DYohn
Emo VIPs
Posts: 18,361
|
Post by DYohn on Jan 25, 2021 12:59:40 GMT -5
Indeed... and some interesting questions have been raised... For example, many "autonomous cars" are capable of driving themselves under ordinary conditions... And that means that they can generally detect pedestrians or trees in the road... However the question remains of how immune they are from being deliberately tricked.
(Remember when Wile E Coyote painted the tunnel on the side of the cliff, and directed the double yellow line to it, in those old cartoons...?)
Not to rain on your parade but self-driving cars (or, if you prefer, "driverless cars") are already here and operating on public roads. See Waymo. I have ridden in one. Yea there have been issues with the Waymo system in various locations, including people jumping out in front of them to create an insurance claim I suppose. But hey you can't control for ALL idiots, you can only control for the most likely idiots.
|
|
KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 9,970
|
Post by KeithL on Jan 25, 2021 13:20:42 GMT -5
Unfortunately I'm not talking about "idiots" here but about deliberate attacks by hackers and other ne'er do wells.
For example, in one "proof of concept attack", a Tesla was convinced to slam on its brakes by an image of a stop sign flashed on a billboard. (And we have already had several instances where hackers remotely changed the images on electronic billboards.)
And, in another similar proof, a "ghost person" projected in front of the vehicle caused an autonomous vehicle to brake.
And, sadly, as they become more common, this is just the sort of thing we can expect.
Instead of cutting someone off and slamming on the brakes in front of them so they rear-end him... You can expect the insurance scammer a few years from now to have a "little black box" that tricks the car behind him into hitting him by blinding its RADAR... Or some hacker to invent a little black box that causes EVERY autonomous car within range to slam on its brakes when he hits a button...
The point, which was brought up by the folks who demonstrated that attack, was that being able to avoid ACCIDENTAL PROBLEMS is not sufficient... In order to succeed in the long term an autonomous system must also be at least as immune as a human to DELIBERATE ATTACKS of this sort as well...
(Because, once it becomes practical, someone WILL do it... and practical real-world systems must be reasonably immune to this sort of attack.)
Indeed... and some interesting questions have been raised... For example, many "autonomous cars" are capable of driving themselves under ordinary conditions... And that means that they can generally detect pedestrians or trees in the road... However the question remains of how immune they are from being deliberately tricked.
(Remember when Wile E Coyote painted the tunnel on the side of the cliff, and directed the double yellow line to it, in those old cartoons...?)
Yea there have been issues with the Waymo system in various locations, including people jumping out in front of them to create an insurance claim I suppose. But hey you can't control for ALL idiots, you can only control for the most likely idiots.
|
|
KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 9,970
|
Post by KeithL on Jan 25, 2021 13:37:49 GMT -5
There are also different ways of looking at the overall situation... For example, for years, back in NY, I took naps while riding home from work... I was riding in a train which, from my perspective, "drove itself"... and it did so quite reliably... and without making complex decisions. (We may soon see systems where each individual car doesn't have to decide when to stop... because the HIGHWAY is "driving" all of them.)
I also truly suspect that, under some conditions, even with today's technology, a self-driving car will probably often be safer than a HUMAN driver. The biggest catch is simply that humans are considered as individuals... whereas an autonomous vehicle is considered to be part of a group.
No matter how many human drivers cause accidents while driving Ford cars...
They may be sued individually... But you would have to prove an obvious design flaw was responsible before you could sue Ford...
However, if the same number of AUTONOMOUS FORD CARS caused the same number of accidents... The situation would be treated as if a single "entity" had been responsible for all of them... And you could expect the car manufacturer, and the creator of the software, to be sued for all of the accidents collectively... (Nobody would suggest that, just as with human drivers, the performance of each should be considered separately based on the situation.)
