Self driving Uber fatality

[Erroll 49]

wolfriverjoe

Well, maybe knowing that the self driving cars will run them over if they jaywalk will help with that.

Automated Death Race 2000 ?

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Erroll

***

Well, maybe knowing that the self driving cars will run them over if they jaywalk will help with that.

Automated Death Race 2000 ?


I kinda doubt Uber will start using butchered C3 'Vettes, but yeah.

Basically the same concept.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[airdvr 197]

On a related note. My 2017 Toyota Rav4 has a Lane Departure Assist function. If you drift to close to the edges of the lane without your turn signal it beeps and steers you back to center. You actually have to fight a bit to change lanes without the signal. I'm curious to see if I take my hands off the wheel whether it would keep me in the lane unassisted. I'm assuming that it employs at least some of the tech a self driver does.

Anyways, the other morning we were driving into the sun, with the glare from the road making vis difficult. The LDA system couldn't see through the glare and didn't try to correct when I changed lanes.

I think we've a bit further to go with this tech.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Iago

Just watched a few more shot with different cameras on the same stretch if road. Different lighting than the Uber video. But still, depending on a driver seeing the ped and reacting in time. I used to live near Buford highway in ATL and we dodged baby carriages on a daily basis.

Don't know what to think at this point.

One thing about humans who drive the same stretch of road on a regular basis - They learn where the idiots tend to appear.

Does anyone know if the AI can do/does this?

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[DJL 232]

Iago

I just saw the released video from Tempe PD. I believe it is highly unlikely that a human driver would have avoided that accident.

I'm with you on that. Not a chance. The would be a dead person any way you cut it.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[DJL 232]

MARK MY WORDS: My take on self driving cars is that people are going to become accustomed to the car driving itself and during instances where they're supposed to be controlling it they'll have a mental lapse and not steer it. We will definitely see a lawsuit or too from someone claiming that it wasn't clear enough for them to know the car wasn't driving itself.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[ryoder 1,381]

wolfriverjoe

One thing about humans who drive the same stretch of road on a regular basis - They learn where the idiots tend to appear.

Does anyone know if the AI can do/does this?

(from a future Tesla advert)
"New, and improved Autopilot! Now with idiot detection!"

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[SethInMI 145]

DJL

MARK MY WORDS: My take on self driving cars is that people are going to become accustomed to the car driving itself and during instances where they're supposed to be controlling it they'll have a mental lapse and not steer it. We will definitely see a lawsuit or too from someone claiming that it wasn't clear enough for them to know the car wasn't driving itself.

Yeah, during the transition period where cars are sometimes in autonomous mode and sometimes manual, I think there will be some accidents caused by people not making the switch.

I use my "smart" cruise control in my car so often that I am used to it automatically tracking the car in front of me. When I drive my wife's car, I have to remember that when I have cruise on, I still need to brake if I come up on another car.

Once the majority of driving is autonomous, I imagine if people do take the wheel, the novelty of it will make them extra careful. But after a while habit will take over and they could get in trouble.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[billvon 2,384]

>MARK MY WORDS: My take on self driving cars is that people are going to become accustomed
>to the car driving itself and during instances where they're supposed to be controlling it they'll
>have a mental lapse and not steer it.

Yep. We've been working on that problem.

[jcd11235 0]

wolfriverjoe

Does anyone know if the AI can do/does this?

Yes it can, in principle.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[gowlerk 1,903]

When I see a pedestrian walking along or near the road I am on I always assume they are going to trip and fall right into my path. If it is possible to do so I always move over so that I pass by them at least one body length away. I'm pretty sure an AI car could be programmed to do this too. But that would cause a lane departure. Are programmers smart enough to balance those two risks?

After all the times I have moved over, I do not recall ever saving even one life. Yet.

[jcd11235 0]

gowlerk

When I see a pedestrian walking along or near the road I am on I always assume they are going to trip and fall right into my path. If it is possible to do so I always move over so that I pass by them at least one body length away. I'm pretty sure an AI car could be programmed to do this too. But that would cause a lane departure. Are programmers smart enough to balance those two risks?

