Uber Suspends Driverless Car Program After Pedestrian Is Struck and Killed

[paperfist]

No zippy, that's not what I'm saying. What a sad, pathetic attempt at deflection that was. You can almost smell the desperation in that.

What I'm saying is that the problems I might have when using the forums are like 10 billion times more likely to be human error. My computer doesn't crash, I hit the red x instead of hitting the minus to minimize the browser window. My keyboard doesn't malfunction, I typo. The browser doesn't hang, I get distracted. My machine doesn't spontaneously reboot, I'm far more likely to smack the reset button while reaching for a pen.

Dumb ass.

Who's zippy? I'd argue with you but you have to resort to name calling like a 4 year old. Congrats, you win.

 

[DietDrThunder]

I wonder if this will turn out to be an auto pilot malfunction?
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/24/tesla-model-x-driver-dies-in-mountain-view-crash/

 

[PeterScott]

I wonder if this will turn out to be an auto pilot malfunction?
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/24/tesla-model-x-driver-dies-in-mountain-view-crash/

Non Sequitur.

Tesla is not autonomous. It has driving aids, like almost every car company offers these days.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Non Sequitur.

Tesla is not autonomous. It has driving aids, like almost every car company offers these days.

I simply was wondering if it could have been an auto pilot malfunction. By the way, did you even read the article? Crash investigators are wondering this as well, along with Tesla sending a team to investigate.

Tesla Autopilot, later marketed as Enhanced Autopilot after a second hardware version started to be shipped, is an advanced driver-assistance system feature offered by Teslathat has lane centering, adaptive cruise control, self-parking, ability to automatically change lanes without requiring driver steering, and enables the car to be summoned to and from a garage or parking spot. Planned improvements to Enhanced Autopilot include transitioning from one freeway to another and exiting the freeway when your destination is near.

As an upgrade above and beyond Enhanced Autopilot's capabilities, the company's stated intent is to offer full self-driving at a future time, acknowledging that legal, regulatory, and technical hurdles must be overcome to achieve this goal.[2]

 

[PeterScott]

I simply was wondering if it could have been an auto pilot malfunction. By the way, did you even read the article? Crash investigators are wondering this as well, along with Tesla sending a team to investigate.

Still has nothing to do with Uber Autonomous running down a pedestrian.

 

[Wolverine607]

Good!! I hope all these death machine robot driverless cars are suspended and never come back!!

 

[DietDrThunder]

Still has nothing to do with Uber Autonomous running down a pedestrian.

Ahhh, but it has everything to do with the point I’ve been trying to make in this tread. That these systems are being released on the general public without proper testing and oversight.

 

[PeterScott]

Ahhh, but it has everything to do with the point I’ve been trying to make in this tread. That these systems are being released on the general public without proper testing and oversight.

So just general ranting about technology advancing too fast for your comfort?

 

[Ns1]

Ahhh, but it has everything to do with the point I’ve been trying to make in this tread. That these systems are being released on the general public without proper testing and oversight.

Kinda like every 16 year old kid with a license

 

[DietDrThunder]

So just general ranting about technology advancing too fast for your comfort?

No, not a general rant about technology moving to quickly. If you actually read my posts you’d have determined that I speak from experience with aircraft systems.

I’m through responding to someone who doesn’t really want to debate, but wants to just irritate.

 

[Zorba]

No, not a general rant about technology moving to quickly. If you actually read my posts you’d have determined that I speak from experience with aircraft systems.

I’m through responding to someone who doesn’t really want to debate, but wants to just irritate.

I agree, I don't understand why these cars aren't being held to something like DAL-A standards. Instead, they seem to be following the app development model. The fact that safety critical software and electrical-mechanical systems are being released into the wild with no real regulations, standards and seemingly little testing is insane.

Airplanes would be much cheaper if everyone said "Well it's safer than a car, do we really need all this testing?"

 

[Zorba]

After seeing the video... I have to think something was up with the car's sensors. I thought the lady came from the other side, like off the median right into traffic and then she was hit a moment later. From the video it looks like she already crossed one lane. Due to the dark spots I don't expect a human driver to have been able to avoid the person in that scenario, but I thought these self driving cars had the tech to "see in the dark" and avoid crashes in these specific scenarios? Maybe the bike screwed with the sensors? I dunno, but to me it now looks like something must have been up with the car's sensors.

There is no way any human driver was going to be able to react in time to avoid that person, let alone someone who is there as a backup and has even less time to react.

We'll have to wait and see for info on the car's sensors, and whether or not Uber had a part in the car not detecting the person.

First, you have to remember that low light conditions suck on video cameras. Either that car has the worst headlights in the world, or the camera only captured the brightest part of the image. The human eye has far higher dynamic range than video cameras, especially at night.

Assuming the car has legal headlights the median would've been illuminated, and a human paying attention would've been able to see the person. Last night I was driving on a dark highway and could easily see deer 20 off to the right from far enough to stop from 70 (if needed). I have personally had to stop to avoid deer and people in similar situations as this, without any issue. The idea that a human paying attention would've never seen this person is based on nothing but being a zealot for autonomous cars.

