Uber self-driving car kills Arizona woman

[Mountain Man]

I'm not a big fan of the self driving car idea but I don't get the issue here - it states that there was a driver at the wheel - why didn't the driver stop the car? Sounds like other factors may be in play.

The "driver" is there for legal reasons, but self-driving cars are fully autonomous.

[KingsGambit]

The "driver" is there for legal reasons, but self-driving cars are fully autonomous.

I thought the driver did have the ability to at least brake if need be. This isn't the case?

[Mountain Man]

I thought the driver did have the ability to at least brake if need be. This isn't the case?

In theory, the driver is supposed to take manual control in an emergency. In this case, he didn't even know the woman was there until he heard the impact, and apparently the car didn't either since the police reported no skid marks which would be evidence of braking.

[Sparko]

Well she will go down in history as the first person to be killed by an autonomous vehicle.

Unless you count that Tesla accident where the guy had it on autopilot and it ran into a truck.

[KingsGambit]

Follow up question: Does a self driving car have the ability to recognize if it is being pulled over?

[Cow Poke]

Follow up question: Does a self driving car have the ability to recognize if it is being pulled over?

Yes

Same way you do. You see the flashing lights, hear the siren whoop, and you pull over. Automated systems detect the lights, register the sound, and are programmed to respond accordingly. Google even has hand gestures worked into their algorithms.

[Celebrian]

From the released car video (which I elected not to watch), it seems some believe the car technology should have been able to avoid the crash (and the human in the car wasn't paying attention):

https://www.wired.com/story/uber-sel...video-arizona/

[demi-conservative]

there was a criminal and two homeless men crossing with the crosswalk signal, and there was a woman doctor and two other women crossing illegally. Your car's breaks fail, which set of people should the car run over?

Why swerve?? More dangerous, most important job of car should be to protect passengers.

[Sparko]

The video of the accident is here:

https://twitter.com/TempePolice?ref_...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

It shows that a human driver would never have been able to see the woman crossing the road before it hit her, but since the car uses lidar instead of light, it should have been able to see her because she was coming from the left side of the road and had already crossed the left lane into the right one before the car hit her. (they stop the video just before she is hit)

It is pretty much the exact kind of accident that autonomous cars are supposed to avoid compared to human drivers.

[Mountain Man]

The video of the accident is here:

https://twitter.com/TempePolice?ref_...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

It shows that a human driver would never have been able to see the woman crossing the road before it hit her, but since the car uses lidar instead of light, it should have been able to see her because she was coming from the left side of the road and had already crossed the left lane into the right one before the car hit her. (they stop the video just before she is hit)

It is pretty much the exact kind of accident that autonomous cars are supposed to avoid compared to human drivers.

I read one commentary that said that the problem with AI cars is that they are (at least for now) unable to read body language. They can identify that something vaguely person shaped is nearby, but they have no intuition about what that person might be planning to do whereas we can instinctively derive a great deal about a persons intentions at a glance.

There's also the question of whether or not the car was even able to recognize a person pushing a bike across the road for what it really was and simply didn't have an algorithm to deal with that scenario.

[Mountain Man]

From the released car video (which I elected not to watch), it seems some believe the car technology should have been able to avoid the crash (and the human in the car wasn't paying attention):

https://www.wired.com/story/uber-sel...video-arizona/

The link Sparko posted ends a second before the collision, so it's safe to watch. But you're right, the driver wasn't paying attention. I assume she (I think it's a she) was playing on her phone at the time and only occasionally glanced up.

According to the video, it appears that the woman pushing her bike was invisible until illuminated by the car's headlights, but the black levels in the video are crushed and are not representative of how it would have looked to the average human eye, so it's possible that a human driver paying close attention could have seen the victim long before she stepped into the lane of travel.

[Sparko]

I read one commentary that said that the problem with AI cars is that they are (at least for now) unable to read body language. They can identify that something vaguely person shaped is nearby, but they have no intuition about what that person might be planning to do whereas we can instinctively derive a great deal about a persons intentions at a glance.

There's also the question of whether or not the car was even able to recognize a person pushing a bike across the road for what it really was and simply didn't have an algorithm to deal with that scenario.

It should have recognized that an object was crossing the road and would intersect its path. Doesn't matter if it knew it was a person or not. And it didn't need to predict possible future movement, she was already moving.

[Mountain Man]

It should have recognized that an object was crossing the road and would intersect its path. Doesn't matter if it knew it was a person or not. And it didn't need to predict possible future movement, she was already moving.

It will be interesting after they analyze the data to know what the car really "saw" and what it "knew" about the circumstances it was in.

[Sparko]

It will be interesting after they analyze the data to know what the car really "saw" and what it "knew" about the circumstances it was in.

I sure hope Hillary and the DNC are not in charge of their server.