Google blames a Human for its Robot Car Accident

http://allthingsd.com/20110805/google-blames-a-human-for-its-robot-car-accident/?mod=tweet

by canistr • 15 years ago

12 14 15 years ago

joebadmo• 15 years ago

Anyone else disturbed by the weirdly Luddite/anti-Google tone of this piece? Is there some reason not to take Google's statement about the human driver at face value? Is there really anything more to this story than: "A human quite unremarkably crashed a car into another car, as happens millions of times a year"?

awaz2• 15 years ago

I am not disturbed. Why would a human driver be driving an automated car? What is the security mechanisms that allow such cars to be in the streets? Isn't there a need for independent monitoring for such experiments?

ajju2• 15 years ago

All Google self driving cars have a human driver who can take control at any time. I don't know if the human was driving the car when this accident occurred, but so far there is no evidence supporting the notion that Google is lying to the cops (which would be a crime).

bdonlan• 15 years ago

The security mechanism _is_ the human driver, for now - the only reason they're legally allowed to run these cars is because there's a human standing by to take over control at a moment's notice.

ENOTTY• 15 years ago

> Why would a human driver be driving an automated car?

Because Google cannot legally operate the car in the streets without a driver. Therefore they put a driver there and it's on him to choose how to drive the car.

> What is the security mechanisms that allow such cars to be in the streets?

The wonderful security mechanism of liability, lawsuits, and insurance.

ajju2• 15 years ago

Yes, apparently it is ok to have airplanes carrying hundreds of people fly themselves but cars driving themselves, well that's impossible!

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

To be fair, as best I understand it an airplane cruising at altitude is not very hard to pilot. Nothing to run into, nobody merging into your airstream- nothing much more complicated than "steady as she goes"

I believe takeoff, ascent, landing and descent is still done by pilots.

Additionally, trouble with cars is, they have evolved for 100 years around sight as the primary navigation function. Planes almost never had that luxury, so they have relied on instruments for a long time. Computers are good at instruments, not so good at sight.

drivebyacct2• 15 years ago

I didn't necessarily assume an anti-Google tone, but I did mutter "what the hell?" when I read "Glad no one appears hurt, but this is a good reminder of one of the main reasons Google’s experiment with robot cars both fascinates us and creeps us out.".

If it was human error, 160K miles have been logged without incident... how the hell is this a good reminder of why we should be creeped out by Google's experiment? (edit: The last sentence of that last paragraph is equally useless.) I'm no journalist but I feel comfortable rolling my eyes at this article and its style.

pavel_lishin• 15 years ago

I love the random guesses in the comments, despite any actual facts in the article. I literally don't know what caused the crash - did the human drive have total control and bump someone?

ColinWright• 15 years ago

Also submitted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2850815

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

It's like they are trying to say "look at what bad things can happen when humans crash cars. Aren't you afraid of robots also crashing cars? Even though Google's robots have never crashed cars, and thus already a better track record than nearly every human?"

Google blames a Human for its Robot Car Accident

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