I'm not knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of driverless cars; I've never worked in that domain. But I use machine learning in my work, so I know (at a high level) approaches that I would try if I were trying to solve the problems from scratch. I don't see any issues with the AI being situationally aware enough to implement a context appropriate action in the scenario you describe. Of course sometimes the issues are hard to see until you actually work on the problem.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[theonlyski 3]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/video-released-of-uber-self-driving-crash-that-killed-woman-in-arizona

I know the camera probably didn't pick up as much as a human eye can (especially when the eyes are adjusted for night driving), but there was damn near zero reaction time available. I bet 7/10 if not more people would have hit her just the same if they had full control. The driver was looking away but I don't know that she would've been able to react in time.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[BillyVance 34]

DJL

***I just saw the released video from Tempe PD. I believe it is highly unlikely that a human driver would have avoided that accident.

I'm with you on that. Not a chance. The would be a dead person any way you cut it.

Unless you had the high beam on, maybe?

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[SethInMI 145]

gowlerk

When I see a pedestrian walking along or near the road I am on I always assume they are going to trip and fall right into my path. If it is possible to do so I always move over so that I pass by them at least one body length away. I'm pretty sure an AI car could be programmed to do this too. But that would cause a lane departure. Are programmers smart enough to balance those two risks?

After all the times I have moved over, I do not recall ever saving even one life. Yet.

If you have never watched this Google Car TED talk, this 7 minutes of video is worth your time, IMHO. This is from 2015, so three years ago. It talks about:
1. Google cars sharing learning data about how cars / cyclists / people look and move around.
2. Google car detecting and handling properly:
a. Cyclist raising arm to signal left turn
b. Cop directing traffic with arm signals
c. School bus stopped with flashers on
d. construction zone traffic cones
e. cars and cyclists running red lights
f. woman in electric wheelchair chasing a duck into the road

https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m12s

as far as I can tell, the data to make these decisions is coming from the LIDAR sensor, which does not care if it is day or night. I really wonder if a google car would have hit that woman. There is a reason google is the only company on the road without a safety driver, in california they are reporting about 2 interventions required per year (12k miles).

Amazing stuff, I just suspect Uber is not there yet.

Seth

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[airdvr 197]

Iago

I just saw the released video from Tempe PD. I believe it is highly unlikely that a human driver would have avoided that accident.

True...and I agree with you however, the general consensus is these programs are supposed to be better than a human driver. Surprised there isn't some sort of FLIR that might have detected this.

Remember, while we're informed the general population doesn't get why planes fly, they just know they do and trust they won't die in one. Now they see this video...

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[jcd11235 0]

SethInMI

Amazing stuff, I just suspect Uber is not there yet.

That's a good point. I would expect Alphabet & Apple, perhaps along with major automakers, to be further along in self-driving car development, compared to Uber.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Bob_Church 7]

Iago

I just saw the released video from Tempe PD. I believe it is highly unlikely that a human driver would have avoided that accident.

This is part of an editorial from The LA Times that ran in our local paper today.
This is something that the photojournalism school would use as an example of blatantly biased reporting. Imagine if this was the only information you had about that incident. They make it sound like the car jumped the curb and went looking for blood. Someone should be ashamed of this one.

From The La Times.
But they still have some glaring shortcomings, a point that was underlined in tragic fashion this week. On Sunday a self-driving Uber plowed into a pedestrian walking across a road in Tempe, Arizona, killing her. A video of the incident released Wednesday shows that the woman was crossing mid-street in the dark. The car didn't slow down, according to reports. There was no braking or swerving. There was no attempt by the vehicle or the back-up operator (who had been looking away from the windshield) to avoid crashing into the woman.
This is the kind of situation in which an autonomous car is supposed to perform better than a human driver. The radar and sensors these vehicles rely on are designed to pick up what the human eye may miss in the shadows. That didn't happen Sunday in Tempe. Federal authorities are investigating the collision."

[SethInMI 145]

Bob_Church

This is something that the photojournalism school would use as an example of blatantly biased reporting. Imagine if this was the only information you had about that incident. They make it sound like the car jumped the curb and went looking for blood. Someone should be ashamed of this one.

