It's happened. Self-driving Uber kills pedestrian

[Mattb6288]

This is only 20ish miles away from me. Not sure if the cyclist was in the bike lane when it happened, but I would think the car would compensate for that. You're supposed to move left slightly when passing a cyclist to give them more space just in case. Guess it's just not programmed in. Might be more complicated then that though. 

[seon123]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

:

If someone could use this picture/video to pinpoint where this incident happened, that would be great. So we could figure out a bit more about the situation? As in what kind of speed limit, if it was close to a crosswalk etc. Idk. 

Anyway. The standard should be to assume that everyone's innocent until the opposite is proven. But I'll guess that the blame technically goes to the car operator, in case of a ruling. Looks like the car and bicycle hut each other at quite some speed, looking at the damages on the car. 

[Nicnac]

1 minute ago, laminutederire said:

My legs beg to differ every morning i face the hill before the University

I think it may be because it's uber's car and looking at their history with self driving cars (like their feuds with waymo about intellectual property), people will tend to not forgive them for any mistakes.

I was more thinking of those reactions blaming the person for being run over. I can understand the resentment against Uber.

[asus killer]

don't jump to conclusions until there are more details.

 

The accident reportedly occurred early this morning at the corner of Mill Avenue and Curry Road. According to Tempe Police, a woman with a bicycle was crossing the street at a cross walk when she was struck by the Uber self-driving prototype on autonomous mode with a Uber employee at the wheel.

https://electrek.co/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-prototyp-fatal-crash-police/

 

i guess this story changes a lot from source to source

 

 

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, asus killer said:

The accident reportedly occurred early this morning at the corner of Mill Avenue and Curry Road. According to Tempe Police, a woman with a bicycle was crossing the street at a cross walk when she was struck by the Uber self-driving prototype on autonomous mode with a Uber employee at the wheel.

https://electrek.co/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-prototyp-fatal-crash-police/

 

I don't think that employee will be having a job much longer, boss. 

[Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

> Blames Uber

> Doesn't mention the driver at all

This could of been prevented you know? If the driver actually had his eyes on the road? 

>Doesn't read the article.

 

This was one of their fully autonomous vehicles. Like the Waymo ones the driver is there in a supervisory position only and is not required to take control of the vehicle.

 

If your hands are not on the wheel because they're not required to be, you're not going to be able to take control in the split second these incidents take place in.

 

Waymo has been pushing forward with suuuuuuuuuper controlled tests for exactly this reason. It doesn't *matter* if a human driver even *could* have avoided it, there is going to be backlash against autonomous vehicles now because your average person is narrow minded and wary of technology.

[laminutederire]

1 minute ago, Nicnac said:

I was more thinking of those reactions blaming the person for being run over. I can understand the resentment against Uber.

Ah those I put under blind faith of technology

What may have happened would be that there was not enough redundancy in sensors, and visual ones were impaired by low light, and the other sensor might have had a blind spot. Fact remains that the car has scratches in the middle, which means that the person was pretty engaged on the road already, and that given the time the car could have had just cross the line and go on opposite lane to avoid hitting her (since there probably was no cars in the other lane). Why it happened is still a mystery though

[bcredeur97]

The video of a cyclist seems to be a past incident, I think this was a actual pedestrian. they wouldn't show a video of someone dying.....

[Taf the Ghost]

43 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

 

Well, there goes that.

The 3 Laws are a terrible way to keep robots in check. That was always the point of them: they didn't work!

[maartendc]

13 minutes ago, asus killer said:

don't jump to conclusions until there are more details.

 

The accident reportedly occurred early this morning at the corner of Mill Avenue and Curry Road. According to Tempe Police, a woman with a bicycle was crossing the street at a cross walk when she was struck by the Uber self-driving prototype on autonomous mode with a Uber employee at the wheel.

https://electrek.co/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-prototyp-fatal-crash-police/

 

i guess this story changes a lot from source to source

 

 

Regardless of the pedestrian or cyclist potentially being "at fault" because of crossing without looking or unexpectedly, the sensors in these self driving cars should be good enough to anticipate unexpected behavior by humans, such as unexpected crossing, and adjust their speed appropriately. If anything, it should be very easy for these systems to react in miliseconds and slow down significantly to prevent death, if not injury.

