Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

What I'd like to know is if the concrete was marked out with cones.

If it was then clearly the car's fault, if not then the worker's fault. Cones become more critical with the proliferation of non-human drivers.

View on HN

We expect human drivers to attempt to avoid accidents which are not their fault (see: legal duty to lookout/avoid), why shouldn't we do the same for non-human drivers? To not do this seems like a step backwards in safety expectations.

But human drivers have similar accidents.

The good news is they can fix the self-driving software then replicate the solution forever in millions of cars.

Now, how to prevent the small number of humans who do the same thing?

If you are saying that the car bares some responsibility for avoiding this, and should be fixed, then we agree.

We can entertain that second hypothetical once the first one's been covered yeah?

I was going to add that cones are just as important for human drivers but I thought it was obvious. I don't think human drivers can detect wet concrete (or other hidden hazards) any better than machines.

These sorts of safety issues have been a always been a problem, with lax markings, etc, but now are more acute with non-human drivers.

I think ultimately it raises the question of whether it's reasonable to offer some accommodations to non-human drivers where they don't perform so well. Do they have to be at the standard of human drivers for everything? That's probably impossible.

Why? The entire argument for self driving cars is that they are safer drivers than humans. If that claim breaks down whenever the driving conditions are anything other than perfect, then self driving cars lose their only supposed benefit. If we have to substantially change everything we do on or around the road to simply help them match human efficacy then (1) what is the point of a "self driving" car that can trivially encounter breaking conditions and (2) if these changes would be beneficial safety why haven't we already done them for human drivers?

Also the picture in the article shows both cones and workers, the presence of either would generally cause a human to alter how they drive.

What we see consistently is self driving cars that randomly stop in perfectly reasonable driving conditions, and similarly we see repeated cases of them driving through clearly unsafe areas. If a single human driver repeatedly made these same mistakes they would lose their license, but for some reason we allow it from these unsafe self driving systems. If a car manufacturer ships a car that is found to operate unsafely, the manufacturer is required to recall them, and isn't allowed to return the car to market until the problem is demonstrably fixed.

> If that claim breaks down whenever the driving conditions are anything other than perfect, then self driving cars lose their only supposed benefit

False dilemma: value from self driving cars is a sliding scale, not all or nothing.

Ah yes, it is clearly incumbent upon all other industries to modify their practices to pave over the gross deficiencies of self-driving cars.

It's fine by me if self-driving cars need help and get it, so long as the technology is beneficial. I think it is.

Ok, on what grounds is technology that performs a job that humans can generally do better at beneficial in the broad sense? That it's benefitting a handful of individuals who profit off eliminating jobs isn't in question, but where's the upside for the rest of us?

The upside is that automobile crashes kill >30,000 people in the US alone and self-driving cars may one day bring that number down by 90%

Might they? Is that a purely faith-based assertion or is that claim grounded in anything? Because current performance suggests otherwise.

Current performance definitely does not suggest otherwise! Over Waymo's first million miles, it was involved in two collisions, one of them at-fault. The average for human drivers is 5.3 collisions per million miles.

Oh no you don't. Waymo describes it's tech as Level 4 automation. That is an explicit statement that it underperforms human capabilities and has only been greenlit for -very- limited areas and conditions. Industry reports on the subject suggest Level 5 autonomy won't be possible for at least the next 12 years, which is synonymous with saying the industry currently has no idea how to get there.

It doesn't matter if it's only greenlit for limited areas and conditions -- just use them where they work! Don't use them where they don't!

Enormous amounts of time are wasted commuting. The passengers benefit from self driving cars, not just the auto maker.

So you're saying a handful of randos having a little spare time to catch up on Reddit during their commute is a net plus trade for putting mediocre operators on the road? That's definitely a take.

"A little spare time" is more than two hours a day for a lot of people.

That's a lot of Reddit.

If they don't end up distracting incessantly with ads

For me it's safety (each problem solved gets applied to others, but it could be more profound than that, like chess AIs) and potential to decide on the fly whether to have something similar to a rental car or a much lower rate. For instance maybe I could know a car would be waiting for me and leave my backpack behind while I go on a hike. Plus environmental and city planning hopes.

My mom (who is legally blind) wouldn't have to resort to driving herself to her doctors appointments when myself and my brother are unable to due to work.

Properly marking a construction zone isn't a change in practice - it's already required. But that doesn't mean it was done properly in this case.

If a construction zone is unmarked, human drivers are more likely to drive into it as well.

Anyway, AI cars should be smart enough to "see" a potential unmarked construction zone, just as most humans can. I'm only saying construction zones should be marked explicitly for the safety of all involved.

> Cones become more critical with the proliferation of non-human drivers

Ironic. Cones are the self-driving car’s only weakness, and yet they can’t survive without them

first of all in law there is no such term like "car's fault" or "cow's fault". It's always the owner

Reply on news.ycombinator.com