News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by yinser on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:18AM (#38721466)
As optimistic as I am about self-driving it seems like the “9s” model of reliability isn’t the right model here because one “outage” could be someone being killed. The aftershock of the Cruise car dragging someone shows how far one accident can sully a company.

The other issue I see is that I believe Waymo doesn’t live map the terrain in SF and Arizona right? They are using intricately created maps and so my question is what’s the leap for Waymo to operate with this success in say Pittsburgh?

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by jseliger on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:29AM (#38721659)
could be someone being killed

Have you been paying attention to the status quo at all? https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

If not, you might want to. https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall...

I live in Arizona and have taken Waymo a bunch. It's great! https://twitter.com/seligerj/status/1707259311809073313/vide...

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by itsoktocry on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:40AM (#38722797)
>Have you been paying attention to the status quo at all?

Humans make mistakes and car accidents happen. We don't and won't accept the same from machines. Why is that so hard to understand?

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by InCityDreams on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:05AM (#38722240)
Would you take the same in New York?
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by ceejayoz on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:23AM (#38721545)
> The aftershock of the Cruise car dragging someone shows how far one accident can sully a company.

Cruise's problem was hiding the footage from the regulators. As the saying goes, “It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/gms-cruise-robotax...

> In a Dec. 1 filing recounting how Cruise handled disclosures about the accident, the Public Utilities Commission asserted the company tried to conceal how its robotaxi reacted to the accident for more than two weeks. Cruise didn't provide the video footage until Oct. 19, according to the regulatory filing. The cover-up spanned 15 days, according to the PUC, exposing Cruise and GM to potential fines of $100,000 per day, or $1.5 million.

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by agloe_dreams on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:23AM (#38721544)
As much as I hate Elon, I do think that a proven 'better than a human by [X]times.' is a fair metric...as long as it is independently verified in ALL situations AND the company takes responsibility for the outcome.
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by x86x87 on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:03AM (#38722214)
Good luck with getting ALL situations.

My theory is that as we face climate change more and more and as the economy goes out of whack owning a car will be a privilege for the rich and super rich. Sort of like it's already the case in parts of Europe.

At that point this self-driving crap is going to look ridiculous. Even without it it's ridiculous testing this technology on public roads and gambling with everyone's life.

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by agloe_dreams on Thursday December 21, 2023 @12:07PM (#38723205)
I think in urban areas that is exceptionally true. Here in the US there are places you can drive for 200 miles and not see a single human.
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by x86x87 on Thursday December 21, 2023 @05:14PM (#38727821)
Highway self-driving is mostly a solve problem (except maybe Tesla which will occasionally fuck it up). Urban areas are where the problems are at nowadays.
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by wernercd on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:24AM (#38721562)
The problem I have with that argument is what's the comparison to, say, drunk driving or impaired driving?

While a car "dragging" someone can be traumatic and horrible in it's own right... objectively, if we could get rid of thousands of deaths a year in exchange for fewer "mishaps"?

In 2021 2,116 people age 15-20 died in car crashes. 13,384 people for DUI related deaths in 2021. 42,939 car related deaths.

If we could exchange 42k deaths for 1,000? wouldn't that be worth the tradeoff?

Basically the trolly problem where you have to choose between letting a train go forward and kill 5 people or hitting a button to change tracks and kill 1.

If we can get into the "9's" in accuracy and trust bypassing humans... why wouldn't we?

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by flextheruler on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:36AM (#38721749)
You’re going to compare self-driving cars to drunk drivers so you can grade them on a curve?

If you’re drunk you’re going to have pay for a ride either by a person or possible by program or you can break the law. I don’t see anyone who was going to drive drunk not do it because they could pay for a robot taxi over a real taxi. Here’s my comparison. If your self-driving car kills or maims someone in a situation where a normal sober person driving wouldn’t have it shouldn’t be on the road.

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by janosett on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:08AM (#38722303)
> If your self-driving car kills or maims someone in a situation where a normal sober person driving wouldn’t have

What if it does this while also _not_ killing/harming in many other situations where a human would have?

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by wernercd on Friday December 22, 2023 @07:38PM (#38740503)
Drunk driving was one of many examples and one of many reasons people die driving. Did you not notice I also mentioned teen drivers (inexperienced drivers). And the full numbers of people killed by drivers - NOT just drunk drivers?

"if your thing makes a mistake it shouldn't be on the road" yet the roads are full of people that make mistakes. (Hint: thousands of them die every year learning. See above about kids dying each yar).

So you'll focus on one of many reasons to sidestep the question (bias of some sort?) so I'll say it again:

At some point computers will be smart enough, fast enough and safe enough to do a better job at driving than people. Mistakes will be made but - like drunk drivers - humans make mistakes too. So if we can move to a safer way... why wouldn't we? Why are you willing to sacrifice thousands of kids lives if we can eventually progress to a better and safer option?

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by x86x87 on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:05AM (#38722258)
Is this a problem that needs solving? Would you be comfortable dying in a car crash where it's due to faulty software? What if you replace the humans with machines and after that as a result of a bug you get 200k deaths in a year?
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by ggreer on Thursday December 21, 2023 @12:37PM (#38723701)
If that were the case, liability insurance rates for self-driving vehicles would be much much higher than their manually piloted counterparts.
Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by wernercd on Friday December 22, 2023 @07:34PM (#38740479)
"faulty software" compared to the human factor?

that's like asking "do you trust a spreadsheet where the math is done by a computer and not verified by a human".

At some point in history... the answer would be "no way I'd trust numbers not checked by a human".

Today? It's easy to say we can trust software produced numbers.

The question becomes what is that cross over point?

Are you saying you don't think we'll get to a point where computers drive better than humans? I think we're closer to that point than you think and with defensive programming we can do so safely.