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Self-Driving Shuttle Involved In Crash Two Hours After Debut (www.cbc.ca)
New submitter Northern Pike writes: Las Vegas roll out of new driver-less shuttle spoiled by human error. It sounds like the shuttle did what it was designed to do but the human semi driver wasn't as careful. "The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it's (sic) sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident," the city said in a statement. "Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided." The self-driving shuttle can transport up to 12 people and has a attendant and computer monitor, but no steering wheel and no brake pedals. It relies heavily on GPS, electronic curb sensors and other technology to make its way.
I wonder if the shuttle doing the right thing was what the human driver expected.... maybe their algorithms are incompatible.
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That would be a better subject line. People end up having to read more to know that it wasn't the self-driving shuttle's fault. (and to many people don't read)
Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided.
If the shuttle had the same sensing equipment as the truck has the accident would have been avoided (ftfy). A human would have laid into the horn as the truck got closer to alert him hes about to hit someone. A human would also have seen the truck backing in and yielded a larger room for error. An alert human may also see the situation that they could quickly back up a bit before the truck hit them. (per article trucker was cited for illegal backing (up?). This isn't ready in my opinion, but a nice alpha test though.
Man, sure are a lot of Neo-Luddites on this board
The victim self-driving shuttle bus didn't try to back away from being run over. According to reports, it couldn't for unspecified reasons. (I speculate that the autonomous logic or arrangement of sensors didn't adequately cover "going into reverse.")
Someone up-topic asked about sounding a horn. I haven't heard any press reporting that the autonomous vehicle tried.
Either case (if true) represent a difference between how the self-driving logic reacted and how a human driver would probably have. This tells me unless an autono-car can do everything a human driver can, at least as well as a human driver (admittedly a low bar), it shouldn't be on the streets. There will always be corner conditions; they have to be handled as well by the robot as they would be by a human.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
1) Robotic vehicles need a horn - and additional logic to handle when to sound it.
2) Robotic vehicles would benefit from the addition of a mechanical arm with a mechanical middle finger - for these sorts of post-accident situations.
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This is exactly what you should expect if human or AI starts to obey traffic laws. No one is going survive in real traffic for long, without knowledge of real world unwritten customary laws. One of the first would be: trucks or buses drivers do whatever they want to do, giving no s**t about other vehicles.
How many comments have I seen on Slashdot asking if all edge cases have *really* been tested? Well it turns out everyone was right in this case. I mean, was this AI tested on real streets at all? It's hard to imagine a car on the road for more than a month wouldn't have had a truck pull out in front of it unexpectedly a couple times. It doesn't matter how fast the AI brain is, this is a case where anticipation may have helped. I just feel bad for the truck driver. Yes, he was in the wrong but a lot of times driving a big truck you have to maneuver this way and rely on other cars working with you a little bit.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If it couldn't compensate for 'human error', it did NOT do what it was supposed to do, and is clearly not ready to go live. There are billions of people on earth that aren't going anywhere anytime soon - I would actually call this a very serious technical flaw. The appropriate response would be, 'Back to the drawing board!' This is going to take a very long time, and greedy tech execs are just going to gave to deal with that fact.
Human drivers can do defensive driving. ie quickly create a new plan based on current situation.
AI follows plan determined by the designer. If an event occurs that is not planned for, the result is unpredictable, as there is no plan.
Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided."
If the shuttle had a human driver the entire incident would never have happened because the half-assed excuse for 'AI' they keep trotting out can't actually THINK.
Because if someone was injured in this accident, the no comms peopel would immediately shift into No True Scotsman mode.
So Trump's decision to remove the requirement is a death knell to the Autonomous driving initiative.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> "The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it's (sic) sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident,"
Assuming the "goal" with driverless cars is to have a vehicle that can respond as a human might. To avoid the inevitable issues.
This bus failed miserably on two accounts.
First, if it were programmed more human like it would have blown its horn to warn the big rig. Failure #1.
Secondly, if it were programmed more human like it would have backed up to avoid the big rig. Failure #2.
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Iâ(TM)ve seen plenty of people do it. Whenever there is roadwork, accidents or people broken down or pulled over by cops, it seems people grind to a stop to see whatâ(TM)s going on. Also, deer, Iâ(TM)ve stopped plenty of times on highways for them.
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You not only made it impossible to drive a large truck on 80% of city roads, but probably destroyed the economy as well.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
under posted speed limits should not be on the list! I can be unsafe to do the posted 55 on some roads.
