Maelochs

Hmmm .... maybe you need to learn to think as wellas read.

What I said was that the second video was overexposed. And if you know anything about photography, you can see that.

Couple that with similar comments form Noisebeam, who lives there and rides and drives that road ...

The rest of that stuff is garbage you made up.

So ... any time you want to discuss real stuff, here I am. any time you want to make up a bunch of stuff and blame other people for stuff no one said but you ... there you go.

I-Like-To-Bike

from the same newsroom:
Uber Driver Says Map App Told Him To Take The Stairs « CBS San Francisco

njkayaker

Keep in mind that we are talking about AVs used by ride-hailing companies.

Collisions are really expensive.

Cars often get damaged when people get killed! Plus, there are many more collisions that cause damage without killing anybody.

Heck, it will likely be more expensive for big corporations to kill people than it would be for human drivers.

A noticeably better death/collision rate not only reduces costs, it's a marketing tool.

No one is going to see 1.2 as noticably better than 1.25.

In terms of being "expensive", sensors often become much cheaper and have better performance over time and with increased production (for example, GPS receivers). Being an "RFEngineer" you should be aware of that.

If AV systems can be better than human drivers, it likely won't really be more expensive to be much better.

njkayaker

By the initial "calculatation", the Pinto decision might have "made sense".

After it was revealed, did the final calculatation "make sense"?

That is, the Pinto stuff might not have worked out "positively" for Ford.

McBTC

So, to recap-- "While California puts the brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation," Republican governor Doug Ducey (who purportedly has, a 'tight connection with Uber') says in 2016, "Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses." A couple of years later and who knows how much money Uber has invested in this new technology, a seemingly inattentive ex-felon behind the wheel of an Uber car, apparently driving 7 mph under the posted speed limit on a 5 to 7 lane roadway (with a generous center divide) watches helplessly as a 49 year old women dressed in black at 10P, pushes a bike laden with homeless crap across the road in an area specifically marked to not cross and into the path of what appears to be the only car on the road.

Maelochs

Uber set up a customer service center in Phoenix---300 jobs. That was the "payoff" for Gov. Ducey. Uber also invested $25,000 in the Arizona University Optic lab---got to practice with AVs on campus and have AU professors examine the data and work on Lidar breakthroughs.

Thing is, Gov. Ducey was good to All AV firms. On march 3 he signed an executive order letting AV taxis operate on public roads without drivers---because Waymo needed to test its cars in that capacity.

Not that he did it for Waymo---but Waymo's driverless taxi program debuted in Chandler (part of Greater Phoenix, as is Tempe) almost immediately, which means they were just waiting on the executive order.

Gov. Ducey wanted All the driverless car companies building headquarters and test/maintenance facilities in his state---and will probably get them.

Ford, Chevy, Waymo, Uber, Intel ...

https://www.autonews.com/article/2018...r-testing-uber
"There are reasons beyond minimal regulation that Arizona is luring autonomous vehicles. Year-round sunny and dry weather enables companies to avoid snowy conditions that can flummox self-driving sensors. In Chandler, a quarter of the workforce is involved in high-tech jobs. The city envisions its East Valley section — home to 10,000 Intel employees, including engineers graduating from Arizona State University's nearby Tempe campus — becoming a key part of the national supply chain for autonomous vehicles.

"We have a lot of companies currently operating in the AV supply chain that allowed for Chandler to be a good fit for additional AV development," Micah Miranda, the city's economic development director, said in an interview last month. "A lot of the activity was simmering underneath the surface, and then with Waymo's introduction into the marketplace, it opened up a lot more."

Maelochs

Companies everywhere, once they reach a certain size, do that sort of calculation: What will it cost us to pollute and pay annual fines versus buying non-polluting technology? What will safety-oriented redesigns cost us versus the cost of settling court cases?

Ford ... yeah, last I heard they were the one U.S. auto maker which didn't need a government bailout. That Pinto stuff might not have hurt them as much as some might think.

Big companies look at "It will cost 86 cents per unit to make the modifications, plus lost production time, plus retooling costs---and it we change the design, that itself will open us to liability suits because it will be seen as an admission that we knew the product was faulty.

"So, to change the thing, we need to recall And Rebuild or Replace all the ones we've sold so far, Plus add 86 cents per unit, plus add the redesign and retooling cost, plus subtract the work we would be doing on other products ....

"On ten million units we are looking over twelve million dollars added expense. Our legal team thinks we can settle 40-50 cases for that amount of money, and aren't likely to see more before the next scheduled redesign.

"Plus, as long as we don't say anything, some of those people won't even realize the injury is the fault of the design and won't think to sue---and some will die.

"So long as we can keep everything quiet so there is no class-action suit, it would be cheaper to let people be crippled and pay them and have them sign NDAs."

