[Dprglist] uber death

[Mary Mathias]

Autonomous, large robotic vehicles actually *should* be designed to be
safer than human driven ones.  That is one of the largely touted selling
points for these vehicles.  So, shadows and light that affect mere human
drivers should *not* be an impairment for any large or any otherwise
potentially lethal autonomous robot.  After all, even the simple ultrasonic
sensors can detect obstacles in the dark.   One would think any large
autonomous vehicle out on the roads would be equipped with an over
abundance of redundant types of high end obstacle sensors to make sure it
is MUCH safer than a human driving it.  The same goes for road condition
sensing, construction zone issues, accident site and emergency vehicle
recognition...and on and on.

Obviously there will inevitably be those cases where a child runs directly
into the path of a vehicle or an adult is mentally impaired to the point of
practically throwing themselves directly in front of it so that the braking
or avoidance steering is not able to overcome the momentum.  But the true
goal of even creating these vehicles should be to make it respond *better* than
a human driver in all conditions.

My personal slant is that if we humans are determined to replace ourselves
with non-humans then we need to make sure they are truly better than us.
(Of course, either way we basically classify ourselves as expendable life
forms...get run over sometimes..."oh well"...or have machines so much
better than us that we are simply downgraded.)

Aren't I just a little ray of sunshine here?  :-)
~MJ



On Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 1:17 PM Dan Miner <miner at zmail0.centtech.com> wrote:

> From this article:
> http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/
>
>
>
> “Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco *Chronicle*
> <https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Exclusive-Tempe-police-chief-says-early-probe-12765481.php?utm_campaign=twitter-premium&utm_source=CMS%20Sharing%20Button&utm_medium=social>
> on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous
> Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old
> Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle.
>
> “It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in
> any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from
> the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir told the paper, adding that the
> incident occurred roughly 100 yards from a crosswalk. “It is dangerous to
> cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated managed crosswalks
> are available,” she said.”
>
>
>
> So “blaming the victim” but it seems like this person probably would have
> been killed even without the autonomous driving aspect.
>
> -          Dan Miner
>
>
>
> *From:* DPRGlist [mailto:dprglist-bounces at lists.dprg.org] *On Behalf Of *Ezra
> Christensen
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 20, 2018 11:36 AM
> *To:* dprglist
> *Subject:* Re: [Dprglist] uber death
>
>
>
> I'll wait to see the details before drawing conclusions. It happened at
> 10pm in clear, dry conditions and there was no speed adjustment by the car
> and no operator disengagement? Some part of the story is missing.
>
>
>
> It's unrealistic to assume autonomous cars will have zero fatalities. The
> goal has always been to be significantly safer than human operators.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
>
> From: "Steve Edwards" <steve.edwards214 at gmail.com>
>
> To: davida at smu.edu; "dprglist" <dprglist at dprg.org>
>
> Sent: 3/19/2018 6:22:23 PM
>
> Subject: Re: [Dprglist] uber death
>
>
>
> Yea with an operator in the car no less.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 6, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
>
> From: David Anderson <davida at smu.edu>
>
> Date: 3/19/18 1:28 PM (GMT-06:00)
>
> To: dprglist <dprglist at dprg.org>
>
> Subject: [Dprglist] uber death
>
>
>
> "Oh brave new world where such things are possible!"
>
>
> <
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html
> >
>
>
> -D
>
>
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