Autonomous Vehicles

[DrConspiracy]

They're coming, amidst significant controversy.

The Google subsidiary Waymo is operating autonomous ride sharing in an area of Phoenix; they've been testing in San Francisco, and recently announced they were going to New York. Nuro has been autonomously delivering Domino's Pizzas in a Houston suburb for a couple of years. Tesla has rolled out its Full Self-Driving Capability to about 11,000 beta testers/safety drivers (YouTube videos abound). Meanwhile OEM suppliers have provided Level 2 Autonomous capability to dozens of current models.

Levels

The Society of Automotive Engineers defines levels of autonomous driving systems. Here's my take on the key points.

• Level 2 - The car controls two aspects of driving (typically speed and keeping in the lane) under some circumstances, with an attentive human driver responsible for safety.
• Level 3 - Like Level 2, except that the human driver needn't supervise the system, but must be quickly available to take over if the system requests help.
• Level 4 - The car can drive in specified circumstances without the requirement of a human driver.
• Level 5 - The car can drive in any circumstances a human can, and no driver is needed.

I'd put the Waymo and Nuro systems at Level 4, with their stringent geographic limitations. The rest are at Level 2 because of the driver supervision requirement. AV developers are avoiding Level 3 because of the difficulty of the AI/Human transition when there is a problem, although GM has announced a product they call "Ultra Cruise" that is intended to be Level 3 when released, and Mercedes also has a future Level 3 system planned.

Implications are huge for the transportation industry, particularly long-haul trucking and increased mobility for the underserved and the disabled. Your Uber or Lyft vehicle may or may not come with a driver. Over a million Tesla cars in the world already have the capability to become autonomous at some level now, and perhaps at Level 4 with nothing more than a software update.

[tek]

replace "computerized voting" with "autonomous vehicles"

software.jpg (121.68 KiB) Viewed 4268 times

[DrConspiracy]

Virginia picked two counties as guinea pigs for new voting hardware in the 2021 off-year election (it's used for voter identification and check-in, not vote recording). Unlike the previous equipment that was hard-wired together, this stuff is WiFi. But, but, but. They said it was blockchain encrypted.

[DrConspiracy]

replace "computerized voting" with "autonomous vehicles"

The nightmare scenario for any car company is the fleet-level hack.

Tesla cars get transformative firmware updates "over the air" probably more frequently than your computer or phone gets updates. Other brands are more inclined to make you take the car to a dealer for them. Tesla uses chip-level code signing to prevent unauthorized code from running on its computers, but I suppose someone at Tesla could go rogue and sign some bogus code.

Cars have been fooled with fake GPS signals beamed at them. Keyless entry has been defeated with relay attacks. Trump supporters have been fooled with fake evidence of voter fraud. The world is a messy place.

[tek]

y'know...

If we can trust computers to drive our cars...

WE CAN TRUST COMPUTERS TO DRAW REPRESENTATIVE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

/rant sorry..

(and I'm not sure we can trust them for either, TBH)

[Foggy]

Computers were supposed to replace all the truck/lorry drivers. Instead there's like a worldwide shortage of them.

[DrConspiracy]

Reported collision involving Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta

We don't typically hear about minor collisions with autonomous vehicles. Waymo had several in Phoenix, most blamed on the other driver. Now someone in the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program filed a report with the NTSB (this is just what one person claims, not the result of an investigation):

The Vehicle was in FSD Beta mode and while taking a left turn the car went into the wrong lane and I was hit by another driver in the lane next to my lane. The car gave an alert 1/2 way through the turn so I tried to turn the wheel to avoid it from going into the wrong lane but the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane creating an unsafe maneuver putting everyone involved at risk. Car is severely damaged on the driver side

.

It's partly plausible. The YouTube videos report that when making a left turn, the FSD cars will sometimes get into the wrong lane, making a wider turn rather than the sharpest. What is almost certainly made up is this part, "the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane." First it's self-contradictory: the report says that the car was in self-driving mode and then took over. It can't be driving already and then take over. If indeed the car gave an alert to the driver to take over, then it would have disengaged FSD, and any case, just a tap on the brake or a mild turn of the wheel disables autosteer. I looks like someone wasn't paying attention, and when the car made a mistake, they invented an excuse.