I disagree. They mentioned all the relevant information: the woman was crossing mid-street (jaywalking) and came out of the shadows and the car never slowed down.

They wonder with the all the sophisticated sensors on the car why it didn't react. I wondered that too in a post a few up from yours. I still wonder. They are demanding the car's sensors live up to the promise to be better than a human.

I do think a mention of the limited about of time between when the pedestrian came into the lane and when the car hit them would have been appropriate, and the use of the word "glaring" may be too much, but as this is an opinion piece, I think that is allowed.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[SethInMI 145]

Another article talking about Uber poor performance compared to Google. https://mashable.com/2018/03/23/uber-self-driving-car-problems/#y_ZJAe5GSOq9

Article quotes nyt, Uber is at one intervention required every 13 miles. Google is at 5600 miles per intervention. Uber racing to catch up, may be cutting corners.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[Bob_Church 7]

SethInMI

***
This is something that the photojournalism school would use as an example of blatantly biased reporting. Imagine if this was the only information you had about that incident. They make it sound like the car jumped the curb and went looking for blood. Someone should be ashamed of this one.

I disagree. They mentioned all the relevant information: the woman was crossing mid-street (jaywalking) and came out of the shadows and the car never slowed down.

They wonder with the all the sophisticated sensors on the car why it didn't react. I wondered that too in a post a few up from yours. I still wonder. They are demanding the car's sensors live up to the promise to be better than a human.

I do think a mention of the limited about of time between when the pedestrian came into the lane and when the car hit them would have been appropriate, and the use of the word "glaring" may be too much, but as this is an opinion piece, I think that is allowed.

Starting the whole thing wth "plowed into" seems like a harsh start. Again, imagine if this was the only thing you read or saw about the incident.

[DJL 232]

Iago

Well, there is the factor of crossing the street in moving traffic and not having any hussle. Homeless person, schizophrenic maybe? Unfortunate all around that this happened. But still, the question remains why the tech didn't perform.

Personally I love the idea of auto-drive. I spent many hours in the car back when I was doing engineering and being able get on the highway and just sit back for three or four hours is just 'wow wish I had that ten years ago.'

The tech needs to be good enough that someone can fall asleep at the wheel with headphones on because that's exactly how this will be used.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[Bob_Church 7]

Iago

Well, there is the factor of crossing the street in moving traffic and not having any hussle. Homeless person, schizophrenic maybe? Unfortunate all around that this happened. But still, the question remains why the tech didn't perform.

Personally I love the idea of auto-drive. I spent many hours in the car back when I was doing engineering and being able get on the highway and just sit back for three or four hours is just 'wow wish I had that ten years ago.'

cc

But watching the video makes me think that that was a no win situation for the pedestrian. If the driver had been wide awake driving a non-tech car and wired on bennies I still can't see any way to miss her. The article makes it sound like the car didn't take possible steps that might have prevented the fatality but I'm not seeing any.

[billvon 2,384]

>The article makes it sound like the car didn't take possible steps that might have prevented
>the fatality but I'm not seeing any.

Braking or turning might have been two ways to avoid hitting the woman. At 40mph the stopping distance for a typical car is about 36 meters*; the range of the Velodyne LIDAR the car was using has a maximum range of 120 meters.

(* - that's for a human; an autonomous vehicle can presumably operate faster.)

[SethInMI 145]

billvon

Braking or turning might have been two ways to avoid hitting the woman. At 40mph the stopping distance for a typical car is about 36 meters*; the range of the Velodyne LIDAR the car was using has a maximum range of 120 meters.

Yeah, we don't know when the woman stepped off the curb and entered the other lane (the dark one), but as soon as she did the car should have slowed down. Even if it braked hard in the second that she was in the car's lane, it would have not have saved her life, but would have demonstrated the superiority of autonomous cars.

In Uber's defense, the car had a safety driver because it was not fully ready, and from that perspective I can't fault them since it behaved no worse than a person would have. Still, I await their explanation of what the cars LIDAR sensor recorded and if it acted as they expected and would like it to.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".