this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
482 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

59708 readers
5428 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Last year, two Waymo robotaxis in Phoenix "made contact" with the same pickup truck that was in the midst of being towed, which prompted the Alphabet subsidiary to issue a recall on its vehicles' software. A "recall" in this case meant rolling out a software update after investigating the issue and determining its root cause.

In a blog post, Waymo has revealed that on December 11, 2023, one of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed ahead of it. The company says the truck was being towed improperly and was angled across a center turn lane and a traffic lane. Apparently, the tow truck didn't pull over after the incident, and another Waymo vehicle came into contact with the pickup truck a few minutes later. Waymo didn't elaborate on what it meant by saying that its robotaxis "made contact" with the pickup truck, but it did say that the incidents resulted in no injuries and only minor vehicle damage. The self-driving vehicles involved in the collisions weren't carrying any passenger.

After an investigation, Waymo found that its software had incorrectly predicted the future movements of the pickup truck due to "persistent orientation mismatch" between the towed vehicle and the one towing it. The company developed and validated a fix for its software to prevent similar incidents in the future and started deploying the update to its fleet on December 20.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] overzeetop 51 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The description of an unexpected/(impossible) orientation for an on road obstacle works as an excuse, right up to the point where you realize that the software should, explicitly, not run into anything at all. That’s got to be, like, the first law of (robotic) vehicle piloting.

It was just lucky that it happened twice as, otherwise, Alphabet likely would have shrugged it off as some unimportant, random event.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Billionaires get to alpha test their software on public roads and everyone is at risk.

[–] LesserAbe 10 points 9 months ago

I didn't read it as them saying "therefore this isn't a problem," it was an explanation for why it happened. Think about human explanations for accidents: "they pulled out in front of me" "they stopped abruptly". Those don't make it ok that an accident happened either.

[–] bizzle 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It should of course not run into anything, but it does need to be able to identify obstacles at the very least for crash priority when crazy shit inevitably happens. For instance, maybe it hits a nice squishy Pomeranian that won't cause any damage to itself instead of swerving to avoid it and possibly totalling itself by hitting a fire hydrant.

Or maybe it hits the fire hydrant instead of a toddler.

At any rate, being able to identify an obstacle and react to unexpected orientations of those obstacles is something I think a human driver does pretty well most of the time. Autonomous cars are irresponsible and frankly I can't believe they're legal to operate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I can't believe they're legal to operate.

That's the neat part. They aren't always legal. It doesn't stop them.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-dmv-calls-ubers-autonomous-autos-illegal-1481761533

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It would have been a different article if two waymos decided to take a wrong turn off a cliff.