“She [Vasquez] told police that Herzberg, who has also spent time in prison for drug offenses, stepped out in front of her with a bicycle carrying multiple shopping bags and that she had no time to brake before it hit her.

She was traveling at 40 mph at the time, well within the 45 mph speed limit and insisted that she was alert but that nothing could have been done to stop the crash.

Her story was supported by footage from cameras fitted at the front and back of the Volvo SUV that Vasquez was in control of. Police have not yet revealed that footage. …”

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...ess-woman-felon.html

quote:

Originally posted by Flashlightboy:
Are saying his felony status was causative, contributory or coincidental to the accident?

Pick one but be careful on how you answer. Anything besides coincidental will require some proof or evidence to support your answer.

Or maybe a fourth option? It will be a huge negative from a publicity standpoint. Uber advertises a safe environment to get from point A to B. This is going to be spun by many into, "The self-driving tech is dangerous..." and "Uber drivers are criminals...". Neither of these two things will be good for business.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:
Do human drivers only have SA of other cars? Of course not. The topic of this very thread is about a car that hit a human that walked into it's path. Human drivers have to be aware of everything on the road for SA. Why would a driverless car be held to any different standard to maintain safety for the humans around them? How exactly is an autonomous vehicle going to have more SA than a human driver if it does not have the ability to perceive the entirety of it's environment? It can't of course.

Is every human going to be tagged with some sort of comms device so the driverless cars will know where they are at all times so they don't run over pedestrians? How about a tree, boulder, or animal in the road, do all those items need to be tagged for comms too? Of course they can't be. How about stop signs? Do all stop signs need to be tagged with comms devices to prevent the driverless car from running an interstation, or should the perception system recognize them (as we were required to for DARPA) just like humans do?

When comparing the SA of driverless cars to what human drivers are capable of as you did these perception deficiencies are real, and they are not solved just by cars knowing only where other cars are on the road. If the goal is to have wide adoption of driverless cars these problems must be addressed and even 11 years later now they have not been. Yet we are seeing driverless cars introduced onto public roads with unwitting humans being part of the experiment.

Human drivers hit pedestrians, trees, boulders, animals, stop signs, etc., too.

The question isn't, "can autonomous vehicles be made absolutely 100% safe 100% of the time and completely accident-proof?" Of course they can't. The question is "can autonomous vehicles be made that are as safe as or safer than typical human drivers?"

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
I don't see how totally safe automation works unless there is absolute central control...

Bingo. And to get there, the masses will need to be convinced to give up their freedom to drive their own car, when, where, and how, they decide. If you look around, that transition with the millenials is already happening.

Out of the crosswalk is a freebie. First inside the crosswalk death and the company executives go to jail. I realize you have to "break a few eggs to make an omelet" but what happens when it's your little chickadee?

Don't want to drive? Take a bus or a taxi.

quote:

Originally posted by DetonicsMk6:
Out of the crosswalk is a freebie. First inside the crosswalk death and the company executives go to jail. I realize you have to "break a few eggs to make an omelet" but what happens when it's your little chickadee?

Don't want to drive? Take a bus or a taxi.

Is that the way we do it with human drivers. Does the driver himself go to jail if he kills a pedestrian? Does the transportation manager of Yellow Cab go to jail if a cabbie kills someone.

As many have said, if driverless cars become as safe as human drivers, and if there is sufficient flexibility in the system that accomplishes that level of safety, then we should switch.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
I think there's a reasonable way to achieve this, too, with minimal disruption and without requiring universal adoption of networked autonomous vehicles. You just make special roads that are only for the use of networked autonomous vehicles. I'm sure to many this seems absurd - but we already do something similar with high occupancy vehicle/carpool lanes and toll roads that require wireless automated payment systems (EZ Tag, etc.).

That would be incredibly inefficient from both a monetary and a physical real estate sense. Heck, in Florida, we don't even have enough physical real estate to expand existing roads any more. Oh, and the carpool lanes and such are incorporated into 'existing' roads, and can be converted quickly for use by any vehicles as the need arises (Ex. hurricane evacuations). That might not be the case with dedicated automated lanes.

quote:

I don't think this is actually true. The huge computing power and data processing requirements for autonomous vehicles are mainly because computer vision is hard. The information shared between networked autonomous vehicles would be much higher-level (and much lower-volume) than that.

