Will autonomous cars learn from airlines?

"TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief" (trusttheengineer) 07/03/2016 at 13:03 • Filed to: None

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If you’re thinking about the Tesla crash and autonomous driving, Alex Roy wrote an excellent article (per usual) about his thoughts on the future of autonomous driving and retaining an ability for the systems to revert to human control in anomalous situations. I highly suggest reading it if you have the time or even if you don’t have the time, along with the article on Air France flight 447 that he links to. That one is written by William Langewiesche, whom I hold to be the most excellent and entertaining aviation journalist, when he has written on the subject.

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ttyymmnn > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/03/2016 at 13:17

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Thanks for the links. I think AF 447 should stand as a hallmark of the results of overthinking a process. I’ll get back to you after reading.

facw > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/03/2016 at 13:18

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I imagine that for non-controlled self-driving cars, companies like Google envision having them be remotely drivable from some location (if we can remotely fly military drones from half a world away, it stands to reason we can do the same with cars), in cases where the car’s programming can’t handle a situation. That won’t help with emergency situations, but one would hope those would be rare enough that you could get away just an “emergency stop” button or something. As the Tesla crash demonstrates, people aren’t going to be paying attention to the road in these circumstances, so having a wheel as a “backup” seems likely to be an exercise in victim blaming as much as anything.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/03/2016 at 13:31

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I don’t think it’s the same at all, my dad was a pilot in the military and he says flying is easy because you have so much more space, you have obstacles to avoid but they are either a mountain, things lower down or other aircraft, who can also change altitude. A car is stuck on one level plane and subject to grip and lanes. In this case the extra dimension makes a huge difference, a car is restricted and therefore forced to deal with more situations.

TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) 07/03/2016 at 13:37

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I don’t want to present it as a perfect analogy (far from it), but I think the conditions in which autopilot on a plane will disengage and return control to the pilots should be somewhat reflected in autonomous cars, along with the expectation of the pilots to pay attention even when autopilot is engaged being reflected in drivers of autonomous cars. I definitely haven’t considered the effect of that extra dimension though! Also, thank you very much to your dad for his service!

My speed3 is happy > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/03/2016 at 15:46

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Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of autonomous cars if you have to be constantly on alert to take over the wheel? It is like having a factory where you have one worker standing behind each robot in case the robot malfunctions. Why did you even get the robot?

TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief > My speed3 is happy 07/03/2016 at 19:29

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Autonomous cars can still eliminate many human-caused accidents; that would be the main focus. It shouldn’t just be an excuse to be able to sleep in a car or totally remove oneself completely from driving. To me the purpose is solely to increase transportation safety, not to give me extra time to look at facebook while driving.

My speed3 is happy > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/03/2016 at 21:19

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I disagree, to me the most appealing part of autonomous cars is the ability to completely remove myself driving. Same as I can do in a train or plane but without a human watching over the computer (which is why it is revolutionary).

Like last week I would have loved to just step into my car at 10pm. And wake up 10 hours later in Palo Alto for my meeting. No airport terminals, no TSA, no taxis. It sounds like science fiction but a description of how a cellphone works 50 years ago would’ve sounded the same.