Self Driving Cars?

[JoeWras]

Why does Uber even want to be in the SDC business?

I suspect it is all about the data. Having some other company they contract or buy from means negotiating to get the data, which probably means a huge bite. This is just my guess.

I heard the Lyft CEO on CNBC this morning. He was very evasive about questions about data. He also made it clear he is starting a war on car ownership (babbled off all kinds of stats about how cars cost more than food, etc.), and wants a transportation service model. Frankly, this all scares the crap out of me. These people are more in the control business than anything else.

I don't know that it is just an Uber issue. I think that's a software company issue. A lot of software companies do that, quality and especially security comes later.

Thinking about this some more, even Intel has taken some shortcuts and exposed just about all their processors to hacks. So maybe this is a technology industry issue.

Yes. When Facebook or Netflix pushes out a problem, nobody is really hurt. They just roll it back. Maybe get a few complaints and a tiny twitter storm. But for products that are life and death, there needs to be a different standard.

I'll say it again. Silicon Valley culture is all about FIRST. Time and time again, it is shown that the first to the race wins. Even Uber is still kicking Lyft despite Uber's huge mistakes.

There are exceptions. The biggest that comes to mind is Google beating the pants off of, and killing, AltaVista.

 

[NW-Bound]

I don't know that it is just an Uber issue. I think that's a software company issue. A lot of software companies do that, quality and especially security comes later.

Thinking about this some more, even Intel has taken some shortcuts and exposed just about all their processors to hacks. So maybe this is a technology industry issue.

+1

The software industry is getting more and more cavalier with time. And that is due to public acceptance. When a CPU lockup is shrugged off as a matter of life, why should a careful company spend time to thoroughly debug its software product while its competitors do not? Heck, let them reboot.

Carrying this attitude into life-endangering products, and we have the current problem. The original Tesla Autosteer allowed the driver to have hands off for as long as 2 minutes, and only tightened the rule after the Florida crash.

And of the recent Mountain View crash into a barrier, it is not the 1st time this happened. It is only the 1st one with a fatality. And the company said its record shows that Autosteer has been engaged on that stretch of road 87,000 times. Then, "fleet learning" should have their system so safe by now, it could drive the car blind. Hah. They never really describe that capability to show what it really does, and people just love that concept.

 

[Ronstar]

Uber reached a settlement in the Tempe accident https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ly-of-autonomous-vehicle-victim-idUSKBN1H5092

 

[explanade]

Why would you assume they are not working on it?



BMW to Spend Over $8 Billion on Research and Development in 2018

Audi is definitely working on it as well, with a research facility in the Bay Area and testing their cars here.


I saw an ad in the UK for a BMW that will park itself. Not just parallel park but into a parking space. And you get out of the car and push buttons on a remote for this self-valet.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/14/10773222/bmw-self-parking-us-dot-regulations

 

[samclem]

Uber reached a settlement in the Tempe accident https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ly-of-autonomous-vehicle-victim-idUSKBN1H5092

Wow, that was quick. I hope it was painful (for Uber), too.
Okay, so it looks like any public disclosure of what happened will come as a result of the NTSB investigation and any criminal cases brought by a DA (against the driver, and, less likely, Uber). I would have preferred to have that investigation AND a public disclosure of whatever a bulldog attorney and a bunch of hired PIs and expert witnesses offered up.
​

 

[JoeWras]

Wow, that was quick. I hope it was painful (for Uber), too.
Okay, so it looks like any public disclosure of what happened will come as a result of the NTSB investigation and any criminal cases brought by a DA (against the driver, and, less likely, Uber). I would have preferred to have that investigation AND a public disclosure of whatever a bulldog attorney and a bunch of hired PIs and expert witnesses offered up.
​

Quick, probably means big payout. Uber just wants to get this out of the news.

 

[samclem]

Quick, probably means big payout. Uber just wants to get this out of the news.

The plaintiffs should cash that check from Uber today, while it is still good. If they agreed to take payments over 20 years, then they could be very sorry. If they took Uber stock--well . . .

 

[REWahoo]

If they agreed to take payments over 20 years, then they could be very sorry.

I thought "structured settlements" involved the purchase of an annuity rather than relying on the continued solvency of the party making the payments. JG Wentworth has made a fortune on these...

 

[retirementguy1]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations. I think the vast majority of donations come from car accidents. You can save multiple people from one body that is brain dead from a car accident. I have listened to a podcast with the waymo ceo and he says, safety safety safety. Other people will die because of this call to safety. It's a philosophical question of, where is the greater good.

 

[JoeWras]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations. I think the vast majority of donations come from car accidents. You can save multiple people from one body that is brain dead from a car accident. I have listened to a podcast with the waymo ceo and he says, safety safety safety. Other people will die because of this call to safety.

Not going to happen overnight. It is years off.


By then, medicine will have advanced. And maybe they'll have a soylent green solution, so no worries. Seems to fit right in line with the movement.

 

[cooch96]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations. I think the vast majority of donations come from car accidents. You can save multiple people from one body that is brain dead from a car accident. I have listened to a podcast with the waymo ceo and he says, safety safety safety. Other people will die because of this call to safety. It's a philosophical question of, where is the greater good.

Wow. Excellent point. The optimist in me thinks this will lead to further incentive to develop artificial organs grown in agar and pigs and such.

 

[Midpack]

Uber reached a settlement in the Tempe accident https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ly-of-autonomous-vehicle-victim-idUSKBN1H5092

Wow, that was quick. I hope it was painful (for Uber), too.

