Your thoughts on 'Driverless cars"

[Nukekitten]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

On Halloween here it is common to see all sorts of shapes in the road.

 

[Gitty101]

Well, it'd be awesome to be able to get myself to pubs and back again under my own robotic powered steam.

 

[Nukekitten]

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

Uhm. This seems like a different discussion to be having than the one in the post I responded to which, as far as I understood it, was about whether even if we improved object recognition computers would be capable of making those sorts of decisions. I took as one of your assumptions that a computer would be able to tell the difference between children and other things reasonably reliably.

If the question is whether it would be possible to make a computer tell the difference between children and different objects... well, I feel like it is. There's a lot of work going on with surveillance towards face recognition, gait recognition and the like. It seems like the question of 'Which person is this?' is a harder one to answer than 'is this a dog or a person?' and since the former question has had significant advances over the last twenty years I'm not convinced that it's a not in the foreseeable (timespan?) future type of hard problem.

edit:
If we're talking about the problem generally, I feel it's also worth mentioning that it's extremely rare for someone to just run out into the road without any warning. When you're driving you notice things on the pavement and if sight's restricted, space is restricted, or you see them moving towards you - you slow down in case they do step out without looking.

At 15-20mph, which I'd consider a reasonable speed for driving a short distance from a line of parked cars on the side of the road where you might miss seeing someone who's about to step out into traffic, your stopping distance is very small, and within the time that stopping distance allows I'm not sure that a human could adequately categorise a threat as someone in a Halloween costume vs a real dog and decide whether to hit it or not. We're talking 3 car lengths sort of distance, half of which the driving books say is just your reaction time. It seems to me that in that sort of time you'd just slam on the brakes and trust the ABS to stop you rather than spending the thinking time.

 

[michael87cn]

as a carless pedestrian (11 years running) I am in favor of people losing their abiliy to control the vehicles themselves. You know how many times I get nearly run over by people running red lights, not yielding to me when the light gives me 18 seconds to cross the street, honking at me when I walk across a pedestrian crossing section like I'm the one breaking the law...? You know how many people I see talking on their phone driving with one hand not even noticing me or driving without a seatbelt with 3 kids in the back seat playing?

People. Are. Stupid.

The most stressful part of my day is my 15 minute walk to and from work as I see a literal sea of cars rush around in a crazed, rushed manner. What's the fucking rush? You don't have to walk you lazy bastards.... Why are you in such a hurry? None of you deserve the luxury of that vehicle. Unfortunately life doesn't operate on what we deserve.... but fortunately we may see direct control of vehicles be taken away so that everyone can travel safely and the stupid hicks that rev their engines honk their horns, speed, or basically drive monster trucks on the road put to an end. Driving is not a game and a car is not a toy.

Grow up....

Also, since the worlds supply of fuel is projected to run out by like 2055 anyway we can all rest safely knowing that either the world is about to end or the 'fun' of driving a car 'ourselves' is about to end NO MATTER WHAT.

 

[Repomancer]

My concern doesn't include hackers trying to prove how 1337 they are, undetected sensor failure, software bugs, or shape misinterpretation -- those can all be addressed and certainly will be before driverless becomes the accepted norm. I'd worry more about some murderous teenage nutjob standing on the overpass with a cinderblock. A driverless car might be able to react to the falling object (sorry, passengers + whoever was in the adjacent lane), but an alert (human) driver could avoid any trouble far in advance.

Sure, that's not the sort of thing you see in the average million miles of driving, but such things do happen. I hate to use the term "AI", because intelligent is what computers aren't, but until a car's AI can divine the intent of that shape on the overpass I'll be happier with a human behind the wheel.

I was once on the 405 in Los Angeles heading from Santa Monica up the hill to the Valley, and saw a car hit by a golf ball -- it smashed the windshield and caused a huge wreck, which I mercifully avoided. Some loon in the yard of one of the Nice Houses? that line the mountainside was driving balls onto the freeway, for fun and to presumably see how many people he/she could kill. (Bad example, because a human couldn't deal with it any better than software could, but it got me to thinkin'. Ihopeyougetmydrift.) I guess my point is that I trust what driverless cars will be able to deal with on the road. Things happening off the road, I'm not so sure.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

Uhm. This seems like a different discussion to be having than the one in the post I responded to which, as far as I understood it, was about whether even if we improved object recognition computers would be capable of making those sorts of decisions. I took as one of your assumptions that a computer would be able to tell the difference between children and other things reasonably reliably.

