Autonomous vehicle kills a pedestrian

[EBSXR6]

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/03/u...tonomous-mode/

[Pedro]

Autonomous vehicles are pioneering stuff at this stage. Take that poor guy in the Tesla that got confused by a reflection and ran him under a truck with fatal consequences.
They may be perfected in time but there's no way I would get in one at this point in time.

[b0son]

My biggest concern is the ethics they build into them... will it sacrifice me for the greater good (eg. drives me into a tree so as not to hit a number of people unlawfully on the road).

[DJR-351]

Interesting that there was a vehicle operator behind the wheel and was unable to intervene to prevent the accident....

[dunga]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

Interesting that there was a vehicle operator behind the wheel and was unable to intervene to prevent the accident....

The vehicle operator was probably texting on their phone

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by b0son

My biggest concern is the ethics they build into them... will it sacrifice me for the greater good (eg. drives me into a tree so as not to hit a number of people unlawfully on the road).

How would an automous car know how many people are in your car? Why would it kill 5 vehicle occupants to save 2 idiots on the road.

We are told autonomous cars never get tired, distracted, drink alcohol or do anything wrong. But sometimes they just don't see things at all

[ford71V8]

Originally Posted by Ben73

How would an automous car know how many people are in your car? Why would it kill 5 vehicle occupants to save 2 idiots on the road.

We are told autonomous cars never get tired, distracted, drink alcohol or do anything wrong. But sometimes they just don't see things at all

I'd like to think that if its out and about driving amongst all of us, it can tell how many of its seats are occupied

[GTLEGEND]

Originally Posted by Ben73

How would an automous car know how many people are in your car? Why would it kill 5 vehicle occupants to save 2 idiots on the road.

We are told autonomous cars never get tired, distracted, drink alcohol or do anything wrong. But sometimes they just don't see things at all

Most new cars have seat pad sensors that can tell if there is an occupant in that seat, also with the seat belt buckle sensor as an alternative or in conjunction with the pad sensor.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Ben73

How would an automous car know how many people are in your car? Why would it kill 5 vehicle occupants to save 2 idiots on the road.

Seat sensors, same way it knows who's in what seat now to only fire airbags it needs to.

There is currently a debate about the level of self-preservation the software should display... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...ticle37803470/

[whynot]

Originally Posted by b0son

My biggest concern is the ethics they build into them... will it sacrifice me for the greater good (eg. drives me into a tree so as not to hit a number of people unlawfully on the road).

As compared to the “ethics” of the Subaru WRX driver who went past me yesterday; doing about 80kph in a 40kph construction zone, in the rain, whilst visibly texting on her phone???

While we would like to believe that ethical decision making is built into products, the sad fact is that a significant percentage of society have zero or low ethical values to begin with. Most of them have drivers licences as well (and we elect quite a few of them to parliament).

My view is that automation will induce a dramatic reduction in deaths and injury related to automobiles. However, it will not eliminate them. And the accidents that do occur will attract a lot of media attention out of proportion to other similar events.

As was pointed out, there was another 100 or so deaths on USA roads that day, and did any of them attract the same level of media attention?

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by whynot

As compared to the “ethics” of the Subaru WRX driver who went past me yesterday; doing about 80kph in a 40kph construction zone, in the rain, whilst visibly texting on her phone???

While we would like to believe that ethical decision making is built into products, the sad fact is that a significant percentage of society have zero or low ethical values to begin with. Most of them have drivers licences as well (and we elect quite a few of them to parliament).

My view is that automation will induce a dramatic reduction in deaths and injury related to automobiles. However, it will not eliminate them. And the accidents that do occur will attract a lot of media attention out of proportion to other similar events.

As was pointed out, there was another 100 or so deaths on USA roads that day, and did any of them attract the same level of media attention?

Originally Posted by b0son

My biggest concern is the ethics they build into them... will it sacrifice me for the greater good (eg. drives me into a tree so as not to hit a number of people unlawfully on the road).

I kind of agree with whynot here.

Is it assumed that human drivers have better ethics than any machine could possibly be programmed to have?

Take a hypothetical example of a person driving a car who gets caught in a scenario where they must decide between hitting a Mack truck head on, meaning almost certain death - or - hitting Miss Honey walking her 30 kindergarten kids along the footpath. Hitting the children would slow the vehicle down allowing the driver to escape unharmed.