And even if they escape legal liability... And even if, collectively, that software causes proportionally far few accidents than a similar number of human drivers... Consumers will view that particular car or software as "unsafe"... Humans will be far more likely to someday "view Tesla autonomous cars as unsafe"... Than they will be to ever admit that HUMAN drivers are unsafe...
(And it's going to be a very long time before anyone considers banning human drivers "because they're not as safe as autonomous cars".) 'Self Driving' cars is yet another wrong term. Research will show there are 6 levels from NO automation, thru completely autonomous......go to sleep in the back seat and the car will wake you at your destination. Cruise control may be an example of 'level 1' control. With NO codos to Musk, his cars are NOT level 6 capable. www.cars.com/articles/autonomous-driving-levels-and-what-they-mean-to-you-424979/Article calls out 'Zero thru Five' while I'm partial to 'One thru Six'.......Same difference. I laughed myself silly in that scene of some bad movie where the guy was driving the motorhome, and got up to get a beer.......He had enabled 'cruise control' and decided he could let it drive itself...... Self-driving car is an accurate term. If the car can sense the environment, operate, steering, brake, acceleration, and gears and get the user from one point to another point of some sort, it is self-driving. Of course as you mentioned there are different levels of this. You are considering self-driving as the driver could be blindfolded or not even in the driver's seat and the car can handle everything related to the road for as long as needed both legally and safely without ever needing intervention. Which is what most people think. But if the car CAN drive itself it is self-driving, regardless of whether a person is legally required to supervise it or whether it doesn't drive itself all that well and makes lots of mistakes. I think cruise control technically does offer some version of self-driving but since it cannot control the steering and in most cases the brake pedal, I don't think it should count as self-driving. More like "driver assist"
|
|
DYohn
Emo VIPs
Posts: 18,361
|
Post by DYohn on Jan 25, 2021 14:08:41 GMT -5
Unfortunately I'm not talking about "idiots" here but about deliberate attacks by hackers and other ne'er do wells. For example, in one "proof of concept attack", a Tesla was convinced to slam on its brakes by an image of a stop sign flashed on a billboard. (And we have already had several instances where hackers remotely changed the images on electronic billboards.)
And, in another similar proof, a "ghost person" projected in front of the vehicle caused an autonomous vehicle to brake. And, sadly, as they become more common, this is just the sort of thing we can expect.
Instead of cutting someone off and slamming on the brakes in front of them so they rear-end him... You can expect the insurance scammer a few years from now to have a "little black box" that tricks the car behind him into hitting him by blinding its RADAR... Or some hacker to invent a little black box that causes EVERY autonomous car within range to slam on its brakes when he hits a button... The point, which was brought up by the folks who demonstrated that attack, was that being able to avoid ACCIDENTAL PROBLEMS is not sufficient... In order to succeed in the long term an autonomous system must also be at least as immune as a human to DELIBERATE ATTACKS of this sort as well...
(Because, once it becomes practical, someone WILL do it... and practical real-world systems must be reasonably immune to this sort of attack.)
Yea there have been issues with the Waymo system in various locations, including people jumping out in front of them to create an insurance claim I suppose. But hey you can't control for ALL idiots, you can only control for the most likely idiots. Yes. I consider hackers "idiots." As well as criminals, of course. But the tech will not stop being developed and will eventually be part of prime time everywhere.
|
|
|
Post by leonski on Jan 25, 2021 15:19:16 GMT -5
Not to rain on your parade but self-driving cars (or, if you prefer, "driverless cars") are already here and operating on public roads. See Waymo. I have ridden in one. Completely Autonomous where you can go to sleep in the back seat and wake at your destination? Experimental, if at that level. I know the trucking industry is running tests, too. But somebody is behind the wheel at ALL times the thing is moving. It can park or back in as well or better than any driver, even my brother who was a Multi-Million mile driver who ended up teaching and in the insurance end. Didn't some version of this have an accident in Arizona?