I am sure people at Uber thought they could get away with their crappy AV system long enough to get enough market share to attract more investment to be able to afford to upgrade.

CliffordK

Pintos are supposed to be much safer if one doesn't drive around with a wick hanging out the gas tank.

In fact, I wonder if the car would have been saved by an innovation that is common on new cars, simply chaining the filler cap to the vehicle.

Rollfast

No, it was the position of the gas tank itself.

njkayaker

I'm not saying they don't do this.

I'm saying the "balance point" likely isn't going to be "just a bit better" than human drivers.

It's quite possible that they will save lots of money by being noticeably better than human drivers. There is much more money to save beyond "court costs".

* Collisions are very expensive and the rate of collisions for human drivers is high.

* There's a big opportunity to save lots of money by reducing the rate.

* And, if AV systems can be better than human drivers, it likely won't really be more expensive to be much better.

Irrelevant and missing the point.

The Pinto stuff was supposed to save Ford X amount of money. That plan didn't work. It's possible that it cost them 2X more.

That was also 30 years ago.

Ford did OK 30 years later but they might have done even better without the Pinto stuff.

njkayaker

It's an Uber problem.

Not an automated vehicle problem.

(It appears.)

Road Fan

So the sanctioned excuse is, “I thought I could get away with it.”

njkayaker

Even if you can "get away with it", hitting pedestrians or other collisions are not "free".

It's obviously better to avoid them.

njkayaker

Claim settled.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...lf-driving-car

I-Like-To-Bike

Yet you repeatedly posted that you think that Uber will skate on any liability for this death.

Sounds like you are also sure the Uber people are jackasses who deliberately put AVs on the public roads knowing that they had crappy AV systems that threaten the people crossing the road because its crappy AV system cannot see or fails to take any action to prevent killing its victims. Who wudda thunk it, eh?

Maelochs

I expect that ti won't be that companies try to be okay ... they will (naturally) try to make the safest systems possible.

Uber was cutting corners since it started; it didn't have the best system, but not because it wanted a shoddy system, and certainly not because Uber had some "acceptable" level of human death which it sought to reach.

Uber was in a hurry to get on the road before its competitors--it was not intending to hurt anyone, it was just gambling at higher odds.

The whole idea that companies are aiming at being a tiny bit better than human drivers is absurd. it is a conflation of the fact that to reach minimal acceptance, they only need to be a little better than humans--a very low bar----and the idea that some accidents are inevitable. They still Want Zero accidents.

Obviously, regardless of what the conspiracy theorists think, AV companies are aiming for zero accidents. Best case scenario is no bad cases.

Uber, it seems to me, did the cost/benefit thing, not assuming it would kill anybody, but assuming that it could save money (which it may not have) and build a good business and get away with Minor transgressions---like running stoplights in San Francisco, like testing in San Francisco without government approval. Uber it seemed, gambled on finding a way to play an expensive sport on the cheap.

I am sure Uber is not big enough nor rich enough to be contemplating how many wrongful death lawsuits it could settle. Likely Uber was thinking, "If we get in good with the governor, and keep everything on a personal level, he won't be bothered or even see reports of our cars needing a lot of driver intervention."

As for the Pinto problems ... again, it was a gamble. Ford calculated how much it thought it would cost to settle suits. They didn't count on the problems getting publicized and class-action suits starting, which normally come with tons of court costs, tons of bad publicity, and big, big initial settlements (which are often appealed down later, again at considerable court cost.)

I am not saying I Approve of this way of thinking, only that it is very real. That's why toxic waste incinerators are built in poor neighborhoods with low levels of education---so the people whose kids get cancer won't be able to get it together to start class-action suit. That's why companies like Freeport MacMoran ran mines in places like Irian Jaya with absolutely no concern for environmental or human destruction---they knew they could get away with it by paying the government.

Sometimes there is backlash---but it Always goes on. And with the weakening of the press, it has probably gotten worse lately.

So, obviously, Ford didn't Plan for the exploding Pinto issue to explode on them publicly. They thought they could keep it quiet and they failed.

But how many other similarly cold calculations were made, and paid off?

Look how many oil tanker trains derailed a few years back---companies didn't want to pay to upgrade the rail cars, and fought hard in court against sensible safety upgrades, hoping to stall until all the old cars wore out and needed to be replaced.

Those trains are still running and those old cars are still in service. The companies made the necessary back-room deals, they milked the regulations for every drop of legal cover, and they made no upgrades---the same rail cars are running on the same rail lines and the same likelihood of accidents exists.

They had a spate of "bad luck" and rode it out.

