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Comment by rtlfe | Hacker News Reader

It's hard for me to imagine how it could get worse in the short term. I encounter the following from human drivers on a regular basis, and I can't imagine any reasonable software doing them:

* Notice me attempting to use a crosswalk and choose not to yield

* Drive dangerously close behind my bicycle while honking for additional intimidation

* Pass my bicycle at obviously unsafe distances

* Park in crosswalks

* Blatantly disregard lane markings

* Run stop signs

* Pittsburgh left turns

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You also have: - People jaywalking without looking at the street - Bicycles running stops and red lights - Dogs running onto the street - People leaving stuff on the road - Trees falling on the street - People standing in the middle of the road and talking - Kids running on the street after the ball - Things falling of other cars - Bicycles driving at night without lights - Deep potholes

World is unpredictable, and city environments are full of surprises. Machine needs to be aware of rules and follow up, but also be able to deal with rules being broken by other users. General rule "approach with caution and be ready to react" doesn't work that well with machines - problem is very very tricky. There's a reason why Waymo had self driving cars for 10 years already, but are still in very limited beta.

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/36649/watch-a-tesla-model-3-fa...

So let me rephrase what you just said, you want your life as a pedestrian to rely on software that is not verified by 3rd party in any way and only rely on good faith of manufacturer? Did it ever work well?

Also such manufacturer can update software literally everyday without any external regression testing?

I agree that most of what you mention won't happen but failure mode of AI cars would be much different and imho much worse as pretty impossible to predict.

Human failure models are already impossible to predict, but the impact of those failures are fairly easy to predict. Which is why there is so much pedestrian safety built into so many cities. You don’t need to know why that car is plowing full-speed into a pedestrian-filled NYC sidewalk (terrorism, medical emergency, human error, etc) because no matter what those failures are prevented the same way: giant blocks of concrete making it impossible for a car to get onto the sidewalk. Likewise with driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to stop, stopping unnecessarily, etc.

Any way an AI-driven car can fail, humans have been failing in the same way for a hundred years. Cars, by virtue of their incredibly limited mobility, can only fail in so many different ways. It’s not like a Tesla with autopilot can suddenly jump over barriers or drive sideways.

I think a Tesla where the terrorist has reprogrammed the autopilot can get through the barricades at high speeds, while a human could not. (most barricades I've seen are just fast enough apart that small maintenance trucks can get between them, but close enough that humans go slow - obviously not all are)

One example of a bad outcome is enough for you to decide that driverless cars are unacceptably dangerous? Take a look at number of collisions per mile driven and reconsider.

Collisions per mile driven? Autopilot disengages whenever there is something it cannot handle. How is that meaningful?

You could say it is "one example" if this was a human driver running over a pedestrian. If one AI car has a bug all models with same AI have it. There is 0.5M Model 3 and counting.

I just used one example as a point and it is much less important than issue of 3rd party verification. You don't know if manufacturer fixes the bug, when it is done and you never know if it regresses.

> I just used one example as a point and it is much less important than issue of 3rd party verification. You don't know if manufacturer fixes the bug, when it is done and you never know if it regresses.

No need to preemptively audit the code, accident statistics will clearly indicate unsafe behavior and economic/insurance disincentives[0] will induce continual safety improvements. Either a car will be safe enough to operate or it won't -- remember ~40,000 people are killed by American drivers every year.

[0]The 'Fight Club' equation.

If you're routinely having problems with how everyone else is acting it's probably not them.

There are many things drivers, pedestrians and cyclists do that are not in accordance with the official rules but are expected and accepted. If you don't expect and accept your local variation of whatever these exceptions are you are going to have a very bad time. There is a predictable pattern to how traffic works. Being caught up on the letter of the law will results in you poorly communicating with all the other traffic around you which increases the frequency of conflicts. They way you walk or drive in Boston is different than the way you walk or drive in SF and neither of them adheres strictly to the official rules and markings.

I've lived on a one-way street for over a decade now. Pre-COVID, it was unusual to go a week without seeing someone going the wrong way. It was not unusual to see this multiple times in a day.

I also bike down a two-way separated bike lane to/from work. It's separated by concrete barriers, except at intersections. I'd come across drivers trying to drive down them, again, roughly weekly.

It's predictable that I'll see a car turn the wrong way onto a one-way street, and I've learned to anticipate it, but it's not accepted.

Most drivers are okay, but there's a small number who are really bad. If you come across a hundred drivers a day, you're going to come across bad ones pretty often.

The author didn't say every driver sucked -- just that he regularly comes across drivers who suck. I'm willing to bet that most road users will assert the same experience.

Most drivers pass safely, and several times a week, one won't. Most drivers stop at red lights, and every week or so, one won't. Most drivers check their mirrors before turning, and every few hundred, one won't. Most drivers use their turn signals and...actually, that last one might be a lie.

I have to disagree though: all drivers are bad. Most think of themselves as good drivers who only make a rare mistake - but all those rare mistakes across the thousands of drivers you encounter every day means it is rare that you don't see someone do something wrong regularly.

There are a few really bad drivers who shouldn't have a license. However that isn't most of the cases of bad driving you see in a day.

> If you don't expect and accept your local variation of whatever these exceptions are you are going to have a very bad time.

As it turns out I do expect this behavior and still have a very bad time. These laws are not frivolous, and violating them is extremely dangerous.

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