Every engineer on this project at Uber knows very well that their car completely failed in one of its most basic expected functions. It's incredibly obvious, and a number of independent experts have said as much.
I'd be fairly surprised if there's any real appetite at Uber to continue with this now. It was never anywhere near their core competency.
My measure of core competency is capability + capacity. (Tesla and Ford, for example, do not have the same core competencies, and to your point, have core focus in each of the others.)
"Indeed, it's entirely possible to imagine a self-driving car system that always follows the letter of the law—and hence never does anything that would lead to legal finding of fault—but is nevertheless way more dangerous than the average human driver. Indeed, such a system might behave a lot like Uber's cars do today."
It doesn't matter if Uber makes cars that are technically not at fault, if they're mowing over pedestrians at a rate significantly higher than human drivers then they should never be allowed on public roads. People mess up occasionally. The solution is not an instant death sentence administered by algorithm.
That paragraph is opinion of the author of the article which is my complaint. And, again, your second paragraph is an issue I also have. That people are stating that Uber is a car manufacturer.
I'm not sure I understand your objection. If Uber's cars are killing people at a much higher rate than human drivers, then that's a huge problem. They shouldn't be allowed on the roads at all, as they'd vastly increase traffic deaths if widely used. Whether or not someone is at fault in a given accident only matters to the insurance company; that person is still dead. What is your counter-argument? That it doesn't matter if many more people die with Uber self-driving cars on the road so long as everyone who dies made a mistake?
And whether Uber makes the entire car or not isn't germane to the discussion. They are responsible for the safety of said cars, which is what we're discussing here.
Your first paragraph, here, doesn't matter. He is stating opinion as if it were fact and what he said (not you now) isn't fact at all.
Your second paragraph emphasizes my point. You,too, are stating that Uber is a car manufacturer, in whole or in part. Does Uber manufacture any parts of this car at all? The impression the opinion piece gives is that Uber manufacturers cars.
The author is making a distinction between whether Uber was legally at fault (as stated in the article, likely not) versus whether the accident was avoidable. I agree with the author's position that the accident was likely avoidable.
I think there is an argument for removing this ambiguity by making self driving cars automatically liable for all personal injury, whether the person be inside or outside the car. The only exception would be if the tester could prove intent by the other party, keeping in mind that a self-driving car will have extensive logs of its environment to use in such a defence. Supporting arguments include:
1) The physics of driving isn't random, so it could be said that there are no accidents in autonomous driving, only oversights.
2) It would set a minimum performance level by making it prohibitively expensive to have a dangerous car. Those who test responsibly would have a low enough injury rate that they could deal with the risk by taking out suitable insurance.
3) It would provide a strong incentive to make the best car possible and not to take expedient shortcuts.
4) Over time automatically liability would become irrelevant if it asymptotically forces the injury rate to zero.
5) We have an historic opportunity to create a culture that will eliminate the danger of cars. It might have an increased short-term once off cost, but a huge long term payoff in the reduction of health costs and human misery. If we miss this opportunity we will be stuck with the long term cost of an industry that will be competitively driven towards poorer performance, potentially against the will of the majority of players, by the actions of a few.
Your concept that there are no accidents, only oversights, is not correct. Say I’m crossing the street and I don’t see your car coming, because I look the wrong way or I’m distracted, or my view is blocked by the sun. You may not be able to avoid hitting me.
Additionally, if we train self-driving cars to always give way to pedestrians who even look like they might cross the street, they’re going to have a heck of a time getting through cities. Kids are going to learn that they can trigger a squealing emergency stop by lunging towards the curb - great fun!
What I think WILL happen is that autonomous cars will have to buy blanket insurance policies that cover their entire fleet. High accident/fatality rates will result in high insurance premiums, which will put bad actors out of business.
I think your first paragraph is written from the perspective of a human driver. The machine can predict based on physics. If anything a person who does not see a car will be more predictable, not less, as they will tend to be moving uniformly and not taking evasive action.
Taking into account optimal (computer driven) car stopping distances, the maximum acceleration of a person and typical pedestrian densities, I don't think getting though cities would be an issue, especially outside the CBD. Even in areas with very high pedestrian traffic cars will be able to get though. In support of this argument, I offer today's "shared" pedestrian zones, where cars and people mix. Pedestrians have right of way, cars are limited to 10km/h, but the cars manage to get though without injuring anyone. Cars would naturally do high speeds on main roads with low pedestrian density and lower speeds (with very short stopping distance) at high pedestrian density.
Why should children have a propensity to intentionally jump in front cars above and beyond anyone else? That's bias.
If anyone intentionally jumped in front of a car then it would be covered by the exemption that I proposed: that the car would not be liable if intent could be proved. Based on the car's sensor logs it would be pretty easy to prove that someone intended to get hit. If the car managed to stop and the person ran away it would then be relatively easy to track that person down based on the logs and charge them with a crime. In any case, I think that that is a hypothetical situation which is unlikely to occur. For the vast majority of people self preservation would trump the desire to cause trouble by putting oneself in a terrifying and life-threatening situation, so I think it would be negligibly rare.