[DrConspiracy]

y'know...

If we can trust computers to drive our cars...

WE CAN TRUST COMPUTERS TO DRAW REPRESENTATIVE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

/rant sorry..

(and I'm not sure we can trust them for either, TBH)

It's been quite a while since I delved into this, but drawing congressional districts is a hard problem. You can tell software to optimize the compactness of districts -- that sounds neutral and practical, but it has implications when some groups get no representation.

It's the same with zoning or tax rules. Anytime someone tries to be fair with a simple rule, someone ends up getting screwed.

[Frater I*I]

First the vehicles drive themselves...next we'll get to tryout this new Skynet thing....

[DrConspiracy]

next we'll get to tryout this new Skynet thing....

Not to be confused with StarLink.

[noblepa]

Reported collision involving Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta

We don't typically hear about minor collisions with autonomous vehicles. Waymo had several in Phoenix, most blamed on the other driver. Now someone in the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program filed a report with the NTSB (this is just what one person claims, not the result of an investigation):

The Vehicle was in FSD Beta mode and while taking a left turn the car went into the wrong lane and I was hit by another driver in the lane next to my lane. The car gave an alert 1/2 way through the turn so I tried to turn the wheel to avoid it from going into the wrong lane but the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane creating an unsafe maneuver putting everyone involved at risk. Car is severely damaged on the driver side

.

It's partly plausible. The YouTube videos report that when making a left turn, the FSD cars will sometimes get into the wrong lane, making a wider turn rather than the sharpest. What is almost certainly made up is this part, "the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane." First it's self-contradictory: the report says that the car was in self-driving mode and then took over. It can't be driving already and then take over. If indeed the car gave an alert to the driver to take over, then it would have disengaged FSD, and any case, just a tap on the brake or a mild turn of the wheel disables autosteer. I looks like someone wasn't paying attention, and when the car made a mistake, they invented an excuse.

Yeah, if I'm in my autonomous vehicle and I happen to be in the "drivers" seat, even though the car is driving itself, and get in an accident and kill someone, who pays the wrongful death settlement?

Does the owner of the car pay?

Does the "driver" of the car pay?

Does the manufacturer of the car pay?

In an accident involving a conventional car, with a human driver, non-driving passengers are usually not held liable for accidents, unless they somehow interfered with the driver.

So, if I'm in my autonomous vehicle, sitting behind the steering wheel, I'm really just a passenger.

Vehicle manufacturers have been held liable, when the accident has been traced to a design or manufacturing flaw in the vehicle. It seems to me that if the software that is driving the car is faulty and causes an accident, then the software provider, the car's manufacturer, may have some serious liability.

And what happens when the accident involves making a choice between two equally unacceptable alternatives: Do I hit the school bus, or the crowd or people on the sidewalk? In such a case, it is difficult enough to assign blame when the driver is human, but what do we do when the driver is a computer?

I'm not sure that I want an autonomous car until questions like these have been thoroughly hashed out.

[Dave from down under]

A friend is on an ethics think tank about autonomous vehicles.

Looking to the day when they are designing the software (and the legislation required) to prioritise harm mitigation.

Basically if there is to be an unavoidable collision who in which car(s) will be prioritised for survival.

How will the car(s) decide.
(Especially if the cars can talk to each other…)

[RTH10260]

A friend is on an ethics think tank about autonomous vehicles.

Looking to the day when they are designing the software (and the legislation required) to prioritise harm mitigation.

Basically if there is to be an unavoidable collision who in which car(s) will be prioritised for survival.

How will the car(s) decide.
(Especially if the cars can talk to each other…)

Time to transfer theTCAS the airliner traffic collision avoidance system to cars. One unit gets told Climb Climb, the other Descend Descend. Engineers are still attempting to resolve that part in cars

TCAS explained

► Show Spoiler

[Dave from down under]

Yes - avoidance is best.