If the question is whether it would be possible to make a computer tell the difference between children and different objects... well, I feel like it is. There's a lot of work going on with surveillance towards face recognition, gait recognition and the like. It seems like the question of 'Which person is this?' is a harder one to answer than 'is this a dog or a person?' and since the former question has had significant advances over the last twenty years I'm not convinced that it's a not in the foreseeable (timespan?) future type of hard problem.

edit:
If we're talking about the problem generally, I feel it's also worth mentioning that it's extremely rare for someone to just run out into the road without any warning. When you're driving you notice things on the pavement and if sight's restricted, space is restricted, or you see them moving towards you - you slow down in case they do step out without looking.

At 15-20mph, which I'd consider a reasonable speed for driving a short distance from a line of parked cars on the side of the road where you might miss seeing someone who's about to step out into traffic, your stopping distance is very small, and within the time that stopping distance allows I'm not sure that a human could adequately categorise a threat as someone in a Halloween costume vs a real dog and decide whether to hit it or not. We're talking 3 car lengths sort of distance, half of which the driving books say is just your reaction time. It seems to me that in that sort of time you'd just slam on the brakes and trust the ABS to stop you rather than spending the thinking time.

I think you are assuming that neighborhoods where children are likely to run out in the street also have lower speed limits, and in some places this is correct, however, the speed limit out in front of my parents home where I grew up is 55mph. Every home on our street had children, and kids were frequently in the road. The street is ALSO lined with trees along the fence line greatly reducing visibility on the sides. Most speed limits where I reside are 55- 70mph, and yes, humans have been able to avoid running over the children here.

In order to avoid hitting things in the road, you frequently have to maneuver off of the road, not just stop in order to avoid hitting them and you have to make a judgement call as to what it is you are hitting would be better than what you could have hit. Sometimes that is deciding between hitting a cow or a horse with a rider, or hitting child or a parked car or a house.

I am not sure why you think it is rare to have people run out into the street, it really is not. It happens quite frequently, and sadly one of my friends from school also died that way at the age of 20.

 

[Nukekitten]

I think you are assuming that neighborhoods where children are likely to run out in the street also have lower speed limits, and in some places this is correct, however, the speed limit out in front of my parents home where I grew up is 55mph. Every home on our street had children, and kids were frequently in the road. The street is ALSO lined with trees along the fence line greatly reducing visibility on the sides. Most speed limits where I reside are 55- 70mph, and yes, humans have been able to avoid running over the children here.

In order to avoid hitting things in the road, you frequently have to maneuver off of the road, not just stop in order to avoid hitting them and you have to make a judgement call as to what it is you are hitting would be better than what you could have hit. Sometimes that is deciding between hitting a cow or a horse with a rider, or hitting child or a parked car or a house.

I am not sure why you think it is rare to have people run out into the street, it really is not. It happens quite frequently, and sadly one of my friends from school also died that way at the age of 20.

Driver training where I am is probably quite different to driver training where you are judging from that. If I'd done 55mph through a place with bad sight lines or dense civilian traffic, regardless of the posted speed limit, I'd have failed my test. Seriously, there are areas around here where the posted limit is the national one - 70mph on that type of road - where people aren't likely to run out into the road, and I've not seen anyone do more than 40mph through them, and lower where they're approaching areas of limited visibility, because the road doesn't support speeds greater than that safely.

It was like one of the basic rules for driving when I was learning - one of the things that if nothing else I was repeatedly told I had to get hammered into my head: "Always drive in such a manner that you may stop within the space that you can see to be clear on your side of the road."

So, my response to that is basically, 'Regardless of whether you're a computer or a person: Don't drive at 55mph through areas people are liable to run out into the road! The speed limit is an absolute maximum, not a target.' I mean it sucks that driving is like that where you are, and maybe you're obliged to drive in that manner because that's what everyone around you is doing and it would be more dangerous not to, but I don't think that it reflects on the general feasibility of automated cars that drivers in your area behave badly.

Say someone does swerve to avoid a collision and hits something else instead: It's a good reaction, but it's dreadful planning. What happens if the thing they swerve and hit is another person? What if their option is to hit the child or run into oncoming traffic where the oncoming vehicle has a bunch of kids in it? What if...

