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Comment by itamarst | Hacker News Reader

You would think Uber Autonomous Vehicles group would do everything they can not to hit pedestrians. Yet according to the NTSB, previous to killing a pedestrian in Arizona Uber had a weak safety culture (https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2019-HWY18MH010-B...).

Even worse, "Pedestrian outside crosswalk not assigned goal of crossing street", "Tracking history not considered when classification changes", "Predicted path depended on object’s goal".

Basically they configured it to run over people who crossed outside a sidewalk.

I would not assume Uber are doing their best. Or, insofar as they define "best", it's "what can we do as quickly as possible with no consideration to what is legal".

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> "Pedestrian outside crosswalk not assigned goal of crossing street", "Tracking history not considered when classification changes", "Predicted path depended on object’s goal"

To be fair, I could see myself implementing these sort of heuristics to get a working prototype. On the other hand, I deliberately avoid working on life-critical software because of how easily it can go wrong.

OK, but you absolutely wouldn't let a self-driving car out without ernest human supervision or really rigorous testing would you?

I work in AV eng/research, and reading the details of the Uber crash was utterly shocking to me in terms of the corners cut. I can get reflexively frustrated at the slowing of progress and pushing changes induced by our safety constraints and testing, but I've always been pretty happy with the choices we've made. Uber made multiple obscenely negligent choices that I don't think are remotely defensible. There are plenty of hacky heuristics in the industry, but it's pretty central to industry practice to avoid hacks that make you _less_ safe.

A human driver would also follow the same heuristic. That is why it was programmed that way. People don't assume people are going to randomly walk in front of their cars except at cross walks.

Idk about you, but if I see a human start to step into the road I slow down/stop depending on how close they are. Someone stopped and facing the road looking both ways obviously may be attempting to cross, even if "illegally"

I'm enough of a jerk that sometimes, if they are at the edge of the road, I will stop and honk. Even if they are engrossed in their phone. Because, in my jurisdiction, it is illegal to not give the pedestrian the right of way at a crosswalk. Pedestrians who aren't planning on entering the roadway shouldn't stand at a crosswalk and not enter.

That is a very cynical view, one I do not share, but one that it seems is shared by most people here.

But, for the sake of argument, let me grant you that some large subset of the decision makers were callous about these safety concerns.

I don't know how they would still not be sensitive to the need to respond to the authority that has only conditionally let it have its license back. I mean, that sort of threat has a tendency to focus one, even if one is cynical about their motives.

One reason may be the company culture can't do both things at the same time? There's a world of difference between the kind of people and processes you want in a safety-critical project versus a fast-moving app startup.

Uber has to straddle both sides with great risk of leaning toward the wrong side in any particular scenario.

SD vehicles are their pastime, being licenced is their bread and butter (or will be, after the vc well dries up)

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