Forgive me, but I don't think that is correct. When you move to a completely autonomous system, the first decision would be whether the computing power to chew through mountains of data would be centralized, de-centralized, or some version of both. Each car would be accumulating a mountain of data on terrain changes, weather changes, condition of the vehicle, condition of the road, pedestrian and bike traffic, accidents impacting traffic flow, police, fire rescue, ambulance responses, as well as many other variables. That data would have to be accumulated for hundreds if not thousands of vehicles in some defined radius around the car in relation to its destination. Again, I'd envision some of this computing would likely be distributed to the vehicles themselves with some of it centralized and monitored remotely. That would obviously also create a huge demand for bandwidth, which as I noted, the new 5G protocol might address, but that tech is not likely to be fully operational for another two (maybe more) years.

Given all the challenges, many of which are technical with still others being cultural, I'd predict driverless cars as a majority of the vehicles on the roads are likely still a decade or more away.

Sleeping, doing work, reading a book...or whatever while on your way to work is called taking the train.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Sleeping, doing work, reading a book...or whatever while on your way to work is called taking the train.

And everyone works, lives and goes about their lives based on the locations of train stations? Really, that's what you're going with?

I guess you must have left the commuting world a long time ago. Jeez.....

quote:

Originally posted by Flashlightboy:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Sleeping, doing work, reading a book...or whatever while on your way to work is called taking the train.

And everyone works, lives and goes about their lives based on the locations of train stations? Really, that's what you're going with?

I guess you must have left the commuting world a long time ago. Jeez.....

Yeah that's what I'm going with.

It's called a joke, sport, much like the whole idea of sleeping while a computer drives you to work.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
Human drivers hit pedestrians, trees, boulders, animals, stop signs, etc., too.

The question isn't, "can autonomous vehicles be made absolutely 100% safe 100% of the time and completely accident-proof?" Of course they can't. The question is "can autonomous vehicles be made that are as safe as or safer than typical human drivers?"

Nowhere in any of my posts did I state or even imply 100% safety. You are arguing against a point I never made in order to try and support your opinion on this topic. Here, for a 3rd time I will quote exactly what I am responding to.

quote:

Originally posted by Spokane228:
The point is, these cars will have more situational awareness than any human driver.

Here is the definition of SA.

“Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event.”

Perception of the environment is paramount. If you are going to make a value statement like that you better understand the baseline that you are trading against. Humans drivers, and all of the variables they have to contend with every single day, are the baseline. Those variables are absolutely dominated by perception of the environment around you. That is why this is such a tough problem to solve. Adding networking between vehicles WILL NOT give current driverless vehicles better SA than humans. Period.

If you still don’t understand that, please list out exactly what capabilities a human requires and what variables they must contend with for good (not perfect, good) SA performance as a baseline.

Did you notice you are quoting two different posters? I *didn't* "make a value statement like that."

I don't actually think that communication between autonomous vehicles is necessary for safety, and I never said I did (although there are certain obvious benefits).

I will say that I think it's hard to argue that, ultimately, the environmental perception of an autonomous vehicle will always be inferior to a human driver. A human driver has eyes and ears. It's trivial to build an autonomous vehicle with better sensors (higher resolution cameras pointing in every direction at once, etc). It's a software problem. Right now, the software in your brain is better than the software in an autonomous vehicle, and the sensor technology maybe-is-and-maybe-isn't enough to make up the difference, depending on conditions - but the software in the autonomous vehicles is getting better all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
There's already been hundreds of thousands of hours of data accumulated. Waymo (Google's self-driving car group), by itself, has more than 5 million autonomous miles driven on public roads.

There are obviously still issues that need to be worked out, but the day when autonomous vehicles are safer than the average human driver is not far off (if it isn't already here).

The only way to currently show driverless vehicles having performance even close to humans it to severely limit their area of operations. And that is exactly what companies like Google are doing. By your statement it’s clear that you have bought into their published results without actually understanding the limitations employed to achieve them. I'm trying to help with that by providing some direct first hand experience in this area.

And if autonomous vehicles were an all-or-nothing proposition, where you could either have a completely manual vehicle or a car with no mechanism for a human to take control, this might be a compelling point. What we have now are cars that drive themselves when they can drive themselves, and otherwise require a human to be in control - and there's nothing wrong with that.

I have a pretty good understanding of the current state of autonomous vehicle technology. I have master's degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science and I'm working on a PhD in CS. While autonomous vehicles are not my specific area of study, I generally keep an eye on the current research.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:
I am a big supporter of unmanned systems technology, it is what I work on every single day. It will take a breakthrough in perception technology, a breakthrough that overcomes the physical limitations of every modern sensing technology we have today (lidar, machine vision, radar, etc.) for driverless vehicle to have better SA than humans. That technology does not currently exist, and it is nowhere on our horizon. Without that breakthrough the standards for perception and safety capabilities of a driverless vehicle will have to be LOWERED compared to humans for wide area implementation. And that is exactly what I have a problem with.