They still hit something. They were no longer in total control of the course of the vehicle of they'd have elected not to. And you're promoting that sort of reaction as a good thing but I'm seeing that sort of driving as strongly contributing to needing to take that action in the first place. The reaction just manages to correct for the mess sufficiently well that, thank god, no-one necessarily dies. In the words of a court case I attended in the last few months, 'You were clearly driving far too fast to react safely to the unexpected.'

That's not good driving to my mind, and if we're going to make driverless cars behave like that, then yeah maybe don't bother with them. You shouldn't be using technology as a bad band aid on bad practice. Fix the bad practice instead, either in software or in law.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I think you are assuming that neighborhoods where children are likely to run out in the street also have lower speed limits, and in some places this is correct, however, the speed limit out in front of my parents home where I grew up is 55mph. Every home on our street had children, and kids were frequently in the road. The street is ALSO lined with trees along the fence line greatly reducing visibility on the sides. Most speed limits where I reside are 55- 70mph, and yes, humans have been able to avoid running over the children here.

In order to avoid hitting things in the road, you frequently have to maneuver off of the road, not just stop in order to avoid hitting them and you have to make a judgement call as to what it is you are hitting would be better than what you could have hit. Sometimes that is deciding between hitting a cow or a horse with a rider, or hitting child or a parked car or a house.

I am not sure why you think it is rare to have people run out into the street, it really is not. It happens quite frequently, and sadly one of my friends from school also died that way at the age of 20.

Driver training where I am is probably quite different to driver training where you are judging from that. If I'd done 55mph through a place with bad sight lines or dense civilian traffic, regardless of the posted speed limit, I'd have failed my test. Seriously, there are areas around here where the posted limit is the national one - 70mph on that type of road - where people aren't likely to run out into the road, and I've not seen anyone do more than 40mph through them, and lower where they're approaching areas of limited visibility, because the road doesn't support speeds greater than that safely.

It was like one of the basic rules for driving when I was learning - one of the things that if nothing else I was repeatedly told I had to get hammered into my head: "Always drive in such a manner that you may stop within the space that you can see to be clear on your side of the road."

So, my response to that is basically, 'Regardless of whether you're a computer or a person: Don't drive at 55mph through areas people are liable to run out into the road! The speed limit is an absolute maximum, not a target.' I mean it sucks that driving is like that where you are, and maybe you're obliged to drive in that manner because that's what everyone around you is doing and it would be more dangerous not to, but I don't think that it reflects on the general feasibility of automated cars that drivers in your area behave badly.

Say someone does swerve to avoid a collision and hits something else instead: It's a good reaction, but it's dreadful planning. What happens if the thing they swerve and hit is another person? What if their option is to hit the child or run into oncoming traffic where the oncoming vehicle has a bunch of kids in it? What if...

They still hit something. They were no longer in total control of the course of the vehicle of they'd have elected not to. And you're promoting that sort of reaction as a good thing but I'm seeing that sort of driving as strongly contributing to needing to take that action in the first place. The reaction just manages to correct for the mess sufficiently well that, thank god, no-one necessarily dies. In the words of a court case I attended in the last few months, 'You were clearly driving far too fast to react safely to the unexpected.'

That's not good driving to my mind, and if we're going to make driverless cars behave like that, then yeah maybe don't bother with them. You shouldn't be using technology as a bad band aid on bad practice. Fix the bad practice instead, either in software or in law.

You are giving terribly dangerous driving advice, as you would get people killed here doing that. You are more likely to cause an accident if you drive too slow rather than too fast, and you will rightfully get a ticket here for doing so. Most people here drive 70+mph. It is less likely to cause an accident if you are keeping up with the flow of traffic. Even going 75-80 mph on highway 80 here and a ladder rolled across multiple lanes, all of the vehicles were able to maneuver around it without getting anyone harmed at high speeds. We have to expect vehicles to be able to do so here, or they are dangerous. Some speed limits in Texas are 85mph and we have to have vehicles that can operate at these speeds. The point of that reaction is to be able to identify what is on the side of the road and maneuver your vehicle accordingly. You DO need to be able to tell whether it is a bunch of kids is what I am saying, we as humans ALREADY do. I do not think anyone should be behind the wheel that cannot operate at those speeds. You seem to think this is fast, but I have operated vehicles with full control at much higher speeds( my Father designed, built and raced Pro stock cars).
You do not " plan" what is on the road, you have to be able to react accordingly REGARDLESS of what is on the road. Things fly out of vehicles all the time, and we have been driving at high speeds with this happening for many years now already. Of course we should expect all the vehicles on the road to be able to do the same, otherwise they should not be on the road in the first place.

