
Nissan says self driving cars are impossible today - elmar
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/nissans-self-driving-teleoperation/
======
gkya
I say this whenever this topic comes up: we have public transport today, it's
safer and cheaper than having a car, it allows you to make use of your commute
time (read, study, eat a sandwich, have a coffee), it's better for the
environment (electric doesn't come from nowhere), and it's faster and even
more so if more people use it. Your city maybe lacks it, but then the solution
is not to say "meh, public transport is crap" and go buy a car. But this is
the answer I always get in this community of people who make a living finding
solutions to problems.

On the road, an actor's actions do not merely affect itself, but all the
others on that road. If you slow down at a point, that can cause the driver
arriving at that point five, ten minutes after to stop. On the road,
everything creates a butterfly effect. And just like you can't run around
naked or listen to very loud music in residential areas, you can't just get on
the road with your new toy which if fails, does not only put your life at
danger, but also many others'.

~~~
dogma1138
That is if you live in a place with sane, safe, readily available public
transportation which doesn't increase your commute time by 2-3 times.

It's not hard to find places where a 40min commute in a car turns into 2-3
hours using public transport.

Public transport is also not as reliable in places with extreme weather
especially cold.

Have fun waiting for a bus in an open bus stop at -10c...

~~~
gkya
Where I'm it goes down to about -5C in wintertime (-4C ATM). I'm actually fine
with it.

Certainly in rural areas and in wider peripheral suburban areas public
transport is less useful. But in actual cities (London, Paris, Istanbul, etc.)
with a high density of people and their residences, public transport is the
way to go. I don't know much about American cities, but if we got a
comprehensive and functional system of metros, buses and boats here in
Istanbul, where some of you would classify as a part of the third world, I
guess you are capable of doing it in the US too.

~~~
gr33nman
Sadly, anything that requires taxpayer funding toward the common good is a
political non-starter in the US (socialism!). The best hope we have in the US
for decent bus network is probably Uber/Lyft:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-15/uber-
and-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-15/uber-and-lyft-
want-to-replace-public-buses)

------
ChuckMcM
Short version is that the road is full of things at the 99th percentile that
won't be programmable so the car will either fail, bail, or simply stop.

I don't disagree with that sentiment but there were all sorts of things that
"PCs" couldn't do that real computers could and they were still commercially
successful (and eventually caught up to "real" computers for the most part). I
could imagine that someone could come up with signage which self driving cars
would understand and act on. Basically put up a QR code that links to the
government approved way self driving cars should navigate the hazard, and of
course a programming language that could communicate that to the car.

Of course you would not want just anyone to set up overrides or you would have
pranksters sending cars off into corn fields or worse.

The part that Nissan appeared to miss is that if you can make them work in
99.9% of the cases, then you can hack around that last .1% and the cars will
still be a net win in terms of better road behavior.

~~~
naasking
> Short version is that the road is full of things at the 99th percentile that
> won't be programmable so the car will either fail, bail, or simply stop.

Autonomous cars aren't programmed, they're trained, like humans. So I don't
think this reasoning applies. If they behave poorly in some circumstances,
they'll just create new training simulations covering those cases with better
outcomes and push an update out. The cars will learn better and faster than
humans.

~~~
mannykannot
One thing that humans have going for them is that they have an understanding
of what is going on around them, including in the minds of other people. I
don't think this is fatal to your argument, but it is something to consider.

I am in the apparently unusual position of believing that autonomy is both
feasible and desirable, while thinking that the capabilities of current
implementations are being oversold.

~~~
naasking
> One thing that humans have going for them is that they have an understanding
> of what is going on around them, including in the minds of other people.

I hear this argument often, but I see no evidence for it. It just sounds like
yet another flawed attempt to make humans more special than they really are.

I guess we'll see over the next 5 years as autonomous vehicles become
deployed.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Well, I at least have empathy. Maybe we could say "some humans have an
understanding..."? Nobody was claiming 'only humans' \- Chimpanzees clearly
have empathy.

~~~
naasking
I'm not sure empathy is relevant understanding another _driver 's_ mind. This
thread is still about driving right?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Understanding the state of mind of another is the definition of empathy. "Did
that guy see me? Is he waiting for me to go?" is exactly the kind of question
that requires empathy to answer.

~~~
naasking
I won't dispute your use of empathy because that will start a whole other
debate. Instead, I'll simply demonstrate that understanding another driver's
mind has nothing to do with the scenario you presented.

