When an Algorithm Takes the Wheel 676
Wired has an interesting look at Jaguar's new automated driving dynamics system in their new XK convertible. From the article: "During an extreme test of the XK's handling capabilities, the car only fishtailed back and forth once after I jerked the steering wheel on a wet road around a 90 degree turn while driving at about 60 mph. The car's back wheels swung first left then right before the XK's sensors registered a difference in torque between the rear tires and, transparent to me, righted the fishtailing effect by a combination of de-acceleration, tire rotation and vehicle weight distribution control. More often than not, the sensation of flatness, as if there were a vertical force pinning the car to the road, was also felt then and when taking less extreme curves at high speeds."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drink (Score:3, Insightful)
For front-end collisions, a fiber optic connection from left to right registers impacts. The sensors' algorithms then program the hood and front end to react differently according to what is hit.
For pedestrians, a mesh-like material is activated in less than 50 milliseconds beneath the hood, which serve to cushion the blow upon impact.
These well-nigh amazing safety features leave me asking the same question that I ask myself when I hear GM's OnStar commercials, touting features like calling emergency services on airbag deployment [gm.com].
How many lives does a feature have to save before it should be required equipment?
Early automobiles were deathtraps, until a fellow by the name of Ralph brought the issue to national prominence in 1965 with Unsafe at Any Speed [wikipedia.org] , a book to which many of us owe our very existence. Since then, we have assumed a right to a safe vehicle. No car company would be allowed to sell a $3000 rattletrap with no seat belts and no air bags and an engine in the passenger seat, even if they required purchasers to sign a safety waiver. I think this can be counted as "progress", though the more Libertarian folks out there might disagree.
But assuming that Da Gooberment has an obligation to obligate safer vehicles, where do you set the bar? If a "mesh-like material" is the difference between injury and Pedestrian Souffle', why not require such a system on all vehicles? Or do I have to cross my fingers and only step out in front of cars built by Jaguar?
How is this different from... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like you're a great driver who knows how to control a car in a skid, so this probably doesn't concern you, but I'm quite sure the thousands of people injured by an encounter with a retard playing Michael Shumaker behind the wheel every year would have loved the car to forcibly keep the driver in check.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
When the costs of the increase in safety make it too expensive for the poor to afford even the cheapest "safe" car.
Jaguar (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, I've known at least 3 people who bought them (against my advice) who all unloaded their problem-prone cars within a year to some other poor soul. (Just for the sake of not picking strictly on Jaguar, BMWs suck quite a bit sometimes too. I have a friend that I pick up from the BMW dealer's service dept at least once every 2 months or so).
Before any Jaguar fanbois flame on, there's certainly a reason why the resale value of a Jaguar plummets to 21% of its original retail price after only 5 years of ownership.
All engineering is a matter of trade-offs (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2, Insightful)
What most capital-L Libertarians fail to realize is that you can't "vote with your dollar" if you're dead.
Hate to say it... (Score:2, Insightful)
...but no matter how cool it is, it is still a Ford.
There is a low-tech alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
You could also just slow down.
I'm kind of sick of seeing commercials with cars driving 60mph through 2 feet of snow as if it were a hot summer day.
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
That's logic turned on its head. So you hit a deer with your ABS-equipped car: does it occur to you that, perhaps, without ABS, you'd have hit the deer a lot faster?
Re:Intrusive...costly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I know for some people, its not an issue. But I can't stand gizmos that break and cost $1k + to repair. Why don't we just mandate better driver education. (Like weekend car control bootcamps or something!!! Like the motorcycle safety courses.)
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
Examples include: Proper adjustment of the seat and headrests for best control and protection; proper wearing of the seatbelt; proper use of child-safety seats; keeping signal lights in proper function and using the turning signals; Taking new drivers on a real high-speed driving course where they actually do accident avoidance maneuvers; teaching new drivers how to recognize treacherous road conditions; more emphasis on cooperative driving instead of purely "defensive driving" (which quickly turns into a passive-aggressive "I can be in the left lane because I'm doing the speed limit" game).
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, what most Libertarians realize is that you cannot govern based on emotions, and that everything has a value.
For example, the latest just-approved medical treatment is usually very expensive (it may have cost $1bn to develop), while the treatments we had 10 years ago are cheaper, but not as effective. Should every medical plan have to cover the expensive option?
For a more stark example, six healthy British men nearly died [cnn.com] while participating in a safety test for a new drug. Do you think it ok for drug companies (and indirectly, us consumers) to pay for people to risk their lives for this? Or is it wrong to ascribe a value to this?
