A step backwards for Self Driving Cars.

[grober]

As Markjay pointed out humans make great use of abductive reasoning----- which is essentaily a series of educated guesses based on past experiences and mitigated possibly to an extent by our social conscience. [ more of that later] While this may on first appearance seem anarchic or chaotic it simply admits to the possibility of several truths to base your actions on rather than spending time finding the "ultimate truth" This has proved a very successful pattern of thought when dealing with situations where boundaries are ill defined or absent and speed of decision making is necessitated by the situation as our success as a species might indicate.
Illustrated by the following somewhat imprecise example:-
A rustling in the bushes--- what is it? well it could be a sabre tooth tiger/the wind/ a passing deer/ another man-ape.
deductive reasoning would demand ascertaining which of the aforesaid choices it is before deciding which action to take .
abductive reasoning- climb a tree climb a tree NOW! work out what the rustling was later.

In terms of social conscious mitigating our thought process it may well overide or at least heavily influence which of several choices abductive reasoning might present to us at any one time. An autonomous system of course will not have that moral overide as by definition, to put it colloquially it doesn't give a f***
People are even trying to program for that eventuality by giving a car sufficient intelligence to allow it to chose whose safety to prioritise in the event of an accident. That said, there is the possibility that if you make a car that "self aware" it may decide that its own safety/integrity is the overiding priority!
How self-driving cars will decide who lives or dies in a crash

 

[Dryce]

Though not obvious if a factor here, one thing to keep in mind is that the human brain uses predictions based on past experience.

I think this is a valid point.

Human drivers is that don't just notice a person or a car - but also often take into account what they are doing and whether they are paying attention. So they anticipate a car that pulls out or a pedestrian that steps out not just based on their movement but also based on identifying whether the other driver or the pedestrian are paying attention.

 

[Petrol Pete]

As Markjay pointed out humans make great use of abductive reasoning----- which is essentaily a series of educated guesses based on past experiences and mitigated possibly to an extent by our social conscience. [ more of that later] While this may on first appearance seem anarchic or chaotic it simply admits to the possibility of several truths to base your actions on rather than spending time finding the "ultimate truth" This has proved a very successful pattern of thought when dealing with situations where boundaries are ill defined or absent and speed of decision making is necessitated by the situation as our success as a species might indicate.
Illustrated by the following somewhat imprecise example:-
A rustling in the bushes--- what is it? well it could be a sabre tooth tiger/the wind/ a passing deer/ another man-ape.
deductive reasoning would demand ascertaining which of the aforesaid choices it is before deciding which action to take .
abductive reasoning- climb a tree climb a tree NOW! work out what the rustling was later.

In terms of social conscious mitigating our thought process it may well overide or at least heavily influence which of several choices abductive reasoning might present to us at any one time. An autonomous system of course will not have that moral overide as by definition, to put it colloquially it doesn't give a f***
People are even trying to program for that eventuality by giving a car sufficient intelligence to allow it to chose whose safety to prioritise in the event of an accident. That said, there is the possibility that if you make a car that "self aware" it may decide that its own safety/integrity is the overiding priority!
How self-driving cars will decide who lives or dies in a crash

Agreed, just like that time in the pub when you can sense its going to 'kick off' and you have to make the decision to leave or join in ! This will always be the number one 'problem' for self driving vehicles, they have no soul and never will have...bit like an Audi.

 

[nickpb]

I used my W213 E-class to drive me 25 miles along the A34 from Winchester to Newbury yesterday. It did it flawlessly. Adjusted the speed well, kept it within the lane, let me move across the lanes safely when changing lane, coped with vehicles moving into my lange. Hugely impressed, but I missed the experience of driving by the end of it lol

I have used it quite a bit in my S213 but it has its moments - braking can be quite fierce sometimes and if you happen to find a stretch of road where the speed limit is incorrect in Comand maps, then it can be most alarming.

I used it driving around the M25 at night a few months ago. Just after the Dartford bridge there is a stretch of M25 where the maps think the speed limit is 40 instead of 70. When I reached this point the car braked very suddenly to reduce my speed. Luckily there was no-one behind me, but if there had been it could have been nasty.

 

[st13phil]

An interesting article here regarding autonomous vehicles - both on the road and in the air.

There's an interesting comment beneath the article too:

I think the narrative of the industry is completely appropriate on a risk-management perspective: The point is that as long as we have less accidents with autonomous vehicle than with the present human-driven vehicles this is a benefit for society at large.

Hmmm...

 

[grober]

What I found interesting was not the phrase---The point is that as long as we have less accidents with autonomous vehicle than with the present human-driven vehicles this is a benefit for society at large. But it served as a reminder that automated vehicles may be being developed for other economic reasons. We tend to think of them in terms of "owner drivers " but in fact many vehicles are not driven by their owners but by professional drivers = truckers, cabbies, Uber drivers, your Amazon delivery man , DPD/Royal Mail/ YODEL/ UPS etc etc Eliminate them with "robot vehicles " and that would present enormous cost savings to these organisations.

 

[renault12ts]

Yep, everyone wants to reduce costs by hiring fewer people...but still expect there to be people around to buy their goods/services...go figure.

 

[Dryce]

But it served as a reminder that automated vehicles may be being developed for other economic reasons.

And better use of infrastructure.

In principle autonomous cars can increase the density of vehicles on the roads.

There was a demo many years ago showing a train of autonomous cars on test track - basically tailgating each other at high speed - like a train. You can take the concept of a 'smart motorway' and combine it with 'smart traffic'.

The vision of autonomous vehicles that is sold to the public as if it would be a matter of you using an app on your phone as you get up from your table in a restaurant to summon your car - and as you reach the pavemeni outside your car rolls up - you get in and open a magazine and read it while your car takes you to your next appointment.

The reality is more likely to be - you drive your car to a motorway slip road and then wait while your car is authorised to join the traffic flow. Your car then takes control and under central instruction joins a convoy of vehicles with similar speed rating to head to the exit - possibly a few miles - possibly the other end of the country - and then won't proceed through the exit until you take back control.

 

[grober]

This "sort of" answers a question I have about LIDAR technology, but it does come from Velodyne, and it appears that pronouncements from large American corporations have sometimes to be taken with a pince of salt?
LASER Safety in a LiDAR World - Velodyne LiDAR 360 Blog

quote:-
All Velodyne LiDAR sensors, including the HDL-64E, HDL-32E (pictured on left), and the VLP-16 Puck series are categorized as class I laser products. Each sensor has between 16 and 64 lasers, which rapidly rotate at approximately 10 hertz, or 10 full revolutions per second. Meanwhile, each individual laser pulses at a wavelength of 905nm with an average power of 2 milliWatts. For comparison purposes, this is about 1/5,000th or 0.02% of the power output in your standard 10-watt LED headlamp bulb on a low-beam setting.

The backside of a Velodyne HDL-32E LiDAR sensor displays a “Class I Laser Product” label

This means that any single laser beam would sweep across an inadvertently glancing eye in approximately 1 millisecond with an average power less than common laser pointers. *And since each individual laser is mounted in a different orientation and angle, multiple lasers cannot strike the eye at once and increase the power. Even if a viewer intentionally stares at a Velodyne sensor, the combination of low power and rapid rotation results in a class I rating. Therefor, the Puck’s roughly 300,000 beam points per second are harmless to the very humans the sensors are designed to protect.

* which holds for a single lidar system in an open air situation not sure how that stands up in a densely populated multi vehicle situation with multiple lasers and multiple reflective surfaces?

 

[grober]

Autonomous car relied on driver intervention?

Self-driving Uber's automatic emergency brake was switched off before fatal crash, report says