Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

Re:Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars a... by YeGoblynQueenne on Saturday June 09, 2018 @06:25PM (#17275362)

I think Timothy B. Lee, the author of the article, was caught up in the early hype about "self-driving" cars, obviously before he (or many others) had a good understanding of the technology. He's covered the field extensively. Now that the limitations of the technology are becoming more clear, it seems to me he's trying to negotiate the very narrow border between keeping his original enthusiasm up, and not spreading misinformation. I interpret this article as an attempt to keep some sort of balance, between reporting on a promising technology without over-promising and without veering too far into accusing his own readers of ignorance.

But, hey. I'm not in the guy's head :)

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Re:Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars a... by binarybits on Saturday June 09, 2018 @09:48PM (#17275997)

Timothy B. Lee here. You are correct, except that I think it's a mistake to treat ADAS systems as "self-driving cars." I'm bullish on true self-driving car projects like Waymo and Cruise. I think ADAS systems have a lot of problems that have become more clear to me as I've covered them in more depth.

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Re:Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars a... by YeGoblynQueenne on Sunday June 10, 2018 @09:03AM (#17277913)

Ohi Timothy! Great to see you here :)

I think that full autonomy (level 4 and 5) is an AI-complete problem and a true solution is many, many years away. On the other hand, I'm not an expert (I'm doing an AI PhD but on a different subject) so I may be overestimating the difficulties involved.

One problem with reporting on autonomous driving is that a lot of the technology is proprietary and the research takes place behind closed doors, so it's very hard to understand exactly where the state of the art is. We're left with the announcements from the companies who actually sell it, that will inevitably tend to be overinflated.

As the technology becomes more common, I guess we'll all end up adjusting our expectations, one way or another. I'm looking forward to your future articles :)

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