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is an honest question: Do you know how ABS/traction control works? It isn't just: the breaks don't come on. What they do is give just enough brake so that traction is still held and the car doesn't slide. The point being it will slow you down in the absolute fastest way. In your wet grass example, if you really wanted to lock up the wheels,then you'd slide into something at 5mph. It doesn't make a difference whether I slide or roll into something at 5mph.
For your steering example, the system will let you steer the car while sliding, and keep braking throughout the wheels, so that they are all rolling evenly. I don't see how that would cause the car to rotate.
I could be wrong, but I just have never seen what your described in your post.
Robot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:astroturfing (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot didn't, but I'm sure Wired did.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It will never happen, end it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is a low-tech alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
"The clever bit is how you integrate, balance and harmonize separate systems that allow you to drive the car in a spirited way, but don't feel in any way in danger, overpowered and intimidated," said Martyn Hollingsworth, Jaguar's director of engineering. "This is real important when you are in a car approaching up to 400 horses." (emphasis mine)
I'm sorry, but I think that when you're dealing with a machine that powerful, you ought to respect the thing. To quote Gumball Rally [imdb.com]:
Re:It will never happen, end it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I will, slightly, agree with your contention that computer and human controlled vehicles will not co-exist on the same structure. However, there are already numerous examples of seperated roadways that carry automated vehicles. Las Vegas has just installed an automated busway where the buses have drivers, but in reality, the bus does 99% of the driving with the driver just there "in case" (really just there so the people on board don't freak out over no human driver). You also see more and more HOV lanes going in all over the country. It wouldn't take much to turn the HOV lanes into high-speed automated vehicle lanes.
All of the other points in your article are merely technological difficulties, and not particularly difficult ones to solve. Solving cost effectively right now is the issue, but as technology is improved in testing and the incremental cost comes down it is almost inevitable.
In addition, are you serious that you believe a human being in a car at night is more likely to notice a deer at the side of the road at highway speeds than a computerized hazard identification system? Let alone said human being able to take an appropriate action in sufficient time. Humans work on the order of seconds, while a decent control system will work on the order of milliseconds. This would make a huge difference in a lot of cases.
Add to this the fact that the vast majority of drivers would really prefer to be able to get into their car in the garage, tell it to take them to work, then sit and read the paper, talk on the phone, apply makeup, etc. and have the vehicle deliver them to the front door of their office in a fast, safe manner... then go park itself to wait until they needed it again. The representative audience of
Your contention that "something will go wrong, it will cost significant human life, it will be abandoned" is laughable. The system we have today kills over 45,000 americans per year. To me that's pretty significant loss of life, and not only do I not see people trying to abandon the system, I see idiots all over (in this discussion thread even) defending it in the name of "I should be free to drive like an asshat if I want to."
Re:Intrusive. (Score:4, Insightful)
- being able to do other things while getting there (sleep, read, have sex)
- can sing with the radio without getting killed
- eat breakfast
without all the irritating things like:
- having to travel on someone else's schedule
- sitting next to smelly/loud/irritating people
- sitting on seats stained with who-knows-what
- having to take 3 times as long to get where I'm going
- standing half the time, next to smelly people, because there aren't enough seats
- other people having sex (sometimes by themselves)
Sure, I'd still like to get out and drive the way I want from time to time, but for my daily commute, let my car take me there. And 90% of my driving is to-and-from work.
Re:It will never happen, end it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
So you believe you're a better driver than the computer. But are you willing to bet the lives of your passengers, or the lives of other people on the road, that you're a better driver than the computer? More importantly, if I'm driving behind or beside your car in bad weather, am I willing to bet you're a better driver than a computer? I think not.
Let's look at the statistics. In 2004, a total of 42,636 people died, and 2.8 million were injured on U.S. highways. In other words, more U.S. citizens were killed and maimed on U.S. roads every three weeks than have been killed and maimed in the Iraq war after more than three years. Yet society shrugs its shoulders at this level of highway carnage.
I'll bet that many of the drivers who instigated the accidents that led to those 42,636 deaths and 2.8 million injuries in 2004 had the same thoughts: "I want to be in control of my car." "I'm a better driver than a computer." But clearly they weren't, and in many cases innocent people were hurt or killed because of that hubris.
Finally technology is reaching the point that we can build an automobile with safety features that can help compensate for bad driving habits and bad driving conditions, and yet some people argue that they should be able to turn those safety features off. That's argument makes about as much sense as the old rationalization about not using seat belts: "My chances of survival are better if I'm thrown clear of the car, instead of being strapped in." I've heard people actually say that; of course, I'm sure none of them ever worked as a paramedic at a highway accident scene, either. It's an emotional argument, not a logical one.
