crocal

It’s very common. Top management in large political orgs do not want to be associated with a failed project. They will spend the first days actively covering their tracks. Once this is done, they usually send HR to clean house. Unions stay low too because on the paper this good for the employees (salary is there, more time is given to pivot, etc).

There is a solution to this problem, known for a few decades now: the vital coded processor. Basic idea: each operation can simultaneously compute a result and an arithmetic « signature » that can be pre-calculated for a program. The length in bits of the signature defines the probability of missing an error in the underlying hardware. Think ECC but the error correcting code defines the correct _execution_ of some machine code.

For some reason, it does not catch up with the mainstream but it truly would make sense for such application, albeit at the cost of a computational overhead and more work for the compiler.

It’s so useless it’s needed.

James Bond, sitting in the night train, is having dinner with Vesper Lynd. "Wait a minute, you're saying self-driving cars are not safer than human drivers?". Bemused, James takes a sip of Bordeaux, and quips "You've noticed?".

I am a signalling engineer, with experience in design and delivery of autonomous trains (really autonomous, no driver, no nothing). Seriously, the conclusion makes me want to scream:

> Shouldn’t ADS developers be required to prove an ADS is at least as safe as a human driver for a specific ODD before allowing it out onto public roads?

To deliver an ADS thou shall:

1/ Identify the standards you are going to comply to (and I am talking about real standards, like EN 50126, SMS compliant with AS9100, not a Waymo brochure)

2/ Define your safety objectives (hint: for an ADS, it's going to be way way waaaaaay higher than human error rate). You don't self-define these. You need to talk to the safety authorities of the area were you intend to circulate.

3/ Build a safety case explaining how you achieve credibly these objectives (spoiler: testing will not be enough)

4/ Have your case examined by an independant safety assessor, accredited by a relevant national or trans-national authority

5/ Put your ego on a shelf.

Otherwise, thou shall kill people.

Simple. But it seems the automotive industry is ready to go to any length to avoid going through the concept of an independant safety assessor.

EDIT: Bullet points syntax

I guess you are ready for dictatorship then?

Well, yes and no. In my opinion, lobbying in itself is not evil if it remains within reasonable limits.

One of the limiting factor is to avoid giving the said lobbies unlimited funding. That is one of the reason for taxing corporations.

I find ironic to portray as extremists journalists who report on a company that pays zero (0) taxes on revenues expressed in billions. I would rather apply the adjective to the reported company for some reason, but maybe we have different measuring scales.

Taxing mega corporations is essential. I would add that you need to tax them to oblivion after shareholder’s expectations are reasonably satisfied. If you don’t, you essentially create rogue institutions with deep pockets that will attempt to take political control of the nation for their selfish interests. Adam Smith had interesting things to say about that.

In France, the gendarmes (police force outside of big cities) are military and live with family in garrison-like building blocks. SWAT team members identity is a secret, and if you mess up with them, French special forces will get you anywhere in the world, even if it means dying trying. We also have institutions like the Legion to give a safe reboot place to « guys with a history ». There are ways for institutions to compensate the power of money.

... Indeed. Therefore we add sensor diversity to balance the failure modes and increase availability. Having no sample means that you increase your confidence interval at warp speed to account for all possible scenarios. Very quickly your estimate becomes : « great, I am traveling at 35kph +/- 100kph. Wait. What? »

This is actually compulsory requirement for safe communication protocols in railway according to EN 50159. The correct way to manage this is to reject the outdated samples. Ultimately, this should result in a transition to fallback mode (in this case, emergency landing mode).

Spot on. By the way, one can purchase multiple units (brand new) for 1.2M€ per car, and that’s before negotiating. 2.5 is really expensive. And I am talking European price, not Indian or Chinese.

Google Ariane 501. Enjoy.

There is a difference between vulgarisation of science, and making money out of sensational unproven claims pretending it’s science. This is my moral compass in that matter.

From what I understand, most of the RNA just sits there, and people are speculating its role. Did I get that part wrong?

... Thereby ensuring that the project will fail in the long run, but the move will save their corporate seats in the short run. Typical.

Driving is unsafe if humans drive because humans make mistakes. It should not be when machines do. Otherwise, what is the benefits of using them? Driverless cars can, must and will be held to a higher standard.

But it is not a lofty ideal, it has been done before. And in the field of transportation. Trains used to crash all the time. Driverless trains don't. Why? Because fail safe systems have been added on railroads that nearly totally prevent this.

Don't take my word for it, the bar for rail safety is defined in well documented standards (namely, EN 50129, EN 50126 and EN 50128). It is 10-9 hourly probability of fatal failure. You can also look up "CBTC" on the Internet. This is the reference bar for driverless.

The real reason Tesla and friends don't want to go there is because fail-safe systems like a CBTC requires some form of collaboration with devices installed on the ground infrastructure, meaning Tesla should accept to become part of a system, and not "the" system. Obviously a paradigm change for the car industry.

How long will the public authority require to understand that they must step in to force a systemic collaboration and standards between infrastructure and cars to ensure driverless safety, I don't know, but I think it's time to call bullshit on the concept that you can have an acceptably safe driverless car system without it.

Ok, so. I will say it again to all the people out there who think they can accumulate millions of miles of trials and use statistics to eventually declare a driverless transportation system is safe: stop. What you are doing is morally and technically wrong. You have to prove safety by design, and this design must be fail-safe. It’s not something you can refactor in software or test on users.

Nuclear submarines like this have prevented the world from going to war because some crazy idiot could think he had first strike advantage. Not a bad waste of engineering, especially if not used. In terms of warfare, this is the optimal result.

The toilet is a very critical device in a sub. It is said that a german sub /sank/ because of that.

Maybe I am an optimist, but that seems really bleak thinking.

1/ « Keep an eye on » is different than « Intervene ». We have to have satellites out there mapping this stuff in excruciating detail, and spies tracking who is responsible for what, and special forces hit them if they step out in a zone where they can be hit. The people who perpetrate this must live in fear.

2/ The UN is full of problems, but if a resolution grants universal asylum to Uighurs anywhere in the world, then at least those people will know there is somewhere they can escape to. That’s something.

3/ Your kids might one day be in a position to do something about it. Telling them why this is wrong, and why they should care, might just be the most important thing you do in your life.

I don’t want to start a big argument. I just want to say that we can all do little things that do matter collectively.

Pay your taxes so that your military can keep an eye on the assholes who do this, and so that UN may offer some form of asylum to their victims. Vote for politicians that oppose this shit publicly. Explain to your kids why this is wrong.

Profit margins in automotive are typically single digits. Edit: Added « margins »

Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind?

Actually a typical GMAT question...

Why would Boeing take such a symbolically negative decision now? Either we miss part of the picture, or the leadership of this company is...

Grain silos are actually built to withstand explosions. I am not an expert but I was explained as a kid that stored grain can create static electricity discharges that can result in self-ignition.

> Automated trains are just like elevators

Ahem. No.

There is no collision hazard in elevators (essentially each elevator is on its own dedicated track). In railway, collision hazards are everywhere because you can change track and there are multiple trains on the same track, possibly (yikes) in head to head movements.

If you want to see the specs of a real Automatic Train Protection, the European one is public [1]. And that is only the protection part. There is no automatic pilot in there.

[1] https://www.era.europa.eu/content/set-specifications-3-etcs-...

The game was developed by Philip Ulrich, already behind the Ark of Captain Blood. The guy is a genius. This [1] is a short video of him explaining how the game was developed, alas in French only.

[1] https://youtu.be/5nHX_74mjss

In other word, use mercenaries to do the dirty work in your own organisation. Ever read about the fall of the Roman Empire?