So their plan is to fix one accident at a time…
Well how else would you do it?
Comment on Waymo issued a recall after two robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
The company says the truck was being towed improperly
Shit happens on the road. It’s still not a great idea to drive into it.
The company developed and validated a fix for its software to prevent similar incidents
So their plan is to fix one accident at a time…
Chozo@kbin.social 9 months ago
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
You drive a car and can’t quite figure out what is happening in front of you.
Do you:
- A: Turn up the music and plow right through.
- B: Slow down (potentially to a full stop) and assess the situation.
- C : Slow down, close your eyes and continue driving slowly into the obstacle
- D: Sound the horn and flash the lights
From the description offered in the article the car chose C, which is wrong.
lengau@midwest.social 9 months ago
Given the millions of global road deaths annually I think B is probably the least popular answer.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 8 months ago
Honestly slowing down too much can easily create an accident that didn’t exist in the first place.
Not every situation can be handled by slowing down.
If that’s the default behavior on high speed road this could be deadly for the car behind you.
Chozo@kbin.social 9 months ago
I wasn't asking about the car's logic algorithm; we all know that the SDC made an error, since it [checks notes] hit another car. We already know it didn't do the correct thing. I was asking how else you think the developers should be working on the software other than one thing at a time. That seemed like a weird criticism.
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
Sorry, I didn’t answer your question. Consider the following instead:
Your self driving car has crashed into a god damn tow truck with a backwards facing truck.
Do you:
- A: Program your car to deal differently with fucking backwards facing trucks on tow trucks
- B: Go back to question one and make your self driving car pass a simple theory test.
According to the article the company has chosen A, which is wrong.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I mean that’s machine learning for ya
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Radars > Don’t hit stuff
Turun@feddit.de 9 months ago
Ideally they don’t need actual accidents to find errors, but discover said issues in QA and automated testing.
aniki@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Just like Tesla! And people wonder why they are a hated company.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 9 months ago
Honestly, I think only trial and error will let us get a proper autonomous car.
And I still think autonomous cars will save many more lives than it endangered once it become reliable.
But for now this is bound to happen…
To be clear, they still are responsible of these car and the safety of others. They didn’t test properly.
They should be trying every edge case they can think about.
A large screen on the side of a truck ? What if a car is displayed on it ? Would the car sensor notice the difference?
A farmer dropped a hay bale on the road ? It got flattened by rain ? Does the car understand that this might not be safe to drive on or to brake on ?
There is hundreds of unique situations that they should be trying before an autonomous car gets even close to a public road.
But even if you try everything there will be mistakes and fatalities.
threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
There is hundreds of unique situations that they should be trying before an autonomous car gets even close to a public road.
Do you think “better than human drivers” is sufficient for deployment on public roads, or do you think the bar should be higher?
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 8 months ago
Honestly, I’m pragmatic, if less people die in accidents involving autonomous car, then yes.
The thing is we shouldn’t be trusting the manufacturers for these stats. It has to be reported by a government agency or something.
Similarly Autonomous car software should have to be certified by an independent organization before being deployed. Same thing for updates to the software. Otherwise we would get deadly updates from time to time.
If we deploy and handle autonomous car with the same safety approach as in aviation I’m sure this transition can be done fairly safely.
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
In this case it fixed two accidents at one time. But only because they were the exact same.
DoomBot5@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Rules are written in blood. Once you figure out all the standard cases, you can only try and predict as many edge cases that you can think of. You can’t make something fool proof because there will always be a greater fool that will come by.
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
Unexpected or not, it should do its best to stop or avoid the obstacle, not drive into it.
An autonomous vehicle shouldn’t ever be able to actively drive forward into anything. It’s basic collision detection that ought to brake the car here. If something is in the position the car wants to drive to, it simply shouldn’t drive there. There’s no reason to blame the obstacle for being towed incorrectly…
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 9 months ago
In this case it thought the vehicle had a different trajectory due to how it was improperly set up.
The car probably thought it wasn’t going to hit it until it was too late and the trajectory calculation proved incorrect.
Every vehicle on the road is few moments away from crashing if we calculate that incorrectly.
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
Same thing applies to a human driver. Most accidents happen because the driver makes a wrong assumption. The key to safe driving is not getting in situations where driving is based on assumptions.
Trajectory calculation is definitely an assumption and shouldn’t be allowed to override whatever sensor is checking for obstructions ahead of the car.