Yeah, humans could be better at driving, but the idea humans are terrible at it isn't based on reality, with a fatality rate of only 7.1 per Billion-KM. But people like to show how bad at statistics they are by comparing 200,000,000 human driven cars driving about 3.2 trillion miles a year to a few hundred cars driving maybe a couple million a year under very perscribed conditions.

I believe autonomous cars are coming and they will be a net positive to safety. However, I don't like the current wild west mentality, lack of standards, oversight and regulation. I also don't like how basically every accident has been apologized and justified away, imagine if airlines did the same nobody would fly.

 

[PeterScott]

No, not a general rant about technology moving to quickly. If you actually read my posts you’d have determined that I speak from experience with aircraft systems.

I’m through responding to someone who doesn’t really want to debate, but wants to just irritate.

Your motivations seems to be about painting all autonomous systems with Ubers brush.

Uber has a history is borderline illegal operations. Skirting regulations, skirting the law. Having software specifically to avoid law enforcement.

Uber Autonomous Testing fled California, just to escape having to report incidents.

Uber's screwup here is Uber's alone, and is not reflective of wider progress on Autonomous Vehicles.

Some indication of how far behind Uber's AV program is:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/technology/uber-self-driving-cars-arizona.html

Anti-AV people want to conflate Uber's failure with the failure of AV's in general, but that is nothing more than an unwarranted attack on AV progress.

Uber's failure is reflective of Uber, and nothing else.

 

[momeNt]

Who's zippy? I'd argue with you but you have to resort to name calling like a 4 year old. Congrats, you win.

He's been getting progressively more obnoxious recently, not really sure what his deal is.

 

[Ns1]

the idea humans are terrible at it isn't based on reality,

1 minute on youtube disproves this statement immediately.

 

[Zorba]

1 minute on youtube disproves this statement immediately.

Or proves that you suck at statistics. Humans aren't perfect at driving, but as a whole humans at that bad at it, statistically.

You could also say 1 minute on YouTube proves how dangerous airplanes are.

 

[slayer202]

just because accidents are rare doesn't mean humans are good at driving. if you want statistics, what percent of accidents could and should be avoided? 99%? and most of the fuckups people make just luckily don't cause an accident

 

[Ns1]

Or proves that you suck at statistics. Humans aren't perfect at driving, but as a whole humans at that bad at it, statistically.

As slayer202 mentioned, deaths per mile driven is probably a poor metric for this. FFS americans can't even cope with a cyclist on the road at the same time. Meanwhile drivers in India have to cope with cows, horses, cyclists, pedestrians, rickshaws, etc. simultaneously.

 

[slayer202]

ffs, when a car is pulled over by a cop on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, even with a divider, people slow down! people are god damn idiots and it's rare that I step in a car without witnessing multiple shitheads before reaching my destination

 

[Zorba]

just because accidents are rare doesn't mean humans are good at driving. if you want statistics, what percent of accidents could and should be avoided? 99%? and most of the fuckups people make just luckily don't cause an accident

ffs, when a car is pulled over by a cop on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, even with a divider, people slow down! people are god damn idiots and it's rare that I step in a car without witnessing multiple shitheads before reaching my destination

Neither of these points support the "humans are so bad at driving it is worth the risk of allowing unregulated, non-certified AV cars on the road as soon as possible"

Of course AV will help with phantom traffic jams, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be regulated and tested to at least a DAL-B level.

 

[Ns1]

Neither of these points support the "humans are so bad at driving it is with the risk of allowing unregulated, non-certified AV cars on the road as soon as possible"

An argument that nobody is making.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Mobileye:

It first must be said that this shouldn’t be taken to demonstrate the superiority of Mobileye’s systems or anything like that. This type of grainy footage isn’t what self-driving — or even “advanced driver assistance” — systems are meant to operate on. It’s largely an academic demonstration.

But the application of a competent computer vision system to the footage and its immediate success at detecting both Elaine Herzberg and her bike show how completely the Uber system must have failed.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/26/m...uck-pedestrian-in-footage-well-before-impact/

And Arizona's Governor getting some sense:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/26/arizona-gov-uber-suspend/

More to come.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Nvidia Corp. said on Tuesday it will suspend self-driving tests across the globe after Uber Technologies Inc.'s fatality last week.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20180327/MOBILITY/180329678/nvidia-testing-autonomous-uber-fatality

More to come.

 

[DietDrThunder]

More of what I would like to see:

NVIDIA Introduces DRIVE Constellation Simulation System to Safely Drive Autonomous Vehicles Billions of Miles in Virtual Reality

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-introduces-drive-constellation-simulation-182004713.html

 

[Red Storm]

Uber reportedly reduced the number of sensors on its autonomous cars:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/28/uber-reduced-safety-sensors-on-its-autonomous-cars/

The article claims Uber cut down the number of Lidar sensors to 1 on its test cars, resulting in more blind spots. To me a self-driving car should not have any blind spots, let alone "more." Mentions that other companies use 5 or 6 in comparison.