Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on April 11

Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by 794CD01 on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @01:55PM (#11490532)

They don't have to be safer than driving is today. They can be significantly less safe while still being an improvement for society because drivers will be able to focus on other activities while travelling instead of wasting that time focusing on driving the car.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by Grambo on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @02:01PM (#11490610)

Actually they have to be significantly safer than driving today. People would rather be unsafe and in control than not in control and a tiny bit safer. I know personally if a self driving car could only drive as well as I could then I'd still want to be the one driving.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by oldmanjay on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @02:58PM (#11491138)

People only have the illusion of safety when in control, and are also demonstrably incapable of judging their own ability to perform tasks. Your criterion won't be taken seriously by anyone involved in policy, because this is already well understood.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @04:13PM (#11491791)

While I agree with your first sentence, I think you're ignoring the fact that when media get wind of a case like this, it's almost only the irrational opinions of masses that matter. In western democracies, politics - and thus policies - is driven by pandering to the population (and bribes^Wlobbying).

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by g8oz on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @03:41PM (#11491507)

At a certain point the policy question will inevitably be: why should any regular person be even allowed to drive given the superior abilities of the machines? There are certain ideological assumptions that will then have to be debated. Making your own mistakes is a consequence of freedom. Limiting the freedom to make mistakes for the overall benefit to society is not uncontroversial - (see the gun control debate), and contributes to alienation in the Marxist sense of the term. There is more than utility involved here. Just because the trade-off doesn't matter to techno-determinists doesn't mean it it doesn't exist.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by greenleafjacob on Thursday April 14, 2016 @02:00AM (#11494588)

Cars are already extremely regulated. You can only drive at speeds dictated by the government in directions dictated by the government, turn in ways prescribed by the government. Your car has to be identifiable in specific ways by the government. You have a lowered expectation of privacy in a car.

I hardly think the argument will be difficult to just prohibit cars.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by tremon on Thursday April 14, 2016 @07:43AM (#11495791)

You can only drive at speeds dictated by the government in directions dictated by the government, turn in ways prescribed by the government

Sure... so you're saying that your steering wheel blocks when you're trying to make an uncharted turn? Or that your throttle has a variable hard limit, depending on the road you're on?

Where do you live, if I may ask?

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by 794CD01 on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @05:08PM (#11492230)

That's a popular theory of how people behave but it doesn't play out that way. People overwhelmingly choose convenience and low price over safety all the time.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by ThrustVectoring on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @02:02PM (#11490616)

There's psychological and game theoretic factors that the safety has to overcome in order to be acceptable. Part of why human drivers are allowed today is because the people who bear the cost of driving decisions are directly involved in making those decisions. Once you give up control to a third party, they need to be significantly better to make it an acceptable choice on the individual level.

In other words, I agree that it's better for society, but that "better for society" isn't the metric that gets used for making decisions within the system.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by makip on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @03:16PM (#11491299)

I see where you're going with this and I agree.

A significant consideration is whether owners of self driving cars will have the right to make code modifications to their vehicles.

Captured aptly here by Cory Doctrow.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/23/the-probl...

Edit: salient quotes from the article:

"Here’s a different way of thinking about [the trolley] problem: if you wanted to design a car that intentionally murdered its driver under certain circumstances, how would you make sure that the driver never altered its programming so that they could be assured that their property would never intentionally murder them?"

"If self-driving cars can only be safe if we are sure no one can reconfigure them without manufacturer approval, then they will never be safe."

"Your relationship to the car you ride in, but do not own, makes all the problems mentioned even harder."

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by amelius on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @02:14PM (#11490744)

> Part of why human drivers are allowed today is because the people who bear the cost of driving decisions are directly involved in making those decisions.

This gives me weird visions of Google engineers with a necklace that explodes in the event that one of their cars causes an accident :S

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by amazon_not on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @03:13PM (#11491275)

I wonder if you've read Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton?

Unremovable, remote controllable lethal necklaces are a central plot device in the mercenary invasion. They are put on randomly chosen civilians as "collateral" to ensure co-operation and disincentive insurgency.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by seanp2k2 on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @04:35PM (#11491972)

The difference there is that one person's mistake driving causes one accident. One person's mistake programming might cause a thousand.

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Re:Post-Mortem for Google Compute Engine’s Global Outage on ... by 794CD01 on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @05:06PM (#11492216)

People in general don't willingly prioritize their own safety at the expense of convenience. That's why cars beep when you don't buckle your seatbelt. That's why people drink soda and eat fast food.

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