My point is not that children would jump in front of cars. It’s that they would run toward the curb with a heading and velocity that would dictate a collision, then stop just before entering the street. They would do it for the main reason that children do things - because it would be hilarious to watch self-driving cars leave a patch on the road and jerk their passengers back with seatbelt pretensioners. If you don’t actually set foot in the street, you’re not breaking the law.
Changing the average travel speed from 45 kph (the city-wide speed limit in New York) to 10 kph would be a disaster.
If I see a kid running towards the road, I'm going to slow or stop my car. I'm not going to think "oh it's just a kid being a jerk, they'll definitely stop before the road" because I don't want to run the risk of squashing a kid.
Therefore, I behave exactly the same as a cautious AI would be expected to behave.
So, why aren't kids running to the edge of the sidewalk when I'm driving?
> Your concept that there are no accidents, only oversights, is not correct. Say I’m crossing the street and I don’t see your car coming, because I look the wrong way or I’m distracted, or my view is blocked by the sun. You may not be able to avoid hitting me
Solvable by reducing speed sufficiently. It's reasonable to expect the car to avoid a man travelling at 10kph from any off-road blind-spot, and a car travelling at 100kph from any on-road blind-spot.
> Additionally, if we train self-driving cars to always give way to pedestrians who even look like they might cross the street, they’re going to have a heck of a time getting through cities. Kids are going to learn that they can trigger a squealing emergency stop by lunging towards the curb - great fun!
If you sprint to the curb in front of traffic today, drivers will stop/swerve. Almost certainly illegal too.
My interpretation of the parent post is that more responsibility can be put on the car to avoid accidents, than is currently the case today. Hence greatly increasing road safety. It sounds great!
It’s not a blind spot I’m worried about. People frequently walk at full speed up to the edge of the sidewalk, then stop just before they would walk into traffic. Should an autonomous car assume that any pedestrian walking towards an intersection is going to continue into the roadway, even if they don’t have the right of way? That’s not what a human driver does.
Likewise, I can be standing still with my toes on the curb, and then lunge into the street. Should a self-driving car assume that every pedestrian standing at a crosswalk could walk into traffic at any moment, and slow down accordingly? Again, that’s not what human drivers do.
There are a number of surface streets near my house with speed limits of 45 mph, and crosswalks every 1/8 mile or so. Requiring cars (autonomous or not) to avoid any possible pedestrian incident at every such intersection would be a disaster for traffic throughout and a huge step backwards.
A human should be aware that these pedestrians might enter the roadway. The human should perceive those pedestrians as a risk, and be ready to take action.
> Should a self-driving car assume that every pedestrian standing at a crosswalk could walk into traffic at any moment,
Yes.
> and slow down accordingly?
This doesn't follow. The car don't need to slow down. It does need to be ready to perform an emergency brake.
> Kids are going to learn that they can trigger a squealing emergency stop by lunging towards the curb - great fun!
Isn't that already the case (and arguably they'd get more satisfaction out of it in some cases by seeing an annoyed driver)? Further, I'd say that's what _should_ happen -- if someone looks like they are going to enter the road, you stop.
You're suggesting that self-driving cars may have to drive slowly and carefully in cities. I don't really see a problem with that. Pedestrians aren't frequently in the immediate vicinity of roads with limits higher than 35mph in my experience. Any human driver has to drive cautiously in the vicinity of pedestrians anyway, if they don't want to risk manslaughter. I'd want SDVs to do that too.
Slowly and carefully, yes. Assuming that any pedestrian could leap in front of your car in violation of traffic laws - no.
Where I live in California, there are two major streets with crosswalks in regular use, with speed limits of 40 mph or higher (and travel speeds of 50+ mph), within a quarter mile of my home.
In Germany, when an accident is avoidable, you are 100% at fault (as it should be) criminally and civilly. Isn't that the case in the US? I'd be astonished if that were the case.
If you enforce your right of way and kill somebody, that's manslaughter in my book.
I think the standards are different in this case. While the pedestrian definitely should not have been where they were, and if this were an incident with a human driver, you would probably say the driver was not at fault, I think this is slightly different.
They are on the road with conditions because what they are doing is somewhat experimental still.
There is a safety driver for a reason that did not respond.
A human driver may have collided but would have responded and potentially avoided a fatality (if not a collision).
The benefits of autonomous driving completely failed on all counts in this case, which imply that being on a public road is far to early for Uber - suggesting some fault to lie with Uber or the regulators.
The other missing part is that it is the human driver who is responsible. This is a test vehicle and their job is to be ready to take over at any time as if they are driving.
It seems unlikely that the Police will find any fault because they probably don't want to have to file a criminal charge against the driver, but that is who it would go against if there was fault.
It surprises me how downplayed this is. If you legally treat the Uber car as an ordinary car that happens to have a really fancy auto-assist, the driver should be on the hook. This person had eyes off the road for 5 seconds prior to the crash according to the article.
There was a case some years ago in Boston where a subway rear-ended another one because the operator was texting. The driver was fired and probably would have been prosecuted if there had been fatalities. Taking eyes off the road for this long seems insane to me.
I'd be fairly surprised if there's any real appetite at Uber to continue with this now. It was never anywhere near their core competency.