Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street?

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

She may have been drunk or suffering from mental issues or just simply pre-occupied with whatever was going on in her life. She wasn’t threatening or violent and just simply wanted to get across the road. Maybe she would have been sorry for causing a few seconds of inconvenience to a driver.

Did you have the same understanding for the Kim Briggs in the Alliston case? Or the ped knocked down on  the crossing who then sued the cyclist? Because when you look at what happened in all of these cases, they are all pedestrians crossing the road and getting hit by a vehicle that was on the road. Or where you more on the side of the cyclist on these, and apportioning some fault for the incident on the pedestrian to some extent?

Kim Briggs was quite a tragic case as her death could easily have been avoided. I don’t have much sympathy for Alliston as he didn’t show any remorse after the event, though I still think his punishment was excessive compared to similar incidents involving drivers and pedestrians.

The Brushnett-Hazeldean case (presumably that’s the one you’re referring to) was initially presented as a poor innocent cyclist who got caught out by the pedestrian crossing whilst looking at her phone, but the facts turned out to be somewhat different (the cyclist deliberately rode at the bunch of pedestrians crossing the road). In the comments on the stories here, I advocated that the cyclist was a fool for not getting legal advice and I then suggested that his best course of action was to go for bankruptcy. I didn’t give the cyclist or the pedestrian much sympathy as neither was blameless (obviously, I’d have preferred that they hadn’t collided at all). In the end, the cyclist got landed with an excessive bill due to his ignorance of court/law procedures and I think the 50/50 result did actually make sense.

I don’t think cyclists are always blameless or drivers are always at fauly, but if you’re in charge of heavy machinery then you must take responsibility for your actions and recognise that you are bringing significant danger into the lives of others. What bugs me is the double standards whereby drivers can claim “I didn’t see her until too late” or “I didn’t expect her to cross the road there” and they pretty much get let off due to juries all being drivers and all thinking “I could have done that”.

Rich_cb wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

Argus Tuft wrote:

Just to shift the subject a little,do you see these cars as being single occupant vehicles,or will they pick up passengers along the way?

I think we’ll see a mix, smaller single occupancy vehicles will have a place but most cars will probably be roughly the size of cars now but split into 4 dividable sections, if you’re travelling as a group the divisions will be open, if you’re travelling individually your section will be private. You’ll be able to pay more to go straight to your destination without any stops, slightly less to stop once en route, less again to stop twice etc. You could even pre book the pick ups so you can share lifts too and from work etc. You didn’t answer my previous question, do you think level 5 is necessary? I think level 4 will deliver almost all of the benefits far earlier, I’m not sure level 5 will ever be needed.

I wonder if it’d be like travelling by bus, with people strategically sitting or placing their luggage to make sure nobody sits next to them. People don’t like sharing transport. Even ‘public’ transport.

The reason I picked up the

The reason I picked up the footage maybe being doctored is that only one street light (up high on the right of the Uber one) in the distance is on. According to both the correspoding videos showing the accident site taken a couple of days later, there should have been at least two more in view closer and to the left. It is just a black area. So indicates doctoring or those lights might not have been on. I would be surprised if it was just the settings on the camera as the lights on the building and the previously mentioned light in the distance are visible if fuzzier. 

I’m sorry for coming across as callous and / or totally victim blaming as the accident should never have happened if the “driver” was “driving” or if Uber had programmed better. However I still don’t understand what the pedestrian was expecting to happen when she crossed there. Any car approaching would have had to take avoiding action of some sort. However, If the lights were out, it is easier to misjudge the position or speed of a car just from headlights so maybe it was that. If the car changed lanes it might have been that. Unfortunately we will never know from her side and that is the big tragedy here. 

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Don’t really care about your views of ‘form’. Those things do have everything to do with Elon Musk Silicon Valley style techno-evangelism, however much you might want to deny it. I get that you want to ignore the political context, but it doesn’t make it go away.

PS look up the definition of analogy yourself, then come up with one.

Here’s the definition:
“a correspondence or partial similarity.”

Think that settles the discussion.

You already knew that though, which is why you brought gender, wealth and race into it.

Just like you did last time we had a discussion.

Try and pretend it’s relevant if you want but it seems like you just hit the identity politics whenever a discussion is not going your way. Pretty sad really.

brooksby wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

It’s pretty poor form to try and undermine an argument by aluding to gender, race, wealth etc. makes you seem like you don’t actually have a decent argument in the first place.

Except that there’s an awful lot of anecdotal evidence about how difficult machine learning systems find it when it has to deal with anyone who’s not white… Google facial recognition fails (“Open your eyes” instructions to someone of Chinese descent, “Close your mouth” instructions to someone black, etc etc). Race certainly matters.

That’s true, though the connection is broader than specific instances like that. What demographic is it who fanboys all over Elon Musk? What does Uber do in addition to developing dodgy self-driving cars? What are the tech crowd doing politically and economically in San Fransisco in particular and in US politics in general?

There’s a link between that kind of ‘tech will solve all’ mentality and a kind of faux-liberal/libertarian politics. I just don’t agree with that emphasis on tech solutions, and it’s a political question (as is everything, really).

Rich_cb wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

Argus Tuft wrote:

I do have an Idea of the challenges involved.That’s why level 5 autonomy  on any road may never happen.

 

Do we need level 5? If urban/suburban journeys and motorway journeys are autonomous then that’s the vast vast majority of car journeys covered and the vast majority of benefits already delivered. If you understand the challenges involved why do you consider achieving level 4 autonomy in a decade to be poor progress?

Just to shift the subject a little,do you see these cars as being single occupant vehicles,or will they pick up passengers along the way?

brooksby wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Except that there’s an awful lot of anecdotal evidence about how difficult machine learning systems find it when it has to deal with anyone who’s not white… Google facial recognition fails (“Open your eyes” instructions to someone of Chinese descent, “Close your mouth” instructions to someone black, etc etc). Race certainly matters.

In facial recognition certainly, in self driving cars?

AFAIK race has absolutely nothing to do with it but, once again, FKoT has brought it up.

ktache wrote:

ktache wrote:

Can anyone please explain why making an automobile self driving would result in a paradigm shift in car ownership, so that no one will own their own status symbol and instead be prepared to be driven around in whatever was on offer?

Is there any evidence for this assumption?

It does seem to be regularly trotted out by self driving car advocates.

Or is it perhaps a smokescreen to cover the idea that, rather then paying for expensive parking, owners will just have their cars drive around for a few hours, or for longer periods drive home and then back again when needed, say for the length of a working day?  So causing massively more congestion.

I think it will work in much the same way as streaming music and films destroyed the ownership of physical CDs and the status symbol of a record/CD/film collection.

Initially self driving cars will be expensive and will therefore be status symbols themselves, as the technology matures and the price drops a lot of people will realise that they can summon a high end self driving car for all their driving needs for the same price as owning a fairly mundane car.

So they get the status at no cost.

Eventually self driving cars will become so common that they will be far far cheaper to use than your own car.

Added to that the convenience and lack of stress and you’ve got a lot of reasons to abandon car ownership altogether.