Driverless legislation pushed

Computer questions/solutions, technology news, science topics.
User avatar
Verum
Grand Pooh-bah
Posts: 2109
Joined: Oct 6th, 2017, 12:31 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Verum »

Sparki55 wrote:...
Computers are best at taking input and doing a number of calculations to give the human user an answer which the human can use to input more data. It takes much more for a robot to take in environmental data make a decision and then take in more environmental data before the next decision. A robot is also very poor to adapt to changing situations and needs to be specifically designed for the task which it is intended for.

Plenty of robots work using a loop which roughly looks goes like: take in environmental input, process it, act upon it, return to start.
Control theory, a fairly useful way of dealing with this stuff, dates back to the 1800s. Robots built on these principles are basically the run of the mill industrial robots, and they do a much better job where appropriate than any human can (they are faster, stronger, more accurate, more consistent, work longer hours, don't have personal issues, etc.).

Machine learning allows us to use huge quantities of data to "train" machines to do tasks. Basically, we can use many lifetime's worth of data to train a specific type of algorithm to do a task. Additionally, unlike with humans, these algorithms are such that the more data we feed them, the more effective they get. The beauty of these algorithms is that after it has been trained, the trained algorithm can be implemented in such a manner as to be extremely fast at its trained task. This has already proven to be very effective at certain repetitive tasks and with the addition of expert systems, it has proven to be excellent at making decisions. Often far better than highly trained people.

I am not saying that we can do it today. I'm not saying that there are no challenges. I'm not claiming to have answers to the problems. All I will say is that in the coming years, this technology will start to become mainstream and we will have a huge shift towards automation of jobs. The act of driving and operating a vehicle, including a truck, isn't trivial, but none of the challenges seem insurmountable, and the incentive to automate driving and other forms of transport, ultimately in the order of trillions of dollars, is definitely worth it.

Sparki55 wrote:...
It's ok old trucker, they didn't even bother to respond to my post as they know it's impossible to do what I asked. Just give it some more time and this fear of robots may pass.

We may not yet have the technology to build a robot to fix your tub, but that's actually a different kind of task and also one with far less reward to be reaped. Basically, there is far less money to be saved by replacing all plumbers.

Personally, I welcome a more automated future and the tremendous opportunities it will bring, but then again, I'm a nerd and technology has always favoured people like me.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

CapitalB wrote:Just coming from the position of someone who stays up to date on technology and other innovations and am mostly going off what the experts developing new tech in each industry are saying. Or rather I'm going off what they're testing now, what their expected time frames for release are and adding a few years. I just have a class 5 license though my step father is a heavy duty mechanic for brand new trucks and we talk about this tech quite a bit. He thinks anything beyond 2025 for time predictions is too slow just based off whats come out in the past couple of years. (As a side note one of my favourite video games is a truck driving simulator that I play with a force feedback wheel and pedal setup. I really enjoy doing long haul deliveries through europe.)

Also this is a progressive technology, we aren't necessarily waiting for level 5 autonomous for things to take off. Level 3 and 4 vehicles, both of which are real world testing right now, will effect a great number of industries that involve driving in some ways. Even level 2 tech like the convoy systems, and gradual increases in automation from there will only make the jobs easier eventually transitioning to systems that need fewer people.

There are also a lot of other technologies related to automation (drone deliveries, 3d printing/manufacturing/ faster longer rail systems, etc) that are also going to be effecting transportation of goods.


There are so many different ways to look at this issue, and well, this is a 'driver-less' thread which implies either LEVEL 4 or LEVEL 5, and LEVEL 4 is limited scenario driver-less and still has a steering wheel. Since people in this thread seem to focus on the accident reduction of your average Joe, that too seems to imply posters are expecting LEVEL 5 autonomous vehicles to be everywhere very soon and for more than just commercial applications. So, not beyond 2025 for what? Will you be specific? What year do you think you will be able to visit a local car dealership and pick up a LEVEL 5 steering-wheel-less vehicle? People don't want to be restricted for where they can drive, and do more than just drive in the city making trips to Walmart and back. They won't be common place until they are no longer experimental and available for sale in your local dealerships. At this point, you could consider it to be faultless technology.


Uber is hoping to bring driver-less cars to their business. Uber and the media swing the pitch that 'finally' driver-less cars are available to the masses with our new driver-less Uber fleet and we did it first. (each car suited with two company employees)
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-uber-pittsburgh-20160914-snap-story.html

Shortly after the introduction, the story went more like, holy ding dongs batman, there's like a billion things that are screwed and if an engineer didn't take the wheel we'd all be dead.
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-driverless-car-problems-2016-9#a-big-problem-for-self-driving-cars-is-simply-having-to-deal-with-other-human-drivers-on-the-road-1

So, testing is good. There is still a lot of development left before you can put your coins in a vending machine and buy one for yourself.

