Uber's self driving car didn't know people can jaywalk

[spartaman64]

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The software inside the Uber self-driving SUV that killed an Arizona woman last year was not designed to detect pedestrians outside of a crosswalk, according to new documents released as part of a federal investigation into the incident. That’s the most damning revelation offered up in a trove of new documents related to the crash, but other details indicate that, in a variety of ways, Uber’s self-driving car work failed to consider how humans actually operate.

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The most glaring mistakes were software-related. Uber’s system was not equipped to identify or deal with pedestrians walking outside of a crosswalk. Uber engineers also appear to have been so worried about false alarms that they built in an automated one-second delay between a crash detection and action. And Uber chose to turn off a built-in Volvo braking system that the automaker later concluded might have dramatically reduced the speed at which the car hit Herzberg, or perhaps avoided the collision altogether.

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Much of that explains why, despite the fact that the car detected Herzberg with more than enough time to stop, it was traveling at 43.5 mph when it struck her and threw her 75 feet. When the car first detected her presence, 5.6 seconds before impact, it classified her as a vehicle. Then it changed its mind to “other,” then to vehicle again, back to “other,” then to bicycle, then to “other” again, and finally back to bicycle.

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It never guessed Herzberg was on foot for a simple, galling reason: Uber didn’t tell its car to look for pedestrians outside of crosswalks. “The system design did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians,” the NTSB’s “Vehicle Automation Report” reads. Every time it tried a new guess, it restarted the process of predicting where the mysterious object—Herzberg—was headed. It wasn’t until 1.2 seconds before the impact that the system recognized that the SUV was going to hit Herzberg, that it couldn’t steer around her, and that it needed to slam on the brakes.

That triggered what Uber called “action suppression,” in which the system held off braking for one second while it verified “the nature of the detected hazard”—a second during which the safety operator, Uber’s most important and last line of defense, could have taken control of the car and hit the brakes herself. But Vasquez wasn’t looking at the road during that second. So with 0.2 seconds left before impact, the car sounded an audio alarm, and Vasquez took the steering wheel, disengaging the autonomous system. Nearly a full second after striking Herzberg, Vasquez hit the brakes.

source: https://www.wired.com/story/ubers-self-driving-car-didnt-know-pedestrians-could-jaywalk/

 

Seems like a massive oversight by uber engineers and wrong prioritization. They prioritized the car running smoothly rather than safety by building in that delay. If the car isn't sure about something the first thing it should do is notify the driver. Also 5 months before uber cut back the number of safety drivers from two to one prioritizing costs over safety. A note is the driver wasn't looking at the road because she was looking at a diagnostics screen. Uber claims that drivers are not trained to do anything with that screen but i'm not sure why she would be looking at it if not instructed to do so. 

[HarryNyquist]

Oh man, gg Uber.

Idiots.

[Princess Luna]

Yawn... I'm just glad I won't live long enough to see self driving cars become mainstream.

[Uptivuptiz]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

1 month later: new software update

 

pedestrian: jaywalks
uber self driving car:

another month later:

 

pedestrian: jaywalks

uber self driving car:

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

Yawn... I'm just glad I won't live enough to see self driving cars become mainstream.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-selfdriving-waymo/waymo-tests-rider-only-service-and-looks-beyond-robo-taxis-idUSKBN1X71U7

You sure about that

[worthtime]

2 minutes ago, Uptivuptiz said:

another month later:

 

pedestrian: jaywalks

uber self driving car:

nice

[spartaman64]

On 11/6/2019 at 8:03 AM, Uptivuptiz said:

another month later:

 

pedestrian: jaywalks

uber self driving car:

 

pedestrian: jaywalks

uber self driving car: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8

 

[Princess Luna]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

You sure about that

Hopefully... as is we're still far from it taking over since we still get these articles about issues then and when, besides some regions will simply adopt it far slower than others.

 

Also, one thing to note, it's not *every* street that has a proper crosswalk so this flaw was going to emerge soon or later regardless of jaywalking... jaywalking also isn't an infraction on some countries where it happens even more often so soon or later this accident was going to happen.

 

Uber did screw up here to go test on public roads with something that carried this much potential danger without ironing the software first.

[spartaman64]

Just now, Princess Luna said:

Hopefully... as is we're still far from it taking over since we get these articles about issues even then and when, besides some regions will simply adopt it far slower than others.

 

Also, one thing to note, it's not *every* street that has a proper crosswalk so this flaw was going to emerge soon or later regardless of jaywalking... jaywalking also isn't an infraction on some countries where it happens even more often so soon or later this accident was going to happen.

