California to allow testing of self-driving cars without a driver present

Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by diggernet on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @09:59AM (#16473840)

I am not so concerned with guilt and liability as I am that this is TESTING. As in, not sure yet whether it's easy for production. Looking for bugs. In a risky environment, among the general public. Normally, beta testers are volunteers, who know what they are getting into, and nobody else is involved. This is playing with lives. Every pedestrian the car approaches is an unwilling bug checker.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by rymate1234 on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @10:20AM (#16474075)

How is this any worse than having learner drivers on the road?

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by mmmBacon on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @11:20AM (#16474856)

For one, the human has a brain and human sensors are less easily fooled despite being able to "see" less. LIDAR technology combined with ML is so poor that it can easily be fooled by a stop sign with a sticker on it.

Source:[https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sen...]

A human has context where a machine does not. A human automatically knows that a ball being thrown in a yard can end up in the street.

A learner's permit also requires that a licensed driver be present. So there's a built in redundancy for decision making.

Machine learning or not, computers are simply profoundly stupid.

I'm not against autonomous vehicles but I'm fairly skeptical about them. They've improved a lot in a basic way but they don't handle corner cases very well. Unfortunately, driving involves a lot of corner cases due to the complexity of the environment.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by abenga on Thursday March 01, 2018 @09:24AM (#16492196)

And how many pedestrians/passengers were killed by autonomous cars during this entire testing period? How many by human drivers? How can you trust human minds so much after the answers to those questions?

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by lukev on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @10:24AM (#16474118)

Learner drivers have an instructor in the passenger seat. Who has a set of auxiliary brakes.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by aianus on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @09:12PM (#16480112)

Not in the US, it's usually just the family car with their Dad in the passenger seat who may or may not even be a decent driver himself.

I did driving school for 4 hours before I got my own full license and car and was allowed to drive on my own. 4 hours.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by simion314 on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @03:55AM (#16481668)

For an European this feels horrible,here some people take the exams even 10 times until they pass or just give up. you must learn all the rules for driving in intersections and all other relevant rules and after that you get a test in the city with a policeman. Also before taking the exams there are a minimum number of driving lessons (I think 40 hours ) with an instructor.

What you describe can be the cause of the large number of accidents. Unfortunately the driving lessons won't prevent the young drivers acting out and doing accidents in their first years as a driver, because of those bad young drivers you get very expensive insurance for all young drivers so some young persons would register their cars on the parents name, here the insurance is paid by the owner not by the driver.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by aianus on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @09:05AM (#16483013)

My insurance was also very expensive that first year, $4600 a year. I avoided cities and traffic for the first couple of months while I taught myself and have never had an issue since.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by RandallBrown on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @12:45AM (#16480962)

Careful when saying statements like "Not in the US."

Growing up in Michigan we had lots training with an instructor (who had his own set of brakes) before getting a permit that allowed us to drive with our parents. Then after a year or so you could get your full license.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by rymate1234 on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @10:56AM (#16474519)

Our learning AIs will have an instructor, just remotely

> the DMV will require that those testing autonomous cars without a driver present have a dedicated communications channel that ties the car to a remote operator, who can take over if needed.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by lukev on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @02:27PM (#16476958)

What technology does the communications channel use?

If IP based, what happens when the connection drops or lags? Will the car pull over, keep driving, or just stop in the middle of the road?

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by Piskvorrr on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @12:02PM (#16475380)

"Okay, you need to brake n-" ECONNRESET

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by frgtpsswrdlame on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @10:24AM (#16474115)

The companies involved haven't even shown that their systems are as safe as learner drivers.

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Re:California to allow testing of self-driving cars without ... by lysium on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @10:30AM (#16474184)

Isn't a teacher sitting next to the learner?

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