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Comment by JamilD | Hacker News Reader

Updated Uber statement:

"This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

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CA law says every autonomous car in testing needs to have an operator in charge, so technically all incidents are due to human error.

Also: Uber is not listed in the CA DMV list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles? https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...

They seem to claim that it's assistive technology, not self-driving and therefore not required to register as autonomous: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/uber-tests-self-driving-...

Funny , because they say "self driving" on their own website:

https://newsroom.uber.com/san-francisco-your-self-driving-ub...

Sounds like a Tesla PR play: call it Autopilot, except when the context is liability.

The airplane technology that Tesla's Autopilot is named after is also an assistive technology, not a replacement for pilots. The complaint people have around the name is that people don't understand what autopilot is, not that Tesla are equivocating.

>people don't understand what autopilot is

Much effort is expended on branding and naming. This would, at a bare minimim, include a basic consideration of how a word is commonly perceived, irrespective of whether the common perception is accurate.

Tesla is fully aware of the cachet that the name confers upon the brand, while displaying it prominently and relegating the absolution and disclaimers to the finer print. I like Tesla. I admire Musk's acumen and vision. But, here, they are certainly equivocating and it's irresponsible.

Language evolves. If the vast majority of people understand by Autopilot the capability of driving alone without assistance, and you know it, I don't care that the proper textbook definition of that technology refers to assisted driving.

You are being disingenuous at best.

I agree that relying on archaic definitions would be sneaky, but I'm not talking about "the proper textbook definition," I'm talking about how it's used in the real world by people who actually create and use autopilot systems in airplanes. Just because some people use "quantum" to mean "huge" (e.g. "It's a quantum leap forward") doesn't mean somebody is being disingenuous to use it in the sense of "a minimal amount."

Yeah, well, they say they're not a taxi service, too.

unsure if the dmv requires a human operator since uber's argument for not needing dmv's permission is there is a human operator in the car, and therefore it's not a self-driving car.

Uber Marketing: "self driving car!"

Uber Legal: "assisted driving"

Pick one.

I find it telling that they do not actually say whether the car was in autonomous mode when it ran the red light, only that it was "due to human error". Was the human error that they didn't assume manual control and stop the car?

Obviously the error was made by the human who wrote the software that drove the car... hence, human error. QED.

I hope they wouldn't be that shortsighted. If they start suspending employees because of getting caught on camera not reacting to the car's screw up in time they're going to create a lot of distrust and encourage concealment of issues that they'll need to know about to make a safe solution.

we can only assume it was in fact in autonomous mode.

They should release the interior video of the incident, then. It's their car and their employee (not one of their contractors) and with no passenger there's no privacy concern either.

> This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers.

My new side project is a The Aristrocrats joke, except it ends with "The Gig Economy!"

And the classic monty python reference "those responsible have been sacked"

Seems like a reckless statement on a couple of fronts. For one, it's openly disrespectful to the human drivers upon whom they've relied to this point--seemingly regarding them as nuisances which must be discarded post-haste.

And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? Their statement could easily be used against them.

> And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen?

That's not a problem at all. They'll just use "git blame" and fire the programmer whose "human error" caused the accident.

Why on earth should we believe them?

Does it matter who was driving? An Uber company car, involved in testing, ran a red light. That is a demerit to the operation overall.

If a driver is driving a car, and the car knowns it has red light. It has to take control over the driver and stop the car. Over. Why else do you think we need driverless cars? Literally, to fix drivers mistakes. It's Ubers fault, it was computer error. What else do you think Uber would say?

I mean it is due to human error. The human error resides somewhere within Uber-hq.

Why would an employee/contractor be suspended for a minor traffic violation? Nobody was hurt. I'd rather they talk about taking steps to train the people and algorithms better

Did you actually see the video? The car drove through the red light long (in relative terms) after the signal turned red. That an accident didn't happen is sheer luck.

Also, note the pedestrian in the walk who is aware enough to see the car coming and not get hit. I (like many in San Francisco) have crossed that crosswalk many, many times -- often with my kids (it leads to the Yerba Buena Gardens complex) and it's sickening to see this. I agree with the earlier commenters: if they want to maintain that this is human error, Uber should release all data that they have on this.

Yeah, and that's the crossing from Yerba Buena to SFMOMA. It's obviously designed to give pedestrians a lot of breathing room. Autonomous or not, blowing through that crossing was Very Bad.

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