 

Uber did screw up here to go test on public roads with something that carried this much potential danger without ironing the software first.

i think google is a bit more competent than uber and probably accounted for jaywalking

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i think google is a bit more competent than uber and probably accounted for jaywalking

Even the car manufacturers accounted for jaywalking before Uber modified it and turned off automatic braking. If they hadn't, the victim might have survived.

[DildorTheDecent]

>distracted driver

>disabled safety features

>garbage programming

>ridiculous cost cuts

 

*prepares tinfoil hat*

 

It's like Uber wants self-driving cars to fail

[paddy-stone]

I like the idea of fully automated driving cars (no driver needed).... I know this is NOT one of them, and had a driver that should have taken control of the vehicle if alerted to a threat.They should not let them be on the road before they can detect ALL possible obstructions in it's path, people, animals, and inanimate objects included IMO.

[Drak3]

So, Uber’s cars are Chinese.

 

 

 

 

Neat.

[Froody129]

9 minutes ago, Tegos said:

 

 

If anything, this whole self-driving car thing is even more dehumanizing, by diminishing the role of the driver.

I don't really agree with that. It's removing the human from the process, but not dehumanising them imo. Dehumanising would be something like saying it's okay for poor people to starve because they 'don't know any better', or the treatment of Jews in the 2nd World War as basically animals.

 

It's a hot topic, but I think it's good to remove drivers from the equation. Properly managed, it can massively improve traffic flow and greatly reduce accidents because of networking between cars and better decision-making as a group. I understand that people like driving. I love it myself, but I'm willing to give that up because of all the benefits of self-driving cars (e.g. not having to buy a car or worry about maintenance because of fleet cars).

 

Uber has not managed this properly at all. The lack of programming to look for pedestrians is pathetic, and this should never have been on a public road. Has any blame been assigned? It's going to be interesting how the (inevitable) are handled; do we assign all blame to the companies managing the cars?

[PocketNerd]

The obvious answer is to enforce jaywalking bans by lining sidwalks with electric fences :P

[TigerHawk]

14 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

The obvious answer is to enforce jaywalking bans by lining sidwalks with electric fences

Just have an ED209 on every corner patrolling. That AI works about as well as Uber's anyways. 

 

 

[Guest]

Idk why people aren’t blaming more on the safety driver. Like you’re hired as a safety driver for a reason! 

[AnonymousGuy]

1 hour ago, floofer said:

Idk why people aren’t blaming more on the safety driver. Like you’re hired as a safety driver for a reason! 

They should be charged with vehicular manslaughter.  Far as I'm concerned they were the ones ultimately in control of the vehicle.  

[spartaman64]

3 hours ago, floofer said:

Idk why people aren’t blaming more on the safety driver. Like you’re hired as a safety driver for a reason! 

whether or not i put the blame on the safety driver depends on whether uber asked her to monitor the diagnostics screen. she said she was told to do it and uber said she was not. given all the other failures by uber and how it wouldnt make sense for her to be looking at the diagnostics screen otherwise i think its more likely that she was told to

[amdorintel]

google would sell your blood if they could make a buck off it, they'd even sell the obit and keep it on their servers forever

 

9 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

i think google is a bit more competent than uber and probably accounted for jaywalking

 

 

 

[spartaman64]

Just now, amdorintel said:

google would sell your blood if they could make a buck off it, they'd even sell the obit and keep it on their servers forever

 

 

 

 

but they would do it in a competent way

[amdorintel]

not when they are liars!

 

 

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

but they would do it in a competent way

 

 

 

 

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, amdorintel said:

not when they are liars!

they will lie in a competent way also. competent is not always good if you are competent at doing bad stuff

[HarryNyquist]

On 11/6/2019 at 9:31 AM, DildorTheDecent said:

It's like Uber wants self-driving cars to fail

Hey, it's not like this is the first time companies would want alternatives to their services to fail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

 

[mr moose]

22 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

whether or not i put the blame on the safety driver depends on whether uber asked her to monitor the diagnostics screen. she said she was told to do it and uber said she was not. given all the other failures by uber and how it wouldnt make sense for her to be looking at the diagnostics screen otherwise i think its more likely that she was told to

I wouldn't because apart from the fact the company has so many other issues directly under it's control that caused the death, when it comes down to employee against employer word on who is at fault, it is always the employer because they are the ones responsible for the employee.  It's way to easy to scapegoat someone you are supposed to be in charge of. 

 

And besides all this, we have lives at stake, ffs if uber aren't fucked hard with a dry stick for this one then it only serves to prove no one cares about people, just profit.