Uber's Self-driving Car Kills a Pedestrian in Arizona

GameBoy27 · Mar 19, 2018

Neither the self-driving car nor the operator behind the wheel was able to avoid the pedestrian. While it's entirely possible the collision was unavoidable, I think we need to wait until the investigation is completed before we know exactly what happened and who to blame.

I'm still not convinced completely autonomous vehicles will be on the streets anytime soon. I think areas that have winters will have lots of challenges. Like what happens when roads are snow covered and there's no discernible lanes. When sensors are covered in snow an ice or your vehicle is suddenly covered by a wave of brown slush from a passing car?

In addition, nobody's been able to tell me how this technology will be able to differentiate between a homeless guy waving his arms in the middle of an intersection and a cop directing traffic? And will autonomous vehicles pull over and stop for emergency vehicles? Still way to many variables to overcome anytime soon. Not to mention liability if something goes wrong.

Uber is temporarily halting self-driving car tests in all locations after a deadly accident, in what is likely the first pedestrian fatality caused by a self-driving car.

Programs in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Phoenix and Toronto will be paused after a woman was hit and killed overnight by an Uber self-driving car when walking across a street in Tempe, Arizona. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board told CNBC it is investigating the accident.

There was a vehicle operator in the car but no passengers at the time of the accident, according to Tempe police, which responded to the scene at around 10 p.m. on Sunday. The 49-year-old victim passed away after being transported to a local hospital, police said.

"Our hearts go out to the victim's family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident," Uber said in a statement.

A year ago, Uber suspended the same program after a different Arizona crash which did not result in any serious injuries.

The National Transportation Safety Board has already scrutinized accidents involving Tesla's autopilot technology, but those cars operate with different technology than what Uber was testing.

Uber's self-driving car business has already seen setbacks after it was embroiled in a lawsuit with Alphabet's Waymo for much of the past year. That case was recently settled under Uber's new leadership.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-fatality-halts-testing-in-all-cities-report-says.html

Butler1000 · Mar 19, 2018

They still can't tell the difference between a plastic bag and an animal on the street.

There us just so much going on on a busy city street I agre this isn't happening anytime soon.

Once 5g is fully functional everywhere they can start to ring better computing power to bear.

oldjones · Mar 19, 2018

In what other aspect of life have we called artificial anything even " …as good as"? Nevermind "…better than" the real thing?

No matter how stupid or unintelligent a real driver is, they can be held responsible. And put in jail if their diving's criminally 'unintelligent'. How do you hold Uber responsible? How do you put a company in jail?

If it's their software's 'fault' isn't every other Uber self-drive just as dangerous? How do they all get their 'licenses' pulled all at once? Does everyone just start walking home? Who tows them all tho the pound?

Way too many unanswered questions, and the first should be to the idiot pols who let not-ready-for-prime-time non-driven cars on city streets without a public debate. Who needs'em?

PornAddict · Mar 19, 2018

Two questions come to mind - was the women crossing the road on Facebook at the time (Zuckerberg's fault) and/or was the car hacked by Russia? (Putin's fault).

This is the first pedestrian killed by an autonomous vehicle.

Who should be liable for this death? Uber? The car manufacturer? The software programmers? Tech lawyers have debated this question for decades. If this goes to trial, we'll soon have an answer.

IM469 · Mar 19, 2018

Machines can respond faster to defined situations and we can't get definitive statistics on pedestrians hit that would have been avoided by non-distracted auto-piloted cars. It should be investigated but I'm guessing the safety record of auto-cars will soon eclipse human piloted cars. The only problem I think AI cars need that humans have is intuition. If a person is deeply involved in their phone and approaching the intersection, can the AI car recognise the potential problem ahead ?

oldjones · Mar 20, 2018

PornAddict said:
Two questions come to mind - was the women crossing the road on Facebook at the time (Zuckerberg's fault) and/or was the car hacked by Russia? (Putin's fault).

This is the first pedestrian killed by an autonomous vehicle.