|
|
|
Post by leonski on Jan 25, 2021 15:31:55 GMT -5
'Self Driving' cars is yet another wrong term. Research will show there are 6 levels from NO automation, thru completely autonomous......go to sleep in the back seat and the car will wake you at your destination. Cruise control may be an example of 'level 1' control. With NO codos to Musk, his cars are NOT level 6 capable. www.cars.com/articles/autonomous-driving-levels-and-what-they-mean-to-you-424979/Article calls out 'Zero thru Five' while I'm partial to 'One thru Six'.......Same difference. I laughed myself silly in that scene of some bad movie where the guy was driving the motorhome, and got up to get a beer.......He had enabled 'cruise control' and decided he could let it drive itself...... Self-driving car is an accurate term. If the car can sense the environment, operate, steering, brake, acceleration, and gears and get the user from one point to another point of some sort, it is self-driving. Of course as you mentioned there are different levels of this. You are considering self-driving as the driver could be blindfolded or not even in the driver's seat and the car can handle everything related to the road for as long as needed both legally and safely without ever needing intervention. Which is what most people think. But if the car CAN drive itself it is self-driving, regardless of whether a person is legally required to supervise it or whether it doesn't drive itself all that well and makes lots of mistakes. I think cruise control technically does offer some version of self-driving but since it cannot control the steering and in most cases the brake pedal, I don't think it should count as self-driving. More like "driver assist" Gar, Look up (Google?) self driving cars. Most 'experts' have agreed on the 'levels of automation' where the Ultimate goal is complete autonomy. We are near the beginning of the process. Modern cars are increasingly having 'baby steps' features incorporated. Auto braking? Cruise Control? Obsticle warnings? It should also be possible to make a black ice sensor and if you want, it may be possible to make a HUD (Heads Up) with night vision. Driver AIDS will be where it's at for maybe a decade or more. And don't forget you have people to consider. And those Hackers who should be put on a desert island somewhere to rot.
|
|
DYohn
Emo VIPs
Posts: 18,361
|
Post by DYohn on Jan 25, 2021 16:21:34 GMT -5
Not to rain on your parade but self-driving cars (or, if you prefer, "driverless cars") are already here and operating on public roads. See Waymo. I have ridden in one. Completely Autonomous where you can go to sleep in the back seat and wake at your destination? Not experimental, commercial actually. And yes, you hail the vehicle and you can go to sleep in the back while it takes you to your destination, if you choose. It's an Uber competitor. Look it up. Waymo used to be the Google self-driving initiative. They spun it off once the concept was proven.
|
|
|
Post by The Mad Norseman on Jan 25, 2021 17:39:44 GMT -5
Completely Autonomous where you can go to sleep in the back seat and wake at your destination? Not experimental, commercial actually. And yes, you hail the vehicle and you can go to sleep in the back while it takes you to your destination, if you choose. It's an Uber competitor. Look it up. Waymo used to be the Google self-driving initiative. They spun it off once the concept was proven. But now Google will drive you straight to...censorship!
|
|
DYohn
Emo VIPs
Posts: 18,361
|
Post by DYohn on Jan 25, 2021 18:28:02 GMT -5
Not experimental, commercial actually. And yes, you hail the vehicle and you can go to sleep in the back while it takes you to your destination, if you choose. It's an Uber competitor. Look it up. Waymo used to be the Google self-driving initiative. They spun it off once the concept was proven. But now Google will drive you straight to...censorship! Eh?
|
|
|
Post by leonski on Jan 25, 2021 19:11:24 GMT -5
I wonder how many MORE hurdles before that WAYMO tech gets all the 'stamps' needed for sale to the public. And what happens when some nearly-inevitable event occurs.
Don't forget all the buy-ins necessary. Dept. Of Transportation. IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) jand who knows WHO else. Than you'll have to get the various European agencies to go for it.
Frankly, this happened years before I though it could.
I'll do some more reading on this and pay particular attention to the critics.
|
|