question, which would involve refitting not only the highways but also the trucks.
Bet it's cheaper than all the shit Washington State just installed along 405 to handle the new toll lanes.
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
First, I think you're severely underestimating the cost, in both money and time, of the project in question, which would involve refitting not only the highways but also the trucks.
Bet it's cheaper than all the shit Washington State just installed along 405 to handle the new toll lanes.
...you're kidding me. They put in tolls on 405?
What happened? Did Tim Eyman pass another initiative and screw up the budget even worse?
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@blakeyrat The day they turned it on, it was a traffic headache for Kirkland since so many people were confused.
Also, remember when they said it wouldn't really spike, and a week after it opened it sat at around $10 for several hours?
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- They're emulating human drivers. I think it's pretty accurate.
- Something wrong with cars that explode when tapped.
- Suddenly it makes sense how you can get away with pretty much all crime. You're pretty much as dangerous as a law-abiding citizen.
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@theBread said in The future with self-driving cars:
Also, remember when they said it wouldn't really spike, and a week after it opened it sat at around $10 for several hours?
No. I don't drive down 405.
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
@masonwheeler http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Tolling/405/howtopay.htm
Lexus lanes!
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@theBread said in The future with self-driving cars:
@blakeyrat The day they turned it on, it was a traffic headache for Kirkland since so many people were confused.
Also, remember when they said it wouldn't really spike, and a week after it opened it sat at around $10 for several hours?
The exact same thing happened when we got our "express" lanes. The first few days saw a few more collisions than normal, and whenever there's a massive backup or a rainstorm, a $2-3 trip becomes $6-10. The worst part is that the toll lanes don't even get you past all the congestion during the three to four hours of rush hour.
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@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
So you'd bring them up from an abysmal 6 MPG to a still-abysmal 8.4 MPG?
That's actually a point in favor of doing it...
That's a 40% increase in fuel efficiency.Minuscule would be 6 to 6.01
@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
I mean, that would be the entire point, the lead truck controls the 9-10 trucks behind it.
He makes one good point.
@masonwheeler said in The future with self-driving cars:
right up until the brakes fail
Many automated convey systems I've seen just manually interlock the vehicles.
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OK, here's an idea: you physically link the vehicles together, so they have to stop at the same time. You then only have to make the first one stop and bam, the whole convoy stops.
We could dedicate a special lane to this type of traffic, too, so that the other cars are minimally impacted. The vehicles would be programmed to stay inside the lane. Maybe we could physically hold them there too, like, with some special kind of rut or track their wheels stayed on. Then they could just go for miles and miles without having to stop. Heck, we could even put in special junctions where we stop other traffic to let them go straight without having to pay the cost of slowing and stopping. We could then make them miles and miles long. Think of the efficiency!
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@dkf said in The future with self-driving cars:
whether or not my hands are on the steering wheel…
but your foot is on the brake, right?
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@Yamikuronue said in The future with self-driving cars:
OK, here's an idea: you physically link the vehicles together, so they have to stop at the same time. You then only have to make the first one stop and bam, the whole convoy stops.
We could dedicate a special lane......I see where you're going with this.
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@loose said in The future with self-driving cars:
@dkf To quote from the article:
In a statement, Tesla said it appeared the Model S car was unable to recognise "the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky" that had driven across the car's path.
FTFY :)
Which is why my car has radar; it doesn't get dazzled.
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@dkf said in The future with self-driving cars:
my car has radar; it doesn't get dazzled
It is hypothesized that the radar may have been designed for detecting objects directly in front of the car, and very high ground clearance of the truck trailer may have caused the radar to fail to detect it.
Also, I read a report that the driver may have been watching a movie while the car was on autopilot. The truck driver reported hearing audio from a specific movie after the crash, and a portable DVD player was found in the car, but there was no definite indication of whether it was in use or not at the time of the crash.
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@Yamikuronue We already use railroads for routes that railroads work for. Despite that, there's thousands of trucks on the road.
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@dkf said in The future with self-driving cars:
Which is why my car has radar; it doesn't get dazzled.
I was talking to a co-worker about this, I think the millimeter-wave radar they use in cars only has a range of 40-50 feet, which makes it unsuitable for most auto-navigation thing-- so it really does make more sense to use visual cameras.
My own car has the radar for avoiding stuff while parking, but it uses a camera for lane-following and adaptive cruise control.
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@Yamikuronue although, to be fair, trains do have brakes on every car...
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
it uses a camera for lane-following and adaptive cruise control
Lane following needs a camera, of course, but ACC can use radar; it just depends on exactly what the configuration is. As noted above, the problem with doing everything with a camera is that they get dazzled. There's a lot of misinformation about what's best and what isn't; I suspect the real reasons behind some of the decisions (and which aren't revealed because they're a bit embarrassing) are to do with whole holds which patents.
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@accalia said in The future with self-driving cars:
why solve the problem today when you can blame the left or the right (whichever you do not self identify with) for the problem and then pass the problem off
See, this is what I've been saying all along.
Filed under: For everything, really., Finally, someone understands.
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@Groaner said in The future with self-driving cars:
@anotherusername said in The future with self-driving cars:
So the fact that there aren't huge trucks regularly causing huge pileups because their brakes failed pretty much just invalidates your argument.
In all fairness, huge trucks do regularly cause huge pileups... when some asshat cuts in front of one and brakes suddenly because s/he's about to miss an exit and would rather risk killing about ten people instead of driving five miles to turn around.
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@dkf said in The future with self-driving cars:
WhyTF didn't it come to a stop instead of colliding with another vehicle?
Because it didn't recognize the trailer. It was right there in the article. The guy who died had even reported the problem in another context recently. I guess the trailer must have been crossing at an intersection, although the story I initially read wasn't too clear, because the Tesla sailed right under the trailer and got deroofed.
The driver was a Tesla enthusiast, who'd previously posted a video of his car automatically avoiding a smaller cherry-picker truck that had swerved into his lane.
The driver of the truck that killed the guy says when he got to the car after it stopped, the car was playing a Harry Potter movie. Tesla says that's not possible, and of course they claim, as mentioned above, you can't keep your hands off the wheel, so it sounds like it's at least possible this guy screwed up, possibly by intentionally defeating some of the autopilot safeguards.
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@HardwareGeek said in The future with self-driving cars:
: A Google self-driving car stopped (there was nobody behind it, so it wasn't really a problem) to avoid hitting an object in the road. The object? A crow picking at some trash on the road. Had the car proceeded normally, the crow would have flown away
Interesting. Sounds like the car doesn't know what everything is--maybe it thought the crow was a static object like a rock.
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@FrostCat Maybe it was a rock shaped like a crow and we all owe Google an apology.
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@ScholRLEA said in The future with self-driving cars:
[size=5]Damn, there I go, dating myself again.
[/size]If you didn't date yourself, you would be stuck home on Saturday nights!
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@blakeyrat said in The future with self-driving cars:
Maybe it was a rock shaped like a crow and we all owe Google an apology.
Maybe. In any event I didn't say they were stupid for not trying to drive through it, so I don't owe them one.
Google says it bears 'some responsibility' after self-driving car hit bus
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