Sorry, but if you're going to be sharing a public road with other automobiles, then as your fellow driver I vote that you keep those safety features turned on. Furthermore, the statistics prove that if your car does have those safety features, you're foolish not to keep them turned on 100% of the time, even if they may cause more harm than good in some rare set of circumstances - because it's impossible for you to know in advance what those circumstances will be if you're involved in an accident.
Re:Fishtailing saved me once (It was luck !) (Score:2, Insightful)
If you knew her lights were not working why would you be close enough to lessen your chance of stopping if she jams on the breaks for the Pink Elephant in the road. (they ARE there).
Drive a Lil' more carefully
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fine with me. I hate driving. It sucks. A great car on a great road can be fun, sure, but I never get to do that. I just bump over potholes while staring at the rear bumper of the car in front of me, doing the same twitch reflex actions over and over.
I'd rather use that time for something else.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the technology. Are you as an individual driver able to independently control the acceleration or braking force to each wheel?
Re:Robot (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah yes, the "control freak" response, also used by the "robots are taking over our jobs" people.
Let's think this through. If you want to tune the station on your radio, would you rather 1) turn a dial or 2) tune the PLL by hand because, after all, there's a "robot" that doesn't allow you to tune in non-standard frequencies and it is making decisions for you how best to tune to stations that may not be exactly on frequency.
Silly example, sure. Moving along - is it possible for any pilot today to control a modern jet fighter craft? No - a complex computer system takes the pilot direction, and uses it to change the control surfaces. If the computer goes - pfft! - so does te rest of the plane.
Maybe a little too far fetched? Ok, then we'll bring it back a little bit. Instead of ABS, you'll get four displays on your dashboard telling you the exact rotational speed of each wheel. You'll also get four brake pads. Now you have ultimate control, and don't need to let the silly ABS robot decide whether one wheel is slipping enough to brake a little bit.
Modern technology allows for some stunning new abilities and features. These are meant to enable the user to do more than with older technology. It would not be possible to manually control all the features of this vehicle, and it does enable the driver to do more than they would normally be able to do (ie, go around a 90 degree small radius turn at 60mph without losing control).
Don't anyone mistake this for anything other than what it is: extending the ability of a human being without special training.
After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp" - Robert Browning.
-Adam
I get a different impression from the article. (Score:4, Insightful)
From the sounds of the review, it seems that this kicks in only when the car is pushed beyond certain limits, and that it performs certain actions faster than a human driver might be able to because the sensors and feedback mechanism are inherently faster through the computer than they are through the human behind the wheel. Humans can outperform the computer only when they correctly anticipate all of the road conditions.
Correctly applied, this can allow the human to push the car further than would otherwise be safe because you have fine grain closed-loop compensation that is superior to pure open-loop anticipation. The driver can offload a few unknowns onto the car's compensating systems and really dig into it. For one thing, I don't think I've seen a car with human inputs for controlling the torque available on each of the four wheels. In contrast, several of these high-end systems can do tricks like partially applying individual brakes to force the differential to divert torque to non-slipping wheels. Last thing I want is four brake pedals.
This has some implications. First, for a performance car, this should be relatively easily disabled, or at least severely restrained for cases where the driver wants to perform some "trick driving" actions inconsistent with "going down the road fast and staying on the road." e.g. intentional donuts, spinouts and burnouts. Second, when active, the system better not fail when the driver is relying on it to take up certain slack since a driver accustomed to the computer compensation has mentally offloaded some of the burden to the vehicle.
I don't think this is about putting kid gloves and nerf on the car.
--JoeRe:Intrusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
I've taken several performance driving courses, in a variety of vehicles. Every one of them behaves differently, and thus needs to be "learned" by the driver in order to determine what it will do under various circumstances.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
And nobody's ridden horses since the widespread adoption of the horseless carriage. Riiight.
Driving enthusiasts will always be able to drive, and with the larger market of potential driving enthusiasts that no longer have access to the open road, I think you'll find:
--Joe
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok...if it is all about the money saved by making people ride with helments...then upon repeal, why were these savings NOT given back to us? I saw no savings on my insurance...I saw no relief from taxes that 'must' have been spend in the past by the govt.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
If, as you said, the law is all about what it costs the state, couldn't they justify taking away all sorts of freedoms in the name of saving a buck (or making a buck - imminent domain anyone)?
Couldn't you argue that by incurring a $200,000 (where did you come up with number?) one-time -cost for brain clean up of an idiot, you are potentially saving more money for the state in the long run than the stupid person would rack up by keeping him/her alive another 60-80 years (welfare,health costs, policing, fire, etc...?)
hot reality injection (Score:1, Insightful)
In what circumstances might conventional brakes have an advantage over ABS?
