[RD] Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Pedestrian

[Commodore]

'Suspended', not 'canceled'. They are taking a time out to investigate what happened.

They are letting their test drive permits lapse as well in California and Arizona. That sounds like giving up to me.

 

[EnglishEdward]

One death and they are already ready to give up. What happened to the "progress at any cost" mentality we used to have? Did we give up on the Apollo Program when Apollo 1 blew up on the launch pad?

The astronauts were all volunteers and stood to gain great glory, most pedestrians are not.

So this car killed someone? Then you go back, figure out what went wrong, redesign to correct for the error and put those cars back out on the road for more testing. Rinse and repeat until you get the desired result.

If the good people of Arizona are willing to volunteer themselves as sacrificial guinea pigs,
then I suppose the rest of the world might be grateful to them.

However I regard those UK politicians who say the UK should take the lead with public trials as contemptible.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-lead-the-way-in-testing-driverless-cars

 

[Commodore]

However I regard those UK politicians who say the UK should take the lead with public trials as contemptible.

You gotta test them in public sometime. No matter how extensive or "realistic" lab or controlled-environment testing may be, you will never be able to tell how well a new piece of technology will perform until it is subjected to real-world conditions.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I am, perhaps selfishly, content for Arizona to be on the Bleading edge of such new technology.

 

[HEF]

**UPDATE**
Uber has reached an undisclosed settlement with the family of Arizona woman killed by driverless car.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am, perhaps selfishly, content for Arizona to be on the Bleading edge of such new technology.

That's avoiding the vast majority of the discussion in the thread to this point.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The astronauts were all volunteers and stood to gain great glory

Most (American) astronauts are most certainty not volunteers. They are military personnel and/or NASA scientists who receive a salary.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm pretty sure they volunteered to be astronauts.

 

[EnglishEdward]

That's avoiding the vast majority of the discussion in the thread to this point.

Correct. I am merely amazed by the comparison between pedestrians run over and astronauts killed.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

**UPDATE**
Uber has reached an undisclosed settlement with the family of Arizona woman killed by driverless car.

Literally settles that issue. Don't know if that sets a precedent for company liability in self-driving car accidents. Probably not.

 

[Berzerker]

shouldn't Uber sue her estate for damaging their car?

 

[Sommerswerd]

I'm pretty sure they volunteered to be astronauts.

Nope, they waterboarded them to get them to do it, just like they do with everything else.

But in all seriousness, you're right of course. They volunteered to be astronauts much in the same way that I volunteered to attend college. Or maybe even more closely... like the way manager at Walmart volunteered to be the manager instead of the cashier position he had before.

 

[stinkubus]

Even if Uber decides to completely abandon their program others will keep working on it. The potentially savings to the trucking industry alone are too big. It's probably going to be difficult for a company like Uber, which relies on the goodwill of the public to stay afloat, to be at the forefront of such a development due to the negative PR that accidents will inevitably create.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Correct. I am merely amazed by the comparison between pedestrians run over and astronauts killed.

The astronaut analogy is a little strange, but not terribly relevant to policy on whether these things become more common or not. If they actually outperform human drivers on a rate basis, using them does not make people guinea pigs, it makes them safer on average.

We do need to use them to know that data, hence the reasoning for having humans behind the wheel to keep within normal driving parameters. This ignored some obvious limitations of human nature of course.

 

[Berzerker]

maybe some form of communism is the future... robots will do most of the labor and people will need money to live with fewer available jobs.

or everybody will be in the robot building/maintaining businesses

 

[Manfred Belheim]

But in all seriousness, you're right of course. They volunteered to be astronauts much in the same way that I volunteered to attend college. Or maybe even more closely... like the way manager at Walmart volunteered to be the manager instead of the cashier position he had before.

Yes. Like people who are voluntarily in the position they are in. Hence volunteers. Glad that's all sorted then.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The astronaut analogy is a little strange, but not terribly relevant to policy on whether these things become more common or not. If they actually outperform human drivers on a rate basis, using them does not make people guinea pigs, it makes them safer on average.

Perhaps ultimately it would, but not during the testing phase when all that's happening is that there are some extra cars on the road that might kill you, and are presumably currently the least safe they will ever be at this point in time.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Perhaps ultimately it would, but not during the testing phase when all that's happening is that there are some extra cars on the road that might kill you, and are presumably currently the least safe they will ever be at this point in time.

We actually don't have data to back whether they are more or less safe even at present. It's a fair guess they'll be more safe in the future than now, but not so fair that humans are better on average at present.

If we hold that transitioning to them has a strong possibility to save many lives, it's worth doing unless as a few have pointed out a yet-superior model saves even more lives.

 

[Commodore]

Correct. I am merely amazed by the comparison between pedestrians run over and astronauts killed.

I didn't make that comparison though. What I was comparing is the attitude towards the risks of progress we have now versus the attitude of the past. Now, if even the slightest thing goes wrong with some new technology people immediately jump to the "shut it down now!" attitude. In the past it seemed people were more willing to have the attitude of "okay, it sucks that some people died, but let's keep going until we fix the thing that made those people die."

Perhaps ultimately it would, but not during the testing phase when all that's happening is that there are some extra cars on the road that might kill you, and are presumably currently the least safe they will ever be at this point in time.

This car was still pretty safe though. I mean, how long was it driving around before it killed someone? Presumably for quite some time if the human supervising it was so bored they were texting and messing around on their phone.

 

[Bamspeedy]

We actually don't have data to back whether they are more or less safe even at present. It's a fair guess they'll be more safe in the future than now, but not so fair that humans are better on average at present.

Human driving caused 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven.

Computer controlled driving caused at least one death, possibly 2 (all that's been said in the other accident is it didn't malfunction, need more details on that. It could still be the computer's fault without a malfunction such as an unanticipated scenario)
Waymo (controlled the Google cars) has driven 5 million miles since 2009, Uber's cars have driven 3 million miles since they've started, so even if we add a few million from other companies and only count the one death, it is surely higher than 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles.

But I agree, in the future they will probably be safer than humans.