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Comment Re:It's not Waymo's fault (Score 1) 114

You shouldn't worry about getting rear ended. That's the worry of the person behind you. It's their fault if you get rear ended.

Have you ever been rear-ended? I have, twice. Both times while I was stopped at a red light, so fault was absolutely incontestable. It's their fault, but you end up without a car. Sure, their insurance has to pay, but they only have to give you what it's worth, not what it will cost you to replace it, and the difference is significant. Not to mention that you could be injured. Your hospital bills will be covered, but you were still injured and have to deal with pain, the recovery, and maybe even some amount of permanent damage. My neck has never been quite right after the second time I was rear-ended.

Comment Re:It's not Waymo's fault (Score 1) 114

I can tell you exsctly how many human drivers would respond in a situation like this, because I've seen it happen and have heard about it enough times: the driver would have accelerated away from the incident at high speed.

They would have done that after slamming on the brakes in a vain attempt to avoid hitting the dog, possibly losing control of their vehicle, and possibly causing a collision with other cars or objects. If their reaction failed to cause a serious accident, then maybe they'd have sped away.

Comment Re:One dog and one cat... (Score 1) 114

Many millions of those miles are on roads that never have animals on them.

Until last month, Waymo only allowed their cars to drive on city streets, no freeway driving. Even now, freeway usage is limited, only for selected riders (I'm not sure what the selection criteria is).

So, basically all of Waymo's millions of miles are on streets that often have animals on them.

Comment Re:Shuld the sue Waymo? (Score 1) 114

if it were a medical study on, for example, a robotic surgical system with 10% of the mortality rate of a human surgeon, there would still be concern if, every now and then the system removed a patient's appendix at random during heart surgery.

Sure, there would be concern, but unless you're dumb you will still pick the option with the 90% lower mortality/harm rate. Yeah, it's good to investigate and fix the problem (assuming fixing the problem doesn't increase the mortality rate), but you should still use the provably better option.

Comment Re:Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score 1) 114

The real question is if it simply failed to notice the dog or if it noticed the dog and didn't even attempt to stop.

Also, why it didn't attempt to stop (if it didn't). If it didn't attempt to stop because it correctly determined that attempting to stop would risk causing a more serious accident with other vehicles on the road, that's not only good, it's better than the vast majority of human drivers.

Comment Consider the "Human Driven" equivalent (Score 1) 114

Imagine a headline: "Car driven by human hits dog, igniting safety concerns over allowing humans to drive cars."

It's silly. You'd laugh. It is equally silly to talk of 'self driving car hits dog' in the same way.
The question that matters is whether or not a self-driving car is less likely to hit a dog than a human driven car.
Improving standards of self-driving car software and hardware is in the same bucket as improving driver discipline.
And there are many drivers with poor discipline who are more likely to hit a dog than a self-driving car.

Comment Re:Fuck that (Score 1) 89

Hell no. In fact California ought to sue the FDA for not banning these dangerous foods. And residents should sue the state of California for not suing the NDA sooner. Then the FDA can sue universities for not doing timely research on this, and the universities can sue the food manufacturers. It's lawsuits all the way down.

Comment junior dev? no, intern (Score 1) 80

AI tools behaving in ways that "would get a junior developer fired,"

AI isn't a junior dev. It's an intern. Someone who doesn't much care beyond the current session, and whose skills can surprise you - in both directions, and whose primary focus is that you like him at least in the moment.

And like an intern, if you include the code in anything even close to production without review, it's your fault, not theirs.

Comment Re:Wow! (Score 2) 88

Luckily - other than with criminals - covering yourself in naff tats seems to have been a millennial fad that is slowly fading.

My observation is the opposite. In my 20s tattoos were just common enough to be accepted as normal, but the majority of people didn't have them and most people who did had one or two fairly small ones.

Today, it seems everyone and their dog has them.

Comment Conclusions (Score 4, Insightful) 114

The one conclusion we can draw from this is the folks drawing conclusions are exposing nothing but their own beliefs.

All we know is the dog was unleashed and the Waymo hit it.

We don't know if the dog shot out from under a parked car, so it was literally impossible to avoid. Or if it was sitting in the middle of the road and the Waymo ran straight over it.

All the folks trying to assign blame one way or another are doing so completely prematurely.

Comment Re:Wow... (Score 1) 60

First Street very likely doesn't have some magic model that can predict the future better than anyone else.

When you get a mortgage you have to pay for a flood survey. Even my house 700' above the village where the bank is.

Your flood risk is absolutely predicted by the flood history of your location. The bank writing the mortgage has the skin in the game which is why they make the buyer pay for the flood survey.

It sounds like First Street might be liable for damages based on pseudoscience if these Realtors bring a case. It would be interesting to see them present solid evidence that they prospectively beat the existing flood models and survive a cross-examination.

If they've published a peer-reviewed paper then I missed it.

Comment Re:If you want to do business (Score 3, Funny) 42

Cheaper to just pay the bribes.

In America it's known as K-street. Or "donating" to an Inauguration Gala. Or hosting a high court judge in a European palace for a couple of weeks. Or giving decision makers absurd private sector salaries when they 'retire'. Or giving the Governor's wife a $200K no-show job. Pick your branch, there's a way.

In India the system is less formal.

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