this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I saw a video years ago discussing this topic.
How good is “good enough” for self-driving cars?
The bar is much higher than it is for human drivers because we downplay our own shortcomings and think that we have less risk than the average driver.
Humans can be good drivers, sure. But we have serious attention deficits. This means it doesn’t take a big distraction before we blow a red light or fail to observe a pedestrian.
Hell, lot of humans fail to observe and yield to emergency vehicles as well.
But none of that is newsworthy, but an autonomous vehicle failing to yield is.
My personal opinion is that the Cruise vehicles are as ready for operational use as Teslas FSD, ie. should not be allowed.
Obviously corporations will push to be allowed so they can start making money, but this is probably also the biggest threat to a self-driving future.
Regulated so strongly that humans end up being the ones in the driver seat for another few decades - with the cost in human lives which that involves.
By definition nearly half of us are better than average drivers. Given that driving well is a matter of survival, I'll take my own driving ability over any autonomous vehicle until they're safer than 99% of drivers.
I mean, that’s an obvious one.
But how much better would it need to be? 99.9% or 99.9999999999999999999999%, or just 99.01%
A lot of people will have qualms as long as the chance of dying is higher than zero.
People have very poor understanding of statistics and will cancel holidays because someone in the vicinity of where they’re going got bitten by a shark (the current 10 year average of unprovoked shark bites is 74 per year).
Similarly we can expect people to go “I would never get into a self-driving car” when the news inevitably reports on a deadly accident even if the car was hit by a falling rock.
And then there’s the other question:
Since 50% of drivers are worse than the average - would you feel comfortable with those being replaced by self driving cars that were (proven to be) better than the average?
Given that I have no way of communicating with the driverless car and communication is often important to driving, I'd rather the kinda bad driving person. I can compensate for their bad driving when I spot it and give them room. Or sometimes i can even convey information that helps them be safer while they're not paying attention. I've definitely stopped crashes that didn't involve me using my horn.
There's no amount of discussion or frantic hand waving that will alter the course of an automated vehicle.
I think you are optimistic about communicating with the worst percentile of drivers, but can’t argue with your reasoning
Once I was driving down what had become a narrow street with high snow banks when I came across an older woman stuck between the banks repeatedly backing into the door of her neighbor's car as she tried to get out of her driveway. After watching her do this for a couple of minutes I offered to get her car straightened out for her. She was ecstatic and about 30 seconds later we were both able to go about our days.
Sounds like other people might have been better off if you left her there (minus her neighbor) 🙈
I don't think drivers are supposed to communicate like that... but it raises a better question: how is a cop directing draffic, supposed to communicate with a driverless car?
If there is no mechanism in place, that's a huge oversight... while if there is one, why didn't use it in this case?