self driving cars

[SCcoug]

So what happens in canyons or tunnels where you lost GPS connection?

GPS is only one of many sensors used to drive.

[Donuthole]

You've probably seen this (first minute is adequate):

I'm reminded of a time when my son, about 8 years old, asked if he could ride his bike to a friend's house. The distance to the friend's home was fairly short (by my childhood bike-riding standards) and would take about 8-10 minutes. I said, sure, see ya later. Be home by dinner or call. Now, let me state, that we are (in all likelihood) the only parents in the city limits that do not make our kids wear bike helmets. I know... call child protective services. Anyway... after my son left, about 10 minutes passed and then the doorbell rang. One of the neighbors, bless her heart, had picked up my son and brought him home because she saw him biking without his helmet and decided that she must quickly intervene. Crisis averted!

As such, I have one quibble with the video above... one dead child may be worth the least to a personal injury lawyer, but one dead child killed by an autonomous vehicle will rally hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of mothers against the evil corporations responsible for putting their children in harms way. When that happens... game over.

FYI, a dead retired person over the age of 60 is almost always worth less than a dead child. Now you know.

[myboynoah]

Intel Buying Mobileye in Biggest Ever Deal in Israeli High-tech

It's coming folks. It will evolve. No need for sensors along every road. Many people will opt in for safety, the environment, convenience, and cost.

[YOhio]

Intel Buying Mobileye in Biggest Ever Deal in Israeli High-tech

It's coming folks. It will evolve. No need for sensors along every road. Many people will opt in for safety, the environment, convenience, and cost.

This is forever going to ruin action movies. I don't think anyone thought of that.

[myboynoah]

This is forever going to ruin action movies. I don't think anyone thought of that.

And driving skills. Look what has happened with penmanship among our young people. They don't teach cursive in school anymore. All this awesome technology hurting us. Maybe the unibomber was right.

[Lost Student]

And driving skills. Look what has happened with penmanship among our young people. They don't teach cursive in school anymore. All this awesome technology hurting us. Maybe the unibomber was right.

My kids are learning cursive. Their penmanship is pretty bad still.

[creekster]

My kids are learning cursive. Their penmanship is pretty bad still.

That's surprising. None of my kids were taught cursive and my oldest is 28 years old.

[Lost Student]

That's surprising. None of my kids were taught cursive and my oldest is 28 years old.

I don't think it's that surprising. My kids don't care that much about how nice their writing looks, hence the bad penmanship.

[creekster]

I don't think it's that surprising. My kids don't care that much about how nice their writing looks, hence the bad penmanship.

I knew you'd make me pay for the ambiguity. Lousy penmanship:not surprising
Learning cursive:surprising

[beefytee]

Not gonna happen. If you look at the lines on the road in the video, it appears they weren't changed for the construction - the lines went right into the barrier; and the Tesla software obediently followed the markings right into the barrier.

This is easily corrected by creating rule #1: Above all else, don't run into anything. Markings on the road be damned.

Really not a hard thing to fix.

Anyone that has spent any amount of time in the software industry writing code will immediately recognize the inherent problems with software-based autopilot systems. Every use case in such a system, even the most obscure and arcane scenario, would have to be addressed because of the severe life-threatening consequences. But typically, those types of extreme use cases would be ignored in a typical SDLC because they are simply too expensive (programmer-hours-wise) to address for the perceived benefit gained. Not so for an autopilot system, where the software has to be written far beyond any imaginable scenario for it to work "bug-free" every time.

But it won't be bug-free. Autonomous cars will hurt, maim, or kill their "beta testers" over the first few years of use in an operational "live" environment (rather than a controlled test environment) until the entire thing collapses under the weight of lawsuits brought by consumers harmed by autonomous vehicles. Software engineers might even need to carry malpractice insurance to shield them from bugs in their software algorithms that are determined to cause harm.

I've spent many amount of time in the software industry writing code and disagree.

Will self driving cars be bug free? No. Will people die? Almost certainly. It will a tiny fraction than with human drivers though and there will be a demand for it. The auto industry is already dealing with plenty of lawsuits for faulty products that have taken peoples lives. This won't be any different. It's part of the industry.

The biggest issues to deal with will be inclement weather (will people just be out of luck on snowy days?) and above all else security. Keeping malicious software off these vehicles will have to be job #1.

Look I'm one of those programmers who is very much opposed to electronic voting machines because of the lack of a paper trail and the possibility of voter fraud that can go undetected and basically think it is overkill (it shouldn't take a computer to vote). But driverless cars will save millions of lives over the long haul. It will absolutely be worth it. I honestly can't wait until they are legal and affordable.