Who should be liable for this death? Uber? The car manufacturer? The software programmers? Tech lawyers have debated this question for decades. If this goes to trial, we'll soon have an answer.

Of course it was 100% predictable that there would be a first death. It's a huge failing of Arizona's lawmakers that they permitted these vehicles on the public roads without even sketching the legal framework to determine such questions.

Here's the Big One for all of us: Artificial Intelligence will always be artificial, and 'real' intelligence will always be something quite different. Is the idea of the two different ways of 'thinking' being able to share the roads safely just a fantasy?

My money says, humans will be forbidden from ordinary driving, biking and walking where 'auto-autos' use the roads; the only questions are: How soon? And, after how many deaths?

Aardvark154 · Mar 20, 2018

It strikes me that the whole autonomous vehicles thing is being rushed.

sempel · Mar 20, 2018

I saw an article this morning and there was no info about how it happened. There was some implication the pedestrian wasn't crossing at a crosswalk which brings up a question of whether they were crossing legally. Some idiot was quoted as saying "Since when do we victim blame pedestrians?" which I thought was BS. You cannot say a technology is not working properly if a random person jumps out in front of car or crosses illegally when they shouldn't. Perhaps a human driver may have been able to react and avoid the collision but maybe not.

GameBoy27 · Mar 20, 2018

sempel said:
I saw an article this morning and there was no info about how it happened. There was some implication the pedestrian wasn't crossing at a crosswalk which brings up a question of whether they were crossing legally. Some idiot was quoted as saying "Since when do we victim blame pedestrians?" which I thought was BS. You cannot say a technology is not working properly if a random person jumps out in front of car or crosses illegally when they shouldn't. Perhaps a human driver may have been able to react and avoid the collision but maybe not.

We'll have to wait to see if the collision was avoidable. It's one thing to program a vehicle to drive on streets or highways. It's another to program human intuition and anticipation. Say you're driving along a street with parked cars next to a playground. You notice a kid kick a ball towards the street and run after it. The potential is for the kid to chase the ball onto the street so you slow down. How would AI handle this?

Can the AI anticipate an inattentive pedestrian who's about to step off the curb? Or a bicycle rider who does a half hearted attempt to signal he's about to cut in front of you? You slow down because you know they might turn but may not know you're coming up behind them?

Or you're driving on the highway. You encounter a harmless paper bag or is it a 4x4 piece of wood. What does the AI tell the car to do? Slow down, change lanes, swerve, stop? What if you're following a car with a mattress on the roof that looks like it's about to blow off. Will the AI sense this and slow down or change lanes?

There's literally thousands of scenarios. I don't know how AI can possibly take all of them into account. And if something goes wrong, who's to blame?

rhuarc29 · Mar 20, 2018

GameBoy27 said:
We'll have to wait to see if the collision was avoidable. It's one thing to program a vehicle to drive on streets or highways. It's another to program human intuition and anticipation. Say you're driving along a street with parked cars next to a playground. You notice a kid kick a ball towards the street and run after it. The potential is for the kid to chase the ball onto the street so you slow down. How would AI handle this?

Can the AI anticipate an inattentive pedestrian who's about to step off the curb? Or a bicycle rider who does a half hearted attempt to signal he's about to cut in front of you? You slow down because you know they might turn but may not know you're coming up behind them?

Or you're driving on the highway. You encounter a harmless paper bag or is it a 4x4 piece of wood. What does the AI tell the car to do? Slow down, change lanes, swerve, stop? What if you're following a car with a mattress on the roof that looks like it's about to blow off. Will the AI sense this and slow down or change lanes?

