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THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 17:03:27

pstarr wrote:"Yes, the pedestrian was stupid and was at fault. "

No she wasn't. She was crossing a street. The fault lies with constant pandering and self-justification of the media and the stooges who support technology blindly.

Thoughtful and standardized regulation have no bearing on this incident. Motion detectors can not . . . and will not replace the judgement only a human is capable of. My dog is more intelligent then that Uber vehicle. But my dog is not allowed behind the wheel of a large, dangerous and potentially deadly weapon that a car is in the wrong hands.

Uber should be shut down.

Earth to clueless one. She wasn't crossing at a crosswalk. She wasn't crossing where it was lighted. She wasn't wearing reflective clothing. She wasn't carrying a light. Pretending like it wasn't her fault doesn't add to your credibility. There ARE rules pedestrians are required to follow, for safety reasons.

I'm NOT agreeing with any of your Luddite "technology can't work and can never improve" nonsense. I'm only talking about this type of failure and the need to use effective regulation to minimize the risk, and hopefully prevent too much of it from happening.

Self driving technology can never be perfect and will never prevent anything close to all crashes. It is already showing safer statistics than humans (given their failings), and will get better as cases like this are analyzed and corrected. My problem here is the "informality" of the process, and the continued over-claiming (IMO) of how fast the problems are being solved -- when blatant crashes keep occurring where the car seems to not react at ALL to an obviously dangerous situation.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Sys1 » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 17:05:56

Perhabs some will find my opinion shoking, but I take every new reporting someone dead because of a self driving car as a benediction. It means that AI is still unable to steal jobs from truck and taxi drivers.

Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 17:28:32

Sys1 wrote:Perhabs some will find my opinion shoking, but I take every new reporting someone dead because of a self driving car as a benediction. It means that AI is still unable to steal jobs from truck and taxi drivers.

Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.

When it's 10X (much less 100X) safer than humans, it will also save a hell of a lot of lives, even if that is just a side effect.

Again, pretending that such technology can't improve denies the reality of all our experience with technology, with computers, and with AI (even though that's relatively new).

Example: no matter how much all the human chess grandmasters strenuously denied that a chess computer could ever defeat THEM, for about a decade as a strong chess player, chess program programmer and career computer programmer, I watched the technology steadily advance, and would calmly explain to such folks that the math and the evidence clearly said otherwise. The date it would happen was in doubt -- not the fact that it would. (I'd get yelled at by some of those folks. It didn't change the reality.)

Much of the impetus for self driving technology and the desire of governments to support it is rooted in safety as well as money, according to various articles I've read on the subject. (Don't take my word for it. Try googling "self driving cars and safety" for lots of stories on how safe self driving cars already are compared to humans, from credible sources -- many claiming it's clear self driving cars are already safer).

And remember, such accidents will be analyzed, and that class of problem will be dealt with. (I hope regulation makes that dealing with and certified testing when new software is introduced formalized and thorough -- if it's costs a bit more and takes a bit longer, that's the price to do the job correctly).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Cog » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 17:40:49

Regardless of how smart the AI is there are still physical limits in play here. If you walk right in front of car, even the smartest AI can't stop a speeding car on a dime. That was not the case here, but you can not have perfect safety AI or not.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 17:58:58

One. More. Time.

A perfect AI is NOT REQUIRED. All that is needed is a fatality rate lower than a human driver. I think we are already there, by a considerable margin. In fact I think we should roll out the tech and monitor the lives saved.

FWIW, I saw the Uber car video in real time and full screen last night. I do not believe that a human driver could have avoided this accident either. There was a woman wheeling a bike across the road at night. No lights, no reflectors, dark clothing, and no sense - because the approaching car had low beams on and would have been visible to the bicyclist.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 18:15:45

KaiserJeep wrote:FWIW, I saw the Uber car video in real time and full screen last night. I do not believe that a human driver could have avoided this accident either.

Given how quickly it happened, and that the woman was only visible for about two seconds, I'm not saying that the accident could have been avoided (especially by the average driver).

I am maintaining that an alert driver with good reflexes likely could have at least done SOMETHING, like try to slow down. A collision like that at 20 or 25 MPH, if the car was rapidly stopping might well have been much more survivable.

That's all I'm saying -- the ability of these things to (STILL) completely miss things that an alert human would easily detect is, unnerving, at a minimum. Sorry -- as a human I fully admit it's hard not to let emotion creep into my thinking for some circumstances. Having seen how amazingly stupid software can be for an entire college and professional career, I'll admit that probably makes me more nervous than it would the average person for a potentially dangerous application.

I do agree that over time, well established statistics should tell the tale. Once these things are convincingly significantly safer than humans (I'm not convinced we know that yet -- the evidence seems mixed, and one must be careful how statistics are interpreted), then these things would be preferable, no question. Of course, real world issues like cost, availability, etc. will come into play as far as getting them rolled out.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Cog » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 18:26:29

Link to video. I agree, no human could have stopped in time. Question does remain. Did the AI attempt to stop at all?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTXd5bfX_GI
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby BahamasEd » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 18:50:32

So I guess the car had no forward looking radar?

