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Waymo Self-Driving Cars Can Now Obey Police Hand Signals
In the event that a traffic light is not working, Waymo's self-driving cars will now be able to use AI to detect and respond to the arm movements of a traffic cop as they wave traffic through an intersection. You can watch a demo of it on YouTube. Futurism reports: Waymo first claimed that its autonomous vehicles could respond to hand signals from nearby cyclists back in 2016. That particular research treated cyclists, from the vehicle's perspective, as obstacles to track and avoid. A new video published by Waymo on Wednesday is the first that shows its vehicles responding to gesture commands -- especially in the absence of the traffic lights on which it would normally rely -- and obeying police orders. The video, which runs at three times normal speed, shows a picture-in-picture display of the car's digital perspective and a video camera as it goes through an intersection.
The video shows the car approach the intersection where a virtual red wall blocks off the road, suggesting that the computer's software responds to the absence of a green light at an intersection the same way as it might to an illuminated red light. The cop in the video, represented by a small prism, teeters across the virtual representation of the intersection before finally waving the Waymo vehicle's vehicle through the intersection and along its way.
The video shows the car approach the intersection where a virtual red wall blocks off the road, suggesting that the computer's software responds to the absence of a green light at an intersection the same way as it might to an illuminated red light. The cop in the video, represented by a small prism, teeters across the virtual representation of the intersection before finally waving the Waymo vehicle's vehicle through the intersection and along its way.
and clear environment, Driver less works perfect in a sanitized controlled environments with known setup pre setup tests.
;)
We are at least 5 years away, go ahead push them out there. Going to be interesting how the failures and collateral damage are handled.
Just my 2 cents
Because we all know cars that have drivers have never once in their history ever hit someone. The result would be catastrophic and cars would be banned.
The question is one of responsibility. A person who hits and is fault loses license, is fined, goes to jail, bares responsibility. A driverless car that does so what happens? Go after the person who did nothing wrong? Go after the company? Disallow the use of the entire system? In the end its a litigation issue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That means that I can control other people’s cars via simple hand signals.
I can’t wait for that to become mainstream.
Or will it follow the directions of anyone in a safety vest making arm gestures?
CAPTCHA: lawsuit
Sounds fun to hack. I'm now imagining mischievous jumping into the middle of intersections & waving at cars.
I expect it'd need to be quite advanced to reliably tell legitimate traffic cops from pedestrians.
What about construction workers (in areas with no or overlapping lane marks?) / parking attendants (mainly at events in unmarked parking or even off road parking)
Hoping Waymo doesn't put the hand signals higher priority than obstacles. Last time I drove through an intersection with a traffic cop, the officer waved me through. I started to go, then a jogger with earbuds on jogged right in front of me. The officer shrieked 'stop!' and I stopped as the jogger kept going, oblivious.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
the eula says waymo not at fault renter or owner can't get logs / source code. Better hope it's an cop and it goes to criminal court where your rights are better then in civil court and you have the right to an attorney + an higher standard of evidence.
Hitting an worker in a private parking lot can leave you on your own with no right under law to by pass NDA's / eula / dmca to get logs or even the source code to say that the software in case X can miss class an person as safe to run over.
I want an criminal case with an hard ass judge that will jail people on contempt of court when they to pull an NDA says we can't talk about code or try to hide under a big list of subcontractors
and criminal responsibility is a thing as well!
This implies that they lacked this ability before. The further suggestion is that other "autonomous" vehicles still lack this ability.
Pardon me while I say "poppycock" to all you loonies here who keep parroting that self-driving cars have been usable over the past two years.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I'm all for Google bashing, my god I could do it for hours on some topics, but when it comes to deploying a truly autonomous vehicle, on the road with all the variables of real life, frankly the project is astoundingly complex.
Even designing an autonomous car that can only work in a single city (example one which works within 150 miles of San Francisco ONLY or within 50 miles of Vegas ONLY) would still be immensly complicated factoring in weather, emergencies, unpredictable animals, people, cyclists, scooters, garbage men, mailmen, idiots, bad drivers, random rubbish on your roads, ambulances, etc.
It's astronomical. Utterly. I'd be surprised if there's anything still launched within 5 years.
I did see a theory about long haul trucking from point A to B being replaced . Almost like a train, local trucks deliver to a point, which swaps to much larger, long haul autonomous trucks. They run a long long route, drop off goods at another depot point and return.
That being said, they still need, I think at least a man remotely able to control the vehicle in emergencies (see also the autonomous mining trucks deployed in Western Australia)
How does one refuel a long haul truck that runs on gasoline for example?
We have a long long long way to go.
What if some yahoo in a beret and bland clothing sticks white gum on their shirt, jumps in front, and makes hand motions?
Table-ized A.I.
direct it to drive off a cliff?
[($)]
Obviously since the system can't drive and the entire system is the same, then the entire system should be switched off.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
As long as they don't hold me responsible for it because I happen to be the owner of the car. I have no control over what it does. I can maintain it and that's about it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Every accident where the automation kills someone will be a second class murder charge because they already had full opportunity to program that car for that situation and they hit the person anyway. As far as I know, "driving is too complicated" is not an excuse for a human getting in an accident and it shouldn't be for AI either. The AI should be expected to be able to drive safely.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Just like the Waymo software, I always obey the hand signals of police prisms!
E Proelio Veritas.
"Why doesn't anyone answer this question?
Of course it WILL happen.
