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Comment Re:What does this even mean ? (Score 1) 367

Plus, it'd be interesting to know exactly what metric is being measured here. What fatalities are we talking about: just the occupants of the car itself, or other fatalities (occupants of other vehicles, pedestrians etc)? Are fatalities related to "AI vehicles" being counted even when they're being driven by humans at the time? What about when they're being placed under AI control in circumstances where they shouldn't be (so driver error in choosing to use the tool incorrectly, rather than the tool itself being faulty)?

Basically: hey, geoskd, can we get a citation over here?

Comment Re:Doesn't surprise me (Score 3, Informative) 59

One of the biggest reasons for AllMyVideos (and a number of other similar sites) to exist is for hosting all the copyright-violating stuff that the big boys like YouTube and DailyMotion detect and block.

One of the other biggest reasons for for AllMyVideos (and a number of other similar sites) to exist is for hosting all the none copyright-violating stuff that the big boys like YouTube and DailyMotion misdetect and wrongly block.

Comment Re: As it should be (Score 1) 230

[quote]When a human gets in an accident, most start driving a bit slower and more carefully, thus increasing their overall safety.[/quote] People slow down to get a better look at the accident, and lose focus from their driving. From the wikipedia entry for "rubbernecking":

According to a 2003 study in the U.S., rubbernecking was the cause of 16% of distraction-related traffic accidents.

With Al, the accident will get fixed specifically on a left turn, but then happen on a right turn.

Assuming that's true (and I have no reason to accept it is, at least as an inherent flaw of the process; I could argue that, at least as often, fixing the root of the left hand crash could prevent the equivalent right hand crash and a whole set of unforeseen related situations from ever happening), that's still better than for humans, where people could collectively have 1,000 of the same type of crash turning left, 1,000 turning right, and then see absolutely no drop in the number of those types of crash.

It will take a long time to work through all the possibilities because even though they are called AI, there is no adaptation.

Not a problem. The claim here isn't "AI will start perfect and always be perfect", it's "AI will rapidly become, and then always be, better than the average driver". Once that happens, lives are already being saved, and it'll only get better (especially as more SDCs get on the road, planning optimal movements together, dealing with less unpredictable human drivers).

Comment Re: As it should be (Score 1) 230

...Because when a fallible human makes a mistake driving a car, an accident can occur right there and then, while when a fallible human makes a mistake programming the AI for the car, it's followed by months, or years, or decades of testing and oversight during which someone can say "hey, there's a mistake here, let's fix that" before any real-world accidents are possible.

Plus, when a fallible human makes a mistake that gets someone killed, the best case scenario (from a future safety point of view) is that they individually learn from that mistake, and they individually avoid that issue in future. When a self-driving car makes a mistake that gets someone killed, the situation can be accurately recorded, examined, discussed, fixed, and rolled out in such a way that no self-driving car ever makes that same mistake again.

Comment Re:Why is it preposterous? (Score 1) 230

bureaucrats trying to slow progress because it isn't perfectly safe

Do we know that the test would force them to be "perfectly safe"?

I genuinely want to know, I've no idea what those 15 points are, or whether or not they're reasonable. The summary just makes it sound like Toyota is upset at the test being there at all, rather than the contents of the test; I could check TFA, but that isn't the Slashdot way. If Toyota are just objecting to the test on principle, I'm with ACs post; oversight isn't an inherently bad thing. On the other hand, if it is the contents of the test itself, or some limit of how that testing has to be done that's truly stifling, I'm interested to hear what those problems are.

Comment Re:Cool, but how does that help anything? (Score 1) 497

Mars is an easier place to build a base than the Moon. You send the people to Mars, they build the infrastructure and refuel the ship, then they send the ship back. Meanwhile, they start producing drinkable water, breathable air, and food, all things that can theoretically be done there. When the next people show up, the ground has been broken, and the second wave can get started helping out, while the first wave start pumping the fuel (from the system they built the first time round) into the ship to get it heading back as soon as the second wavers are unloaded. People can be, and will be, kept busy building, colonising and terraforming.

The Moon, on the other hand, is a rock. You can't produce air, you have to bring your own water etc. Production of the basic essentials for human survival is impractical, if not outright impossible; the best you can hope for is efficient recycling, which isn't helpful for a growing colony. Once you've built the shelter (entirely from things you brought with you) and plugged in your recycling systems (which you brought with you), you're done; wait for the next shipment of supplies to arrive. When the next wave arrive, they're going to be setting up their new base, but it's not like you're going to have made any supplies to help them out.

So the Moon is closer, sure, but without a way to easily produce the things you need (not forgetting refueling the ship to return it), the only advantages it has over Mars are a shorter travel time to Earth, and less gravity to fight as you leave. Basically, it seems a heck of a lot easier to build a base on Mars than the Moon... even if the commute is a pain.

Comment Greyscale = giraffes (Score 2) 214

As soon as I heard that someone's avatar was described as being two giraffes, I knew it was going to be in black and white. As far as I can tell, their algorithm thinks that any greyscale image includes two giraffes. A rorschach test image, an art piece with a stylised tree, a black and white MS Paint picture of a stick-man Dumbledore, everything I could find got described as two giraffes (often in a "fenced-off area").

Comment Re:You don't need a ROM in order to do speedruns.. (Score 1) 151

To follow on this, I invite people to look up the Awesome Games Done Quick/Summer Games Down Quick charity streams. They often include sections by TASbot; a robot that plays tool assisted speedruns on actual consoles, running the actual games from actual game cartridge. ROMs were probably involved somewhere along the lines to create those TAS runs, but that's not what the videos are showing.

Comment Re:Basic DVD feature (Score 1) 62

Depending on how it's implemented/used, I can definitely see use use for it nowadays. Example: Their are gaming communities who upload videos where a bunch of people play the same game at once, either through co-op or just racing through the same single player game separately. Currently, they either just jam all the videos in little boxes on one screen at the same time, (usually with the individual games' sounds removed), which can get very crowded, or switch perspective between players, which means you potentially miss a lot. With this you could switch between the two 'traditional' views, and have individual feeds for each player (possibly with their game audio included?).

Comment Improved graphical quality? (Score 0) 120

Hang on a minute:

"During testing the benefits were apparent, though. Even when the actual round-trip time between input and server response was 256 ms, double-blind testers reported both the gameplay responsiveness and graphical quality of the DeLorean system were comparable to a locally played version of the game."

Gameplay responsiveness, sure, but... graphical quality? If I was testing a system like this, I'd be asking about that as a way to identify people who were just agreeing it was better because they thought it was what I wanted to hear. Graphical quality should not be affected by how quickly the streamed game can respond. There's something fishy about this.

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