Model 3 vs. Glowforge

Interestingly enough this is one of the few places I’ve found you can have real rational discussions even amongst folks you’d think would be more emotion based (artists - yes I know, gross generalization :slight_smile: ). The trouble is we don’t represent society as a whole. We’ve self-selected for a huge variety of reasons and I don’t think there’s a politician or a personal injury lawyer in the group :smile:

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Assuming that they were all accidentally left in the car. While most of the parents who have done this claim that it was accidental, I would assume that quite a high percentage made a conscious decision to leave their child in the car.

There was a mother on the news last week who’s two children died in their car. After the investigation it turned out she left them in the car as punishment while she went in to get high, after which she fell asleep. :cry: :angry: :rage:

And going in with your mom to watch her get high is not punishment?

It is stories like this that make me think that people should have to get licenses prior to having children.

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I wouldn’t doubt that, sadly.

Warning a little language

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When I read Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill from MIT, it sobered me up about self-driving cars as a panacea.

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I must say…that is a bit of an eye opener. :no_mouth:

Thanks for posting that; it was an interesting read.

Without seemingly like a terrible person, prioritizing the safety of the passengers seems like the only way self-driving cars would work, and presumably how car manufacturers would go. We buy cars now based on the safety rating for the passengers. We don’t really consider the safety rating for other cars or people. I wouldn’t even consider buying a car that didn’t have my safety as it’s top priority. Which might be the weirdest sentence I’ve ever typed. Plus, even if the car is programmed to prioritize the passengers over 1 or 10 or 100 other people, it would still be safer than your average current car and driver. And the total loss of life would still be much lower overall.

That said, what situation is the car getting itself in where there’s a stampede of pedestrians in the road and not enough time to stop? Maybe we need to put pedestrians on self-driving boosted boards. Or foot overbridges.

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Pedestrians regularly step off curbs right into oncoming traffic while not paying attention.

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We just haven’t had the evolution time to adapt. We have enough conscious presence to autonomically step off a curb without collapsing, but are unaware of multi-ton missiles whizzing by.

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To this point the burden has more or less been placed on drivers, where pedestrians are always given the right of way. What will eventually happen is pedestrians will be forced to accept that if they step into traffic illegally they will likely be sacrificing their lives. Or like @PrintToLaser mentioned, the hurling missles going by are going to have to be central to our awareness. This might be easier when our perception is that all those vehicles are no longer under the control of humans, but a "uncaring, programmed AI that will chose the lives of it’s passengers over the lives of those who make themselves obstacles in the road.

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There is also a strong case to be made that the correct choice is to not make a choice.

  1. Sense impending collision with something in your travel lane
  2. If there is a clear escape path that does not involve damaging others, take it.
  3. Otherwise stay in lane and apply emergency braking.

There does not need to be a value decision made. Moreover, how do you actually gather the inputs to such an ethical question in the milliseconds before such a crash? How do you know that the big vehicle you may drive into to save the child pedestrians isn’t actually carrying explosives which will kill everyone in the area? Or it’s a bus carrying children and by swerving into it you paralyze one kid who would have been perfectly safe to save one other kid who wasn’t paying attention to the road s/he ran into?

Choosing only to opt for safety or to minimize the speed of impact may be the most defensible strategy. It’s also markedly simpler to model for realtime systems.

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I worked with someone from South Africa. As he describes it, pedestrians do not have the right of way there.

He describes crossing a busy, multi lane road by making eye contact with the drivers. They recognize that you are aware of the situation and not to react as you dodge across one lane of traffic when you have time. You stand between the lanes while the drivers keep on their merry way, and whole groups of pedestrians will make their way across without the cars ever needing to stop or slow down.

He couldn’t wrap his mind around how lame we American pedestrians are :rofl:

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One thought I’ve been having on this is that Self-Driving cars are going to have cameras. Lots of cameras and sensors and be bringing in all sorts of input just to navigate around properly. In the incident of a crash or even a breakdown, the “black box” could be pulled or information downloaded (probably only need about 10 minutes worth of all the camera angles, and other inputs) in order to almost recreate the incident. You would be able to see the “alerts” the computer had to weigh as to what procedure to follow to either avoid or minimize the damage in a crash situation.

The car would be it’s own greatest witness or accuser.

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It is a dilemma. You make some excellent points. While there are those who are not being managed by the same software logic (walkers, non-automated vehicles, rock slides…), it’s hard to imagine how this will work. If there isn’t one set of logic across ALL automated vehicles and connectivity between them (I’m going this way, you go that way), then there could be contrary avoidance strategies. Ultimately, all software is written by flawed humans with their own biases and fallibilities. There’s no such thing as software without bugs. Imagine all the software updates and potential for hacking… I guess I prefer auto-assist rather than a full automation takeover. Watched too many Terminator movies I guess. Back to the beauty of Glowforge! I would love to have accident avoidance for Glowforge where the cameras could detect excessive flame and initiate fire suppression. :wink:

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Your car may actually be programmed to prioritize the object in the road. :-/

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ATrue, but could you imagine how that could be used and abused? In the end I think @johnse probably hit on where it will end up. The only real “decision” will be, “is there a viable escape rout, or maximum breaking to minimize impact as much as possible?” Anything beyond this will be fraught with all kinds of massive conflict.

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There is a surprising amount of effort on the part of the traffic engineer to make pedestrians aware of their own safety. I’ve seen pedestrians step into traffic, using a crosswalk, but not pushing the button for the giant rapid flashing beacon right above their head. In some areas we put bins of flags on either side of the road for pedestrians to use when they cross. I saw a guy just this morning cross through oncoming traffic and he was maybe 10-15’ away from a crosswalk and could have waited all of 30 seconds for a “safe” crossing.

Getting the pedestrians to use the safety measures is hard enough, but the worst of it is getting them to realize that just because you pushed the button and the light is flashing, or you are waving that flag, or you use the crosswalk when the little man shows you can walk, you still aren’t safe. These are all devices which increase the driver’s awareness of pedestrians in the road. But you, as a pedestrian, still need to be sure that the driver sees you. I get some strange looks when I make eye contact with a driver, as if they are saying “of course I’m going to stop”, but I don’t know them, and by my judgement they weren’t slowing quickly enough, or they weren’t paying very much attention as they rolled up to the crossing. I’d rather hang back a few seconds to be sure that they see me, rather than have a broken leg or be dead.

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Actually, where I live in Texas (my part of it anyway), making eye contact with the driver to check for recognition is sort of the norm, especially smaller side streets and parking lots. A lot of times we will even wave to each other to make sure the other noticed. We have colorful names for the people who just start walking like they own the place. Of course I’m probably extra sensitive, I had a brother killed as a pedestrian when he was struck by a car, and I’ve done far too many “unnecessary” funerals.

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