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Comment by steven777400 | Hacker News Reader

Put aside the silly title and the inconsistency between the subtitle and content ("the only real problem was the driver behind the wheel" vs "The sensors failed to register a rapidly accelerating gold-colored SUV beside me and would have driven directly into its path had I not quickly taken over") and this article has a really good point to make:

As we get closer but not entirely to autonomous vehicles, figuring out how to communicate to users (at what point do we stop calling them drivers?) the necessary level of engagement (and notifying them when that level changes) is going to be increasingly critical.

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There's no inconsistency between those two statements. And "figuring out how to communicate to users the necessary level of engagement" doesn't solve very much either. For example, if the car's sensors can't detect a rapidly accelerating gold-colored SUV, how will the car ever be able to tell you "ok, now it's time to watch out for gold-colored SUVs"?

Ultimately it comes down to what a different commenter pointed out, that drivers need to have adequate understanding and expectations around this car and its capabilities.

The term "driver" will still fit. We apply it to someone guiding a camel to a destination.

I think the point is we're trying to make cars into high-energy horses or camels. I'm thinking of the ponies in Iceland that get their farmers back home after a night heavy imbibing. So long as you got on the right horse, it'd take you home. Yah Tesla!

I find myself thinking about the opening scene of a spaghetti western, where a guy is sleeping on a frame being dragged across an arid landscape by a horse.

A car that only requires the effort displayed in "They Call Me Trinity" would be fine by me.

>>The term "driver" will still fit. We apply it to someone guiding a camel to a destination.

No we don't. People ride camels, not drive them. In fact, that's a perfect illustration of the point the parent is making. The reason one doesn't drive a camel is because a camel has a mind of its own. You guide the camel to a specific destination, just like you guide a semi-autonomous car to its destination. In both situations, you may need to take direct control, either by yanking on the reins or grabbing the steering wheel, but for the most part, the vehicle/animal does its thing.

You may be thinking, "wait a minute... we ride bikes too! Does that mean they have a mind of their own?" I would posit that bikes and motorcycles are are exceptions - the reason we ride them is because doing so resembles riding a four-legged animal.

I think OP meant the person who stands by the camel guiding it (for example, if the camel is being used to carry a load, rather than a human).

For example, see this image: http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/40/4000...

Or this image: http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/64/6424...

EDIT: I like how your username fits your comment so well. :-)

>>> As we get closer but not entirely to autonomous vehicles, figuring out how to communicate to users (at what point do we stop calling them drivers?) the necessary level of engagement (and notifying them when that level changes) is going to be increasingly critical.

For starters we could not call advanced lane assist software "autopilot" and we also should require hands on the wheel sensors until the automakers assume liability.

I agree that Autopilot was the wrong choice of name, I'd say it's reckless bordering on seriously negligent.

The name was chosen on its marketing merits not based on its relation to the actual function it performs. That might be ok if you're designing a feature for the car stereo, not so for "Cruise Control v2.0"

> the necessary level of engagement (and notifying them when that level changes) is going to be increasingly critical.

Is there an "uncanny valley" style term for this?

I've been calling this the "deadly valley". The automation is good enough that the driver will tune out, but not good enough for it to be safe that way.

There should be, and the best candidate term is "Children of the Magenta", a term describing pilots who are too dependent on the Magenta lines on their instrumentation.

99% Invisible did a good podcast episode on this a year ago: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magent...

Their follow-up podcast episode talks explicitly about this problem (first seriously discussed in the context of airplane automation) becoming important in the context of self-driving cars, and how Google is very aware of this (hence Google's push for 100% automated cars, since the middle valley is so dangerous).

There are a couple of ways you can do this on the water (radar, AIS), but the names for doing so escapes me. In ocean navigation there is the notion of a tripwire: if X happens, do Y to get your shit together. Ocean traffic also sometimes has the issue of many-thousand-ton vehicles on autopilot while the crew are elsewhere or asleep (not all the time, but enough to be unsettling). Then things get fantastically complicated as you near the destination.

In some ways, it could be useful to have people still driving even when a car is fully autonomous. The human input could function like a copilot, and the autonomous system might be able to learn from the actions of human drivers. It also helps people feel like they're in control.

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