[ajross]

Driver behavior after collisions isn't remotely that rational. People do all kind of crazy things in extremis (secondary collisions caused by post-collision drivers mistakenly hitting the accelerator instead of brake are a whole category of accident!). And in any case (again, as I understand the accident) this was stopped traffic and the Cruise vehicle was hit by another vehicle. In that kind of situation I think a human driver would be hard pressed to know a pedestrian was nearby at all.

[antli35]

From Cruise's statements and news reports, it does not sound like the Cruise car was hit by another vehicle. A nearby vehicle flung a pedestrian in front of a Cruise. The Cruise car stopped on top of the pedestrian, then dragged them as it pulled over. Even accounting for post-crash panic, I find it unlikely that a decent human driver wouldn't have realized that the pedestrian ended up underneath their car.

https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/a-detailed-review-of-th...

[mistercheph]

But what if I belligerently insist that the average human driver would react in the worst possible way? I am trying to appeal to your angriest moments while behind the wheel of a car and get you to believe that your impression of other drivers then is true of most human drivers everywhere, all the time

Then the robot look quite Good, No?

[ajross]

That's not a reasonable argument. The point isn't "The robot is good because you can imagine a human making the same mistake", it's "We wouldn't think this accident was notable at all if it were a human driver, so we at least recognize we're holding the robot to a higher standard".

The truth is that virtually every traffic accident can be prevented on some level by every vehicle involved. People (you included, I assume?) who want to argue against automation in all cases will always be able to find something wrong with "the robot". Always. But that's not the right standard to be applying, because those accidents were going to happen anyway. The question is merely if there will be more or less of them with "robots" at the wheel.

[mistercheph]

You're right, Waymo and Cruise and Venture Cap are on a moral crusade to prevent driving fatalities, this isn't about high margin robotaxis and delusional hopes of accidentally creating AGI with a CV NN. And I agree with you, what the cruise vehicle did in this case, a human would totally do exactly the same thing. I mean humans are fucking neanderthals, have you ever seen one behind the fucking wheel of a car? They can't go more than 30 seconds without nearly crashing, and they only know how to drive in a 4km^2 zone. I personally know that every time I let my tesla go FSD, I'm only intervening every 90 seconds because of the unreasonably high standards I hold it to. Self driving cars only need to make the right decision like ~80% of the time. That's good enough, it's better than most human drivers.

And by the way, there's a cheaper and more effective way to reduce traffic fatalities, and it uses fewer precious resources, energy and land, emits less carbon dioxide, and stimulates economies but it's some kind of stealthtech from the 1800's. (choo choo)

[Mawr]

> I personally know that every time I let my tesla go FSD, I'm only intervening every 90 seconds because of the unreasonably high standards I hold it to. Self driving cars only need to make the right decision like ~80% of the time. That's good enough, it's better than most human drivers.

That's only good enough if the type of the wrong decisions it makes is the same as the ones a human would make. Otherwise the car will seem unpredictable to human drivers and therefore dangerous.

A few baffling Tesla FSD examples:

• Misleading turn signals: https://youtu.be/2VWyaAzwMT0?t=702, https://youtu.be/2VWyaAzwMT0?t=723

• Failure to yield: https://youtu.be/2VWyaAzwMT0?t=1180

• Randomly stopping: https://youtu.be/2VWyaAzwMT0?t=1215