Eventually, yeah, the AI will be able to anticipate these situations even more than humans can. Obviously that's a sophisticated AI and we're no where near there. It'll be a iterative process to get there.
That said, AI already has other advantages. It never drives drunk. It doesn't text. Its attention never wavers. It obeys the rules of the road with 100% efficacy.
In the future, even more advantages open up. Your car may be able to "talk" to other vehicles on the road, road signs, the city, and the road itself, in order to better anticipate events.

danmand · Mar 20, 2018

Why in the world authorities allow driver less cars on our roads is a mystery for me. Has anybody ever heard about a software bug? Or do everybody believe that just because the software is called AI, there will be no malfunctions?

apoptygma · Mar 20, 2018

danmand said:
Why in the world authorities allow driver less cars on our roads is a mystery for me. Has anybody ever heard about a software bug?

Pretty much every single piece of modern medical equipment is run by software. Dialysis machines, ventilators, etc.
What's the difference?

danmand · Mar 20, 2018

apoptygma said:
Pretty much every single piece of modern medical equipment is run by software. Dialysis machines, ventilators, etc.
What's the difference?

Un-predictable conditions on real world roads, and vastly more complex software (number of lines of code)

apoptygma · Mar 20, 2018

danmand said:
Un-predictable conditions on real world roads.

What about unpredictable conditions of the human body?
You want your heart monitor to alarm at your bedside and at the nursing station when your heart misbehaves.
They are run by software. Software has bugs.

danmand · Mar 20, 2018

apoptygma said:
What about unpredictable conditions of the human body?
You want your heart monitor to alarm at your bedside and at the nursing station when your heart misbehaves.
They are run by software. Software has bugs.

You don't have to teach me about software. All modern equipment is dependent on it, as you rightly point out. However, the examples you give are in a much simpler environment that driving on a road in all kind of conditions. Compare the number of lines of code. That is a good predicter of complexity and bug incidents.

apoptygma · Mar 20, 2018

danmand said:
You don't have to teach me about software. All modern equipment is dependent on it, as you rightly point out. However, the examples you give are in a much simpler environment that driving on a road in all kind of conditions. Compare the number of lines of code. That is a good predicter of complexity and bug incidents.

Good points... but there was a time when a computerized dialysis machine was unheard of. It eventually happened.
Personally I'm more comfortable with computerized equipment when there is a nurse around the corner, and I'm not a fan of self-driving cars... but eventually it will happen, software bugs or not.

danmand · Mar 20, 2018

apoptygma said:
Good points... but there was a time when a computerized dialysis machine was unheard of. It eventually happened.
Personally I'm more comfortable with computerized equipment when there is a nurse around the corner, and I'm not a fan of self-driving cars... but eventually it will happen, software bugs or not.

As you might imagine from my comments, I worked in software from the beginning of computers. I remember I was at a conference in Austin organized by Darpa in the mid 1980's, where Darpa presented their work on the "autonomous tank". The tank dragged a 2 ton trailer with a mainframe and power supply behind it, and was able to navigate some roads at 10-20km. It had the bad habit of driving up trees, as it confused a smooth tree trunk with a road. Self driving cars have come a long way since then.

apoptygma · Mar 20, 2018

danmand said:
As you might imagine from my comments, I worked in software from the beginning of computers. I remember I was at a conference in Austin organized by Darpa in the mid 1980's, where Darpa presented their work on the "autonomous tank". The tank dragged a 2 ton trailer with a mainframe and power supply behind it, and was able to navigate some roads at 10-20km. It had the bad habit of driving up trees, as it confused a smooth tree trunk with a road. Self driving cars have come a long way since then.

I did IT in healthcare for over a decade. It was kinda scary how jerry-rigged some of the biomedical equipment solutions were. At least the technology was never primary, it was always secondary or tertiary, behind humans with brains.

spaman · Mar 20, 2018

every one that uses computers knows that there are some times they simply do not work. If the computer system is deemed to be at fault this will be the end of self driving cars
Pivotal moment

apoptygma · Mar 20, 2018

spaman said:
every one that uses computers knows that there are some times they simply do not work. If the computer system is deemed to be at fault this will be the end of self driving cars
Pivotal moment

No it won't.
There have been many technology-based failures that have been accepted in the name of progress.

Uber's Self-driving Car Kills a Pedestrian in Arizona

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