There are some conditions where stopping distance may be shorter without ABS. For example, in cases where the road is covered with loose gravel or freshly fallen snow, the locked wheels of a non-ABS car build up a wedge of gravel or snow, which can contribute to a shortening of the braking distance.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you about living your life and taking considered risks but make sure those risks are your own. It's not fair of you to risk other people for your own enjoyment, particularly when there's a simple alternative.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you know the exact speed of each wheel at any given time? Do you have an accurate accelerometer to measure lateral force? (The seat of your pants does not count.) Do you know, within a hundredth of a second, when an individual wheel looses traction? Can you respond within the next hundredth of a second?
Breaking traction is not always bad.
It is if you want to be in control of your vehicle. There's really no such thing as a controlled slide. There's an intentional slide, or an escapable slide, but that's not the same thing.
I understand and appreciate the desire to play with your vehicle, so long as it's done on a closed parking lot or track. But please, don't use a public road for a "spirited drive." There's always someone else, and they're probably not interested in a "spirited drive."
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it this way - I couldn't care less if somebody wants to ride without a helmet; that's their decision, even if it is less safe. However, each time a helmetless motorcyclist smears themself all over a public road, the city is going to have to being in somebody clean it up, a section of road will be closed for an indefinite period due to fatality, and there will be an investigation of the wreck, among other things. This is paid for with local tax money, which I would definitely prefer went towards something else. It's also a heavy inconvenience for everyone else involved.
So bear in mind that while you can choose which risks to take and which not to, you can't ever shake the social responsibility for how your own actions will affect those around you. That's why helmet laws keep springing back up. If a sociopath wants to get a thrill, he can find a way to do it in a manner where I won't end up paying for it.
Re:ABS=Increased Stopping Distance (Score:2, Insightful)
They no longer give discounts because ABS is so common. Insurance companies base their evaluation of different models based on the claims history for the car (depreciation, likelyhood of collision/theft and average cost to repair). A Ferrari will be expensive to insure with or without ABS.
They don't work well because conditions are variable from one second to the next,
Which is why ABS systems continuously monitor the wheel grip and adjust accordingly to maximize braking force at that point in time. Mercedes cars do this over 40 times/sec. Most ABS systems do this at least 5-10 times/sec.
and the algorithms that are programmed into the controllers can't measure intent.
Intent? It's pretty simple. I press on the brake = I want to reduce speed. I stomp on the brake = I want to reduce speed as rapidly as possible. It's not rocket science.
In fact, among people that I know that HAVE ABS on their vehicles, the first thing they do is pull the fuse to disable it in winter.
You've got a lot of dumb friends. Send them back to driving school.
I wish I had done the same. My vehicle was involved in one moderate crash over a thirteen year span (I bought it new) and two minor ones due to the fact that the ABS controller was not programed with an optimal solution for downhill on ice, i.e. acceleration despite intervention by the controller.
There is no optimal solution for braking while going downhill on ice, with or without ABS. Ice is very slippery. Once you exceed the maximum traction between ice & rubber, the car will slide. There is almost no grip between ice & rubber, which is why you shouldn't drive in those conditions (or use snow tires/chains/studs and drive very very slowly).
As a result not only was my stopping distance increased, but I was unable to actively steer the vehicle into the curb to gain additional traction from the median snow and from the collision with the curb.
If you were unable to steer, it's because the steering wheels had no grip. Not having ABS wouldn't change that. In fact, with locked wheels, you would lose steering control faster than with ABS.
Don't give me the "but the systems have improved since you first bought yours". No, they haven't. Try this on a northern winter day when conditions are icy - go out for a test drive in a new vehicle with ABS. Go to the nearest mall/shopping center, whatever. Get the car going, try to stop, measure the stopping distance. Now find the ABS fuse and remove it. Repeat test. Result: ABS makes car stop straighter, but increases stopping distance.
Complete bullshit. When I took the BMW driver training course, they had cars with a button to do exactly that. ABS stopped faster in all reduced traction conditions. I saw it with my own eyes, and did it myself. ABS reduces stopping distance in slippery conditions, period.
In addition, ABS makes car stop dead-straight, (no you can't steer with ABS in near-zero-traction conditions - total myth - try it),
The reason you can't steer with ABS in near-zero-traction conditions is because there is near-zero-traction. You would have the same problem without ABS. ABS is not the holy grail, neither is 4-wheel drive. You need to drive appropriately for the road conditions.
so any chance you have of using a skid to maneuver yourself out of the way is completely out the window.
Finally we agree on something: ABS does reduce skidding while braking. How are you able to control which wheel on your non-ABS car to lock up to induce a skid? I would be mighty impressed to watch you do that (using the handbrake to lock the rear wheels doesn't count)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in the woods, and we call our invisible traffic "woods rats", "venison" and "deer".