Seems like the risk would make it cost prohibitive."
Why that? Albeit I live in Europe where we have unlimited corporeal damage insurance for cars, it costs me only 12 bucks a month for my Smart car.
It's not the AI that makes problems in the US, it's the lawyers.
Correction it's 12€ so about 10 bucks a month.
I mean, it's not like random pranksters are going to start waving at Waymo cars to make them do something, right?
Just blame the pedestrian for being in the way of the new type of transit.
Every accident where the automation kills someone will be a second class murder charge because they already had full opportunity to program that car for that situation and they hit the person anyway. As far as I know, "driving is too complicated" is not an excuse for a human getting in an accident and it shouldn't be for AI either. The AI should be expected to be able to drive safely.
There are theoretical situations (that may have actually happened?) where it would be impossible for someone to not be hurt. This is regardless of AI or experienced driver, or whatever.
Something like a car is driving down the road and a person, let's say a child, suddenly comes into the road.
Options:
Stop: The child would be hit anyway due to physics, or lets say the car magically stops on a dime, it'd cause whiplash to the passenger(s)
Swerve to the right: Pedestrians on the sidewalk would be hit
Swerve to the left: Oncoming traffic would be hit.
The problem is that it has been demonstrated that these sensors are easily fooled. I'm sure they can see the child in broad daylight, but if there is a funny shadow that tricks the sensors then there is nothing but excuses. They'll say "oh we didn't think we had to think of that" but they do have to think of that because they have a heavy vehicle driving itself in traffic.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The problem is that it has been demonstrated that these sensors are easily fooled. I'm sure they can see the child in broad daylight, but if there is a funny shadow that tricks the sensors then there is nothing but excuses.
Human eyes/brains can be fooled too, though that's a different discussion than something like assuming an AI can be made that would never be in any accidents ever.
They'll say "oh we didn't think we had to think of that" but they do have to think of that because they have a heavy vehicle driving itself in traffic.
Isn't that exactly why they are still testing and doing a slower than originally anticipated rollout?
Humans can't do anything about their eyes. Automatic car designers have all the time in the world to make sure their sensors are infallible.
The problems they are finding now should have been found way before they put these cars on the road. They should have been found in closed testing environments of which there are many.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
For one thing, they don't even have a sensor that works with a drop of water on it. Why even continue if that doesn't exist?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Does it go into road rage, and honk the horn. Blink the lights. violently get close to the car/person that did the gesture?
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
"the eula says waymo not at fault renter or owner can't get logs / source code."
The law says that contracts can't trump law. The user might not be able to get the source, but the user's legal representation can subpoena it. Remember Toyota, and sudden acceleration? That code wound up being reviewed by independent agents, and reports on the same published, which is how we found out that Toyota's programmers couldn't code their way out of a nutsack.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Automatic car designers have all the time in the world to make sure their sensors are infallible.
I don't have to worry because there is no way these cars will be able to handle the window where I am anyway, but if I lived in a city where these things might be I would have my bar set a lot higher. Humans can't drive a vehicle with their vision impaired, it is absolutely up to these companies to ensure the instrumentation on these cars is infallible. I clear my windows of snow before I drive, I expect the cameras to see fully as well.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
handle the winter* where I am anyway
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Because no human has ever been temporarily blinded by sun glare or oncoming traffics high beams, or heavy fog, or...
Is this about being better than a human? Because if it is then stop using the excuse that a human does it so the car should too.
If this is about being as good as a human, then you should be able to cover around 60% of the camera lenses and still drive because a human can. Current AI get confused with that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
AI is already better than a human in some cases, AI doesn't get sleepy, nor distracted, and has a quicker reaction time.
If there are cases where, given the same conditions, a human driver would be better, then yes, the AI should be refined to meet/exceed the human driver in those situations.
Having 'infallible' as the goal before mass market is unrealistic.
But please stop acting like the introduction and saturation of autonomous vehicles is imminent. I swear if I hear another grad student or middle-aged planner with a subscription to Wired exclaim how we need to be ready to change our entire road system because driverless cars are going to change EVERYTHING in the next 6 months, I'm going to scream.
If they're going to succeed, they're going to have to be nearly perfect on the roads that currently exist and be sufficiently affordable to compete with the likes of Uber/Lyft and private vehicle ownership. Anyone saying anything is either looking for investors, website clicks, or book sales.
They're just not there yet. They're not all that close. The closest (Waymo, Cruze) operate in extremely limited areas and are successful thus far by rote memorization, not adaptability.
Automobiles are an operational and infrastructural component. They're not quick to develop. They're not cheap to produce. And they're fraught with massive liability and risk.
Now make them understand what I mean when I flip them off!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
STFU.
Correction it's 12€ so about 10 bucks a month.
I think you need to check your math.
Simple, if the car finds itself in New Hampshire, it stops at every intersection to be safe.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yeah it's going to be a long time before AI can do something like this. Then they will get it working and it will happen in a snow storm and they will be back to square one.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yup, better in three cases and totally clueless in 100 or more I'm sure if we made a list.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Why are you constantly ignoring what I've said repeatedly in that is one of the reasons it isn't widely adopted as much as was anticipated by this time is exactly because they are actively addressing said issues? For example, the issue of being able to obey police hand signals?
It's one thing to feel autonomous cars aren't ready right now, but you seem to have some sort of vendetta against the idea of them ever being ready. Moving goalposts, making up stats.