Which option does the car driver take? The driver could be a 90 year old with only months to live anyway, or it could be a person with their own child in the back seat. People tend to instinctively self preserve which likely means goodbye kindergarteners.

[Iggle Piggle]

I thought one of the major German's (Merc or Bimmer) were working on an ethic setting for their autonomous cars - something like a knob with settings from one to five, where 1 is "sacrifice me to save everyone else", while 5 is "kill them all if it will save me".

That not a thing?

Need an annoyance knob too - just quietly go about your business, or have the autonomous car do key-bangers when passing cyclists.

[mike_nofx]

First fully autonomous car death.

Meanwhile, in the US, 102 people die every single day due to motor vehicle accidents.

I wonder if the pedestrian is at all to blame, ie, Jay walking, not looking both ways, etc. I mean, it’s not ALWAYS the car or drivers fault if a pedestrian is hit even in a regular car.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

First fully autonomous car death.

Meanwhile, in the US, 102 people die every single day due to motor vehicle accidents.

I wonder if the pedestrian is at all to blame, ie, Jay walking, not looking both ways, etc. I mean, it’s not ALWAYS the car or drivers fault if a pedestrian is hit even in a regular car.

I guess the Tesla not seeing that truck and hitting it at full speed was not counted.

How many regular cars are on US roads verse autonomous?
I'm not say autonomous car are horrible, but some people put too much faith in them at these early stages.

[OzJavelin]

Originally Posted by Ben73

I guess the Tesla not seeing that truck and hitting it at full speed was not counted.

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-au...y-crash-radar/

Tesla didn't confirm the car was running Autopilot at the time of the crash, but its manual does warn that the system is ill-equipped to handle this exact sort of situation: “Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead.”
...
Volvo's semi-autonomous system, Pilot Assist, has the same shortcoming. Say the car in front of the Volvo changes lanes or turns off the road, leaving nothing between the Volvo and a stopped car. "Pilot Assist will ignore the stationary vehicle and instead accelerate to the stored speed," Volvo's manual reads, meaning the cruise speed the driver punched in. "The driver must then intervene and apply the brakes.” In other words, your Volvo won't brake to avoid hitting a stopped car that suddenly appears up ahead. It might even accelerate towards it.
...
The same is true for any car currently equipped with adaptive cruise control, or automated emergency braking. It sounds like a glaring flaw, the kind of horrible mistake engineers race to eliminate. Nope. These systems are designed to ignore static obstacles because otherwise, they couldn't work at all.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by OzJavelin

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-au...y-crash-radar/

That's a different incident that I have never heard of.

The one I heard about was months ago when a Tesla ran into the side of a semi trailer that turned in front of it.
Apparently the car didn't know the truck was there.

Originally Posted by b0son

Even if not autonomous, I doubt a person driving could have avoided that.

Why?
Your eyes can see a lot more than the dashcam can. Yes in the video the person appears out of no where, but in real life with your real eyes you would have seen them a lot earlier.

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Your eyes can see a lot more than the dashcam can. Yes in the video the person appears out of no where, but in real life with your real eyes you would have seen them a lot earlier.

Exactly as i just posted above

[Junkyard-Dog]

I would be interested to see dash cam footage of this incident. Something tells me there are two sides to this story.

[Jack91]

The longer this gets drawn out, the better.
They will never get it perfect, it will never work, its a god damn machine.
Who takes responsibility of this? The programmer? The "driver"? Or do they lock the car up?

Of all the things that science and technology could be doing right now, autonomous cars are hands down, the dumbest thing we can be working on.

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by Jack91

The longer this gets drawn out, the better.
They will never get it perfect, it will never work, its a god damn machine.
Who takes responsibility of this? The programmer? The "driver"? Or do they lock the car up?

Of all the things that science and technology could be doing right now, autonomous cars are hands down, the dumbest thing we can be working on.

Will never be perfect because nothing ever can be. But it’s a system in its infancy and I will 100% guarantee that they will eventually drive much much safer and with a fraction of the accidents of human drivers - if they don’t already drive safer than humans. Accidents WILL happen with autonomous vehicles, but accidents will always happen with human drivers, likely in much greater numbers.

[Blue Roo]

Originally Posted by Jack91

The longer this gets drawn out, the better.
They will never get it perfect, it will never work, its a god damn machine.
Who takes responsibility of this? The programmer? The "driver"? Or do they lock the car up?

Of all the things that science and technology could be doing right now, autonomous cars are hands down, the dumbest thing we can be working on.

