Self driving Uber fatality

[wmw999 2,122]

Quote

Autonomous vehicles will not be safe as long as they need a human backup. An autonomous vehicle should not have a steering wheel. The current testing phase is risky.

We're on the path to automation. It won't be perfectly even. But automating parts of driving (as is happening now) is how it happens.

Airplanes used to be flown entirely via stick and rudder. The amount of automation now is incredible, and (based on the shuttle) it could go even further. The key is bounding the circumstances of operation so that a reasonable approach to systematic testing can be developed.

The only thing humans had to do to fly the shuttle was lower the landing gear. And that, trust me, wasn't because the software wasn't capable of it. However, we never flew it without a pilot on board, one who could, in fact, fly it if necessary. They practiced a lot. Knowing when that moment is that you have to take over is critical; you can't react fast enough most of the time to take over is a critical situation -- it's more a matter of thinking that the system isn't responding in a predictable way to the current circumstances, AND figuring that you could do better.

A car analogy might be taking over if the car was in a dust storm compounded with rain, that was clogging all of the sensors and cameras. Trusting that Joe passenger is a good enough driver to do this is a little riskier than trusting that a shuttle pilot is a good enough pilot.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Westerly 61]

You guys speak like self-driving cars are common. They are basically all prototypes, or very early release in alpha phase testing. I drive a ton and I have not once in my life seen a self driving car on the road. They are extremely rare. There are probably some entire states that dont have a single registered self-driving car that operates in them regularly. We are so far from a fully automated roadway it's not even worth talking about. I am pretty confident not one single person in this forum will live to see the day that 100% of the cars on the road are controlled by computers. We probably wont see that until past 2100 and by then we will have a whole world of other problems regarding automotive transport to deal with.

[SethInMI 145]

The fact the thread recently turned to include semi automated cars like Tesla is the only reason I can think of that you would think anyone here is saying automated cars are common.

No one here is trying to predict when fully autonomous cars will become ubiquitous throughout the world. It's enough for conversation purposes to discuss when they will become common in certain parts of the USA. Waymo is planning to have fully autonomous taxis available to anyone in Phoenix by the end of the year. I would say they are deep into beta testing.

In short, nothing in your post makes any sense.

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

[Westerly 61]

SethInMI

Waymo is planning to have fully autonomous taxis available to anyone in Phoenix by the end of the year. .

They are still backed up by a human which by definition does not make them fully autonomous. Partly autonomous might be a better term.

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

A truly autonomous car would have no need for a steering wheel or any controls of any sort and no human intervention. Those vehicles dont exist beyond the prototype stage.

[wmw999 2,122]

They’re not out in the wild yet. They’re in offices, delivering mail, on floors, vacuuming, etc. they’re coming. Better to start thinking about weird scenarios now, and either build the cars or the roads for it.

At one time, lots of things were only around in prototypes, and weren’t ever going to happen.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[SethInMI 145]

Westerly

A truly autonomous car would have no need for a steering wheel or any controls of any sort and no human intervention. Those vehicles dont exist beyond the prototype stage.

Ok. But I don't think it is an interesting problem. You want a car to drive for it's entire service life (10 years) without a single human help event before you say the fully autonomous car is a reality.

I don't care when that standard is met. If once or twice a year someone has to help remotely I'm fine calling that car fully autonomous. Waymo is planning on having remote support people, but it is not a 1-1 plan. If you have 1 person "monitoring" 10 cars, from an economic standpoint you are still getting significant benefit from the technology. That point is coming soon.

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

[jcd11235 0]

wmw999

At one time, lots of things were only around in prototypes, and weren’t ever going to happen.

Didn't NASA prototype reusable spacecraft before venture capitalists thought it was cool?

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

[Westerly 61]

SethInMI

***A truly autonomous car would have no need for a steering wheel or any controls of any sort and no human intervention. Those vehicles dont exist beyond the prototype stage.

Ok. But I don't think it is an interesting problem. You want a car to drive for it's entire service life (10 years) without a single human help event before you say the fully autonomous car is a reality.

I don't care when that standard is met. If once or twice a year someone has to help remotely I'm fine calling that car fully autonomous. Waymo is planning on having remote support people, but it is not a 1-1 plan. If you have 1 person "monitoring" 10 cars, from an economic standpoint you are still getting significant benefit from the technology. That point is coming soon.

