The biggest problem is, self-driving is easy 80% of the time. It only gets hard for the 20% of edge cases like this one.
Where the heck do you get numbers like 80% vs 20%? Are you counting avoiding a nearly stationary obstacle in the lane an "edge case"?
It doesn't really matter how many successful miles there are if we don't know how well they deal with difficult edge cases.
So tell me, how well do humans deal with difficult edge cases? Can you quantify it? If so, why would that not be a sufficient measure for self-driving cars? If not, how do you know humans are better at those edge cases? And no, gut feelings don't count.
If you learned anything from software management, you'd know estimates are notoriously inaccurate. I personally take any estimate I receive and quadruple it before passing it further up.
That said, the 2020 predictions are pulled out of someone's ass. It's only there to keep investors happy, since most of them cannot comprehend timelines longer than 8 quarters (and some even less).
Imagine that you built a road. You make the road free for anyone to use. But now suddenly you find someone you disagree with walking on it. So you block him. Are you preventing him from traveling or merely not assisting?
Freedom of speech is a concept. It's not the first amendment of the US constitution. If you try to prevent ideas or knowledge from spreading because you disagree with them, then you are against freedom of speech.
Without the video itself we won't be able to tell for sure. However, from the streetview imagery, there's a number of places she could have emerged from that would've kept her her hidden behind bushes or trees. And I don't think she stopped at the side of the road at all. If she did, she would have had enough time to see the car that clearly was not slowing down for her.
In France, it is illegal to cross the street away from a pedestrian path IF there is a pedestrian cross within 50 meters. But in any case, once the pedestrian is on the street, the pedestrian has right of way, even if the cross is illegal.
If you're in a city, almost all roads will have a pedestrian crossing within 50 meters. And though I can't read French, I'm going to assume there's some wording in their laws that says the pedestrian is to wait until it is safe to cross and not to jump in front of cars.
As to right of way, of course the vehicle should try to stop if the collision is imminent, but the laws of physics take precedence over the laws of people.
Those trips have value. Perhaps you can't see the value, but the people who takes those trips certainly do. Maybe that lets them live further from work, where rent is cheaper. Maybe they could visit family more often. Maybe they could both send kids to school and get to work.
If all you cared about was whether there's traffic, you could easily fix the problem by tearing out all the lanes. Can't have congestion if there's no roads, right?
Sure that would be great, but someone has to figure out how to get there without *killing people*.
Well that's easy. We just need to ban all human-driven cars from the road first. Then when self-driving cars is perfected, however long that takes, we gradually allow them onto the roads.
And in just about every civilised society to do so is perfectly acceptable and you still have right of way as a pedestrian.
Now which civilized society are you talking about specifically? I just checked a bunch of countries and none of them allow pedestrians to cross outside a crosswalk or intersection.
Fact is, all the super-duper software in the world didn't spot her in time and killed her. Which kinda puts a dent in your plans that this software is somehow any better than the human in the driving seat (who also didn't spot her).
Both failing doesn't prove anything, it means the challenge is too hard to differentiate the two. If I put a tow truck up against a human in a competition to move Mt. Everest, both will fail. That does not mean the truck and the human are of equal strength.
I see quite a few comments claiming it's her fault since she J walked... What happens when the 5 year old runs out into the street to get his ball?
Natural selection?
Seriously though, this did not happen on a residential street. You don't usually see 5 year olds running across multi-lane divided roads for their ball.
more energy to the atmosphere means more turbulence. On Jupiter there are huge storms and vortexes, on Neptune there are few
Neptune is not a great example. Winds on Neptune can reach 1,300 mph, the highest in the solar system, and its Great Dark Spot is, proportionally speaking, just as big as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.
What is a huge problem is smog and other particulate air pollution. There are areas on the planet where the air is nearly unbreathable due to human pollution but every time I hear about environmentalists pushing for improvement it is to stop Global warming.