 

Not sure about the US, but In Belgium, the driver is always at fault when hitting a pedestrian or cyclist (the "weak" road users) because cars should expect unexpected behavior and mitigate their speed accordingly.

 

If we cannot do that, they should just ban them altogether. We should expect BETTEr behavior from these things than from.human drivers, nt the same "unavoidable" accident rate.

 

Not surprising that this happened to Uber. A shitty company that does not take laws or human decency seriously, all in the interest of profits and market share.

[Deus Voltage]

23 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I just hope some lawmakers dont use this as a reason to completely ban testing of self driving cars.

Exactly my thoughts. It's already hard enough as it is now to convince them of the viability of "self driving" cars that are between level 2 and 4 of autonomy.

 

I am absolutely certain that this event will be included in the counter arguments used by lawmakers in the future to slow (if not halt) the progress of self driving cars on a legal/ ethical basis. 

 

 

[maartendc]

5 minutes ago, Deus Voltage said:

Exactly my thoughts. It's already hard enough as it is now to convince them of the viability of "self driving" cars that are between level 2 and 4 of autonomy.

 

I am absolutely certain that this event will be included in the counter arguments used by lawmakers in the future to slow (if not halt) the progress of self driving cars on a legal/ ethical basis. 

 

 

I think slowing down and stopping to think about ethical and legal implications of any new technology, especially self driving cars, is a good thing.

 

When one human hurts another human, by vehicle or otherwise, it is pretty clear: the human is at fault. And you can be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Aggravated if you happened to be drunk.

 

Nothing against self driving cars per se, but what happens if someone gets hurt by a self driving car:

- is Uber who owns the vehicle and software at fault?

- Is the driver who was supposed to be the "safety driver" at fault?

- Is the programmer who failed to make the AI better in order to prevent the accident at fault?

- ...

 

Does the programmer need insurance to cover any liability from his AI "misbehaving"?

 

These are questions we, as a society, need to ask when moving forward with these technologies.

[Jito463]

31 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

your average person is narrow minded and wary of technology.

I consider myself a techie, and yet I'm wary of new technology precisely because I know how much it can be abused.  Does that make me narrow minded?

[Taf the Ghost]

4 minutes ago, maartendc said:

I think slowing down and stopping to think about ethical and legal implications of any new technology, especially self driving cars, is a good thing.

 

When one human hurts another human, by vehicle or otherwise, it is pretty clear: the human is at fault. And you can be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Aggravated if you happened to be drunk.

 

Nothing against self driving cars per se, but what happens if someone gets hurt by a self driving car:

- is Uber who owns the vehicle and software at fault?

- Is the driver who was supposed to be the "safety driver" at fault?

- Is the programmer who failed to make the AI better in order to prevent the accident at fault?

- ...

 

Does the programmer need insurance to cover any liability from his AI "misbehaving"?

 

These are questions we, as a society, need to ask when moving forward with these technologies.

Level 5s should be outright banned. Level 4 is fully liable to the Driver unless otherwise proven it was a software failure.

 

That's the only way it's all going to work well.

[ucrbuffalo]

For those mentioning that it was a cyclist and not a pedestrian, a person on a bicycle is still considered a pedestrian. In regards to the discrepancy in the article, I can't defend it.

[SageOfSpice]

2 minutes ago, ucrbuffalo said:

For those mentioning that it was a cyclist and not a pedestrian, a person on a bicycle is still considered a pedestrian. In regards to the discrepancy in the article, I can't defend it.

Only on sidewalks, and in crosswalks. If they're on the road, they're considered a motor vehicle by law, and required to follow the same rules and regulations.

[seon123]

57 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

The video of a cyclist seems to be a past incident, I think this was a actual pedestrian. they wouldn't show a video of someone dying.....

The car has things on top of it, so it's probably from the incident in question. 

[mynameisjuan]

On 3/19/2018 at 2:03 PM, SageOfSpice said:

Only on sidewalks, and in crosswalks. If they're on the road, they're considered a motor vehicle by law, and required to follow the same rules and regulations.

