HFWR
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Many humans have already perfected the art of artificial intelligence...
We purchased an Acura MDX, about a month ago.This car has Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) and Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). Now that we have driven it for about four weeks, some observations.
I love the two systems on the highway! I wondered how it determined my hands were on the wheel. I think I figured out it looks for minute steering pressure on the wheel. I can hold on with my thumb and fore finger and as the wheel moves, a very slight resistance to the turn will signal to the computer you are steering. If you take your had off the wheel, no resistance and it will give you a warning in about 46 secs.
This is not a system you can kick back and read a newspaper. You can however, look around more. Take your hand off the wheel and get something out of your pocket or glove box. On a divided highway feels ok. On the back road two lane, not so much.
The ACC is really nice. Set it for the speed limit and if the car in front is going slower, it does not run up on it. With regular cruise control, you have to kick it off and the urge to pass a slower car sets in. Often we will hold behind a car going a couple miles under the speed limit for awhile before we notice. It is a more relaxed way to drive.
I think you do loose a little 'situational awareness' as we say in the flying game. Because you are not quite as concerned with staying in your lane, and you monitor the system to make sure it is still on, I don't seem to pay as much attention what is beside or behind. This has nothing to do with the assisted driving, but the Acura looses cars in the rear view mirror when the nose of the car reaches your back bumper. The side mirrors will pick it up, and will show it until is equal with driver side/passenger side window. It take a little getting use to if you don't have a habit of monitoring the side mirrors. The Acura comes with a system that monitors cars around you, but our model does not have it. Next one will.
ACC: This works well on the open road with cars in front. No problem with normal traffic cutting in front going faster or about the same speed. However, it is not so good if the guy in front slows suddenly. It will slow also, but it is more aggressive than it needs to be. It does get your attention. Once more, if you are paying attention, you can usually anticipate this and kick the ACC off.
No intention of hijacking the thread. Just some thoughts of simi-autonomous driving.
One big incremental improvement they could do with this technology right now, is to have mandatory cruise control on the open rural interstates, where the car maintains the speed limit. The big danger today is most people seem to drive either 10 mph over or under the speed limit. With no one driving a constant speed. Long trips would be much less tiring if there wasn't this constant need to jockey for position, because of those going too fast or too slow.
How would that be enforced? We can't even enforce not texting while driving and other distractions. Adaptive cruise control is probably meant to address much the same issue, and adaptive will undoubtedly become more and more common in the years ahead. Eventually Luddites will be (in) the greatest dangerOne big incremental improvement they could do with this technology right now, is to have mandatory cruise control on the open rural interstates, where the car maintains the speed limit. The big danger today is most people seem to drive either 10 mph over or under the speed limit. With no one driving a constant speed. Long trips would be much less tiring if there wasn't this constant need to jockey for position, because of those going too fast or too slow.
This is one of my pet peeves. With correctly adjusted mirrors and nothing blocking the windows, there is no blind spot. Unfortunately, it seems that all new vehicles have this feature, and those of us who don't need or want it are still forced to pay for it.
but your blanket stmt of no blind spot is just wrong... you can minimize it with adjusted mirrors, but cannot eliminate it all together....
Many humans have already perfected the art of artificial intelligence...
I one thing for sure about self-driving cars:
It's a fun topic that generates lots of opinions.
This is number 120 in this one thread in less than three days.
The future:
Year 2150:
News Flash on Facebook V23: Self Driving Cars (SDC's) are having trouble avoiding the Amazon drones that are clogging the streets looking for residences for deliveries of food rations these days. There have been just too many accidents and the insurance companies are raising rates (again)."
(Government Directive after reviewing statistics (three years later))
To All Owners of SDC's: "Starting in 2155, all SDC's will now be equipped with human control at all times for the purpose of maintaining crash avoidance. Any SDC found without human control will be permanently disabled and the responsible human owner fined 10 days food rations"
The blind spot is completely eliminated in my car. However, to be fair, I can't say that for all vehicles. But, I have yet to drive a car where I haven't been able to completely eliminate the blind spot.
Of course the key to all this is that they only have to become statistically BETTER than human drivers in aggregate to slowly become more and more accepted and eventually required IMO.
I suspect that current self driving technology is already much better than human drivers including the strange ethical dilemmas, quirky detection etc. Humans make TONS of errors all the time and that is shown by the number of fatalities in cars...
Tesla autopilots only work on highways, and cannot navigate city streets, or shopping mall parking lots. Google cars are much more advanced, and they cannot really do that either.
But how many city streets (except if they have bike lanes) have a white strip on the side? Let alone how many residential streets have any striping at all. The issue of striping depends on the speed limits involved. If you get above 55 I suspect you find full striping but 25 to 35 mph no striping.
In the video, we can see the Model S cruising at 45 mph after passing the 40 mph speed limit sign and only slowing down to pass a cyclist, which is impressive on its own.
Interestingly, the Model S is able to stay in the right lane while planning its path without lane markings.
This is partly wrong. As you can see here, the car is able to drive on 2 lane roads just fine, as long as they are marked...
What I meant was that the autopilot is still not as good as the human brain which can tell where the car should be, based on his vision of other cues such as the road shoulder, the grass growing by the sides of the road, etc...
Can you drive where there are no clear lane markings? I can. Heck, I can even drive on narrow one-lane roads in Hawaii, where the drivers have to wait for their turn to go through a narrow section.
I am not debating what is better, the car or the human driver. I agree with you that the human (for now) is indeed the better performer. BUT...you said that the car couldn't 'autopilot' on unmarked roads, and that is just not true.
Even at night... in all conditions?
At least you are right until you are not.....
BTW, I felt the same way as you.... but have had it proven to me twice that I was wrong... lucky for me I did not change lanes...
No! Not for 130 million miles without screwing up, as Tesla claims.
How can Elon Musk say that his autopilot is safer than the ordinary driver, yet requires the user to stay alert all the time to catch the hiccup and ready to take over? Is he a politician, talking out of both sides of his mouth?