Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

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jont-
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Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby jont- » Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:52 pm

Sorry for the trade press article, but it's an interesting admission:
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327929

Pyrolol
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Re: Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby Pyrolol » Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:55 pm

And not one that should impede their adoption (the reality of the matter is different).

I wouldn't be surprised if we were already past the point where autonomous cars were safer than their conventional counterparts.

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jont-
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Re: Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby jont- » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:00 pm

Pyrolol wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if we were already past the point where autonomous cars were safer than their conventional counterparts.

Not sure. I think we're in a for a tricky few years where autonomous is mostly ok, some of the time, but the handback bit where it can't cope is going to be the problem because drivers get used to it doing the right thing and are deskilled/just pay less attention to whats' going on around them.

I think they'll do ok on urban areas, and maybe trunk routes, but I don't see them handling little country lanes any time soon, nor managing tasks like overtaking (and if you saw the number of tractors around here, that's fairly essential).

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akirk
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Re: Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby akirk » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:01 pm

very interesting article...
this bit caught my eye:
Natasha Merat, of the University of Leeds, in England, added that Google Cars, for the sake of safety, will stop when they detect any obstacle, whether it’s a jaywalker, a crookedly parked car at the curb, even a cardboard box on the road. And it will wait. Merat said, “After a while, it gets a little annoying to drivers behind, when the Google Car just won’t move.”


it sums up a lot about how these cars while autonomous, have a huge lack in intelligence...

it also raises some other questions:
- is the speed of pushing this technology towards live being controlled by the right parties? There are some very powerful and wealthy companies and individuals pushing to be first and soon - and they would, they hope to make a lot of money out of it - but where is government involvement, where is the caution in this to balance the PR spin of optimism?
- why is there a rush? where is the compelling reason to have the cars on the road sooner rather than later?
- is the drive to have no road casualties at times a false and non-scientific 'feel-good' ambition or goal? The reality is that whatever we design, there will be a human somewhere who manages to find a way of having an accident, I don't believe that you can manage risk out of life totally - and to do that would be to remove living in full from life... so perhaps we shouldn't be so focused on that to the exclusion of all else - and in particular the possibility that a simplistic answer may have hidden complexities and unintended consequences...

Alasdair

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Re: Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby Gareth » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:37 pm

akirk wrote:it sums up a lot about how these cars while autonomous, have a huge lack in intelligence...

I'm expecting Google cars, and the like, might rely on cloud processing to a significant degree.

akirk wrote:why is there a rush?

Commercial organisations hoping to grow a market and generate lots of gold pressed latinum.
there is only the road, nothing but the road ...

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akirk
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Re: Autonomous cars "will have accidents"

Postby akirk » Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:47 pm

Gareth wrote:
akirk wrote:it sums up a lot about how these cars while autonomous, have a huge lack in intelligence...

I'm expecting Google cars, and the like, might rely on cloud processing to a significant degree.


worrying ;)

Gareth wrote:
akirk wrote:why is there a rush?

Commercial organisations hoping to grow a market and generate lots of gold pressed latinum.


precisely - however I do feel that this is where governments should be controlling what happens for the benefit of the people - not the companies...

Alasdair


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