Exactly. Some states you can even get a DUI riding a bicycle intoxicated, hence you are considered a motor vehicle. 

 

On 3/19/2018 at 2:05 PM, seon123 said:

The car has things on top of it, so it's probably from the incident in question. 

The things you are referring to are the cameras and sensors.

 

On 3/19/2018 at 1:34 PM, Taf the Ghost said:

Level 5s should be outright banned. Level 4 is fully liable to the Driver unless otherwise proven it was a software failure.

Even if proven a software failure the programmer should not be liable. Its bullshit that a bug might have emerged causing a catastrophe. The only time a programmer should ever be considered is it it was designed to be misused. Reason being bugs are not the easiest thing to find. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, Kobathor said:

Good thing those were written by one guy who had no idea anything like real self-driving cars would ever be a thing. Those rules are so outdated, I chuckle whenever I read them.

Those rules were written by one guy who, 200 years from now, will still be more relevant to any discussion about technology than anyone in this thread.

[asus killer]

not to derail from the accident, but there is a real problem with reporting the news, i'm sorry but it is unacceptable to me to see a news report of a death and of such importance because it can also destroy the self driving car being treated this way. It is a pedestrian, a cyclist, in the crosswalk, out of the crosswalk,... please have the decency to report just accurate facts. News are not just about click bait or whoever reports the fastest.

 

sorry for that, but i had to say it. 

 

 

[mynameisjuan]

Just now, asus killer said:

not to derail from the accident, but there is a real problem with reporting the news, i'm sorry but it is unacceptable to me to see a news report of a death and of such importance because it can also destroy the self driving car being treated this way. It is a pedestrian, a cyclist, in the crosswalk, out of the crosswalk,... please have the decency to report just accurate facts. News are not just about click bait or whoever reports the fastest.

 

sorry for that, but i had to say it. 

All articles are reporting this clearly not giving a shit about how it happen or even the person killed. They are targeting Uber and Self driving cars, because those two along with "kills pedestrian" get more clicks.  

[Selah]

I don't know of any state in the u.s. that gives pedestrians a greater right of way/road/etc. than a vehicle. If you're in the road it's not up to the driver to prevent YOU from getting hit, roads are for cars.

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, Selah said:

I don't know of any state in the u.s. that gives pedestrians a greater right of way/road/etc. than a vehicle. If you're in the road it's not up to the driver to prevent YOU from getting hit, roads are for cars.

You would be surprised how many people are fighting to "give the road back to the people" in stead of using common fucking sense. Too many people think they always have the right away

[maartendc]

16 minutes ago, Selah said:

... roads are for cars.

 

11 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

You would be surprised how many people are fighting to "give the road back to the people" in stead of using common fucking sense. Too many people think they always have the right away

You'd be surprised if you knew what you were talking about.

 

As an architect and urban planner, I know that roads have only been "for cars" oh, I dont know, the last 80 years. Before that, cars didnt exist. Streets were for a whole lot of other things: pedestrians, horse drawn carriages, selling stuff, buying stuff, unloading stuff, prostitutes, Marching, protesting, lollygagging etc. etc.

 

And the way things are going in most European cities at least, roads will soon again be for anything but cars. More and more European cities are banning cars from city centers because they cause pollution, noise, congestion, hamper people actually being able to move and get stuff done.

 

Ask anyone who's ever lived in a "real" city (New York, Chicago, London, Barcelona, ...) You DONT want to own a car and it is fantastic.

 

But of course, the US is about 20-30 years behind Europe on anything environmental that hurts "big business".

 

This is a really good piece on this topic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/27/opinion/automated-vehicles-cant-save-cities.html

 

You can have your self driving cars on the interstate, where there is nobody to run over.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

24 minutes ago, Selah said:

I don't know of any state in the u.s. that gives pedestrians a greater right of way/road/etc. than a vehicle. If you're in the road it's not up to the driver to prevent YOU from getting hit, roads are for cars.

It seems someone is about to fail his/her driving test or to lose his/her driving license...