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/driving-too-slow-tickets-insurance.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016721/Slow-drivers-dangerous-roads-cause-crashes.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/25/texas-85-mph-toll-road-opens-weeks-ahead-of-schedule/

 

[Nukekitten]

You are giving terribly dangerous driving advice, as you would get people killed here doing that. You are more likely to cause an accident if you drive too slow rather than too fast, and you will rightfully get a ticket here for doing so. Most people here drive 70+mph. It is less likely to cause an accident if you are keeping up with the flow of traffic.

"it sucks that driving is like that where you are, and maybe you're obliged to drive in that manner because that's what everyone around you is doing and it would be more dangerous not to, but I don't think that it reflects on the general feasibility of automated cars that drivers in your area behave badly."

Even going 75-80 mph on highway 80 here and a ladder rolled across multiple lanes, all of the vehicles were able to maneuver around it without getting anyone harmed at high speeds. We have to expect vehicles to be able to do so here, or they are dangerous. Some speed limits in Texas are 85mph and we have to have vehicles that can operate at these speeds. The point of that reaction is to be able to identify what is on the side of the road and maneuver your vehicle accordingly. You DO need to be able to tell whether it is a bunch of kids is what I am saying, we as humans ALREADY do. I do not think anyone should be behind the wheel that cannot operate at those speeds. You seem to think this is fast, but I have operated vehicles with full control at much higher speeds( my Father designed, built and raced Pro stock cars).
You do not " plan" what is on the road, you have to be able to react accordingly REGARDLESS of what is on the road. Things fly out of vehicles all the time, and we have been driving at high speeds with this happening for many years now already. Of course we should expect all the vehicles on the road to be able to do the same, otherwise they should not be on the road in the first place.

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/driving-too-slow-tickets-insurance.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016721/Slow-drivers-dangerous-roads-cause-crashes.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/25/texas-85-mph-toll-road-opens-weeks-ahead-of-schedule/

I think the definition of fast is defined by the context you're in. I've driven cars well in excess of a hundred miles an hour on public roads on blue light runs before without feeling that it was unsafe. The only way to do that reasonably safely is to plan your drive. Planning your drive is of course different than planning what's going to be on the road. No-one can plan what's going to be on the road, we don't have perfect knowledge. You plan so as to increase the time you have to react and options to change speed and direction. It's not going into a corner at silly speeds when there might very well be an accident on the other side or someone stepping into the road. It's moving so as to increase your sight lines and safety. It's maintaining an escape route. It's maintaining a reasonable separation from the car in front. It's noticing when someone's going to emerge from a junction and staying out so that they can do so safely. It's building enough space and time into your drive so that if something happens your options aren't 'Kill someone or slam into something.'

Maybe that's not viable where you are. That sucks for you. I don't see it as a general argument against automated cars but as an argument that your traffic laws and driver training are terrible. You don't need to be able to classify whether something's a dog or a child to know it's probably not going to be conductive to continuing your drive in a safe manner to slam into it at 55mph or take a poorly controlled swerve into a nearby object.

And frankly the statement that driving at those speeds in the context you do so is safe, considering the ridiculous number of road fatalities and injuries in America? I don't buy it. You may have no better options, I won't dispute that one way or the other. But I'm not convinced it's safe - and statements about kids stepping out in front of traffic and things flying off of cars that make you swerve at those sorts of speeds, and that you personally know one person who's crashed from that sort of thing and another who's died, does no favours in that consideration.

I've heard nothing on this point to convince me that driverless cars should fulfil the standards of Texan traffic as much as I've heard things that make me believe the standards of Texan traffic shouldn't be adopted. If that's the way it's going to be in Texas, just don't use driverless cars in Texas until the technology's more mature.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

They aren't why would anyone think they were?
They already have been hacked, and people have been complaining about those as well. I am not sure what you are going on about.

http://rt.com/usa/texas-professor-drone-hacking-249/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/17/drone.video.hacked/

The sentiment seems to be that if cars were hackable people would commit atrocities with them, drive everyone into a wall, cut breaks ect, that this would be an inevitable consequence.

I ask that if we have pilotless flying missile launchers and THESE are hackable why isnt there mass terror and hysteria as the hackers do these things already with far more potent tools?

