
Google's self-driving car crash is a positive sign - mblakele
http://ideas.4brad.com/googles-crash-very-positive-sign
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_nedR
Being from India, Let me say that it will take huge advancements in AI before
self-driving cars could drive on the streets here!

These advances would need to include :-

-Being able to decide what can be considered a road and what cannot.

-Knowledge of Human psychology which additionally needs to cover areas of suicide , homicide, etc.

-Knowledge of Animal psychology

-Understanding of different cultural norms both for humans and animals (I have found that the cows in Bangalore are much less likely to yield way than the cows in Kerala)

~~~
sofaofthedamned
Comment of the year!

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aidenn0
> A lot of people I talk to imagine that the tech problems have all been
> solved and all that’s left is getting legal and public acceptance. There is
> great progress being made, but nobody should expect these cars to be perfect
> today. That’s why they run with safety drivers, and did even before the law
> demanded it. This time the safety driver also decided the bus would yield
> and so let the car try its merge. But expect more of this as time goes
> forward.

I think most people who say the issues are social and legal don't think the
technical problems are solved, they just think that we are inexorably
progressing towards solving them at a more rapid rate than the social and
legal problems.

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snissn
1) i thought this meant stock crash, but it refers to the bus / automated SUV
crash from 2/29/2016

2) Has anyone made an animated depiction of the crash, I'm curious if I have
in my head the right idea about what actually happened

~~~
amelius
> Has anyone made an animated depiction of the crash

Was this a test-vehicle of Google? In that case, it probably had lots of
cameras on board.

~~~
manarth
Yes, it was an autonomous vehicle (with a "test driver" in the car)…there are
more details on [http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/29/google-self-driving-
car-a...](http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/29/google-self-driving-car-
accident/)

What I find interesting is this comment: _Our test driver, who had been
watching the bus in the mirror, also expected the bus to slow or stop._

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bitslayer
The article mentions that the robocar can theoretically see other drivers
intent: <i>It’s worth noting that sometimes humans solve this problem by
making eye contact, to know if the other car has seen you. Turns out that
robots can do that as well, because the human eye flashes brightly in the red
and infrared when looking directly at you — the “red eye” effect of small
flash cameras.</i> But what about the other way? Perhaps the bus driver
couldn't see Goog's flashing eyes, and assumed therefore it wouldn't attempt
to merge back in.

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FLUX-YOU
I'm wondering why there were enough sandbags around a storm drain to warrant
the vehicle moving back into the left lane and not any indication before hand.
The autonomous vehicle would know when a lane is blocked because of cones,
right?

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Rebelgecko
My understanding is that the car didn't change lanes. It was in the right lane
the whole time,just hugging the curb. A bus (in the same lane) tried to pass,
and hit the Google car when it got more centered in the right lane.

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mathattack
I'm glad that nobody was hurt. It takes some of the emotion about getting to
the fixes.

~~~
exelius
And it's still hard to argue with the fact that out of several million miles
driven, this is the first serious accident that was caused by the autonomous
car (and the failure scenario looks to have been appreciably complex). You
won't find a human with that clean of a record.

~~~
hga
_You won 't find a human with that clean of a record._

Some number of us humans are better than that. In addition to my father who's
in his early '80s who's lived almost all his life in Missouri, where driving
instead of flying to other places is generally ideal, try this search:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=truck+driver+million+mile+cl...](https://www.google.com/search?q=truck+driver+million+mile+club)

~~~
bradtemp
Humans only drive about 500K miles in a lifetime, though there are those who
drive much more. 2 million miles would be a challenge in any human lifetime,
but there would be some professional drivers which attain that.