It would be interesting to be in an autonomous car. Going home from the Pub or a party. When pulled over for a RBT and your over the legal limit. Who would get charged with drink driving. If, the car was in autonomous mode and you were in the drivers seat.

[ScotchanDry]

Originally Posted by Blue Roo

It would be interesting to be in an autonomous car. Going home from the Pub or a party. When pulled over for a RBT and your over the legal limit. Who would get charged with drink driving. If, the car was in autonomous mode and you were in the drivers seat.

I'm pretty certain from what i have read you still (at this stage ) must be in full control if necessary, similar to being mentor to learner driver.
the rules will be pretty tight for some time I expect

[danzvtil]

I heard a self driving car expert on the radio today make a great point, it was that we seem to have this idea that a computer driving a car should do no wrong. The problem is you can’t program around physics, a driverless car is doing 90 on a highway and a pedestrian steps in front and gets killed, it’s not the cars fault. His point is we don’t know the circumstances around this crash, so shouldn’t demand the technology be banned.
How many pedestrians are killed worldwide every day on roads, we don’t ban all cars pending and investigation of how it happened. Danger and risk is all part of the world we live in.

[roddy1960]

Not sticking up for autonomous cars , certainly no expert either but this won't stop them I reckon . When the Comet jet airliner hit the scene many decades ago it was the 'new thing' revolutionizing air travel massively from prop to jet travel.

Before long the Comet suffered mishaps and eventual catastophic crash and it turned out after a lot of investigation to be from metal fatigue primarily because of the shape of the passenger windows causing stress on the skin of the fuselage .. They fixed it and this led to more and more developments and improvements .

I'm guessing as tragic as this is , the same will happen with these vehicles over the years . Pretty much all technology strikes problems .

[Jastel]

Govt should wake up and write the laws on fault, ethics and insurance BEFORE these things are on the road...but what hope hope is there when uber is pulling the strings...

It is not like it is a surprise to anyone that these companies ignore rules.
(I know they are legal in Arizona...I was referring to Australia)

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by Jastel

Govt should wake up and write the laws on fault, ethics and insurance BEFORE these things are on the road...but what hope hope is there when uber is pulling the strings...

It is not like it is a surprise to anyone that these companies ignore rules.
(I know they are legal in Arizona...I was referring to Australia)

Always behind.
Electric cars still aren't paying for road infrastructure.

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by Jastel

Govt should wake up and write the laws on fault, ethics and insurance BEFORE these things are on the road...but what hope hope is there when uber is pulling the strings...

It is not like it is a surprise to anyone that these companies ignore rules.
(I know they are legal in Arizona...I was referring to Australia)

Yes , that's a real important point .. Imagine if one day fully autonomous vehicles were owned privately or even leased . The owner or leaser goes to a club or pub and gets sozzled and gets in his car to bring him home . On the way the car collides with another car or pedestrian . Is the person liable even if he or she was not driving ?. Governments , manufacturers will need to have stuff like that clarified before these cars seriously hit the roads I reckon .

[Jastel]

Originally Posted by roddy1960

Yes , that's a real important point .. Imagine if one day fully autonomous vehicles were owned privately or even leased . The owner or leaser goes to a club or pub and gets sozzled and gets in his car to bring him home . On the way the car collides with another car or pedestrian . Is the person liable even if he or she was not driving ?. Governments , manufacturers will need to have stuff like that clarified before these cars seriously hit the roads I reckon .

Are you aware uber and other self driving vehicle manufacturers do not want the public to be allowed to own self driving vehicles...they want total control of everything.

Latest news is the "cough" driver of the robo car was an ex felon as well.

I seriously wonder how many free passes this company will get....

[Fordblue1000]

Im in favor of the development of this tech. Look at the facts. Their designed to take the safe option at all times. Computing power is always invreasing year on year. It is only a matter of time till these issues are sorted out. Tragic for all involved with this incident. Im sure after all investigations are completed there will be a learning outcome, and programming adjustments made. Thats what these tech companies do. They want to remove the human element as we are, by nature quite unstable. We push the envelopes at times. A computer will just do its next programmed parameter and follow THAT instruction. I love driving my cars. But there is a real future in the new technology as well. We all had better get used to it now as it will be here in our backyards within 5 years im sure.

Sent from my SM-G928I using Tapatalk

[CoupeKing]

Why rush with these vehicles?