Posted on 03/21/2018 12:48:17 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When a driverless car kills someone, who’s to blame?
That’s no longer a hypothetical question. A self-driving car operated by Uber struck and killed a woman on a street in Tempe, Arizona, on Sunday night, likely marking a grim milestone for the nascent technology: the first pedestrian killed by such a car on public roads.
Police say the 49-year-old woman was walking a bike across the street, outside the crosswalk, at around 10 p.m. The Uber was traveling at 40 miles per hour in autonomous mode, with an operator in the driver’s seat, when she was hit. Police have not yet determined who was at fault. (The car apparently didn’t slow down, and the operator didn’t appear impaired.) Nonetheless, Uber immediately suspended its self-driving tests in Arizona and nationwide, as many in the tech industry reacted with alarm.
There’s an ongoing debate about legal liability when it comes to collisions in which an autonomous vehicle harms someone else through no fault of that person. Would the blame lie with the self-driving car’s owner, manufacturer, a combination of the two, or someone else? In their quest to become the Mecca of self-driving cars, Arizona regulators have largely left those questions unanswered, The New York Times reported last year:
(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...
As a driver, one sees pedestrians in all kinds of doubtful situations, when one’s reaction is to slow down and steer clear. According to a map image, she was struck at the onset of a right turn lane. I presume she “stepped off the curb” maybe thinking the car was going straight, and trying to get a head start across the multi-lane road.
The algorithm wasn’t thinking, “That lady’s about to step off the curb” as you or I implicitly would, just because we have a horror of hitting someone like this.
As far as the algorithm was concerned, bearing right into the turn lane was its path, and the woman appearing suddenly in that path constitutes “darting out.”
I AIN’T BUYIN’ !!!
UBERS! A.I. Is a danger to society. It steals or jobs. Tracks us. Evaluates us. Now it directly mile us. The military wants killer robots what happens when they malfunction or are hacked. You digital idiots need to stop your AI automatic ignorance. With the state of our world it will soon a least the human race.
I read there was no sign of significant slowing before she was hit.
So, in other words, he wasn’t paying attention.
...
There is video of the driver and the police have seen it. The police chief has said preliminarily it looks like the pedestrian was at fault.
If I Human were driving that car, I would not have hit her. She would still be alive. A human can process murky, vague situations, that a procedural computer cannot.
I have prevented serious accudents that novice, student drivers would miss. That cannot be explained to a computer.
I would bet that the police are going easy on Uber.
Come on, it was a pedestrian walking a bicycle.
Another question to ask is “How quiet or loud was the vehicle?” There was a point in maybe the 1990’s that it was noted that cars being made quieter were more dangerous to pedestrians, as it is often the sound that is heard first and the pedestrian and in some cases another driver reacts to the sound and adverts danger.
STUPID BAD LAW
If a pedestrian walks or runs, he can move with or against traffic.
But if riding a bicycle, the rider must move with traffic only. The is the STUPIDEST BAD LAW EVER! Only ONE set of eyes are looking instead of two. Plus the bike rider has 100x the motivation to avoid an accident but law requires blind riding, hoping drivers do not hit you.
What Regulator invented this disgusting law?
GOVERNMENT SUCKS!
Here’s video of the crash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=EPvSS5PhO7M
After watching it I think the car should have detected her but didn’t.
The driver wasn’t as attentive as he should have been.
The pedestrian was the main cause of the accident.
There will have to be a forensic analysis to determine more.
If I Human were driving that car, I would not have hit her. She would still be alive. A human can process murky, vague situations, that a procedural computer cannot.
“What does the car do when you veer out of the lane for defensive driving purposes?”
It in effect does nothing. It should turn the steering wheel and put you back in the lane. However it almost imperceptibly turns the wheel, definitely not enough to make much of a difference. It does beep, which I suppose might wake you up if you were sleeping. But I don’t think that’s really part of the “assist”.
If this thing can’t see in the dark it doesn’t deserve to be on the road. Didn’t even try to stop.
It was an evil SUV with evil AI controls and machinations.
It violated the prime directive.
Perhaps the person should have been more alert and not got in front of a moving car but pedestrians have right of way even when being stupid - unless one actually manages to get in front of the vehicle so fast and close that a average human driver could do nothing, the fault is a toss up.
There’s a lot of felony convictions that don’t involve murder.
A human-driven car, noting the woman crossing in advance (like was reported), would be watching to see where she had gone as we approached, likely slowed down. We would NOT have hit the woman.
How about they show the rest of the video (BEFORE) the crash? The immediate police response, if you recall, said they saw the woman in advance enter the road from the median walkway (look in the Google/Bing map pictures and you’ll see the media has a stone walkway for people to cross at this point, making this a sanctioned crossing area)
...
It’s not a sanctioned crossing area. There’s even a sign telling pedestrians not to use it.
There is a stoned crossing area prior to the intersection and Tempe and elsewhere in Arizona with the incredibly long blocks allow people to cross, they facilitate it. The police officials earlier in the week reminded citizens to simply be careful doing so--they did not say stop doing it. Again, there are areas, such as that stone walkway, where they have made accomodations for people crossing instead of having to walk half mile or more to a cross walk.
And yes, I do go to Arizona, I have seen these first hand, and, yes, I have crossed mid-block, both in spaces upgraded for it and others where people have worn trails across. It is normal and common.
Let's talk about that unsafe car with sensors that failed and felon at the wheel who wasn't paying attention.
This tech has been OVERSOLD from day one...
This is an 80-20/90-10 problem... meaning 80-90 percent of the work will be in the final 10-20% of the problem... This tech is NOWHERE near a point where it should be on public roads.
We don’t even have vehicles making autonomous interstate runs yet, which is a far far simpler problem.. all traffic is going the same way, limited access, no cross traffic etc... Yet these things are on city streets??? Urban driving? A far far harder problem to deal with!!! Its insane.
THese vehicles are not being held to any sort of safety standards... they couldn’t even meet the federal safety standards for RAIL!! A far simpler and controlled environment.
THe urban mayors, my own included, should be tarred and feathered for being conned into the hype around this stuff. Its insane that GM has applied for a federal ok to sell fully autonomous vehicles without a steering wheel in them, targeting a year or two to be out for general consumption.
The TECH is NOWHERE near that level yet. I am all for developing autonomous vehicles, but its a limited market in the near term, elderly and disabled who are unable to drive on their own, and will take a slow vehicle designed for safety, but gets them from a to b without depending on others. That’s the near term market, because the tech is nowhere near a level where it can safely interact with the unpredictable world of urban traffic. To be safe in that environment it must be slow, and it must default to STOP, whenever it gets “confused”
There will always be accidents, even with autonomous vehicles, I don’t know if this could have been avoided or not, but this was hardly the case as originally reported that this woman “darted out” in front of this car... She was clearly calmly walking her bike across the street... at 40 MPH even at night, she should have been seen... From the video its abundantly clear the vehicle either didn’t “see” her, or worse yet, did “see” her but didn’t recognize her for what she was.
This tech is NOWHERE near a level it should be out on public streets.... Its been a false bill of sale from day one, its a LONG LONG time from being safe and ready for the public streets.
“There’s a lot of felony convictions that don’t involve murder.”
Yes, there’s attempted armed robbery, of which this man/woman spent 4 years in prison for. I maybe should have stipulated violent felonies. Still, I would feel just as concerned for safety getting in an Uber in a one on one situation with someone such as this.
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