Staying abreast of tech is good, but understanding it is better. Back in 2016 when an Italian company hailed the production of the Grabat graphene battery, and had nice CGI images of it and test documentation and said they would begin deliveries... who woulda guessed it would have just been all hot air. Perhaps the company themselves didn't realize the technical difficulties behind making a graphene battery and jumped the gun. This kinda stuff happens a lot.
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
User avatar
CapitalB
Generalissimo Postalot
Posts: 846
Joined: Nov 14th, 2017, 11:27 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by CapitalB »

Why on earth would I want to buy one? My vehicle sits idle most of the time, what I'm expecting is a more general public transit service made up of driverless vehicles. Vehicle ownership has been dropping among younger people for quite a while now and that trend is likely to continues. I personally will still own a normal vehicle for pleasure driving but for 95% of my transportation purposes I can probably leave my own vehicle parked. Even if I was rich enough to buy a new care I really don't think theres any financial justification for wasting such a huge amount of money on an object that depreciates so quickly and that has less and less purpose in the world we're making.

You are incorrect about level 4 level 3 is the one with a wheel and humans as backup. Level 4 is completely driverless but only functional in specific areas, level 5 would just be general purpose. There are level 4 vehicles in cities, canadian cities even right now. They go pretty slow and only on a set track but its a start.

Uber is probably the back of the driverless pack. Check out Waymo and GM's cars. These ones still have a backup driver taking the wheel every 9000 kilometers or so but its basically just a matter of letting the AI practice driving until its perfect. Also I think having a person not need to touch the wheel for almost two entire oil changes is looking pretty damn good.

Also since you really seemed to want a hard number I think people will be able to buy the first true fully autonomous cars for themselves by 2022. Although I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there was a big breakthrough of some kind that speeds things up. AI research has been destroying prediction lately, hitting milestones that were expected to take another twenty years (Ai beating world GO master was not expected until the 2030's) and has been advancing exponentially since then.

Last point I swear. Your link about people being the biggest problem faced by driverless cars is because at this point nearly all the accidents driverless cars have been in have been caused by other drivers. Thaaaaats not a point against driverless cars thats a point against stupid monkeys driving big machines.
So much of the violent push-back on everything progressive and reformist comes down to: I can see the future, and in this future I am not the centre of the universe and master of all that I survey, therefore this future must be resisted at all costs.
User avatar
dirtybiker
Walks on Forum Water
Posts: 12265
Joined: Mar 8th, 2008, 6:00 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by dirtybiker »

I can see it now, a bunch of empty cars circling the block because a slew of
must have it now movers and shakers need their ride "now" at the ready,
not parked 10 blocks away in some parkade.
Huge Transport companies computer dispatching empty driverless rigs to go
get loads at a loss.
The computer already figured that a little loss there is made up by the gains of much of the rest of the fleet.
(this already happens, just a driver and wages apply.)

Congestion will be just as bad or worse with empty vehicles driving themselves around after every whim and
whimsy of the humanoids ordering them. There's an app for that !

Vehicles making the "decision" to mow down the unwary kid chasing a ball to not risk it's passengers.
or;
People not buying in because the vehicle is programed to sacrifice itself and passenger to save the unwary.
"Don't 'p' down my neck then tell me it's raining!"
User avatar
Jflem1983
Guru
Posts: 5785
Joined: Aug 23rd, 2015, 11:38 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jflem1983 »

dirtybiker wrote:I can see it now, a bunch of empty cars circling the block because a slew of
must have it now movers and shakers need their ride "now" at the ready,
not parked 10 blocks away in some parkade.
Huge Transport companies computer dispatching empty driverless rigs to go
get loads at a loss.
The computer already figured that a little loss there is made up by the gains of much of the rest of the fleet.
(this already happens, just a driver and wages apply.)

Congestion will be just as bad or worse with empty vehicles driving themselves around after every whim and
whimsy of the humanoids ordering them. There's an app for that !

Vehicles making the "decision" to mow down the unwary kid chasing a ball to not risk it's passengers.
or;
People not buying in because the vehicle is programed to sacrifice itself and passenger to save the unwary.



Personally i dont want GM tracking my vehicle. I dont think its needed.
Now they want to take our guns away . That would be just fine. Take em away from the criminals first . Ill gladly give u mine. "Charlie Daniels"

You have got to stand for something . Or you will fall for anything "Aaron Tippin"
User avatar
Verum
Grand Pooh-bah
Posts: 2109
Joined: Oct 6th, 2017, 12:31 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Verum »

dirtybiker wrote:I can see it now, a bunch of empty cars circling the block because a slew of
must have it now movers and shakers need their ride "now" at the ready,
not parked 10 blocks away in some parkade. Assuming that the system works like taxis, and it makes sense that it will since Millennials are already moving away from car ownership, it will mean that it is like having 10x as many taxis on the road, and almost no other vehicles. It's much more efficient (the vehicles are idle for far less time) and there is far less need for parking than today (though there is still a need).
Huge Transport companies computer dispatching empty driverless rigs to go
get loads at a loss.
The computer already figured that a little loss there is made up by the gains of much of the rest of the fleet.
(this already happens, just a driver and wages apply.)So, no actual change except reducing the resources used and becoming more efficient. I don't see a problem here for our capitalist society.