Nowhere have I said or implied that I think widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles less capable than human drivers should occur.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:
Without that breakthrough the standards for perception and safety capabilities of a driverless vehicle will have to be LOWERED compared to humans for wide area implementation. And that is exactly what I have a problem with.

I think some of you live on a different planet where human drivers are good. Standards have to be lowered? It sure seems to be that there are virtually zero standards now. I have never in my whole life taken an actual driving test to get my civilian drivers licenses. I've lived in 4 states and none of them required it. I don't think I have taken a written since I moved to GA 17 years ago and I am pretty sure that was the last time I took a vision test too.

There are no standards for humans. I just drove to my kids school and back and in a 5 mile journey I encountered 3 morons who made mistakes that I am willing to bet a computer never will.

I am not saying technology is ready yet and I am not pushing for anything to be rushed out to the streets. But let's all stop acting like the average driver on the roads is amazing, has perfect situational awareness and that they are all held to some high standard before they are allowed to drive. I know a guy with 6 DUIs that still has a license. There are no standards and humans are overall pretty shitty at driving.

If this guy gets a license while parking like this at the very office that issues them then there are clearly very little standards.

So much hysteria around this issue. it's going to happen, it will be ok folks!

I don't see this being mandated at all, but I absolutely see driving yourself as being cost prohibitive eventually. I think the insurance to manual drive will be crazy expensive.

My phone knows when I'm looking at it and when I'm not. A driverless car can do the same in 365 degrees...at the same time. That's how autonomous vehicles can have better SA than a human. Autonomous vehicles can also control each other via "the internet of things" and "machine learning" to use the generic terms.

In other words, my car tells the car on my right, "slow down by 5.433246 mph so I will be able to move into your lane in 3.234554 seconds because there is an obstruction in my lane...and it will all happen.

The implications for traffic and for delivery costs are absolutely huge and is what is the driving force behind this.

PS: autonomous vehicles already have the ability to perceive stop signs and red/green lights.

New York 1910 - only one car



New York 1920



Look how fast the change occurred back then; over 100 years ago. I think we're essentially experiencing he same thing now with autonomous vehicles. That's why I said in 10 years my kids won't manually be driving vehicles.

Good point, Dunbar. The resistance to careening through the streets of New York at the breakneck speed of 20 miles an hour by car was probably similar in intensity.

But they figured it out.

esdunbar, I think you are forgetting that horses were notoriously expensive to keep up, sometimes with a sour disposition and quite "autonomous" in their own right There was a reason folks preferred cars to horses. Needing a fresh car wasn't necessary and they were definitely faster than the 4 legged variety. NYC was also a bad example because they were dealing with where to put all that horse shit too.

Now, back to the self driving business...What is the cost of all this technology? Let's say we all hop on board the self driving car train...how much is my Toyota Camry gonna cost?

How is this technology gonna work in areas where data services are limited, spotty, or otherwise unavailable? Take your cell phone to Shenandoah National Park and try to make a phone call

Also, nobody has really talked about the severe curtailment of our rights to privacy (from advertising to government). I can see this as a way for big tech to see where we like to go, what habits (vices) some of us may have, and ultimately selling that information to the highest bidder (government snooping comes to mind here....anyone notice all this Facebook bullshit this week?)
If this tech comes to fruition, Uncle Sam can potentially use the data collected to track folks and I am not okay with any of that. Over the past 2 decades, we have seen countless times when peoples liberty and privacy were violated because of cell phones, social media, and other tracking software.

Call me skeptical, but I can't trust a government that can't trust me. See where I am going here? Of course not, because some of you so willingly allow your technology to swallow you and lead you around, all in the name of convenience....Whose business is it if I went to a gun range while on vacation to Florida? Whose business is it if I went to a bar in Richmond? Whose business is it if a woman decided to fuck around on her husband and visit her back door man at a cheap motel? Nobodies!

quote:

Also, nobody has really talked about the severe curtailment of our rights to privacy (from advertising to government). I can see this as a way for big tech to see where we like to go, what habits (vices) some of us may have, and ultimately selling that information to the highest bidder (government snooping comes to mind here....anyone notice all this Facebook bullshit this week?)

Uh, they don't need cars to do that.

