Oh Dear Another Dead Road User Killed By Computer

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43459156
When are we going to accept that our current software ability is insufficient for this application? at least Uber has the sense to halt their tests.

[youngmafbog]

But were the systems you worked on life threatening?

Mine certainly were not so failures may have caused annoyance or financial problems so never get into the press and were often "hidden". They still worked but there were times they would branch into something they had never been down on the last 30 odd years and cause an issue.

[bhg481]

ymb -It depends what you mean by "Life Threatening". I worked for the MoD.

[bhg481]

Perhaps I should add that the programs were used by a limited number of people, all with 1st or upper second class honours degrees, who were capable of looking at the results and recognising errors.

[Gromit]

// " - So "autonomous" cars are going to need a fail safe? Right oh! //

Yes. You will still need to have passed a driving test to be in charge of one. Just like a pilot must be qualified when he puts an aeroplane on auto-pilot.

[ToraToraTora]

BHG: "They blame the software, so they correct it, send the bugfix automatically to all cars using it and move on. " - Who pays fro the damage, compensation etc?

"Unlike human drivers, who don't seem to be able to learn; they still use cellphones, drive whilst drunk etc." - Agreed but I'd rather have a drunk than a computer anyday

You say you have worked in IT all your working life TTT. Would you care to expand on that?
Well I won't bore you with a CV but I have worked in everything from military command and control to Bank trade processing. I have written programs in everything from hand assembled machine code to COBOL.

My wife worked with IT for many years, filling in numbers on a spreadsheet.
That's not IT, that's clerical.

I worked in IT for almost 50 years, programming everything from calculators to massively parallel machines. Having you ever been involved with R&D?
then you have either misunderstood or you know that AI does not exist. Yes I have been involved in R&D

If so you will know that even after many years problems crop up with programs as new fields are explored and hitherto impossible situations become possible. Yes but they have yet to emulate human decision making and conciousness.

[Gromit]

// programs do not cover all bases and in addition over time become so complex and bodged it is impossible to make change and guarantee not affecting something else or bringing some dormant code to life? //

We are not talking standard programs on these cards. The software has machine learning which means the software is constantly re-evaluating its self and modifying its own code.

[ToraToraTora]

gromit: "Yes. You will still need to have passed a driving test to be in charge of one" - so what's the kin point?? If I am going to be responsible I'm going to drive it myself!

"The software has machine learning" - ahh gromit me old china, there is no such thing as machine learning. All computers have 0 intellegence.

[bhg481]

Who pays for the damage/compensation etc is not relevant to this discussion, which is about the feasibility of self-driving cars.
I only mentioned my wife's connection with IT to point out that it covers a multitude of aspects and people are apt to exaggerate their connection with it.

[Gromit]

// there is no such thing as machine learning //

There is. And it is currently being used for various tasks...


[ Machine Learning is a form of artificial intelligence which involves algorithms that can learn from data. Such algorithms operate by building a model based on inputs and using that information to make predictions or decisions, rather than following only explicitly programmed instructions. There are lots of basic decisions that can be performed leveraging machine learning, like Nest with its learning thermostats as one example. Machine Learning is widely used in spam detection, credit card fraud detection, and product recommendation systems, such as with Netflix or Amazon. ]

[Zacs-Master]

I talked to a professional photographer about 20 years ago. In answer to me speculating about professional photographers using digital cameras his answer was an unequivocal 'Never!'. About five years later they were mainstream, more advanced than film cameras and far easier to use.

[ToraToraTora]

Gromit: Just executing instructions,storing data, then utilising that data, nothing new, no learning, no intelligence.
ZM: perlease digital photography is hardly comparable, have you started your own thread on thinking yet?

[bhg481]

Latest from the Daily Mail (some irrelevant bits removed):

Vasquez (the driver) told police that Herzberg stepped out in front of her with a bicycle carrying multiple shopping bags and that she had no time to brake before it hit her.

She was traveling at 40 mph at the time, well within the 45 mph speed limit and insisted that she was alert but that nothing could have been done to stop the crash.

Her story was supported by footage from cameras fitted at the front and back of the Volvo SUV that Vasquez was in control of.

His (they initially thought the driver was a man) first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision,' Sylvia Moir, Tempe Police Chief, told The San Francisco Chronicle on Monday.

'It's very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,' Herzberg said.

[ToraToraTora]

but we are always being told that the software is far superior to humans.

[bhg481]

There's nothing there says it's not. In any case, we're told the software WILL be superior to humans - it's still being developed.

[ToraToraTora]

.....but in the meantime we'll test it on the public, right oh!

[fiction-factory]

>.....but in the meantime we'll test it on the public, right oh!

Yes and no. To be meaningful these trials have to be carried out on roads. But there are drivers with the cars at this stage. So i can't see any increased risk to the public- in fact they may even be safer but we need more trials and more data to be sure

[ToraToraTora]

"So i can't see any increased risk to the public-" - err apart from getting squashed!

[fiction-factory]

I'd be interested to see the evidence that it is an increased risk.
The US UBER case you mentioned seems to have been something that would have been unavoidable whatever car was driving/being driven. And this one did have a driver as a back up.

[jno]

The victim would have been squashed by a human-driven car if she hadn’t looked where she was going, so that’s not an increased risk. What the world needs is computer-driven pedestrians.

[Hymie]

For someone who claims to work in IT/AI, you appear woefully unaware of developments in this field.

The attached linked article concerns a Go program that was only given the rules of the game – eventually becoming good enough to beat the human Go world champion.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/18/16495548/deepmind-ai-go-alphago-zero-self-taught

Although computers can achieve this impressive feat where all the possible variables are known (e.g. possible moves in a game); once such algorithms can be applied in the real world, humans will be history.