Re:Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in Cal...
by fapjacks on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @06:07AM
(#16696612)
You know, actually, I did see this earlier today. EEVblog made a new video where he talks about some of the developments. One of those was all the footage out on the internet from other people with other cameras showing that it wasn't nearly as dark as the Uber video. Which raises some questions, as you mention, especially with Uber's reputation being what it is. Something else interesting he said was that the makers of the vehicle's own collision-avoidance system -- which Uber had turned off -- took the footage released by the police and ran it through their collision-avoidance computer vision algorithms, and it detected the pedestrian even in that dark video. So it's beyond any doubt that a computer both could have and should have stopped the vehicle. I'm eager to see the rest of the data (as I'm sure other autonomous vehicle divisions are, too) and how exactly Uber's automation failed so spectacularly.
Furthermore, the driver did not have his eyes on the road, he was looking at a display, or probably his phone. I'm not exactly sure, but it doesn't even look like he had his hands on the wheel. Which isn't surprising, like, at all. You cannot sit somebody into a car without anything to do for hours, and expect them to be able to step in fast enough. If you want those people to stay alert, you have to take the appropriate steps like driving in pairs and extremely frequent rests.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0