I saw on TV the other day an ad that showed a car with a human driver that automatically stops if someone/thing is in front of the car.

if it can't 'see' a person sized object moving into it's path in any lighting conditions then it's not ready for prime time.

Edit: and it doesn't matter if 9 out of 10 human drivers would have hit her, the computer must be better, a lot better.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 19:14:10

BahamasEd wrote:Edit: and it doesn't matter if 9 out of 10 human drivers would have hit her, the computer must be better, a lot better.

The "a lot better" comment shows you have a strong bias against driver-less cars. Why is as good as ,or a little better, not enough?
I suppose it is a mute point though as with the rate the technology is evolving the AVs will be "a lot better" very soon if they aren't already.
No matter how good they get they will still strike deer and turkeys that move in front of them much to close for the brakes to come to a full stop. A few really dumb humans will also manage it as well.
You can expect a spate of scammers trying to get clipped by AV's and suing the companies that own them but dash cam video will weed that put pretty quick.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 20:02:41

vtsnowedin wrote:
BahamasEd wrote:Edit: and it doesn't matter if 9 out of 10 human drivers would have hit her, the computer must be better, a lot better.

The "a lot better" comment shows you have a strong bias against driver-less cars. Why is as good as ,or a little better, not enough?

I read an article today that said driverless cars need to be "a lot" better than human drivers to win hearts and minds needed to back them and legislation that supports them and help them move forward.

The idea being that humans will tend to be biased against them if they are anywhere close, by for example, tending to forgive the kinds of errors humans make but being outraged by the errors that AI's in cars might make. (I'll admit to some of that bias re the recent fatal Uber accident, even though I'm all for this technology succeeding soon enough to haul my aging butt around before I should give up my keys, for example. Or even reliably haul my butt to and from medical procedures if I won't be up to driving both ways safely.)

The question the article was speculating about was "how much better will be enough?". The article stated that AV's might well already be better, but they weren't clearly ENOUGH better yet to eliminate sufficient public apprehension about them.
I suppose it is a mute point though as with the rate the technology is evolving the AVs will be "a lot better" very soon if they aren't already.

Agreed. Such accidents will be widely analyzed, and whole classes of similar situations should be greatly improved upon re safety as a result. As long as the makers will be liable for at-fault accidents and the AVs will be viewed generally negatively by the public (until they're MUCH better than human drivers), there should be very strong motivation to make them great drivers ASAP.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 20:16:39

BahamasEd wrote:So I guess the car had no forward looking radar?

I saw on TV the other day an ad that showed a car with a human driver that automatically stops if someone/thing is in front of the car.

if it can't 'see' a person sized object moving into it's path in any lighting conditions then it's not ready for prime time.

Uber's cars have radar and lidar. Clearly something went wrong. Whether it was hardware, software, or some combination of both will need to be analyzed.

I suspect for these things to be very reliable there will need to be multiple types of sensors doing a variety of safety screens, and that the software will need to "intelligently" make a lot of decisions, resolve conflicting readings safely, etc.

So, IMO, some serious decisions need to be made about safety when testing. About standards that clearly show what IS "good enough" for these things to truly become mainstream. Certification to operate on the roadway for example. Or certification to be owned by a taxi company, or owned and operated by an ordinary private citizen.

And such decisions should be thought through and implemented ahead of time for something as dangerous as driving -- but our government agencies are very lacking in the efficiency department.

So this is where I believe the better and more standardized (say, federal) regulations should come into play. Perhaps an event like this will wake enough people up to give that some priority.

One thing they should demand, it seems to me, is a suite of tests covering MANY such conditions in a real, 3D model city type environment, where test dummies on tracks, etc. are used and where normal humans aren't around. That for each software improvement BEFORE the cars are unleashed on public roads where fragile humans do stupid things. Of course, that would cost time and money, so industry will object -- and politicians don't CARE what I think.

But things ARE improving. Watching Tesla's autopilot last summmer via Youtube, after the fatal Tesla accident, it was an absolute joke. It would be trying to have an accident about every minute in many cases, with the driver having to intervene.

Yesterday I read an article that had a few Youtube videos showing how much Autopilot 2.0 has recently improved. It was handling hills, curves, snow and ice, and varying daylight conditions flawlessly. (All conditions it has up until recently been failing at in lots of cases). It wasn't perfect, but it looked roughly 10X better than 8ish months ago, under normal two lane highway conditions. That, IMO, is rapid progress indeed. Much faster than I expected 8ish months ago, frankly.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby BahamasEd » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 20:21:12

I do have a lot of problems with self-driving taxis, not so much with private self-driving cars.

I know that the tech is out there is make a great self-driving car, it's just that the COST, in both up front dollars & the electrify needed to run it, on top of the cost of the current basic car makes no sense. Your taking a Car, adding at least one super computer and a bunch of new sensors to each car. So your basic small car goes from $20,000 to $30,000 in base price.