I hope I’m wrong but there have been several reports that made it clear the victim/pedestrian was homeless. So her husband and daughter, who asked to go unnamed, may have been out of her life and therefore more likely to settle than if they’d been closer family members. Again, I hope I’m wrong...

 

[CaptTom]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations.

Ahh, a new angle on the old trolly car dilemma. Would YOU be willing die, so that your organs could help many other people live? How many? Would it depend on how well you know them? How important they are?

I started out thinking "no way!" but I guess there would be a threshold somewhere.

Or how about this; would you support a social construct wherein a certain number of people are randomly chosen to die, without notice and through no fault of their own, to provide organs to sustain a larger number of people?

Isn't that what we have now?

 

[Chuckanut]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations. I think the vast majority of donations come from car accidents. You can save multiple people from one body that is brain dead from a car accident. I have listened to a podcast with the waymo ceo and he says, safety safety safety. Other people will die because of this call to safety. It's a philosophical question of, where is the greater good.

With all due respect that is looking at the situation from only one point of view. The other side of it is that many people who are crippled and otherwise have their life significantly downgraded by accidents, will be healthy. Does that not also have value to our society? People who would require huge amounts of extra help (time, money, effort) will be able to function on their own since they will never be injured in that accident.

Like my old grand pappy used to say - "You can never do just one thing".

 

[Music Lover]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but an unintended consequence of self driving cars is that there will be fewer accidents and less organ donations. I think the vast majority of donations come from car accidents. You can save multiple people from one body that is brain dead from a car accident. I have listened to a podcast with the waymo ceo and he says, safety safety safety. Other people will die because of this call to safety. It's a philosophical question of, where is the greater good.

I don't see any philosophical dilemma of not dying in a collision short changing someone who needs an organ, however, please feel free to donate any of your organs at any time if you think there's a shortage...

Technology is making real advances growing human organs and it's very possible that some time in the near future we won't need to rely on accident victims for organ donors.

 

[braumeister]

This is why you should always flip the switch to send the trolley toward the five people instead of the one. Many more organs to harvest.

Seriously though, improved traffic safety always seems like a good idea, and I wonder if the lives and limbs saved by it actually cancel out the lack of donated organs. We'll never know.

 

[explanade]

How many organ transplants go to people who need them because of lifestyle choices.

You would hope that people who abused alcohol and need liver transplants are lower in the list than people who need them through no fault of their own.

But you never know in this world.

 

[JoeWras]

This is why you should always flip the switch to send the trolley toward the five people instead of the one. Many more organs to harvest.

Uh, , I think?


This thread has taken an interesting turn.

 

[aja8888]

I thought most organ donors were driving motorcycles at the time they coughed them up?

 

[NW-Bound]

...
Or how about this; would you support a social construct wherein a certain number of people are randomly chosen to die, without notice and through no fault of their own, to provide organs to sustain a larger number of people?

The acclaimed novel "Never Let Me Go" (2005) by Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro is about the feeling of people who discover they are clones raised for organ harvest. A movie with the same title was made in 2010.

Back on the topic, looks like Waymo is going full-speed on this SDC business, and appears very confident. See the company's recent video below.

 

[Chuckanut]

I thought most organ donors were driving motorcycles at the time they coughed them up?

Ahhh...... Donorcycles. I have heard of them.

 

[Walt34]

I thought most organ donors were driving motorcycles at the time they coughed them up?

When I bought the motorcycle in 2008 an ever-cheerful SIL, a retired nurse, said at work they called motorcyclists "organ donors". In one of the books on motorcycle riding I read that ~50% of single-vehicle fatal accidents involved alcohol. Even when I had a small 100cc bike in HS I knew better than that.

 

[Texas Proud]

Not sure why organ donation got in this thread except to say there would be less...

IMO, so what... some people get the benefits of good genes or good lifestyle choices or whatever keeps them healthy.... others do not... we have gone a long way in being able to help out the ones who were not so lucky, but there is no moral duty to not make roads safer even if more people would die due to lack of organs... (which I would think it would never get to that level)...


I also am not willing to die to save other peoples lives.... and I would not expect someone else to die to save mine... that is ridiculous thinking IMO...

 

[NW-Bound]

Tesla just announced that the driver who died crashing into a freeway divider in Mountain View did not have his hands on the steering wheel for the 6 seconds before the impact.

If this does not convince Tesla car owners to keep their hands glued to the steering wheel, I do not know what would. The guy who died was an engineer working at Apple. He should know about the limitations of the car.

Strangely still, his family said that he often complained to Tesla about his car's tendency to veer towards that barrier many times in the past. Then, why did he keep using this "autopilot"? Was he trying to see if it would get better from "fleet learning" with a recent software update?

 

[Chuckanut]

So, a self driving Uber car picks me up at my home to take me to the airport. Along the way a policeman stops the self driving car for a traffic violation (at this point it doesn't matter if the policeman is right or wrong, the car must pullover). Who does he talk to about the traffic violation?

Here's one person's view:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/...s-are-coming-what-does-that-mean-for-policing

Ticketing the occupants of self-driving cars would be futile, predicts Schafer, a co-author of “The Future of Policing” and member of Police Futurists International, a group advocating “improving criminal and social justice” through “long-range planning and forecasting.” Riders in driverless cars probably won’t own the vehicles, which would more likely be part of a Google or General Motors fleet picking up passengers and dropping them off all day long. In that case, riders wouldn’t have responsibility for operating or maintaining the cars, and couldn’t be charged with failing to signal or driving with a broken taillight.