This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Such a clickbate title.
Two dispatch lots won’t be operating at night because the noise is disturbing people who need to sleep.
Honestly, the city should’ve never permitted this spot to begin with. You shouldn’t do cab dispatch in residential neighborhoods.
not even a video about the honking parking lot?
Linking with a timestamp to the end of the video (no more honking) is quite the comedic turnaround
woops
Current full self driving cars terrify me. Someone gets in a car, runs a red, shatters a grandma, flattens her dog, they can be held accountable. An officer comes and apprehends them. No big deal.
A software bug compels a waymo to do the same and the company apologizes, pays a fine, and continues its activity. Possibly before the end of the day. Executives are too immune to prosecution for e-taxis to be a reasonable proposition to me.
It's odd that the thing that terrifies you is that nobody is able to be punished. Grandma and her dog are dead in both scenarios. We want whatever will cause that scenario to happen the least.
I'd rather 1 grandma is run over without a clearly responsible party than 10 grandmothers be killed while 10 drivers are sent to prison.
A person who's not paying attention or drunk is always going to exist no matter how many grandmas are flattened. The software bug can be fixed and sensors can be improved.
Self-driving cars are the worst they will ever be and they will only get better. Human drivers are not going to improve.
The problem isn't that nobody is able to be punished, its that the punishment isn't anywhere near severe enough to incentivize fixing the issues that caused grandma to get hit.
When negligence is a small fine and a finger wag of "make sure this doesn't happen again", they aren't going to do more than lip service claiming they will fix the issue, maybe fire someone at the bottom of the ladder to prove their sincerity.
I think you're both right. What's really important is the lives at stake, and only the software can really meaningfully improve, but the incentives aren't there right now to make those improvements happen.
One thing to consider though, is the incentives can always be tweaked. Maybe the robo taxi company barely blinks at a $100,000 fine, they chuckle about a $1 million fine, do they still laugh about a $50 million fine? They may really start to sweat over a $200 million fine. And hey, I can think of larger numbers, we can always provide them a better incentive (while financing the state).
Until it’s no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, companies will make their cars safer, I agree. That’s the summation of my reasoning. As companies attempt to relieve themselves of their need for humans, the math becomes murkier. “Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
Until it's no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, or regulation requires they make their cars safer, or a competitor decides to take market share by making their cars safer.
“Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
That's fine because that's not what I said.
Which of these do you disagree with?:
Human driving capability has shown no indication of improving.
Autonomous vehicle capabilities are showing indications of improving.
It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to recognize that these measures of performance will eventually intersect (unless you think there's something fundamentally special about human driving that is impossible to replicate).
In the specific locations and conditions that waymo is allowed to operate, they are absolutely safer! And I expect self driving cars to improve up to the point that they are economically incentivized to do so.
I’ll say again, I don’t disagree with you, I just need personal accountability to feel assured of the trend not being bucked, and I do not expect that to ever be on offer in the United States where money is equivalent to your voice
The punishment (or the threat of punishment) is supposed to be part of the motivation to not drive into pedestrians.
If the decision makers behind the fully automatic vehicles don't fear that punishment, the concern is that they'll make choices that are motivated more by profits and efficiencies and less by safe driving and preventing harms.
And given the abuses of profit seeking executives we have seen in the past, it is a valid concern.
Punishment as a deterrent? Lol what human race are you thinking of.
Ah yes, people slow down near cops for the love of the game, not because they're afraid of a ticket or jail time.
Fear of punishment.
So it's just the fear of vengeance that stops you from robbing, raping, and murdering?
Of course not. Most people are motivated to doing the right thing simplybecauseitbis the right thing to do.
But some people seem to need the threat of personal consequences to keep them from being selfish assholes. And it often appears that those are the same type of people who manage to get themselves into decision making positions in the business world.
The executives should not have any immunity to prosecution, we need to start holding them accountable. The technology is never the problem, technology just provides us with tools, like any tools sometimes they can be dangerous and deserve immense respect, but it's the people using them and deciding how they are used who are making those tools and technologies actually hurt and kill people, not the technology. A tool is not inherently good or bad, it does not have intentions or motivations. People do. Let the technology be a technology, and hold the people accountable.
Waymo has proven to be far safer than human driven cars though. Sure, hold them accountable if they're really negligent, but some accidents are inevitable, but at a much lower rate than what human drivers cause.
@Gullible@sh.itjust.works There isn't a problem that could not be solved by legislation here. The police is already able to give tickets to self-driving cars in some states. You can certainly argue that the megacorps aren't inclined to care when the amount of money involved is tiny but then again that problem exists in most places just as much when it comes to fining rich people. You could always up the amounts if the politicians are willing to do that.
The more consequential thing that can already be done currently is grounding the entire fleet if there's a good reason for that so it's not like officials are completely helpless.
I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but consumer protections in the US feel like a far off thing, given its current sociopolitical swing. I cannot trust politicians to do right by me, so I espouse wariness of companies
What the hell even is the point mandating a back up alarm for self driving cars ? Backup alarms literally only exist because visibility to the rear is worse, and to warn pedestrians that a vehicle nearby is moving with very poor to no visibility, but that only applies to human operated vehicles. Autonomous vehicles use 360° sensors, they can "see" just as well in reverse as in forward. Be that good or bad, it's equal in every direction, so mandating an alarm just for reverse seems enormously pointless. Especially since the cars tend to be slower in reverse, so if anything it's less necessary then, vs. when they're moving forward.
Fixxd: Back up alarm turned into active drive alarm.
Using “ruckus” I the title and not referencing Wu Tang in the article? Straight to jail.
Could you describe the ruckus?
Honda Ruckus
