
A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims - KKKKkkkk1
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/25/14737374/uber-self-driving-car-red-light-december-contrary-company-claims
======
tristanj
Back when this originally came out, Uber claimed "this incident was due to
human error" [1]. Well _technically_ , if you really twist the meaning of
words, Uber could interpret this as "human error", considering:

\- It was "human error" that the programmers who designed the self-driving AI
failed to properly implement red-light detection and braking.

\- It was also "human error" that the human driver in the front seat failed to
notice the red lights and stop the car.

Uber's statement is effectively true, if you hideously twist the meaning of
words. I fully believe that's what they did in their statement. There's
similar wordplay for the word "natural", i.e. claiming "All pollution is
natural", because humans are part of nature and everything we do is natural,
so all consequences of our actions are also "natural". Deceiving yet
ultimately, effective.

[1] _Uber says self-driving car ran red light due to “human error”_
[https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-
incident...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-
self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/)

~~~
Fricken
The test driver failed to intervene, that's all. This is a non-issue,
obviously Uber's autonomous vehicles are a work in progress.

~~~
atonse
Yeah don't beta test your BETA on real drivers, even after the DMV has asked
you to stop.

Screw Uber. I hope the CA government comes down hard on them. But we all know
Uber will find yet another slimy way to keep going.

For the record, I'm the biggest proponent of autonomous cars and can't wait
for that day. But companies that just put people in danger like this are not
going to get us there faster. They're going to slow everything down by their
carelessness and greed.

~~~
dsl
> But we all know Uber will find yet another slimy way to keep going.

Like moving the program to Arizona...

~~~
edoceo
And Nevada, with stolen Google engineer!

------
Animats
It's clear how Uber botched this. That traffic signal is not at an
intersection. It's a heavily used mid-block crosswalk.[1] It's a very well
marked crosswalk, with six redundant full size traffic signals all visible in
the direction the Uber vehicle was traveling. This indicates Uber's system
only looks for mapped traffic signals.

SF has a database of their traffic signals, and this signal is listed. It's
object #902.[2] Apparently Uber gets their data from somewhere else.

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/dzxEaaqWaAC2](https://goo.gl/maps/dzxEaaqWaAC2) [2]
[https://data.sfgov.org/Transportation/Map-of-Traffic-
Signals...](https://data.sfgov.org/Transportation/Map-of-Traffic-Signals/8xta-
sna8/data)

------
nodesocket
I'm not defending Uber, but there seems to be a pattern of startups that at
first everybody is in love with. The startup explodes and grows to become
widely successful and morphs from startup to corporation. An incident happens,
and then everybody jumps on the bandwagon and bashes them mercifully. Boycotts
insue. Clone competitors pop up proclaiming to be "not-evil" and the cycle
starts again.

Let me backup my claim with examples:

    
    
       GitHub
       AirBnB
       Uber
       CloudFlare
    

Who is the next unicorn to join the PR nightmare show?

~~~
a_t48
GitHub is evil now? What did I miss?

~~~
rdtsc
Not evil but they went a bit off the deep went with their "diversity" story,
and it turned some heads for sure.

The technical director or somesuch (higher up manager) was writing stuff like

"don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and
compassion anytime soon so let's limit their scope of damage"

Then their Social Impact director was giving presentations about how "Some of
the biggest barriers to progress are white women."

So... I don't know, make up your own mind what that means.

------
waqf
Blogspam, the actual source is
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/technology/anthony-
levand...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/technology/anthony-levandowski-
waymo-uber-google-lawsuit.html)

------
heisenbit
A little while ago I looked at micro services and the Uber story stuck in my
mind (April 2016 numbers):

\- 2000 engineers

\- 1000 services

\- 8000 git repositories

I can understand fast growth but on the services and git repository side
considering that most of the engineers are new it struck me not as fast but
more as out of control growth.

At the beginning you may not control so much but you hire people that are
disciplined. Later one needs a certain amount of structure.

The stories from the legal front, financial front and handling of public
relations are very consistent with what I observed on the technical side.

------
orthoganol
Since some are saying "this is just one incidence" recall that there was a
second blown red light around the same time in SF, and all this just on the
_first_ day of the program. There are also potentially other incidents that
did not, by chance, have a bystander recording. Their autonomous driving has
many years left in the development. I just hope they aren't pushing it on us
now because they are pacing 3 billion in losses/ year.

~~~
rwmj
It's almost as if the software is buggy and they need to test it and fix the
bugs. Which is why they have the human driver there to make sure things don't
get drastically out of control.

~~~
TillE
If your software is _that_ bad (can't recognize a red light), you should
probably be testing in a simulator with pre-recorded video, not throwing your
garbage code on the road where it can cause an accident.

------
mattcantstop
I think I have personally ran three or four red lights or stop signs
accidentally in my 18 years or so of driving. The fact that a self-driving car
running a red light makes the news is exciting to me. We will be much safer
with computers driving.

~~~
dantiberian
The news is not that it ran a red, it's that Uber lied about it and made it
sound like it was a human that ran the red.

------
lindner
Even though this was clearly a red light being run, it was this AI's first
offense, so we should just give it a warning and a stern talking-to....

------
beefield
I may have missed something, but why this is Uber's, not Volvo's fault? Is
uber developing a proprietary driving system on Volvo's hardware?

------
tobeportable
The pedestrian was already engaging on the crosswalk and would have required
the car to stop too.

------
true_tuna
Oh did Uber lie to deny responsibility for something? Who would have expected
that?

------
owly
UBER IS OVER! (if you want it)

------
flexie
A human driven car runs a red light every second.

------
maplechori
skynet has become self-aware

------
searealist
The anti Uber PR campaign is now in full swing.

~~~
swang
ah yes, besides this fiasco...

* trying to dredge up dirt on journalist for being negative towards your company * having the ceo say an incident involving a uber driver choking a passenger "never happened" * offering customers rides with "hot chicks" in france * kalanik boasting that he should have called the company "boober" from all the women he gets * having a "god view" that employees used to spy on exes, politicians and celebrities. they paid a measly $20k fine and supposedly continue to still allow employees to use god view.

keep in mind the executive who tried to find dirt on journalists to blackmail
them wasn't even fired by kalanik.

BUT YES. YES. the press! the media! they're all out to get Uber.

~~~
Qwertious
(fixed formatting of above comment)

ah yes, besides this fiasco...

* trying to dredge up dirt on journalist for being negative towards your company

* having the ceo say an incident involving a uber driver choking a passenger "never happened"

* offering customers rides with "hot chicks" in france

* kalanik boasting that he should have called the company "boober" from all the women he gets

* having a "god view" that employees used to spy on exes, politicians and celebrities. they paid a measly $20k fine and supposedly continue to still allow employees to use god view.

.

keep in mind the executive who tried to find dirt on journalists to blackmail
them wasn't even fired by kalanik.

BUT YES. YES. the press! the media! they're all out to get Uber.

(Looks like bullet-point lists need a double linebreak before they're
formatted properly)