Because global warming affects everyone, while particulates affect people living nearby*. If you create too much particulate emission, those people will complain and force the government to regulate it. It's not something people living on the other side of the planet need to worry about.
* While you might be able to detect Chinese particulate emissions in California with some very sensitive instruments, but it's not going to hurt California in any meaningful way.
How is it hard to understand? My internet access does not disturb you, so you should not be allowed to restrict my access. Likewise, your quiet reflection does not disturb me, therefore I cannot prevent you from quietly reflecting. Everyone gets to do what they want instead of trying to force the other side to do something the other side hates. This is how people end up killing each other for it.
You might have a point if people want to throw loud parties, but even then, being the majority does not mean you own all of the land. If you want to force quietness, then you can do so in some areas, but you also need to provide areas where those who want to party can do so. They are citizens as well and have a right to live the way they want.
Maybe 5% of the political stuff, but the vast majority of videos on YouTube do not contain falsifiable information at all. Look at all the music videos, video game playthroughs, funny cat videos and people doing stupid things.
There's no reason for a drone to land on your front porch when there's an entire backyard it could drop your packages in. There's also nothing stopping the drone from automatically notifying you that a package has arrived, whether it is through email or a phone notification. It could also give you real-time tracking so you know when it's heading your way.
Kill bots don't scare me because I think they'll go rogue ala Terminator, they scare me because needing to treat the army well is just about the only thing that keeps the 1% in line.
It's inevitable that the military will be replaced by autonomous robots. They're not only better at fighting than humans, they're much cheaper too. Once the tech is there, every nation will want to adopt it. Nobody will hold back their own military and hope their potential enemies are going to play by the rules.
If a dictator came to power, there's little anyone can do to prevent them from taking control of the entire military.
All of the potential fixes are very hard to actually achieve. First, there's the technological solution. Instead of having the robots be commanded by humans, create an AI to govern them instead. Humans give it advice, then AI will have the final say in what the robots will do. Thus it needs to be able to understand the constitution and judge whether it's being told to do something that is against the interests of the people. Of course, that will require general AI to exist and it will be very difficult to achieve in practice.
The second option is to ask other nations for help. We would need some sort of international agreement that the use of autonomous robots against their own citizens is sufficient grounds for a UN intervention. But would UK, France or Germany really risk a major war to come to the rescue of Americans? And even if they do come, they would still need to win against the entire American robot army, which is doubtful to say the least.
The third option is the people themselves. If these robots become incredibly cheap and prevalent, then there might be as many of them in the hands of individuals as the military, which would be sufficient to at least throw some doubt into the minds of would-be dictators. Unfortunately, we're already seeing regulations against people attaching weapons to their drones. Owning autonomous combat robots will almost certainly be banned in the future, or at least made so difficult that no meaningful numbers of them will exist in the hands of individuals. In the end, people are incredibly short-sighted. They are much more afraid of mass murderers than a potentially evil government, and they will happily give up their liberties for a little temporary safety.
To be fair, they aren't property owners anymore after the train authority buys their land. The people that suffer are the ones living next to boarded up houses and buildings.
The obvious solution to this is to not take over the land until construction starts. Have the owners sign something along the lines of "the rail authority will pay X for your property on Y date, but you may continue to use the property until the rail authority gives you notice to move out, which you must comply within Z days of receiving it."
That's not true at all. Express trains have existed for ages. You can build 10 stations on the line, but not stop at all of them in any one trip. Train #1 might stop at station #1, and then skip the other 9 stations. Train #2 only stops at station #2 and #8, and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
None of the other companies have killed anyone yet. That's better in my book.
That's not the reason, the term refers to prostitutes, strippers and porn actresses. They are different jobs.
Sounds like what a rapist might say.
Why can't corporations get there without killing people on public roads.
Because testing under controlled conditions will never cover all the edge cases.
It's not like there aren't huge testing facilities all over the place.