I am not talking about maintenance, I am talking about design. By it's very nature, a vehicle with a steering wheel and all other standard controls is intended to be driven by a human. Why could a computer need a steering wheel? As such, how can you say the vehicle is intended to be operated solely by a computer when the design is very obviously intended to allow for human operation? They are not building robot cars here, they are talking standard everyday automotive designs that have existed for the last 50 years and retrofitting them with advanced computers to automate some of the process. That is not the same as building a car ground up with the intended function of being fully autonomous with no human control.

[billvon 2,400]

>By it's very nature, a vehicle with a steering wheel and all other standard controls is
>intended to be driven by a human.

Right. And modern airliners are intended to be flown by a human. Still, aircraft can, today, fly from brake release to rollout without human intervention. But they still have yokes. You can claim "therefore they are NOT AUTONOMOUS!" but that's a pretty silly distinction.

>They are not building robot cars here, they are talking standard everyday automotive
>designs that have existed for the last 50 years and retrofitting them with advanced
>computers to automate some of the process. That is not the same as building a car
>ground up with the intended function of being fully autonomous with no human control.

They are building robot cars by taking standard everyday automotive designs that have existed for the last 20 years and retrofitting them with advanced computers and sensors that allow autonomous driving with no human control. It would be sort of dumb to do it any other way.

[Westerly 61]

billvon

>

Right. And modern airliners are intended to be flown by a human. Still, aircraft can, today, fly from brake release to rollout without human intervention. But they still have yokes. You can claim "therefore they are NOT AUTONOMOUS!" but that's a pretty silly distinction.

That is not true. I am not aware of a single model of aircraft that is capable of flying from take off to landing without any input whatsoever from the pilot that is both (1) beyond prototype stage and (2) actually used in that manner commercially.

http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/



You’ve heard it a million times: modern aircraft are flown by computer, and in some not-too-distant future, pilots will be engineered out of the picture altogether. The biggest problem with this line of thought is that it begins with a false premise: the idea that jetliners are superautomated machines, with pilots on hand merely to play a backup role in case of trouble. Indeed, the notion of the automatic airplane that “essentially flies itself” is perhaps the most aggravating and stubborn myth in all of aviation.

[SethInMI 145]

Westerly

I am not talking about maintenance, I am talking about design. By it's very nature, a vehicle with a steering wheel and all other standard controls is intended to be driven by a human. Why could a computer need a steering wheel? As such, how can you say the vehicle is intended to be operated solely by a computer when the design is very obviously intended to allow for human operation?

It is still not an interesting distinction. Just because a design allows for human operation does not mean it is capable of operation in fully automatic mode for the vast majority of its life. You are arguing semantics, and that is not a helpful thing to do. If your definition of fully autonomous means no human controls, then your definition is different that everyone else's, and you can't have a useful conversation.

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

[billvon 2,400]

Quote

That is not true. I am not aware of a single model of aircraft that is capable of flying from take off to landing without any input whatsoever from the pilot that is both (1) beyond prototype stage and (2) actually used in that manner commercially.

Oh, they take a tremendous amount of input before takeoff, and there are a dozen tasks (from talking on the radio to setting the transponder to deciding to detour around weather) that pilots regularly do and that aren't automated. Nevertheless, they can be flown hands-off and without any _additional_ input from takeoff to landing, and the aircraft would get there safely most of the time (perhaps with a lot of angry air traffic controllers, and certainly not as efficiently.)

And in the future many more of those tasks will be automated. Pilots will talk to controllers less often. More emergencies will be dealt with automatically. Airbus is ahead of Boeing here; there is no longer any kind of direct connection between the control stick of an Airbus and its control surfaces, and there are many maneuvers that the aircraft simply won't allow pilots to make when operating under normal law. The inputs are far more suggestions than commands.

But even as flight gets ever more automated the aircraft will retain its controls. And as cars get more automated they will retain their controls as well. This isn't because the car "can't be automated" or some such - it's because being able to drive a vehicle (or fly an airplane) is useful no matter how automated the system is.

[mr2mk1g 10]

billvon

it's because being able to drive a vehicle (or fly an airplane) is useful no matter how automated the system is.

And, with the right car, fun. My second car was bought purely for the purposes of fun (and was designed and built largely for the purposes of fun).