The rules of the road define who has the right of way. Of course, sometimes
other drivers don't see you, but you literally have _no way of knowing whether
or not they do_. The only thing you can do is begin your attempt cautiously in
accordance with road rules and abort at the first sign of potential collision.

Notice how this decision process is completely algorithmic. Proper
understanding of another driver's mind is a red herring. You use the almost-
collision to infer what the other driver knows, not the other way around like
you seem to think.

~~~
mannykannot
From your replies to me, I was beginning to think I was being trolled, but I
see you probably simply have not experienced the full unpleasantness of urban
driving, in which people violate both the rules of the road and common sense
for motives, not just through a lack of awareness. From my experience and
informal discussions, I am very confident that people weigh the presumed
motives and purpose of other drivers in their predictions of future outcomes -
in fact, when I am in urban traffic and not alone, discussions of other
drivers' motivations and likely behavior do come up.

Now, I do not doubt that if all (or most) vehicles were autonomous, things
could work as you describe (though traffic might flow more smoothly or
efficiently if vehicles could signal 'intent'), but that is not how it works
at the moment, and the transition is probably the hardest part of introducing
autonomous vehicles.

~~~
naasking
> in fact, when I am in urban traffic and not alone, discussions of other
> drivers' motivations and likely behavior do come up.

Sure, after they do something seemingly stupid that you don't understand.
Inference follows observation, not the other way around, and autonomous
vehicles are observing all the time with reaction times much faster than a
human's. Even if an autonomous vehicle weren't able to understand high-level
goals, it understands and detects vectors much better than humans do, which is
all that's really needed to create and adapt a plan that avoids collisions.

> I am very confident that people weigh the presumed motives and purpose of
> other drivers in their predictions of future outcomes

And I'm very confident that even if this were true, it's largely irrelevant to
being a good driver.

~~~
mannykannot
It is a bit self-serving of you to include the unnecessary dependent clause
"that you don't understand", but as you are just stating your personal
opinion, it is ultimately inconsequential.

------
derekp7
The only way autonomous cars will work is when they are driven on pre-
certified roads. And the cars continuously report back what they see to update
the certification. Combined with traffic monitoring cameras that can keep a
road section's certification updated.

So just like most cars are to be driven on paved roads, reliable autonomous
cars will need to be driven on roads with good visibility of lane markings.
And road construction or road hazard cones will need to be electronic, so they
can give the car computer unambiguous instructions (such as "shut down until
driver manual control is confirmed").

------
RKearney
Nissan also released a car that's controllable over the internet with nothing
more than the VIN[0]. I wouldn't necessarily trust what they say in terms of
technology advancements.

[0]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35642749)

~~~
S_A_P
that kind of reinforces the point...

------
rmason
So the computer won't know what to do and you're going to dump it on someone
in a cubicle a thousand miles away? Here, make a decision in at most a second
and a half or you crash? That's going to work ;<).

If the computer is confused I want to be the one to make the decision. I am
perfectly happy having a system right now that works 95% of the time in good
weather.

I think it will be at least 2025 before it can handle a Michigan winter, maybe
longer. Still want a limited system ASAP.

~~~
freehunter
Most drivers can't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to
Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the
road in the span of a dozen miles. Front-wheel drive cars on straight roads,
too. They didn't just spin out, those drivers had to seriously mis-handle
their vehicle to wind up in the ditch.

That being said, the "self driving" part of my car (cruise control) turns
itself off when the wheels slip already, so I agree that I could handle a car
that drove itself in good weather but punted back to me in the snow. Vision-
imparing snowfall is actually a more rare event than people might think.
Normally the roads are quickly cleared.

~~~
grzm
_Most drivers can 't handle a Michigan winter. I just drove from Lansing to
Grand Rapids in this weather we had today, and there were four cars off the
road in the span of a dozen miles._

A lot of drivers have problems driving in winter conditions. But most? Over
50%? That's a pretty strong claim.

~~~
kobeya
Most drivers are in India, southern China, the equatorial belt, etc. I don't
think they have much experience with Michigan winters.

~~~
grzm
I believe it's understood that the drivers under discussion are Michigan
drivers, are they not? If not, I'm not sure how interesting the statement is.
Drivers in India, southern China, or the equatorial belt won't have need of a
car that can handle Michigan winters, either.

~~~
kobeya
I don't think that was clear from context at all, no. However unlike a human
driver, people will expect a car to continue working and working safely in non
typical thriving conditions.

