Uber Suspends Driverless Car Program After Pedestrian Is Struck and Killed

[Kaido]

Tesla insists Model X driver was at fault in fatal crash:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/12/tesla-model-x-statement-fatal-crash/

TL;DR: Tesla's Autopilot drove the guy straight into a barrier head-on & killed him. Tesla blames the driver.

A guy tested that same barrier on Autopilot in his Tesla & it did the same thing in the video below. I have a hard time reconciling Tesla blaming the driver when they (1) advertise it as "AUTO pilot", (2) advertise pictures of people without their hands on the wheel, and (3) if you're cruising around in self-driving mode for an extended period of time and it beeps at you a few seconds before you die in a fiery crash...yeah, you can't really expect people to react all that quickly when they are zoned out from being in Autopilot mode. Tesla said their system didn't detect the person's hands for 6 seconds before the crash, meaning he probably wasn't paying attention. Okay so...you're driving along in traffic for an hour, it beeps at you ONCE (per Tesla's press release, mind you), and then you die if you don't react within a few seconds? I think I'll wait until they're out of beta before I jump onboard the self-driving thing.

 

[urvile]

I have a difficult time believing any city would allow testing without major oversight. Politicians inviting that are asking for backlash from constituents.

I don't live there, so I don't know about it. I think it's stupid to assume there is limited or no oversight.

It's obviously the only reason the footage of the incident is out there.

Well said. It's certainly a contentious issue. I am looking forward to the day we have genuinely autonomous automobiles. I still think we are a little way off though. AI is not my thing but we are getting there.

 

[local]

Fully autonomous, meaning no responsibility for manual control at all, will either never come or will be very limited like city buses maybe. All for one simple reason, liability. No manufacturer is going to allow themselves to be held liable for death, injury or even property damage as a result of a failure in the autonomous system. The law will always require a human at the controls able to take over in case of emergency and to take the blame in the event of an incident. You will be required to pay attention and be capable of driving so distracted driving laws will still be in place and you will not be able to use your autonomous vehicle to drive your drunk ass home.

The only way this changes is if there is a dramatic shift in the legal mentality in this country and I really don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

[slayer202]

Please, corporations assume almost zero responsibility in this country

 

[Kaido]

Fully autonomous, meaning no responsibility for manual control at all, will either never come or will be very limited like city buses maybe. All for one simple reason, liability. No manufacturer is going to allow themselves to be held liable for death, injury or even property damage as a result of a failure in the autonomous system. The law will always require a human at the controls able to take over in case of emergency and to take the blame in the event of an incident. You will be required to pay attention and be capable of driving so distracted driving laws will still be in place and you will not be able to use your autonomous vehicle to drive your drunk ass home.

The only way this changes is if there is a dramatic shift in the legal mentality in this country and I really don't see that happening anytime soon.

Engadget had an article about Phantom Auto, which is kind of like OnStar for self-driving cars...pretty good concept, I think:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/05/phantom-auto-will-drive-your-autonomous-car-if-it-gets-confused/

Phantom Auto wants to be the backup system for autonomous vehicles. When self-driving cars get confused, the company's trained drivers remotely take over the automobile until the self-driving system can regain control. For the human back at the "call center," it looks a bit like a driving simulator. For the people in the car, it's redundancy that (especially for some early adopters), could ease their worried minds.

 

[urvile]

I guess a concern is how well standardised (ISO) are traffic signs? I suppose one could train the neural nets with local traffic signs. What happens if some guy is holding a stop sign at road works and the AI hasn't been trained? As in it's an unknown sign? My car has traffic sign recognition but it doesn't pick up all speed signs.

Not much of an issue because I am driving if it's automated though. ......

 

[teejee]

Tesla insists Model X driver was at fault in fatal crash:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/12/tesla-model-x-statement-fatal-crash/

TL;DR: Tesla's Autopilot drove the guy straight into a barrier head-on & killed him. Tesla blames the driver.

A guy tested that same barrier on Autopilot in his Tesla & it did the same thing in the video below. I have a hard time reconciling Tesla blaming the driver when they (1) advertise it as "AUTO pilot", (2) advertise pictures of people without their hands on the wheel, and (3) if you're cruising around in self-driving mode for an extended period of time and it beeps at you a few seconds before you die in a fiery crash...yeah, you can't really expect people to react all that quickly when they are zoned out from being in Autopilot mode. Tesla said their system didn't detect the person's hands for 6 seconds before the crash, meaning he probably wasn't paying attention. Okay so...you're driving along in traffic for an hour, it beeps at you ONCE (per Tesla's press release, mind you), and then you die if you don't react within a few seconds? I think I'll wait until they're out of beta before I jump onboard the self-driving thing.

Volvo uses the name Pilot Assist for similar functionality, that name gives a much better picture of what it can do.

 

[Skel]

Feds: Uber self-driving SUV saw pedestrian; did not brake

 

[Red Storm]

Feds: Uber self-driving SUV saw pedestrian; did not brake

In a preliminary report on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that emergency braking is not enabled while Uber's cars are under computer control, "to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior."

Instead, Uber relies on a human backup driver to intervene. The system, however, is not designed to alert the driver.

lolwut?

This sounds like some kind of In-Gen system. Spared no expense... except the common sense ones.

Seriously though, having the system rely on the human backup driver, but not have the system actually warn the driver sounds like a poorly written flaw from a fiction novel.

 

[slayer202]

it's hard to tell what system they are talking about. obviously the volvo factory emergency braking will be turned off if they are using other autonomous technology but was there another uber feature that was turned off?

 

[slayer202]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/0...imes-hit-parked-cars-and-lane-dividers/?amp=1

I thought this was a good read. Maybe common knowledge to some