Hackers can already commit mass murder apparently, just turn a drone around and blow up cities. But they havnt, either UAV's cant be hacked by these back garden hackers or they dont want to commit domestic terrorism. Either way theres a demonstration that theres simply not been an abuse of drones to kill people by hacking them. Why would it be different for cars, arguably a far less efficient method?

Honest question, if you think there would be hacker car attacks why hasnt there been a hacker drone attack? Answer that one question tbh since thats the crux of it.

It's a lot easier to get a million automated cars to crash than it is to get a single drone to blow something up.

What do you have to do to get a drone to kill thousands of people? You have to hack the drone, then take direct control of its systems, take the time to fly it somewhere with a lot of people (which could take several hours during which you would need to be in control of all the drone's systems), be able to aim the missiles, and then fire them.

What does it take to get millions of driver less cars to crash? Tell them all to turn left.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

You are giving terribly dangerous driving advice, as you would get people killed here doing that. You are more likely to cause an accident if you drive too slow rather than too fast, and you will rightfully get a ticket here for doing so. Most people here drive 70+mph. It is less likely to cause an accident if you are keeping up with the flow of traffic.

"it sucks that driving is like that where you are, and maybe you're obliged to drive in that manner because that's what everyone around you is doing and it would be more dangerous not to, but I don't think that it reflects on the general feasibility of automated cars that drivers in your area behave badly."

Even going 75-80 mph on highway 80 here and a ladder rolled across multiple lanes, all of the vehicles were able to maneuver around it without getting anyone harmed at high speeds. We have to expect vehicles to be able to do so here, or they are dangerous. Some speed limits in Texas are 85mph and we have to have vehicles that can operate at these speeds. The point of that reaction is to be able to identify what is on the side of the road and maneuver your vehicle accordingly. You DO need to be able to tell whether it is a bunch of kids is what I am saying, we as humans ALREADY do. I do not think anyone should be behind the wheel that cannot operate at those speeds. You seem to think this is fast, but I have operated vehicles with full control at much higher speeds( my Father designed, built and raced Pro stock cars).
You do not " plan" what is on the road, you have to be able to react accordingly REGARDLESS of what is on the road. Things fly out of vehicles all the time, and we have been driving at high speeds with this happening for many years now already. Of course we should expect all the vehicles on the road to be able to do the same, otherwise they should not be on the road in the first place.

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/driving-too-slow-tickets-insurance.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016721/Slow-drivers-dangerous-roads-cause-crashes.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/25/texas-85-mph-toll-road-opens-weeks-ahead-of-schedule/

I think the definition of fast is defined by the context you're in. I've driven cars well in excess of a hundred miles an hour on public roads on blue light runs before without feeling that it was unsafe. The only way to do that reasonably safely is to plan your drive. Planning your drive is of course different than planning what's going to be on the road. No-one can plan what's going to be on the road, we don't have perfect knowledge. You plan so as to increase the time you have to react and options to change speed and direction. It's not going into a corner at silly speeds when there might very well be an accident on the other side or someone stepping into the road. It's moving so as to increase your sight lines and safety. It's maintaining an escape route. It's maintaining a reasonable separation from the car in front. It's noticing when someone's going to emerge from a junction and staying out so that they can do so safely. It's building enough space and time into your drive so that if something happens your options aren't 'Kill someone or slam into something.'

Maybe that's not viable where you are. That sucks for you. I don't see it as a general argument against automated cars but as an argument that your traffic laws and driver training are terrible. You don't need to be able to classify whether something's a dog or a child to know it's probably not going to be conductive to continuing your drive in a safe manner to slam into it at 55mph or take a poorly controlled swerve into a nearby object.

And frankly the statement that driving at those speeds in the context you do so is safe, considering the ridiculous number of road fatalities and injuries in America? I don't buy it. You may have no better options, I won't dispute that one way or the other. But I'm not convinced it's safe - and statements about kids stepping out in front of traffic and things flying off of cars that make you swerve at those sorts of speeds, and that you personally know one person who's crashed from that sort of thing and another who's died, does no favours in that consideration.

I've heard nothing on this point to convince me that driverless cars should fulfil the standards of Texan traffic as much as I've heard things that make me believe the standards of Texan traffic shouldn't be adopted. If that's the way it's going to be in Texas, just don't use driverless cars in Texas until the technology's more mature.