Name 10.
It's not like odd test cases are hard to think up.
Weren't you the one who said there's a million edge cases? Can you make up your mind please?
The biggest problem is, self-driving is easy 80% of the time. It only gets hard for the 20% of edge cases like this one.
Where the heck do you get numbers like 80% vs 20%? Are you counting avoiding a nearly stationary obstacle in the lane an "edge case"?
It doesn't really matter how many successful miles there are if we don't know how well they deal with difficult edge cases.
So tell me, how well do humans deal with difficult edge cases? Can you quantify it? If so, why would that not be a sufficient measure for self-driving cars? If not, how do you know humans are better at those edge cases? And no, gut feelings don't count.
If you learned anything from software management, you'd know estimates are notoriously inaccurate. I personally take any estimate I receive and quadruple it before passing it further up.
That said, the 2020 predictions are pulled out of someone's ass. It's only there to keep investors happy, since most of them cannot comprehend timelines longer than 8 quarters (and some even less).
Imagine that you built a road. You make the road free for anyone to use. But now suddenly you find someone you disagree with walking on it. So you block him. Are you preventing him from traveling or merely not assisting?
Freedom of speech is a concept. It's not the first amendment of the US constitution. If you try to prevent ideas or knowledge from spreading because you disagree with them, then you are against freedom of speech.
This has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. This is about free speech.
Without the video itself we won't be able to tell for sure. However, from the streetview imagery, there's a number of places she could have emerged from that would've kept her her hidden behind bushes or trees. And I don't think she stopped at the side of the road at all. If she did, she would have had enough time to see the car that clearly was not slowing down for her.
Like most of Europe?
In France, it is illegal to cross the street away from a pedestrian path IF there is a pedestrian cross within 50 meters. But in any case, once the pedestrian is on the street, the pedestrian has right of way, even if the cross is illegal.
If you're in a city, almost all roads will have a pedestrian crossing within 50 meters. And though I can't read French, I'm going to assume there's some wording in their laws that says the pedestrian is to wait until it is safe to cross and not to jump in front of cars.
As to right of way, of course the vehicle should try to stop if the collision is imminent, but the laws of physics take precedence over the laws of people.
Children die needlessly from lots of things. That's why there's a concept called parenting.
Those trips have value. Perhaps you can't see the value, but the people who takes those trips certainly do. Maybe that lets them live further from work, where rent is cheaper. Maybe they could visit family more often. Maybe they could both send kids to school and get to work.
If all you cared about was whether there's traffic, you could easily fix the problem by tearing out all the lanes. Can't have congestion if there's no roads, right?
Or they could offer telecommuting.
Sure that would be great, but someone has to figure out how to get there without *killing people*.
Well that's easy. We just need to ban all human-driven cars from the road first. Then when self-driving cars is perfected, however long that takes, we gradually allow them onto the roads.
And in just about every civilised society to do so is perfectly acceptable and you still have right of way as a pedestrian.
Now which civilized society are you talking about specifically? I just checked a bunch of countries and none of them allow pedestrians to cross outside a crosswalk or intersection.
Fact is, all the super-duper software in the world didn't spot her in time and killed her. Which kinda puts a dent in your plans that this software is somehow any better than the human in the driving seat (who also didn't spot her).
Both failing doesn't prove anything, it means the challenge is too hard to differentiate the two. If I put a tow truck up against a human in a competition to move Mt. Everest, both will fail. That does not mean the truck and the human are of equal strength.
I see quite a few comments claiming it's her fault since she J walked... What happens when the 5 year old runs out into the street to get his ball?
Natural selection?
Seriously though, this did not happen on a residential street. You don't usually see 5 year olds running across multi-lane divided roads for their ball.
more energy to the atmosphere means more turbulence. On Jupiter there are huge storms and vortexes, on Neptune there are few
Neptune is not a great example. Winds on Neptune can reach 1,300 mph, the highest in the solar system, and its Great Dark Spot is, proportionally speaking, just as big as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.