~~~
grzm
It's not clear to me that this is true. Here on HN I'm surprised how often
members can't imagine how a problem might be solved using a computer or other
technology. Or people in general being surprised that technology can be
applied to everyday problems. I bring this up as examples of people having
limited expectations of technology, not that they're right or wrong in their
assumptions.

That's not to say sometimes people have unreasonable assumptions as well.
That's why I say it's not clear to me.

------
jayjay71
I think self-driving cars have incredible potential, but the media hype is
just too strong around this technology. People are used to startups going from
0 to unicorn in 5+ years, because they are often based on simple technologies
and business models centered around exponential growth. AirBnB, Uber, twitch,
and many more are all technology companies that obviously had many challenges,
but they did not depend on a technological breakthrough in order to get where
they are today.

There is a gap between Level 2 and Level 4 (arguably Level 5 with the new
standards, but I'm going to assume Level 4 means what most people would call a
true self-driving car) autonomy which is dangerous, because it lulls humans
into a false sense of safety. And then when the car can no longer drive
itself, the user is expected to take over with a delayed reaction time and
little to no context in what could be a very dangerous situation. It is a
deadly valley. There are numerous studies on this topic from the aviation
industry, and drivers don't have nearly as much training as pilots.

I think real self-driving cars are awesome, and the first time I sat in one
years ago when I worked on it as a PhD student was truly an incredible
experience. But the hype around the technology is too much, and when investors
push for a product in a few years when it's not ready at best companies will
fail and at worst people will die. Misinforming the public on this is a very
serious problem which nobody seems to care about, even after at least 1 death
which is still under investigation.

I am all for working on this technology and seeing incremental improvements
over the years. But I am frustrated with the media's portrayal of how it's
just around the corner (I am frustrated with the media in general), and I
believe the overpromise of the technology is largely responsible for the death
of the Tesla owner in Florida last year (and there are other accidents that
are reported in China which get much less coverage).

People will say self-driving cars save lives and are safer. In theory, yes -
but the problem is we aren't there yet. There just isn't enough data to make
that claim. When Tesla said it was safer, they ignored the fact that all of
their driving was on highways (which are statistically safer) and that their
owners are more affluent and older (at least I assume the average Tesla owner
is 25+). The data isn't available when you break down these demographics, but
I suspect if it were that 1 death would actually make autopilot deadlier than
manual driving. It's a moot point though - anybody trying to extrapolate
meaningful conclusions from a single data point is making a ridiculous claim.

~~~
stale2002
You are underestimating how game changing even "incomplete" self driving
features will be.

Autobraking for accidents only, is a "self driving" feature that you can buy
right NOW on most 2017 cars.

Auto braking alone could save 10s of thousands of lives every year, and it is
absolutely production ready.

~~~
jayjay71
Autobraking is a great technology that has been around for a few years (BMW
was selling it in 2013), but nobody touted it as a self-driving feature. My
point isn't that working on this technology is bad, my point is people expect
it to do more than it can.

~~~
stale2002
That doesn't mean it isn't a self driving feature.... Automated accident
prevention sounds awfully related to self driving.

The technology has been around, but it isn't deployed to the majority of cars
yet.

What I am saying is that self driving technology doesn't have to be perfect
for it to change the world.

It doesn't matter if we are a ways away from getting to the "nobody owns a
car, and everyone just uses self driving Ubers" future. Because the current,
shit accident prevention technology can ALREADY change the world, even if it
is "just" by cutting accidents in half and saving "only" 40,000 lives every
year.

~~~
jayjay71
I agree, and that's great! But when a company sells a feature called
Autopilot, and it's marketed as a car that drives itself, I have an issue when
someone dies and the company spins bad statistics to defend its practice.

Incremental improvements that save lives and make driving better are
fantastic. Overselling a feature that can kill people is not.

------
mnm1
There's a human backup in the car itself. I don't see why you'd need remote
control until we're ready to let cars drive without passengers which is a lot
further away than cars driving with people in the car. What kind of car would
not have some sort of a manual override anyway? That'd be incredibly stupid to
the point of gross negligence.

