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https://www.seattletimes.com/business/some-self-driving-car-advocates-want-to-reprogram-pedestrians/
For some time now, there has been all sorts of interesting debates, okay, they are not that interesting. They are, however, risible. And I do love the laughter! Since I can’t mock the people I know and love and still feel good about myself, I instead point out the hilarity of people who I don’t (yet) know and love.
Andrew Ng has a startup that does AI for self-driving cars. Self-driving car advocates have long promised that self-driving cars will be much safer than human-driven cars, without further modifications made to the world. This is an important distinction, because the _last_ time we promised people a massive tech upgrade of Traffic, it involved beacons, and a sort of client-server model of freeways and DID DEFINITELY require a lot of modifications made to the world. Ng doesn’t want to go _there_, precisely, but he would like pedestrians to be better behaved.
Good news! The author of the piece referred to Peter Norton’s book about the early years of cars in cities and the resulting jaywalking laws. I have something new to read! Edited by Wiebe Bijker (I have a lot of affection for him as an author). Yay!
Bad news: Ng seems to not fully understand how the law in the United States with respect to school buses works.
“Ng also notes that people have learned that school buses are likely to make frequent stops and that when they do, small children may dart across the road in front of the bus, and so they drive more cautiously.”
No, Ng! This is not how this worked! Actually, there was quite a process. Some people were pretty decent about school buses. Then school buses put all kinds of notices saying, hey you yes you bad driver stop, don’t get close and do not drive around this vehicle when its lights are flashing. Even this did not stop bad drivers! No! We had to pass a bunch of state laws saying, okay, bad driver, we will fucking put your ass in jail to think about your bad driving judgment if you are foolish enough to drive around this vehicle when its lights are on.
Given that actual human being in cars display this level of terrible judgment and require this level of incentive to behave with basic human decency, thinking that ratcheting down any harder on pedestrians is not likely to work, Mr. Ng. No. In fact, Mr. Ng, and anyone else thinking they are going to get their driverless errand runners out there taking up space that the rest of us were already fighting over, know this: we will probably ban _cars_ _period_ before we allow further erosion of protection for pedestrians. I know, I know. You’ll get Arizona or someone to play along for a while. I know Arizona’s legislative history. But the tide is ebbing for cars in general, and, in general, most of the pedestrians who are acting in really erratic ways are not people who can be reached consistently and effectively with Logic or Rational Arguments (they are either children or have already lost their right to drive a car). The pedestrians who can act in a way consistent with badly behaved drivers and driverless cars are already doing so.
Clearly, this is going to get weirder before the autonomous car train takes another break.
ETA:
NYT coverage of Uber’s slow stepping back from We Must Have Autonomy And Control It Soup to Nuts
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/technology/uber-self-driving-cars.html
For some time now, there has been all sorts of interesting debates, okay, they are not that interesting. They are, however, risible. And I do love the laughter! Since I can’t mock the people I know and love and still feel good about myself, I instead point out the hilarity of people who I don’t (yet) know and love.
Andrew Ng has a startup that does AI for self-driving cars. Self-driving car advocates have long promised that self-driving cars will be much safer than human-driven cars, without further modifications made to the world. This is an important distinction, because the _last_ time we promised people a massive tech upgrade of Traffic, it involved beacons, and a sort of client-server model of freeways and DID DEFINITELY require a lot of modifications made to the world. Ng doesn’t want to go _there_, precisely, but he would like pedestrians to be better behaved.
Good news! The author of the piece referred to Peter Norton’s book about the early years of cars in cities and the resulting jaywalking laws. I have something new to read! Edited by Wiebe Bijker (I have a lot of affection for him as an author). Yay!
Bad news: Ng seems to not fully understand how the law in the United States with respect to school buses works.
“Ng also notes that people have learned that school buses are likely to make frequent stops and that when they do, small children may dart across the road in front of the bus, and so they drive more cautiously.”
No, Ng! This is not how this worked! Actually, there was quite a process. Some people were pretty decent about school buses. Then school buses put all kinds of notices saying, hey you yes you bad driver stop, don’t get close and do not drive around this vehicle when its lights are flashing. Even this did not stop bad drivers! No! We had to pass a bunch of state laws saying, okay, bad driver, we will fucking put your ass in jail to think about your bad driving judgment if you are foolish enough to drive around this vehicle when its lights are on.
Given that actual human being in cars display this level of terrible judgment and require this level of incentive to behave with basic human decency, thinking that ratcheting down any harder on pedestrians is not likely to work, Mr. Ng. No. In fact, Mr. Ng, and anyone else thinking they are going to get their driverless errand runners out there taking up space that the rest of us were already fighting over, know this: we will probably ban _cars_ _period_ before we allow further erosion of protection for pedestrians. I know, I know. You’ll get Arizona or someone to play along for a while. I know Arizona’s legislative history. But the tide is ebbing for cars in general, and, in general, most of the pedestrians who are acting in really erratic ways are not people who can be reached consistently and effectively with Logic or Rational Arguments (they are either children or have already lost their right to drive a car). The pedestrians who can act in a way consistent with badly behaved drivers and driverless cars are already doing so.
Clearly, this is going to get weirder before the autonomous car train takes another break.
ETA:
NYT coverage of Uber’s slow stepping back from We Must Have Autonomy And Control It Soup to Nuts
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/technology/uber-self-driving-cars.html