Look, we human drivers know how other human drivers are going to either break the law or cut corners in driving. We are able to anticipate and react correctly to avoid an accident as a result. These machines can't do that. They are developed in a perfect lab environment kind of thinking and they will never be able to be human enough to interact with humans in the real world situations that result from driving in the real world, not a software world. Driving is psychological as much as physical. If the machine had been driven by an experienced human driver I believe this accident would not have happened. For these machines to work the way they say they will all humans would have to be banned from the roads and everyone forced to use autonomous vehicles. To state the obvious: machines have no psychology, have no personality, have no human quirks and flaws.
E Proelio Veritas.
As a motorcyclist I can't wait for the roads to be filled with driverless cars. Human drivers are just blind to bikes.
However, as a software developer there is no way in hell I would ever ride in a driverless vehicle. I don't want some accidental missing white-space to kill me (I'm assuming the software will surely be written in shit Python).
So trucks will only stop where they won't need to back up. Would kill some shops, or force them to carry stuff from the nearest drive-through truck parking. Could be interesting.
And your point is? Every one of these situations tends to lead to accidents. Seriously, you have to be aware of accidents that were caused by people stopping to look at another accident. Or are you saying that because people do it, it's acceptable? Because from my position as a human, it's not acceptable when humans do it. Robots damn well better not do it, as they aren't cursed with curiosity.
"Many people shouldn't be driving."
No... here, let me fix it for you:
"People shouldn't be driving."
There's no reason any human being should be allowed at the helm of a 5000 lb killing machine. Humans are simply not responsible enough.
Here's the legislation we're trying to get introduced right now to prevent deaths caused by motor vehicles and the environmental destruction by internal combustion engines:
By 2020, no human operators of motor vehicles, no gas motors in passenger vehicles greater than 50 horsepower. Universal maximum 35mph speed limit on all roads and highways except interstates, which will be 55mph once again.
By 2030, no human operators of trains or airplanes, and illegal to manufacture a vehicle that CAN be operated by a human.
By 2040, complete ban on internal combustion engines in all vehicles, trains, and aircraft
That ought to take care of most vehicle fatalities.
You are an idiot. Most of the time "illegal" driving is a requirement to make traffic move. Is this truck only supposed to back out with a spotter at 3am when it is guaranteed that no traffic will show up? The more logical notion would be that drivers that technically have the ROW yield for a second to allow a difficult maneuver to take place safely. This is what normally happens.
Illegal driving can also ultimately be safer as "illegal" driving prevents a lot of unsafe situations. Places with few traffic laws often have low accident / mile ratios since everyone is hyper-vigilant about driving.
Anyone who drives can easily pick out the idiot that is about the make a stupid move based on past behavior and GTFO of the way. A lot of the "idiot" driving is not illegal, just ill advised. I can switch lanes 5 times in heavy traffic (with my blinker) going the speed limit (everyone else going 5 under) and squeeze into (legal sized gaps) spaces.
A self driving vehicle just sees an object to avoid IF it gets in the way rather than anticipating, based on past behavior, that it WILL be in the way soon. Humans don't want to be in an accident, even if it isn't our fault, so we yield to unsafe situations. Self driving vehicles currently don't have that "fear" and will drive "to the limit of legality".
A large part of the fact that I've managed to avoid accidents for so long is the fact that, as a human, I understand how other humans are likely to act and react.
The problem with AI drivers is that humans only loosely follow the rules of the road; their actions are driven multiple influences, and understanding what another human is likely to do in any given situation requires being a human being. For example, consider the following:
I'm sure there are dozens of other similar cases, but you get the point. AI might understand, in the nominal sense, how to drive a car. What it can't understand is what other drivers are likely to do.
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I can switch lanes 5 times in heavy traffic (with my blinker) going the speed limit (everyone else going 5 under) and squeeze into (legal sized gaps) spaces.
Not in Germany.
Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided.
If the shuttle had the same sensing equipment as the truck has the accident would have been avoided (ftfy). A human would have laid into the horn as the truck got closer to alert him hes about to hit someone. A human would also have seen the truck backing in and yielded a larger room for error. An alert human may also see the situation that they could quickly back up a bit before the truck hit them. (per article trucker was cited for illegal backing (up?). This isn't ready in my opinion, but a nice alpha test though.
Um maybe you don't know how to read. It's clearly ready. It just works in only this one highly specific scenario that requires a complete paradigm shift in how the world works to come true. That means ready.
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