Hacker News Reader

Comment by simmanian | Hacker News Reader

This is simply not true. The dashcam footage released by Tempe police does not depict the driving conditions at the site of the accident accurately at all. Check out [1] for the actual driving conditions at night.

I'm not usually the one to talk about conspiracy, but Tempe police had no legal responsibility to release the footage since the investigation is still ongoing. Couple this with the statement released by the Tempe chief of police defending Uber, I'm inclined to believe Uber and some state government officials are working together to sway the public opinion and minimize damage. At the end of the day, the victim is painted as an idiot who practically committed suicide. This is gross injustice.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0

View on HN

The thing is that it doesn't really matter. There are only 2 options here. Either, the car should have seen the woman and taken corrective action or it was driving faster than it can see. Just because the speed limit says X doesn't mean that's the speed you should be going. Often, actual conditions require driving slower.

Well, I do feel like I've been had after that and a few other videos, so thank you for that.

My point though, is that I don't want self driving cars to defeat simulations or tests, I want self driving cars that can react to real driving conditions.

But how else do you imagine scenarios like these are tested? Normally there aren't a lot of people willing to jump randomly out in front of cars to test their reaction.

I really don't know. Even with all the hours of recorded road time by Google/Uber used as a testbed for proper driving conditions, most machine learning systems still suffer from figuring out ways of cheating[1], and in those cases it could be fatal.

[1] "The program even learns how to take advantage of bugs and glitches, like timing jumps so that Mario begins falling again at the exact time that he makes contact with a Goomba. Mario's invincible when he's falling, so the touch kills the Goomba, not Mario, and it gives him a further jump boost." http://www.wired.co.uk/article/super-mario-solved

That's a problem for the test design. Maybe we can develop an approach that uses more randomness to test these systems.

But I dont see how you can avoid having a simulation. These events are just too rare to wait until they occur in real life.

It is not ML deciding where to turn, when to slow down.

I imagine just rolling some objects across the road or some self-riding bicycles should be enough.

But what if the self driving cars fail the simulation? The simulation would be the first thing the car needs to pass, if car passes the simulated, then special tests, then you get approved to test on public roads with a security driver, I have no idea when is the time to test without a driver.

I know this is going to sound uncharitable and I acknowledge that any death is tragic but...

This person carelessly crossed a busy road at night! The victim practically did commit suicide. She could have just as easily been killed by a human-driving car, just like thousands of pedestrians do every year. Why are we so quick to try to blame the car? At least the car was in the right place.

The car was not in the right place, or it would not have hit her. In the state of Arizona a pedestrian has right of way in front of any vehicle, and the driver must yield to any pedestrian on the same side of the road.

Edited to add: We don't know anything about her physical or mental condition that might have made it difficult for her to perceive the car or the distance when she was crossing, so to assume that she had perfect perception and chose to cross in front anyway assumes facts not in evidence.

Coming back to this, I was wrong about the details of Arizona law. They require pedestrians to yield to drivers outside of crosswalks, marked or unmarked.

https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00793.htm

However, I still think Uber violated 28-794.1 and .3.

  Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall:
 
  1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.
  2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.
  3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.

https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00794.htm

Reply on news.ycombinator.com