Next you need BTU's to run the computer, sensors etc, so your burning more fuel and getting less MPG than a normal car or cutting the time needed before recharging.

Now as a private car, with you paying for it and taking the risk if things go wrong I have no problem what-so-ever.

As public TAXIS I have many more problems with it starting with who's going to be cleaning it between riders? I do my best not to use public transportation, but I do use public restrooms and I can think of reasons to inspect any taxis before I get into it.

No matter how good they get they will still strike deer and turkeys that move in front of them much to close for the brakes to come to a full stop. A few really dumb humans will also manage it as well.


So your fine with Suicide by Self-Driving Car? (instead of 'by Cop'). And since it would be better to just pay off the family instead of going to court each time, it would be like a final life insurance policy for their loved ones.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 22 Mar 2018, 20:35:37

BahamasEd wrote:I do have a lot of problems with self-driving taxis, not so much with private self-driving cars.

..........

Next you need BTU's to run the computer, sensors etc, so your burning more fuel and getting less MPG than a normal car or cutting the time needed before recharging.

Probably a lot less then the fuel used to carry the drivers weight around.
.........
As public TAXIS I have many more problems with it starting with who's going to be cleaning it between riders? I do my best not to use public transportation, but I do use public restrooms and I can think of reasons to inspect any taxis before I get into it.
Eventually a robot back at the central garage but for now a bunch of undocumented Mexican women.

No matter how good they get they will still strike deer and turkeys that move in front of them much to close for the brakes to come to a full stop. A few really dumb humans will also manage it as well.

So your fine with Suicide by Self-Driving Car? (instead of 'by Cop'). And since it would be better to just pay off the family instead of going to court each time, it would be like a final life insurance policy for their loved ones.

I don't know as I'm fine with that but it might happen. They might have to outlaw payments to suicide families to keep it from becoming a fad. People will just have to keep using their guns when it is time to check out.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 07:33:47

I don’t know if a driverless train control system. There are a variety of short haul things like airport people movers or coal hauling systems. It a truly driverless SYSTEM, with crossovers and switches is pretty rare. I recently worked on the OHare people mover and that has complexity but nothing remotely similar to driverless cars or an autonomous system. Washington METRO and PATCO were supposed to be driverless but are not. Many billions have been spent trying to implement Positive Train Control which is orders of magnitude less complex.

So I find it interesting that after a century of development, and large amounts of private capital, in a much less complex field autonomous driving has not been achieved. So all of a sudden we make this Great Leap Forward? I think not.

And that is not to mention shipping. Maybe someone could sell the technology to the Navy.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 08:12:12

Newfie wrote:And that is not to mention shipping. Maybe someone could sell the technology to the Navy.

Oh sure have a Navy warship driven by a computer that can be hacked by the enemy and used to ram our other ships in formation. 8O
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 12:30:23

Sys1 wrote:Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.


Which has been true throughout all history, the cotton-gin, the loom, etc...

You can't stop progress.

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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 14:40:51

asg70 wrote:
Sys1 wrote:Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.


Which has been true throughout all history, the cotton-gin, the loom, etc...

You can't stop progress.


These AI softwares are actually called "driver assist" features. Their purpose is to save lives, and the real benefirt is that an alert driver plus the AI is safer than an alert driver alone.

The problem is that a driver with less to do because of a running AI will find something else: eating, reading, texting, watching video, or masturbating.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 16:27:53

KaiserJeep wrote:
asg70 wrote:
Sys1 wrote:Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.


Which has been true throughout all history, the cotton-gin, the loom, etc...

You can't stop progress.


These AI softwares are actually called "driver assist" features. Their purpose is to save lives, and the real benefirt is that an alert driver plus the AI is safer than an alert driver alone.

The problem is that a driver with less to do because of a running AI will find something else: eating, reading, texting, watching video, or masturbating.

Sadly, for people like me who easily get car sick if not looking out the window, I may not be driving (and I hope not in 15-20 years), but folks like me won't be doing much "useful work" or in-car entertainment while the car is moving.

Until we're used to robotic cars, back seat driving should be entertainment enough. :lol:
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Self-Driving Car / Ridesharing Thread

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 23 Mar 2018, 16:36:05

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
KaiserJeep wrote:
asg70 wrote:
Sys1 wrote:Don't forget that the ultimate purpose of self driving cars is not to save lives : It's to save MONEY.


Which has been true throughout all history, the cotton-gin, the loom, etc...

You can't stop progress.


These AI softwares are actually called "driver assist" features. Their purpose is to save lives, and the real benefirt is that an alert driver plus the AI is safer than an alert driver alone.

The problem is that a driver with less to do because of a running AI will find something else: eating, reading, texting, watching video, or masturbating.

Sadly, for people like me who easily get car sick if not looking out the window, I may not be driving (and I hope not in 15-20 years), but folks like me won't be doing much "useful work" or in-car entertainment while the car is moving.

Until we're used to robotic cars, back seat driving should be entertainment enough. :lol:

Think ahead. There will certainly be a AV service that includes a back seat companion of your preference to keep you entertained for the duration of your drive around town :roll:
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