News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reaches a Milestone.

Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by ThePhysicist on Friday March 09, 2018 @06:36AM (#16551094)
Honestly, I do not consider stopping squarely in the middle of the highway and blocking one of the lanes as the "correct" way to handle this situation. I'd rather expect that the truck at least knows how to stop in a safe manner, i.e. by moving to the shoulder first. A large number of accidents (probably even the majority) here in Europe are caused by drivers crashing into stopped vehicles on highways, so having AI-controlled cars stop in the middle of the road is clearly not acceptable.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by PuffinBlue on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:12AM (#16551459)
You are absolutely correct. Here's what can happen if you stop in the lane:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-433085...

It's a little terrifying that they think this is the best way to deal with the situation. And that's without addressing the elephant in the room - a loss of comms was so unimaginable that they had no plan to deal with it?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by falcolas on Friday March 09, 2018 @09:02AM (#16551773)
Worse, if they didn’t account for this rather obvious situation, what is going to happen in the dozens - hundreds - of other corner cases?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by ainiriand on Friday March 09, 2018 @06:56AM (#16551153)
Cannot agree more. Another possible improvement should be stopping in the next gas station or resting area, so the truck always keeps enough internal data to move up to the nearest safe place to stop. Sort of a buffer that allows the truck to be minimally operational, maybe also a significant decrease of speed.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by aaronm14 on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:15AM (#16551200)
Agreed, but I would imagine a meaningful population of people would do the same thing in that situation
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by rco8786 on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:42AM (#16551311)
Maybe. But the promise of autonomous cars is that they can be safer than human drivers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by dsfyu404ed on Friday March 09, 2018 @11:59AM (#16553058)
Sure, some small % of the populations will probably do that. Some small % of the population will drive drunk.

Neither are acceptable ways to handle the vast majority of situations one encounters.

The situation in the article. is roughly the same as being lost (or going somewhere in a way GPS won't work) and taking directions over the phone. If the line goes dead nobody (who's behavior we want self driving vehicles to emulate) just stops in the middle of the road.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by dwighttk on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:56AM (#16551384)
“That situation” was loss of contact with a control center. What is the equivalent for people?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by CDRdude on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:05AM (#16551427)
Perhaps dense fog, or whiteout blizzard conditions? I’m making the assumption that the server parses the data from the truck to determine what it is seeing.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by winthrowe on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:20AM (#16551495)
No, those are sensor failures, not external communications failures.

The human equivalent would be being unable to call someone for directions.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by Maybestring on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:23AM (#16551514)
The article says it's a person making decisions with acceptable delays of 15 seconds.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by dronescanfly on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:59AM (#16551401)
fainting. I do believe braking and stopping is better than swerving and crashing...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by dwighttk on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:46AM (#16551669)
no, there isn't a person constantly driving on the other end of the connection
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Self-Driving Truck Encounters the Unexpected, Then Reache... by analog31 on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:22AM (#16551508)
In my view, stopping in the lane is the safest thing to do if the truck suddenly doesn't trust its own navigation system for any reason. Hopefully those reasons are, and become increasingly, rare. What I gathered from the article is that the truck slowed down gradually and stopped. For better or worse, this is something that everybody else on the road has been trained to handle, even if it could be a monumental inconvenience.
[ Parent | on HN ]