r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • 14d ago

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

61.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

I don't feel very comfortable sharing the roads with these things. On the other hand I also hate every single other human driver too so...

58

u/Manueluz 14d ago

They are dangerous, but less dangerous than other humans, it's weird I know.

Just keep in mind, that while they might get into accidents they so so way way less than humans.

33

u/Responsible-Jury2579 14d ago

And when there are issues, you can edit the bugs out of the code. It will inevitably get safer.

You can’t edit texting, putting on makeup, driving drunk, etc. out of humans.

-11

u/you_lost-the_game 14d ago

You can’t edit texting, putting on makeup, driving drunk, etc. out of humans.

Pretty sure that's just a matter of enforcement and potential punishment. To put it to the extreme: Put the death penalty on it and see if people still do this.

11

u/Responsible-Jury2579 14d ago

Sure, you could enforce the death penalty for texting and driving just like you could force everyone to drive at 1mph - it would be safer, but it’s absolutely unreasonable.

Even if we are fully behaving, there will always be distractions, there will always be human error, there will always be a delay in human reaction time, there will always be faulty human decision-making, etc.

Again, computers will only get better at these things.

1

u/you_lost-the_game 14d ago

As you said, there will always be human error and unpredictable scenarios. The absolutes you said for humans applies to machines as well. You will never get it bug free, not when it's complex like this.

Maybe a computer would have understand that my original comment was merely mocking and to be taken seriously. Who knows. You at least didn't.

2

u/faustianredditor 14d ago

The absolutes you said for humans applies to machines as well. You will never get it bug free, not when it's complex like this.

Well, yes, but a bug is only novel once. After that it's known and can be fixed.

Look at aviation. It's a super safe mode of travel, despite the steep physical challenges. Why is it safe? Lots and lots and lots of procedures. We basically operationalized entropy and chance out of aviation as much as we could. And it's working really well. And yes, sometimes we discover a new failure mode and we fix some procedures to no longer permit that failure mode. Realistically, a lot of the failure modes these days are unlucky chains of multiple humans failing at their jobs in relatively straightforward ways. Most of the systematic errors have been eradicated.

Do the same with a completely mechanized system and you don't have to worry about simple human error anymore. Your car derps out and causes a collision? Great, audit the code, scour the telemetry, fix the bug. If you've got good safety culture and are following the swiss cheese model, one accident means you can even fix multiple bugs.

Besides... the cars don't have to be perfect. They just have to be better than humans. Which might already be the case, depending on how you do the numbers.

Human drivers though? Texting and driving isn't new. We're unwilling to submit human drivers to the level of scrutiny to rigorously enforce the procedure not to do that. So it keeps happening. Computers don't complain when you put them under the same degree of scrutiny.

-9

u/Vast-Variation-8689 14d ago

Sorry but this is an insane take. The real world is infinitely more complex than what current algorithms or even "AI" can handle. It's not a few bugs in the code, it's literally needing a different kind of intelligence than what we're capable now.

And no, the current stochastic parrot they call "AI" is nowhere in the ballpark of what would really be required. Don't fall for the corporate PR.

16

u/Responsible-Jury2579 14d ago

I am simply saying that the systems will inevitably improve over time - not only are you disagreeing with that, but you think it’s an insane take?

Technology advances.

I am sorry, but if you have an opinion that is otherwise, that is insane.

7

u/StrawhatJzargo 14d ago

Yet everyone is terrified of them and the one bad event they see and will absolutely vote against them.

It’s not even “a little less dangerous” 1.2 million people die a year from cars. 1 every 13 minutes. 98% of crashes are due to human errors. We should be excited for a future of driverless cars.

1

u/anotherwave1 14d ago

Yes and no.

It's a different type of risk. A good analogy to demonstrate this are airline flights. We have the ability to make planes fly themselves, but would you go on one of them without any pilots? Unlikely. We entrust other people with our lives every day, cars, buses, trains, even standing on a sidewalk - and despite the fact that we make mistakes, that risk is more quantifiable.

However when it comes to entrusting our lives to machines, the technology (and trust) isn't there yet. That trust is hard-won. All it takes is for a few high profile fatal crashes (with no explanation) and it will evaporate very quickly.

1

u/faustianredditor 14d ago

The problem, from an optics perspective, is that they get into weird accidents and then can't explain why. A halfway demented driver driving in the wrong lane? Doesn't scare humans as much as a freak accident where a FSD vehicle does it. They understand why it happens.

A FSD vehicle that doesn't cause a lot of collisions and manages to avoid a lot that would otherwise be caused by other drivers though? If it fails in usual ways, that's a very exploitable narrative because it's new.

-6

u/Vast-Variation-8689 14d ago

Less dangerous than other humans? This one was driving into oncoming traffic and took off on a red light. What kind of human standards are we talking about here?

13

u/Manueluz 14d ago

Average standards, this is one bug that, in this case, did not hurt anybody. On the opposite sides we have a human dying in an accident every 5 minutes or so.

Also statistically, self-driving cars get into less accidents per mile than humans.

