Hacker News Reader

>This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always be in the driver seat, ready to take control.

And people who do research in this area have concluded that this doesn't work. People let their attention drift (even if they don't actively perform some other task) and, even if people are more or less paying attention, they haven't been driving and switching modes in that way is difficult.

We're definitely reaching the point with assistive driving systems where there probably needs to be more discussion about how much assistance makes sense if no one is willing to fully turn over control.

Humans are mostly terrible at handling unknown complex situations on the road.

For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously."

You don't have to get "undefined behavior" in response to an unknown situation. The AI can simply default to braking to a stop in the absence of any better programmed alternative. This will already put it on par with most drivers. Better, in fact, because the AI can begin braking instantly.

I personally find that the majority of driverless vehicle talk vastly overestimates the average human driver, and demands unreasonable perfection from the computers.

Not only can a computer begin braking more promptly, it can brake more accurately. Many human drivers hit the brakes 100% when they sense danger, then the full force of braking startles them (no training), then they let off again. This can increase stopping distances dramatically.

Next up is per-wheel braking. Not just stability control, but actual directed thrust. The computer can control each wheel independently. Humans just have one brake pedal. Four wheel steering might even make a comeback.

> For many human drivers on the roads right now, the response to a sudden weird situation is either going to be "brake heavily" or "swerve dangerously."

Or a combination of both, potentially causing the tires to slip and the car to leave the roadway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSE3fkeHAmo

Remember the two second rule? Instantaneous response would be a huge improvement in many situations already.

With today's aggressive and impatient drivers, the 2 second rule is very hard to maintain because they'll just pass you and fill the spot, every time.

I see this stated a lot, but I think it's exaggerated. My car's adaptive cruise control follows at about 2.5 seconds when on the maximum setting, which is where I almost always keep it, including in heavy traffic. People do occasionally jump in, but then the car just backs off a bit and starts following the new car at 2.5 seconds. It's not a constant churn, and it doesn't cause any significant delay. And this is in the DC area, with dense traffic and ridiculous drivers.

When people say that it doesn't work, I really think they're just saying that they can't stand having other people get ahead by breaking the rules, and they'd rather drive more dangerously than let that happen.

I tend to think the "A human driver must be ready to take over" line of thinking has a lot to do with liability as well. I just think it sets up an unfair situation where the human will often fail.

But you only have to program it once and then all the cars get the update. That's a lot better than hoping every individual human got properly trained and remembers what to do.

The list of situations a car has to react to is not infinite. You can program a reasonable response for a broader list of situations than you could for a human. And really, a human would fare very badly in your situations so a computer could hardly do worse.

> But you only have to program it once and then all the cars get the update

Not exactly. The situations we're discussing are more-or-less unique, having their own environment variables to contend with.

Not to mention, there are scenarios where a driverless car will never be able to operate (such as off roads, or back-country/non-mapped areas, or when road lines are covered by snow or just not there due to road construction, etc...).

Roads are anything but a constant. I cannot foresee any future where someone can get into a vehicle, in the back seat, tell the vehicle where to go, and then promptly take a nap.

Even with high-grade multi-million dollar vehicles such as military drones, they still require two humans to be at the controls at any time (even though in the air, collision opportunities are almost non-existent). The sensors and computers in a mere $20,000 vehicle aren't going to compete with this stuff.

A human will always have to pay attention to the road and be ready to take control. This aspect almost completely nullifies the desire for a driverless vehicle.

> In order for any AI to handle any situation, it must first be programmed to do so. If that situation was an unknown, you get undefined behavior.

No, that's not how AI nor computers work. It's quite trivial to have a default behavior like "brake", the notion that a new situation will confuse the computer is just you watching too many movies.

> This is why majority of sane driverless vehicle talk has concluded a human driver must always be in the driver seat, ready to take control.

Would add also something that requires an actual driver to take the wheel periodically to not get lazy and forget what it's like to drive (as apparently what has happened with some airline pilots?)