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future. Outside of building specific routes just for these vehicles such as a subway system or rail system built for transportation pods, I am not seeing how automated transportation would be feasible. The idea of creating a pod like automated rail system in tunnels where the environment is controlled though could be something that works, as long as it is properly maintained.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

They aren't why would anyone think they were?
They already have been hacked, and people have been complaining about those as well. I am not sure what you are going on about.

http://rt.com/usa/texas-professor-drone-hacking-249/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/17/drone.video.hacked/

The sentiment seems to be that if cars were hackable people would commit atrocities with them, drive everyone into a wall, cut breaks ect, that this would be an inevitable consequence.

I ask that if we have pilotless flying missile launchers and THESE are hackable why isnt there mass terror and hysteria as the hackers do these things already with far more potent tools?

Hackers can already commit mass murder apparently, just turn a drone around and blow up cities. But they havnt, either UAV's cant be hacked by these back garden hackers or they dont want to commit domestic terrorism. Either way theres a demonstration that theres simply not been an abuse of drones to kill people by hacking them. Why would it be different for cars, arguably a far less efficient method?

Honest question, if you think there would be hacker car attacks why hasnt there been a hacker drone attack? Answer that one question tbh since thats the crux of it.

It's a lot easier to get a million automated cars to crash than it is to get a single drone to blow something up.

What do you have to do to get a drone to kill thousands of people? You have to hack the drone, then take direct control of its systems, take the time to fly it somewhere with a lot of people (which could take several hours during which you would need to be in control of all the drone's systems), be able to aim the missiles, and then fire them.

What does it take to get millions of driver less cars to crash? Tell them all to turn left.

The scary thing is this is true. I think working on a pod like rail system in tunnels would be far safer and obtainable than working on "driver less cars".

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this or not but imagine the huge improvement on traffic it would make if all vehicles were automated? If they were all working on a system in which they were synced up with each other, it'd be a great way to alleviate congested areas.

What happens when the system gets a virus?

Is the fear of something like that happening stopped us from automating many other things in the past? It is just a matter of doing your best to protect the system and have something in place to prevent issues. It obviously isn't something that'd pop up overnight. However, you can't always stick to the same way you've done things just because of a risk something might go wrong.

Also I can't imagine even the worst virus would be any worse than the average driver on the road anyway. Have you seen how poorly most of them drive?

Also, I think too many people think of a driverless system in such a way as if we'd just throw a bunch of cars without drivers on the existing transit system. Ideally, you'd probably eventually overhaul it in such a way that vehicles literally cannot crash into each other. A bit like automated rail systems everywhere, or some other kind of transit.

However, I don't think it isn't worth pursuing something just because of risk. If we avoid everything with risk, we'll never get anywhere.

 

[Nukekitten]

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

Last I saw the figures (2010) you had 11.87 traffic deaths per 100,000 population - or at least that's what's in my database at the moment. Which was about average for America in that year, it's not high but it's certainly not low in the same sense that somewhere like Washington was. It's dreadful by comparison to somewhere like the UK (3.5/100,000 pop) or Germany (4.3/100,000 pop), the latter of which being somewhere people also drive at very high speeds, in certain contexts.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future.

We've sort of just had that discussion. I don't find there to be a need to tell a difference between an animal and a person when you ought to be able to elect not to hit something regardless. Nor do I find the difficulty of securing something on a network convincing when it would be an act of utter stupidity to connect your car's critical systems to a network, (we're going to run into this problem with the current crop of cars anyway - when someone can make your car's brakes, for instance, do what they want and they're each individually controlled it's going to be very easy to introduce an uncontrollable spin the minute you hit 70mph. You just shouldn't network your car's critical systems. It's a Bad Idea.) and think that even if people did do so and even if someone did kill a bunch of people remotely they would then correct the mistake and in the long run the lives saved would outnumber them anyway.

There are definitely ways not to do driverless cars, but I'm not convinced the idea itself is infeasible for some vaguely defined version of the foreseeable future. Are there technological challenges to be overcome? Sure, no question about it. If your guidance system relies on GPS you're stuffed by default. Even if you can convince the military to let you into their encrypted version you're still probably stuffed because a lot of the difficulty of encryption is in the implementation rather than the maths. Will we have them in large numbers in ten years? I doubt it, though I expect that the relevant technologies will - by virtue of surveillance tech being refined have many more automated systems in cars. (Honestly I don't expect a switch to automation over night, I expect more features to be gradually added.) Fifty? I expect the relevant technologies to be fairly mature by then to a level where though people can theoretically still drive their cars they're just not bothering most of the time, if we still have cars at all (passenger-mile/energy wise they're not a smart move.)