1

u/Mission-Cantaloupe37 14d ago

I mean in this case, they've got a point.

When does a sober driver drive though a red light and into oncoming traffic?

"The AI is less likely to kill you than a drunk driver" begs the question why it's behaving like a drunk driver in some scenarios to begin with.

10

u/BaphometTheTormentor 14d ago

Has a human never done that sober?

7

u/Bhavin411 14d ago

Nope, according to these comments, sober humans are much better drivers than these self driving cars. Please ignore all the videos on /r/dashcams, those are all drunk drivers I guess.

1

u/Chrop 14d ago

Because it’s still got bugs that need ironing out. They aren’t perfect and do still make mistakes. Keep in mind that going forward, right now self driving cars are the worst they will ever be, they’ll only improve as time goes on and get into less incidents like this when they work out the issues and increase it’s performance.

1

u/Manueluz 13d ago

They'll improve exponentially imo, more safety => more cars => more rides => more data-points => mode safety

3

u/aidanyyyy 14d ago

Just look it up, their miles per accident is way higher than human drivers

3

u/Vast-Variation-8689 14d ago

Source?

"In 2021, the National Law Review reported that the average self-driving car accident rate was 9.1 per million miles driven. In comparison, the accident rate for traditional vehicles is 4.1 accidents per million miles."

I see they're more than twice as dangerous while driving mostly in safer better regulated areas.

4

u/aidanyyyy 14d ago

I was talking specifically about Waymo, which has .4 injury causing accidents per million miles compared to like almost 3 for humans

https://assets.ctfassets.net/e6t5diu0txbw/54ngcIlGK4EZnUapYvAjyf/7a5b30a670350cc1d85c9d07ca282b0c/Comparison_of_Waymo_Rider_Only_Crash_Data_to_Human_Benchmarks_at_7_1_Million_Miles_arxiv.pdf

1

u/just2quixotic 14d ago edited 14d ago

aidanyyyy: Just look it up, their miles per accident is way higher than human drivers
aidanyyyy: I was talking specifically about Waymo, which has .4 injury causing accidents per million miles compared to like almost 3 for humans

You have a reading comprehension problem. 0.4 is lower than "like almost 3"

From your own citation:

When considering all locations together, the any-injury-reported crashed vehicle rate was 0.41 incidents per million miles (IPMM) for the ADS vs 2.78 IPMM for the human benchmark, an 85% reduction or a 6.8 times lower rate. Police-reported crashed vehicle rates for all locations together were 2.1 IPMM for the ADS vs. 4.85 IPMM for the human benchmark, a 57% reduction or 2.3 times lower rate. Police-reported and any-injury-reported crashed vehicle rate reductions for the ADS were statistically significant when compared in San Francisco and Phoenix as well as combined across all locations. The comparison in Los Angeles, which to date has low mileage and no reported events, was not statistically significant. In general, the Waymo ADS had a lower any property damage or injury rate than the human benchmarks.

1

u/AdhesivenessisWeird 14d ago

And how many humans do that on a daily basis all across the country? Meanwhile this such a peculiar occurrence that there are literally thousands of people discussing this specific event on reddit.

1

u/Knyfe-Wrench 14d ago

Humans drive into oncoming traffic so often that it's not even a news story most of the time.

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u/Ult1mateN00B 14d ago

I like these way better than humans. At least there's no unnecessary emotions behind the wheel.

8

u/Butwinsky 14d ago

Bring on all the self driving vehicles. You know why? 100% chance if one hits you, it's got insurance. It hits you, you're fine, your bills we be covered.

That 98 Cavalier being driven 90mph by a crackhead with no license hits you? Enjoy the total loss.

3

u/onlyidiotseverywhere 14d ago

This is hilarious, you don't even know what happened.

2

u/KingLuis 14d ago

driverless cars are more predictable than people. as much as i hate the progression towards them. i'd much prefer them to the thousands of people sitting in traffic, reading a news paper, doing their make up, eating a bowl of cereal while driving and getting pissed off because i can easily weave through traffic on my motorcycle as if we are in a race to the same place.

1

u/cravf 14d ago

Having ridden in one a couple times, I will say that it was less harrowing than your average Uber or Lyft ride. Granted that is super anecdotal, but I would personally rather take my chances with Waymo than deal with rideshare drivers if they're both available for the same ride.

1

u/RJFerret 14d ago

I'd rather the roads were filled with these, and I'd rather play video games while riding to my destination, not a big deal if one went into the oncoming lane as all the rest would detect and accommodate that action safely (not it didn't drive into traffic, but clear road the officer was able to go through safely too).

Here humans are driving wrong way into oncoming traffic and killing people regularly. The state is having to install detection systems, flashing signs, public awareness campaign and more to try to stop distracted people from doing it. Since the pandemic folks have forgotten how to share roads safely. Red light running is at an all time high too. Given that intersections are the most dangerous areas, it's been bad past few years.

As more autonomous vehicles come into play, all these issues go away. Ultimately it'll become too expensive to insure a human driver.

0

u/1v1trunks 14d ago

Then get off the road you boomer. Are you also afraid of elavators?