Congestion will be just as bad or worse with empty vehicles driving themselves around after every whim and
whimsy of the humanoids ordering them. There's an app for that !Maybe, but probably not. Especially if we only have automated vehicles on the roads, then the traditional bottlenecks of junctions, lights, etc. can be much more efficient.It's not as if these vehicles will be free or anything, so people will still want to keep journeys to ones worth making

Vehicles making the "decision" to mow down the unwary kid chasing a ball to not risk it's passengers.
or;
People not buying in because the vehicle is programed to sacrifice itself and passenger to save the unwary.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

Apparently, only three companies are allowed to test self-driving cars in Canada. They have just begun preliminary testing. BlackBerry, UoW, and Erwin Hymer group. Even then, Ontario has the only self-driving cars being tested. Canada is slow to the game as usual. So driverless legislation for Canada may not necessarily be in a rush for 2021. The article says the vehicles won’t be ready for some time so... maybe next week if an AI advancement suddenly happens?

https://www.callkleinlawyers.com/full-disclosure/self-driving-cars-coming-canada/

Early ICBC comments suggest there wouldn’t be much change in coverage if you were to involve your own driverless vehicle in an accident.
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

CapitalB wrote:Why on earth would I want to buy one? My vehicle sits idle most of the time, what I'm expecting is a more general public transit service made up of driverless vehicles. Vehicle ownership has been dropping among younger people for quite a while now and that trend is likely to continues. I personally will still own a normal vehicle for pleasure driving but for 95% of my transportation purposes I can probably leave my own vehicle parked. Even if I was rich enough to buy a new care I really don't think theres any financial justification for wasting such a huge amount of money on an object that depreciates so quickly and that has less and less purpose in the world we're making.

You are incorrect about level 4 level 3 is the one with a wheel and humans as backup. Level 4 is completely driverless but only functional in specific areas, level 5 would just be general purpose. There are level 4 vehicles in cities, canadian cities even right now. They go pretty slow and only on a set track but its a start.

Uber is probably the back of the driverless pack. Check out Waymo and GM's cars. These ones still have a backup driver taking the wheel every 9000 kilometers or so but its basically just a matter of letting the AI practice driving until its perfect. Also I think having a person not need to touch the wheel for almost two entire oil changes is looking pretty damn good.

Also since you really seemed to want a hard number I think people will be able to buy the first true fully autonomous cars for themselves by 2022. Although I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there was a big breakthrough of some kind that speeds things up. AI research has been destroying prediction lately, hitting milestones that were expected to take another twenty years (Ai beating world GO master was not expected until the 2030's) and has been advancing exponentially since then.

Last point I swear. Your link about people being the biggest problem faced by driverless cars is because at this point nearly all the accidents driverless cars have been in have been caused by other drivers. Thaaaaats not a point against driverless cars thats a point against stupid monkeys driving big machines.


LEVEL 4, still requires a steering wheel since human intervention may still be required, at least according to various descriptions of the levels. LEVEL 5 has no steering wheel.

http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/15724/what-are-these-levels-of-autonomy-anyway

“Level 4: High automation. Self-driving cars will be able to handle most "dynamic driving tasks," to use SAE International's terminology. In other words, a Level 4 car can handle most normal driving tasks on its own, but will still require driver intervention from time to time, during poor weather conditions, for example, or other unusual environments. Level 4 cars will generally do the driving for you, but will still have a steering wheel and pedals for a human driver to take over when needed.”

There is a good documentary on Netflix called AlphaGo. You probably have seen it. It tells a story of the Go AI development that challenged the worlds top player in Korea, Lee Se-Dol. The 5 game exhibition was won by AlphaGo 4 to 1. A funny moment was AlphaGo’s first move in game 1 which took a few minutes. Lee Se-Dol won game 4 because AlphaGo encountered a weird situation it couldnt account for and therefore went off the Deep End on a crazy train. In all the games, AlphaGo made mistakes, lazy decisions, weird decisions, and some good moves. Saying that, in the automotive industry which requires absolute robust reliability and provable outcomes in testing, one can’t say for sure any particular set of complex algorithms such as AlphaGo will behave as expected. The developers mostly wondered about how certain moves were decided without definitively knowing how. Despite this, auto makers will strive to employ this sort of tech and will probably be exhempt from proving its robustness, which may not even be possible.