I don't think Uber has an "acceptable number of deaths per mile" but i guarantee you once a firm like Waymo or Cruise gets fully autonomous taxis running, and the inevitable accidents do occur, we will be forced to accept that some roomful of statisticians and lawyers actually did sit down and calculate an "acceptable number of deaths and injuries per mile."

They are aiming for Zero ... but they realize that there will be some. And at some point they will slow down upgrades, saying "Our system is good enough given the current technology, so we can spend less on R&D and start realizing greater RoI."

What that will mean is, the number of deaths per million miles is low enough to please the bean-counters and paper-pushers.

I-Like-To-Bike

See the accompanying Guardian article for more about the cozy relationship of the AZ governor and Uber prior to Uber making a settlement with the one of its casualties https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...nor-doug-ducey

njkayaker

Again, I'm not saying that this doesn't happen.

What you are talking about is unavoidable.

In fact, everybody does it (not just evil corporations). The only situation were it isn't done is if the cost is born by someone else.

The current rate of deaths caused by humans is a result of the same calculation.

I'm not talking about the unavoidable calculation.

I'm talking about where people think that "good enough" point is.

Some people are assuming the "good enough" point is close to the death rate caused by humans.

I'm saying it's likely that the "good enough" point for AVs is where the rate is much better than the death rate caused by humans.

If AV systems can be the same or better than human drivers, it likely won't really be more expensive to be much better.

And, they avoid the large costs of killing people and the large costs of the many-more collisions that don't happen to kill anybody.

jon c. 

Two months later, Ducey held a joint press conference with Uber to announce a $25,000 gift by the company to the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences.

A press conference for a $25K donation is just odd. That's pocket change.

njkayaker

I read about some of that a day or so ago.

It's an "exclusive" anyway (which means you don't believe it).

Maelochs

yeah, i read the Guardian article and basically, there was no serious quid pro quo. Ducey opened the state to Every AV company---and on March 1 signed an exec order letting AV companies (read Waymo) use driverless taxis on public roads---something Waymo was ready to do, in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, and something Uber was nowhere near ready to do.

Intel has a big plant in Chandler, and is big into AVs. Basically all the companies setting up shop in Arizona for test programs are likely to bring jobs, eventually--Arizona has an AV-friendly corporate climate so why not set up regional service centers and such, permanent test tracks, whatever?

Gov. Ducey was basically (and still is) saying "All AV companies are welcome in AZ. We'll let you do the dirty work and won't ask to see it, because we believe you will clean it all up."

He knew there would be some firms (like Uber) which had bad numbers, but figured on the whole AV tech was coming, and he could help his state by helping it come. he probably figured the weaker firms would fail and no problem. (And once this is current affair is settled ... for Arizona and all the other AV companies, business as usual.)

That same March 1 exec order also contained a lot of language about meeting all the laws and safety requirements set by the DOT, which makes me think Ducey might have heard something about Uber's issues and was setting himself up to slow them down or cover himself.

Also .. I'd bet every other major company, AV or not, which does or wants to do business in Arizona, does the same sort of schmoozing/lobbying.

Coasterbrakefan

Apparently the guys making self driving cars want us bicyclists to wear beacons because their self driving cars are having a hard time detecting us.

https://www.outsideonline.com/229290...-save-cyclists

Quote:

Alas, as the driverless era dawns, it’s hard not to suspect it will be more of the same for us cyclists. See, we’re a “problem” for this technology, which struggles to detect us. Therefore, various companies are developing “bicycle-to-vehicle communications.” This is a polite way of saying that in addition to the helmet and reflective clothing and lights and hand signals you’re already supposed to be using, you’ll also have to incorporate some sort of personal locator beacon to guarantee that these autonomous systems can “see” you. If you’re a fan of helmet-shaming this is great news, because you’re going to love Victim-Blaming 2.0, which will involve people blaming cyclists for their own deaths because they weren’t riding around with homing devices or subcutaneous microchips.

njkayaker

Apparently, you have no idea that there's already a four day old thread discussing that.

"All cyclists will need to fit detection beacons, says cycle industry boss"

Nor did you read the article very carefully.

It's the cyclist-author who "wants us" to wear beacons.

I-Like-To-Bike

Which means nothing of the sort other than another false statement by you.

The Guardian is the first outlet reporting real information (AZ governor's office - Uber emails) that it has uncovered that may provide more understanding on the story, not regurgitating the equivalent of bogus made to order excuses for Uber given to it by a misguided (at best) police official from Tempe for purposes only known by her.

njkayaker

The Gardian reveal is at least 22 hours old.

https://gizmodo.com/emails-show-how-...ata-1824142043

You just heard about it late!



And related stuff was being talked about a few days ago.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opin...rom=new-cookie

https://splinternews.com/former-uber...car-1824101152