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Uber's Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Uber's robotic vehicle project was not living up to expectations months before a self-driving car operated by the company struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Ariz. The cars were having trouble driving through construction zones and next to tall vehicles, like big rigs. And Uber's human drivers had to intervene far more frequently than the drivers of competing autonomous car projects. Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per "intervention" in Arizona (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), according to 100 pages of company documents obtained by The New York Times and two people familiar with the company's operations in the Phoenix area but not permitted to speak publicly about it. Yet Uber's test drivers were being asked to do more -- going on solo runs when they had worked in pairs. And there also was pressure to live up to a goal to offer a driverless car service by the end of the year and to impress top executives.
Why does that sound so familiar?
Oh, wait. I'm a software developer.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Self driving cars are mostly hype. They're primarily self driving on very good, very clean, very well mapped roads only. Take them out of perfect conditions, and they fail miserably.
That being said, the technology is still cool, even though it has a long, long way to go. A lot of the technology could eventually be incorporated into normal everyday cars to help human drivers avoid accidents.
But the hype, at this point, is kind of out of control.
Ok, so forcing them to liquidate might be extreme, but clearly there is some kind of regulatory framework missing here!
I hope the victim has some relatives that want to get rich though.
Clearly, not all autonomous vehicles are the same.
It's very like camera - a cheap one and an expensive one will both offer "autofocus" and "zoom lens"
The cheap one will have 3 or 4 focus settings, while the expensive one will be continuous. The cheap one will have 2 or 3 zoom settings, while the expensive one will, again, be continuous.
So, Uber's cars look to be at the "what is the minimum that can make a car steer itself" end of the scale, and the Google ones are "have we missed anything off the long list of things that will help a car steer itself" end
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Call this flamebait if you want, but it is my opinion that autonomous vehicles are a bad idea. I am cheering their failure. But, I feel deeply sorry for the person that was killed by the self-driving vehicle in Tempe. That is an extremely unfortunate side effect of this experiment. Autonomous vehicles are an all around bad idea from putting people out of work to safety. There are some things that should remain in control of a human being and one of those is driving.
Agreed. Also, how many of us have had kids run out in front of us? I have. And if I weren't paying attention, the kid, his parents and I would have a very bad year. Who cares who fault it is: I was part of hurting someone.
And so what if someone was an "airhead" and stepped out in front of the car? Doesn't make it OK. The purpose of self-driving cars is to make the roads safer because the machines are supposed to be better than humans.
When Uber started as a 'ride sharing app', ostensibly helping people coordinate carpooling where they were going to be going anyway, it was fine.
When it became "a taxi, but paying drivers less and trying to get out of the same regulations for no other reason than somehow being 'cooler' than taxi companies", a lot of deserved criticism came about.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If that machine is incapable of detecting and avoiding unexpected obstacles and that unexpected obstacles is less squishy than a human it could easily be the occupant of said machine that dies...
Sounds like just about every failed IT project. Rush to market, ignore test failures, probably a thermocline of truth.
From what we've been hearing, somebody in the chain of command between the inattentive driver and the CEO, deliberately created this situation and should be charged with manslaughter.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
When it became "a taxi, but paying drivers less and trying to get out of the same regulations for no other reason than somehow being 'cooler' than taxi companies", a lot of deserved criticism came about.
If that's the case, then why isn't everyone piling on Lyft as well?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Did you not even bother to read TFS? In the summary it quite clearly states the other self drive companies were achieving 5600 miles between interventions while uber could not meet it's 13 mile goal. Sounds to me like uber's system is just plain not ready. I'd even question 5600 miles. Once they get to 1 million I'd say they are there.
I think you are the one making this political.
Self driving cars are mostly hype. They're primarily self driving on very good, very clean, very well mapped roads only. Take them out of perfect conditions, and they fail miserably.
But even a car that could drive under such conditions would be extremely useful. Take, for example, public buses. They just drive around the exact same route everyday, and the route in many places is upgraded with special lanes and signalling infrastructure to make their job easier. There is no reason why you couldn't start with replacing such bus routes in cities with moderate weather conditions. Over time a combination of roading infrastructure improvements (special lanes, intersection redesigns, beacons etc) and the tech getting better could easily expand out to cover the majority of vehicle uses in a city. Again, we do this for bicycles and buses, so why is it impossible to imagine it would make sense to do some road works to cater towards driver less cars?
Another example is motorway driving. Motorways are already an extremely controlled and regular environment. It would be great to have a driver less truck that can go door to door, but there is no reason why we can't start with depots built off the side of motorways where local human drivers pick up and drop off longhauled trailers. As for weather conditions guides in the road way and other navigation infrastructure could be added if these problems cannot be dealt with using lidar and cameras.
Yes, I agree that a car you can just dump into an unknown urban environment is a long long way off. But I don't understand the fascination with meeting this goal before driver less vehicles can be useful to us.
What? The gig economy IS the 19th century factory model. Back then workers assembled at places and the bosses pointed out which got to work that day. No job security, bad wages, no insurance.
The gig economy is just a scam trying to fool people into believing that they are "freelancers" or "consultants" when they in fact are making slave wages working more hours than is legally allowed. A freelancer or consultant can set their own wage and negotiate on it. In the gig economy you have to accept whatever wage is offered, no negotiating allowed. And if someone made an app to act as a intermediary they get to rake in 30% or so off the top because you are their slave now.
I will never get used to the gig economy and hope that any civilized economy outlaws it. We already allows freelancers/independent contractors in todays economy, but that wouldn't make Uber and its' ilk any money, so off course they don't want that.