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Comment by perl4ever | Hacker News Reader

"Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product."

I am skeptical of that, because I expect that even if disconnects are ultra-rare overall, and the testing is representative of normal usage, there will be enough people that frequently use the technology in ways far off on the tail of the distribution that for them, disconnects will be much less rare. And that might create a PR blowup or worse.

I think what is worrying me may be something called "heteroscedasticity".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroscedasticity

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For self-driving cars, what would that be? You can misuse a non-self driving car by speeding, giving you above-average chances of accidents. You can be old, giving you above average chances of being involved in accidents (per km driven). You can smoke, giving you above average chances of getting lung cancer. You can misuse a partially self driving car by somehow convincing it that you do follow the traffic while actually not following it, and then blame any accidents onto the self-drive feature.

But fully self driving cars only have two inputs: starting point and destination. Doesn't matter whether you are old, sleeping, 13 or a dog. Unless some roads are more susceptible to accidents than others, or manufacturers let people also fiddle with how much a car should risk accidents in order to get a little decrease in travel time, I don't see any way possible. And if manufacturers really do give that option, it's truly their fault.

> You can be old, giving you above average chances of being involved in accidents (per km driven).

You have to be very old for this to be true.

It turns out that 16-25 years old is worse than any group until something like 75-80 years old.

>You can misuse a non-self driving car by speeding, giving you above-average chances of accidents.

I feel like it's the opposite... When I drive the speed limit, other drivers around me become more aggressive. Even if they have to exit the highway 20 seconds later they fiercely fight for tiny speed differences of 10km/h, start flashing their headlights, etc.

I meant speeding in a more general sense of driving faster than what's safe given the circumstances. E.g. you shouldn't get near the all-year limit if there's ice on the road. In dry lit summer conditions with nobody on the road you can drive much faster.

If you are driving during rush hour where everyone is stressful, then idiots will flash headlights, do risky behaviour, etc, that's true. And yeah, driving slightly over the speed limit to be consistent with the traffic around you is generally a good idea. But if they are too much over the limit, it's their doing, not mine, and if the risky behaviour causes an accident in which I'm involved, it won't be my fault if I'm following the rules. Conversely, no judge will accept it as an argument if you speed because of the idiots and you cause an accident.

I personally just let the idiots be idiots. Especially when the limit has a cause, e.g. a construction site or something: they put a lower speed limit for the safety of the construction workers. I won't compromise their safety, not a bit.

Maybe on access-limited highways.

But on (sub)urban streets driving the speed limit decreases the chance of causing serious injury to other road users, including pedestrians, even if it may lead to an increase in the total number of crashes between motorists.

In the hands of a consumer, don't forget being diligent with maintenance, driving on unsealed roads, choosing to drive in poor conditions. There are probably a lot more. It is surprising how much some people abuse machines.

Waymo's "shipped product" is likely to be a fleet service in several cities, at least at first, so maintenance is their responsibility. Likewise, I'd imagine unsealed roads would be outside initial coverage areas.

(Note that while I work at Google, I don't have any particularly relevant inside knowledge. What I'm saying is consistent with their current pilot in Phoenix and public articles.)

They already have a fleet although in just a part of one city. They will keep expanding the fleet and the area/cities covered over time. Instead of one big announcement that we have selfdriving cars they will keep expanding and improving over decades. And just like people kept harping about driving range of electric cars. They will suddenly be everywhere. Car manufacturers are wary of Waymo so far but the first large manafacturer to join hands with them will probably dominate car/transport industry of the future.

> Unless some roads are more susceptible to accidents than others

By chance do you happen to live somewhere without icy roads?

I live in Minnesota and have my entire life. I hope very much that self driving cars lead to a more sane response to icy conditions, which is to not drive. If the vehicles are in a position to enforce that at a technical level then all the better.

I agree. I was simply pointing out that "unless some roads are more susceptible to accidents than others" certainly happens, very frequently.

But I too am hopeful that machines are better than human drivers in all scenarios.

Funny. This reminds me of all the comments about apps like Dropbox. "Do you happen to live with strict low data caps?"

Well, guess what, those guys are still on Reddit making snarky comments and the Dropbox guys have IPO'd.

I certainly hope hazardous weather conditions go the way of small data caps.

Haha, or we can get better at dealing with them and introduce ourselves to them as we get better.

But fair play for playing with the analogy. Funny.

Yes, people who can't live in pleasant places will not get some tech early. C'est la vie. We'll get there.

I imagine that computers are a lot better than humans at control tasks like keeping traction on icy roads. I don't think that this is a hard problem in self-driving tech.

I've now seen the word heteroscedasticity twice in 5 minutes and thank you for providing the link to Wikipedia. Although I think the 'meta-variety' synonym was quite apt on the other page.

I'm way less worried about this than when Waymo was originally called the Google Self-Driving Car Project.

If Uber and Tesla continue with their current plans, they will have enough accidents that self-driving cars being in accidents will cease being headline news. They just become an actuarial math problem, just like regular car insurance is today.

(This is my opinion and not that of my employer.)

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