Also, the posted title is clickbait bullshit and not the actual title of the
article.

~~~
intopieces
Google is actively promoting a self-driving technology that doesn't need a
human to take over, ever. Their commercial for this technology features a
blind man being driven by a car around Austin, TX. As well, the prototype at
the Computer History Museum is a model that does not feature a steering wheel
at all.

The thesis of the article is that the promises made by these companies -- and
the promises are being made -- are not quite feasible in the short term.

So what kind of car would not have some sort of manual override? The car that
all these companies are promising!

------
throw2016
I think the self driving stories on HN have consistently underestimated human
drivers and overestimated the tech and hand waved away the myriad challenges.

There is something deeply unpleasant about underestimating people and
underestimating the problem is generally not a great way to solve it.

In the real world hundreds of millions of drivers have been driving on
extremely varied roads and traffic conditions all over the world for decades.
Given the sheer scale and volume of drivers, conditions and cars involved it
appears self driving proponents are massively overplaying the safety card and
worse with little to no data for the other side.

Any ai vehicle that requires new kinds of roads or contraints is a completely
different ball game and cannot be compared to human drivers. Trains are far
safer and in many cases faster than cars. Yet the train story in the US has
remained dire for decades making ai safety proponents look self serving.

Technology does not exist in a vaccum, it is to benefit us and things like
cars are tecnological as much as social and political. A car gives you basic
transportation but also the freedom to go wherever you want. Having ai cars,
constraints for them and control that could limit mobility and freedom then
become more than techology issues in which the voice of society becomes far
more important than the people creating the technology.

------
_andromeda_
Sort of reminiscent of Balmer and his frowning upon the iPhone

------
ddmma
as a transitory measure in the beginning there will be zones marked as self-
driving areas and others where this will be deactivated.

------
bamboozled
The world is, literally, losing it's mind.

------
non_repro_blue
I wish people would just give up on this self-driving car business for now.

We don't even want autonomous robots in our house, pitter pattering about like
toddlers, at 3 miles an hour. We don't even trust our smart TV sets.

So let's make 2 ton versions, and throw them into a frying pan with people?
Yeah, great idea. I bet they'll act _just like_ TCP packets. Good job.

Why not segregated roadways? If we're so desperate to automate trucking and
shipping, how about big, thick K-rails, and dedicated roadway?

We all know that early adopters suffer the growing pains of buggy first
versions. No reason for all of society to share this burden when It hasn't
even been put to a vote.

Keep these things the hell away from ordinary people, and their kids for at
least another 50 years.

~~~
freehunter
Plenty of people have robots pitter pattering in their house like toddlers.
They're called Roombas, and they're the highest selling vacuum cleaner on the
market right now. And the reason "we" don't trust smart TVs is because they
spy on us without telling us. And the "we" in this situation is a tiny, tiny
subset of the population. A lot of people don't know and don't care, they just
like Netflix and how it's built into their TVs.

No one voted on if they wanted cars in the first place. I'm not sure if you're
aware of how incredibly dangerous cars are, but I can tell you without looking
up the numbers that if we were to vote on it today with an unbiased viewpoint,
there's no way anyone would be allowed to drive a car.

I'm sorry, but I feel like you're going to be in the minority on this one. You
seem really scared. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I would like for
you to take a look at traffic fatality statistics and and think hard about
whether or not it's worthwhile pursuit to try to bring that number down.

~~~
dingaling
> They're called Roombas, and they're the highest selling vacuum cleaner on
> the market right now

A correction: they're the top-selling _robotic_ vacuum cleaners. Traditional
'dumb' cleaners still outsell them by magnitudes.

~~~
freehunter
Hmm, I can't seem to find my source to back that up so I'll have to concede
that point. I remember reading something on HN a few months ago that the
Roomba was the single best-selling vacuum cleaner of 2016, in the same vein
that the MacBook is the best selling laptop even though all PC makers combined
out-sell MacBooks.

But since I can't back up that claim, I'll give it to you.

------
BigJeffeRonaldo
I don't care about self-driving cars until car company CEOs have their kids
riding in them. Until then, I am not interested in taking the risk of testing
their engineering.

~~~
DINKDINK
You point is sound that companies who produce faulty driverless cars take the
upside of them after they socialize the losses from them.

Point 229 in Hammurabi's code: [229] If a builder build a house for some one,
and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and
kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.

or to put it in your words. CEOs (or their kids) must drive around in
driverless cars before patrons pay for them.

------
chenster
Somehow, "I told you so" just doesn't quite say it - I Robot