http://parisinnovationreview.com/articles-en/why-alphago-is-not-ai
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
User avatar
CapitalB
Generalissimo Postalot
Posts: 846
Joined: Nov 14th, 2017, 11:27 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by CapitalB »

I think different sites are reporting different definitions for the Automated driving levels
On wikipedia they're showing this

SAE Level Name Narrative Definition Execution of Steering and Acceleration/Deceleration Monitoring of Driving Environment Fallback Performance of Dynamic Driving Task System Capability (Driving Modes)
Human driver monitors the driving environment
0 No Automation the full-time performance by the human driver of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even when enhanced by warning or intervention systems Human driver Human driver Human driver n/a
1 Drive Assistance the driving mode-specific execution by a driver assistance system of either steering or acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver perform all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task Human driver and system Human driver Human driver Some driving modes
2 Partial Automation the driving mode-specific execution by one or more driver assistance systems of both steering and acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver perform all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task System Human driver Human driver Some driving modes
Automated driving system monitors the driving environment
3 Conditional Automation the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene System System Human driver Some driving modes
4 High Automation the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene System System System Many driving modes
5 Full Automation the full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver System System System All driving modes


Which defines level 4 as having no human backup, its all system.


I'm pretty up on the alphago developments, they've actually progressed significantly from where they were then, the system has been learning a wide variety of board and computer games. Alphago is what programmers call a black box ai, since it uses machine learning to figure things out it will be virtually impossible to know how its decisions are made.

Automakers will and probably already are using a variation of this software. I mean its made by google who basically started the self driving car trend, I'm pretty sure Waymo are using black box learning algorithm ai all the way down. So are teslas, you can't really have a human programmed driving machine there are way too many variables to accounts for.
So much of the violent push-back on everything progressive and reformist comes down to: I can see the future, and in this future I am not the centre of the universe and master of all that I survey, therefore this future must be resisted at all costs.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

I suppose we read it different. LEVEL 4 as many sites say require human response under certain conditions and therefore need a steering wheel, and perhaps wiki doesn't explicitly state it, but, that would be the difference between 'high' automation, and 'full' automation. Full automation by definition would not require a steering wheel. High automation needs a steering wheel unless you want your trip to be aborted in certain circumstances. It is conceivable the trip could be aborted indefinitely until a driver takes control.

"Wiki link you provided"

Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi. LEVEL 5 is the only steering wheel optional LEVEL.

"Level 4 (”mind off”): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control."
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

If a human was driving, this would not likely have occurred. There is still a lot of work and testing to go in to the software that drives these cars. Maybe that's what you get for walking outside of a crosswalk area?

Woman killed by self driving vehicle.
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-221472-5-.htm#221472
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
PDT
Fledgling
Posts: 325
Joined: Apr 2nd, 2008, 5:13 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by PDT »

There was still a human behind the wheel of this vehicle. I agree that there's still a lot of work to do for driverless vehicles. However, in this case, 2 humans failed to prevent this death as well - the one behind the wheel who could've taken control of the car and the pedestrian who really should be waiting for vehicles to stop before crossing the road.
User avatar
Jlabute
Guru
Posts: 6679
Joined: Jan 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jlabute »

Before an accident occurs, one could have less than a second to decide what to do. I wonder if the autonomous system can relinquish control quick enough without thinking the user is an idiot. Probably have to be awake to apply brakes. The attendant may have been sleeping for all we know. Either way, the autonomous system meant to save lives, took a life all because we need to rush to market to make $$.
49 year old Elaine Herzberg was walking her bike across the street and was hit by the autonomous vehicle at 40mph which did not slow down or stop... all the super-tech AI 100s of sensors blah blah blah didn’t see her at all. It’s possible charges will be coming.
Lord Kelvin - When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
User avatar
Jflem1983
Guru
Posts: 5785
Joined: Aug 23rd, 2015, 11:38 am

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jflem1983 »

https://www.castanet.net/news/World/221 ... ot-so-fast


Murdered by an uber on auto pilot. Extra extra. Read all about it.
Now they want to take our guns away . That would be just fine. Take em away from the criminals first . Ill gladly give u mine. "Charlie Daniels"

You have got to stand for something . Or you will fall for anything "Aaron Tippin"
Jonrox

Re: Driverless legislation pushed

Post by Jonrox »

One autonomous vehicle kills a pedestrian and people start freaking out. Meanwhile dozens of people in north America were killed yesterday by vehicles with human drivers and nobody batted an eye.

It would be a shame if an incident like this derailed the progress of this technology and we instead decide that more deaths is better than fewer deaths. Autonomous vehicles will save lives - this is not a reason to even hit the pause button on them. Collisions will still happen, but as the technology progresses it will make us safer and safer. To continue with the option of human drivers that will result in more dead bodies when we have better options is unethical.
Post Reply

Return to “Computers, Science, Technology”