The technology exists to track you via your phone without your consent and the software exists to put all of that data into a profile of you. Where you live, where you work, where you shop, how much you make...all of it already exists and there are some very rich and powerful companies doing everything they can to get it implemented. And that is just the phones. you think your credit card company doesn't know where you eat, sleep and shoot? Onstar? Fuck Sirius satellite radio can know your position.

Unless you live a lifestyle where you dive an older car, don't have a phone and never use electronic payment methods, oh and don't use the internet, then you are already quite susceptible to being tracked. An AI car is probably the least of the ways that people would track your daily habits.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmanic:

quote:

Originally posted by Flashlightboy:
Are saying his felony status was causative, contributory or coincidental to the accident?

Pick one but be careful on how you answer. Anything besides coincidental will require some proof or evidence to support your answer.

No, I'm saying that using felons is probably not the best choice for a highly scrutinized testing program such as this. Surely they could have found a less "tainted" group of drivers, particularly when many states won't allow felons to engage in ride-sharing work. Just poor judgement.

This line particularly caught my attention:

"Uber was hit with a $9.8 million fine in November 2017 by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission after investigators determined the company hired nearly 60 drivers with previous felony convictions, The Denver Post reported at the time. "

Banning felons from working is discriminatory, as minority groups are disproportionately represented in groups of felons.

Some consideration has to be given to the type of felony committed and the job required of the felon to do before a decision to not hire someone based on their felony status is made.

Best practices are not to even ask the applicant about their felony status--if the felony status shows up on the application, there's a presumption that this applicant might have been passed over for this job because of the felony status. Instead, you leave the felony question off of the application, compare applicants based on other relevant factors, and then run the background check after a conditional offer is made. If the applicant ultimately can't do the job because of his felony status, at least you didn't pick someone else based on your knowledge of his felony status.

Here, the driver's felony might not have had anything to do with his ability to drive a vehicle (without passengers), and there's probably nothing the company could have done to prevent the felon from getting a job that he was qualified for.

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
esdunbar, I think you are forgetting that horses were notoriously expensive to keep up, sometimes with a sour disposition and quite "autonomous" in their own right There was a reason folks preferred cars to horses. Needing a fresh car wasn't necessary and they were definitely faster than the 4 legged variety. NYC was also a bad example because they were dealing with where to put all that horse shit too.

I think your counterpoint proves the point. Cars were more convenient than horses. Self driving cars will be more convenient than conventional cars.

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
Now, back to the self driving business...What is the cost of all this technology? Let's say we all hop on board the self driving car train...how much is my Toyota Camry gonna cost?

Like ALL technology, the prices will fall, fall, fall. I am old enough to remember when the first VCR's cost $1,000

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
How is this technology gonna work in areas where data services are limited, spotty, or otherwise unavailable? Take your cell phone to Shenandoah National Park and try to make a phone call

The networks will be built.

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
Also, nobody has really talked about the severe curtailment of our rights to privacy (from advertising to government). I can see this as a way for big tech to see where we like to go, what habits (vices) some of us may have, and ultimately selling that information to the highest bidder (government snooping comes to mind here....anyone notice all this Facebook bullshit this week?)
If this tech comes to fruition, Uncle Sam can potentially use the data collected to track folks and I am not okay with any of that. Over the past 2 decades, we have seen countless times when peoples liberty and privacy were violated because of cell phones, social media, and other tracking software.

The cat is already out of the bag. If your worried about advertisement privacy in particular, your several years too late.

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
Call me skeptical, but I can't trust a government that can't trust me. See where I am going here? Of course not, because some of you so willingly allow your technology to swallow you and lead you around, all in the name of convenience....Whose business is it if I went to a gun range while on vacation to Florida? Whose business is it if I went to a bar in Richmond? Whose business is it if a woman decided to fuck around on her husband and visit her back door man at a cheap motel? Nobodies!

Does the gov'ment really care about a woman and her back door man? This technology is coming with or without you.

Damn, 7 pages?

It's inevitable, but I imagine myself driving a gas powered stick shift while all the fancy empty cars zoom around my POS. While I'm imagining it, it's a carbureted Jeep CJ5 with no doors and a bikini top.

And I'm ok with that. Let the dummies play on their Iphones while I enjoy my drive.

Selfdriving cars are about one thing. Control.

It's just another element to try a take more control away from the ordinary citizen. Once again it is part of the commie creed to "give me more power, and I promise to give you safety."

You all can shove your autonomous cars right up your crack. I won't give up my freedom, not a single bit of it, for some false notion of making me safer. Jesus.