What is a huge problem is smog and other particulate air pollution. There are areas on the planet where the air is nearly unbreathable due to human pollution but every time I hear about environmentalists pushing for improvement it is to stop Global warming.
Because global warming affects everyone, while particulates affect people living nearby*. If you create too much particulate emission, those people will complain and force the government to regulate it. It's not something people living on the other side of the planet need to worry about.
* While you might be able to detect Chinese particulate emissions in California with some very sensitive instruments, but it's not going to hurt California in any meaningful way.
How is it hard to understand? My internet access does not disturb you, so you should not be allowed to restrict my access. Likewise, your quiet reflection does not disturb me, therefore I cannot prevent you from quietly reflecting. Everyone gets to do what they want instead of trying to force the other side to do something the other side hates. This is how people end up killing each other for it.
You might have a point if people want to throw loud parties, but even then, being the majority does not mean you own all of the land. If you want to force quietness, then you can do so in some areas, but you also need to provide areas where those who want to party can do so. They are citizens as well and have a right to live the way they want.
Maybe 5% of the political stuff, but the vast majority of videos on YouTube do not contain falsifiable information at all. Look at all the music videos, video game playthroughs, funny cat videos and people doing stupid things.
There's no reason for a drone to land on your front porch when there's an entire backyard it could drop your packages in. There's also nothing stopping the drone from automatically notifying you that a package has arrived, whether it is through email or a phone notification. It could also give you real-time tracking so you know when it's heading your way.
Kill bots don't scare me because I think they'll go rogue ala Terminator, they scare me because needing to treat the army well is just about the only thing that keeps the 1% in line.
It's inevitable that the military will be replaced by autonomous robots. They're not only better at fighting than humans, they're much cheaper too. Once the tech is there, every nation will want to adopt it. Nobody will hold back their own military and hope their potential enemies are going to play by the rules.
If a dictator came to power, there's little anyone can do to prevent them from taking control of the entire military.
All of the potential fixes are very hard to actually achieve. First, there's the technological solution. Instead of having the robots be commanded by humans, create an AI to govern them instead. Humans give it advice, then AI will have the final say in what the robots will do. Thus it needs to be able to understand the constitution and judge whether it's being told to do something that is against the interests of the people. Of course, that will require general AI to exist and it will be very difficult to achieve in practice.
The second option is to ask other nations for help. We would need some sort of international agreement that the use of autonomous robots against their own citizens is sufficient grounds for a UN intervention. But would UK, France or Germany really risk a major war to come to the rescue of Americans? And even if they do come, they would still need to win against the entire American robot army, which is doubtful to say the least.
The third option is the people themselves. If these robots become incredibly cheap and prevalent, then there might be as many of them in the hands of individuals as the military, which would be sufficient to at least throw some doubt into the minds of would-be dictators. Unfortunately, we're already seeing regulations against people attaching weapons to their drones. Owning autonomous combat robots will almost certainly be banned in the future, or at least made so difficult that no meaningful numbers of them will exist in the hands of individuals. In the end, people are incredibly short-sighted. They are much more afraid of mass murderers than a potentially evil government, and they will happily give up their liberties for a little temporary safety.
To be fair, they aren't property owners anymore after the train authority buys their land. The people that suffer are the ones living next to boarded up houses and buildings.
The obvious solution to this is to not take over the land until construction starts. Have the owners sign something along the lines of "the rail authority will pay X for your property on Y date, but you may continue to use the property until the rail authority gives you notice to move out, which you must comply within Z days of receiving it."
a lot of stations means no "high speed rail"
That's not true at all. Express trains have existed for ages. You can build 10 stations on the line, but not stop at all of them in any one trip. Train #1 might stop at station #1, and then skip the other 9 stations. Train #2 only stops at station #2 and #8, and so on.