But when collision is unavoidable and of the options - someone will be severely injured or killed.

What criteria will the cars use to decide who gets the short straw.

[DrConspiracy]

I'm not sure that I want an autonomous car until questions like these have been thoroughly hashed out.

And you think a state would license an autonomous vehicle or an insurance company would insure one before these questions were written into statutes and in insurance policies?

I asked my insurance agent a couple of years ago what would happen to my insurance when my car started driving itself. He said it depended on how the laws get written.

[DrConspiracy]

...
But when collision is unavoidable and of the options - someone will be severely injured or killed.

What criteria will the cars use to decide who gets the short straw.

I suppose it's interesting to talk about these things, but why are we asking questions of autonomous vehicles that we don't ask about ourselves? Are there ethical questions on driver's license exams? People wouldn't agree on what the right ethical choice is, and I would wager that ethical choices in accident situations are rare because there's no time to weigh choices.

And given the 1.3 million traffic deaths in the world each year, I would hope we don't hold up a technology that could eliminate most of that. That would be the huge ethical mistake.

[DrConspiracy]

On December 25, I was added to the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program. I get to watch the car do some hair raising things.

[MN-Skeptic]

On December 25, I was added to the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program. I get to watch the car do some hair raising things.

Do you have a death wish?

[Uninformed]

A so so article:

“Major legal changes needed for driverless car era”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60126014

[keith]

An acquaintance sent me a video of a woman in an autonomous car of some sort.

She proceeded to get naked and masturbate while the car was tooling down the road.

I didnt keep watching for the inevitable crash, but I am curious... is this going to be a whole new category of porn?

[DrConspiracy]

On December 25, I was added to the Tesla Full Self-Driving beta program. I get to watch the car do some hair raising things.

Do you have a death wish?

Turning the steering wheel turns off Autosteer and pressing the brake shuts down self-driving entirely. I'm always really in control. But if the road is clear, I'll allow it do engage in the occasional act of stupidity.

[DrConspiracy]

A so so article:

“Major legal changes needed for driverless car era”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60126014

The mainstream media really doesn't do a good job covering autonomous driving. It lacks depth.

[DrConspiracy]

An acquaintance sent me a video of a woman in an autonomous car of some sort.

She proceeded to get naked and masturbate while the car was tooling down the road.

I didnt keep watching for the inevitable crash, but I am curious... is this going to be a whole new category of porn?

I saw one a year or two ago with a couple having intercourse in the driver's seat of a Tesla Model S using Autopilot. The man was in the usual driver's position (no pun intended), and theoretically might have been able to steer the car in an emergency.

But that's the only one. One deterrent is that Teslas now all have cabin-facing cameras, and they have the capability to track eye movements. I spent a little too long looking at the navigation map and the car popped up a big message saying "Pay attention to the road!"

[Frater I*I]

Ummmmm....I've read Maximum Overdrive...



I know what happen when we let machines act for themselves....sure the cars drive themselves now, next thing you know, they're driving over your corpse...



Death to the robot overlords!!!!

[DrConspiracy]

The Verge, CNBC and the Washington Post (and probably many others) published articles about new data counting highway crashes involving advanced self driving systems, such as Tesla Autopilot, GM Super Cruise, Ford Blue Cruse and Honda Lane Keeping Assist. Tesla had 70% of the crashes. You have to read far into those articles to find out that Tesla also has the vast majority of those systems in the road.

Here a headline from The Verge:

US releases new driver-assist crash data, and surprise, it’s mostly Tesla

And here's the lead photo in the article showing a crashed Tesla Model S.



What's wrong with that picture? The Tesla was hit in the REAR. Tesla's self-driving systems do not drive in reverse.

The news articles spread FUD and you had to dig far down into them for context.

I'm a big fan of the Wham Baam Teslacam YouTube channel and have watched thousands of crash videos involving Tesla cars. The accident is most often someone inattentive driving into the back of the car, rarely something where the Tesla caused the accident.