Should we do it tomorrow, or even next year? Well if someone wants to give it a go I'm not against letting them try, a few deaths compared to the potential gain... I'm not going to say no to that gamble. But I'd be surprised if it went well.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Can't it be more prone for hacking?

There are some videos showing that cars these days can be hacked so that you can mess with the brakes and the driver will not have any control.

It can already be kind of done, disable the ABS and what not, so auto-drive cars would be ripe for that sort of thing. As for me I love to drive and I couldn't think of anything worse than to be chauffeured around. Plus they've already got auto-drive cars, they're called buses; and if you've ever been on one you'll know how goddamn boring they are to be in.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

Your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see this being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

Last I saw the figures (2010) you had 11.87 traffic deaths per 100,000 population - or at least that's what's in my database at the moment. Which was about average for America in that year, it's not high but it's certainly not low in the same sense that somewhere like Washington was. It's dreadful by comparison to somewhere like the UK (3.5/100,000 pop) or Germany (4.3/100,000 pop), the latter of which being somewhere people also drive at very high speeds, in certain contexts.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future.

We've sort of just had that discussion. I don't find there to be a need to tell a difference between an animal and a person when you ought to be able to elect not to hit something regardless. Nor do I find the difficulty of securing something on a network convincing when it would be an act of utter stupidity to connect your car's critical systems to a network, (we're going to run into this problem with the current crop of cars anyway - when someone can make your car's brakes, for instance, do what they want and they're each individually controlled it's going to be very easy to introduce an uncontrollable spin the minute you hit 70mph. You just shouldn't network your car's critical systems. It's a Bad Idea.) and think that even if people did do so and even if someone did kill a bunch of people remotely they would then correct the mistake and in the long run the lives saved would outnumber them anyway.

There are definitely ways not to do driverless cars, but I'm not convinced the idea itself is infeasible for some vaguely defined version of the foreseeable future. Are there technological challenges to be overcome? Sure, no question about it. If your guidance system relies on GPS you're stuffed by default. Even if you can convince the military to let you into their encrypted version you're still probably stuffed because a lot of the difficulty of encryption is in the implementation rather than the maths. Will we have them in large numbers in ten years? I doubt it, though I expect that the relevant technologies will - by virtue of surveillance tech being refined have many more automated systems in cars. (Honestly I don't expect a switch to automation over night, I expect more features to be gradually added.) Fifty? I expect the relevant technologies to be fairly mature by then to a level where though people can theoretically still drive their cars they're just not bothering most of the time, if we still have cars at all (passenger-mile/energy wise they're not a smart move.)

Should we do it tomorrow, or even next year? Well if someone wants to give it a go I'm not against letting them try, a few deaths compared to the potential gain... I'm not going to say no to that gamble. But I'd be surprised if it went well.

In order to compare the stats of Texas to European nations, you would have to combine the stats from like 4 European nations to be comparable to the size of Texas. People also commute MUCH farther distances here than they do in Europe, thus require higher speeds just to access work, grocery shopping, and hospitals. The way residential and commercial zoning is restricted here makes for much longer commutes. I see the idea of pod/ rail systems a much more realistic option than the idea of driverless cars due to how much safer and progress we have made on that in comparison.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

In your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see the being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

jeesh, you have some crazy high speed limits in texas then if that is average in city driving speeds, I should've switched my field specialty and been a transportation engineer down there

While dallas is bloody huge obviously, you guys must really have your shit spread out if you NEED to drive that fast even casually.. I mean for work yeah I have to bloody haul ass because that is what is expected of me, time is money, but in rush hour traffic you're lucky to get above 55 at any given point in time in my city, but that is more due to humans being fucking selfish asshole dipshits rather than it being too busy.

While the pod cars are a nice idea, it would take massive reconstruction on most of america's cities, as very very few cities aren't built around heavy car use, and the pods are too impersonal because they can only take you too/from hot spots, not to and from home when you live out in suburbs and such. Not that I wouldn't mind cleaner and more efficient transportation methods, I just don't think we'll see the switch away from cars anytime soon, it's become too engrained with how easy it is to just hop in your car and go.