[All-American]

You've probably seen this (first minute is adequate):

I'm reminded of a time when my son, about 8 years old, asked if he could ride his bike to a friend's house. The distance to the friend's home was fairly short (by my childhood bike-riding standards) and would take about 8-10 minutes. I said, sure, see ya later. Be home by dinner or call. Now, let me state, that we are (in all likelihood) the only parents in the city limits that do not make our kids wear bike helmets. I know... call child protective services. Anyway... after my son left, about 10 minutes passed and then the doorbell rang. One of the neighbors, bless her heart, had picked up my son and brought him home because she saw him biking without his helmet and decided that she must quickly intervene. Crisis averted!

As such, I have one quibble with the video above... one dead child may be worth the least to a personal injury lawyer, but one dead child killed by an autonomous vehicle will rally hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of mothers against the evil corporations responsible for putting their children in harms way. When that happens... game over.

I think reason ultimately wins that battle. And if not reason, then the insurance companies. If there is money to be saved by using autonomous vehicles, the insurance companies will drive human-operated automobiles off the road.

[Walter Sobchak]

This is easily corrected by creating rule #1: Above all else, don't run into anything. Markings on the road be damned.

Really not a hard thing to fix.

Don't be so sure:

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S.

I guess there wasn't a test case for a "white trailer against a brightly lit sky" in the autopilot algorithms. Oops! Sorry. We'll fix that bug and get a new release out in production ASAP! Meanwhile, our condolences to the family. Sorry for your loss. Please choose Tesla again in the future.

You can bet that are hundreds of thousands of other "extremely rare circumstances" that you and I take for granted nearly every day when we get behind the wheel. Software is just not very good at planning how to deal with out-of-the-ordinary situations... and it never will be. Sure, sensors and computers can react to things much faster than a human and lack the weaknesses (such as blind spots) that we have been conditioned and trained to overcome, but software is at a significant disadvantage when it comes to interpreting what it "sees" in order to identify and understand complex objects, situations, and patterns that you and I can process almost immediately.

[All-American]

Don't be so sure:



I guess there wasn't a test case for a "white trailer against a brightly lit sky" in the autopilot algorithms. Oops! Sorry. We'll fix that bug and get a new release out in production ASAP! Meanwhile, our condolences to the family. Sorry for your loss. Please choose Tesla again in the future.

You can bet that are hundreds of thousands of other "extremely rare circumstances" that you and I take for granted nearly every day when we get behind the wheel. Software is just not very good at planning how to deal with out-of-the-ordinary situations... and it never will be. Sure, sensors and computers can react to things much faster than a human and lack the weaknesses (such as blind spots) that we have been conditioned and trained to overcome, but software is at a significant disadvantage when it comes to interpreting what it "sees" in order to identify and understand complex objects, situations, and patterns that you and I can process almost immediately.

First death in several million driver-miles, which is roughly the same miles per death ratio as human-operated automobiles. A statistician would criticize me for using such a small sample size, so discount the following accordingly: out the gate, autonomous vehicles in their beta stage are at worst tied with human drivers on driver safety.

[BigFatMeanie]

Don't be so sure:



I guess there wasn't a test case for a "white trailer against a brightly lit sky" in the autopilot algorithms. Oops! Sorry. We'll fix that bug and get a new release out in production ASAP! Meanwhile, our condolences to the family. Sorry for your loss. Please choose Tesla again in the future.

You can bet that are hundreds of thousands of other "extremely rare circumstances" that you and I take for granted nearly every day when we get behind the wheel. Software is just not very good at planning how to deal with out-of-the-ordinary situations... and it never will be. Sure, sensors and computers can react to things much faster than a human and lack the weaknesses (such as blind spots) that we have been conditioned and trained to overcome, but software is at a significant disadvantage when it comes to interpreting what it "sees" in order to identify and understand complex objects, situations, and patterns that you and I can process almost immediately.

Gotta say that I disagree with you here, Walter. Self-driving cars are in their infancy. The tech will only continue to improve over the years; as it has done with software-controlled insulin pumps, and fly-by-wire planes, and robotic surgery, or the software that powers the space shuttle, or nuclear reactors.

Note that in the fatal Tesla accident, the NHTSA determined that the driver had at least 7 seconds to react before he hit the semi truck and that the truck driver said the Tesla driver was watching a Harry Potter movie. Also note that Tesla's crash rate per million miles dropped by 40% after the introduction of their Autopilot system, which strengthens All-American's argument.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I wonder if the day will come when someone gets sued for negligent manual driving when autopilot was an option.