[Blindtlk] Driverless Cars

Mon Jan 2 21:46:56 UTC 2017

This reminds me very much of the people who would not ride in one of those
horseless carriages, too noisy, too dirty, and who knows what would happen.

However, like your wife, I would be leery if someone asked me right now to
ride in one.

Judy

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lloyd
Rasmussen via blindtlk
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2017 12:51 PM
To: Blind Talk Mailing List
Cc: Lloyd Rasmussen
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Driverless Cars

There is a very big push to get driverless cars, or at least partially
autonomous cars, into regular service. My wife says she will not ride in
one. I am following developments. I suspect that this might happen as a
result of a ride-sharing service like Lyft or Uber deploying some of these
vehicles. I think the NFB passed a resolution last summer insisting that
blind people have some control over these vehicles in a
nonvisually-accessible way. What if you have ordered a car to go from point
A to point B and then find in mid-trip that you need to change your
destination?
There are five levels of autonomy defined in the industry, with Level 5
being the level where the car is expected to be capable of driving itself
and safely handling any situation that drivers would safely handle.
The chip industry is busy building lower-power processors that can handle
artificial intelligence or deep learning algorithms. They think this is the
next big market, following after PCs and mobile devices. There are still a
lot of questions to be answered. How and to what extent should vehicles
automatically communicate with each other? Should this communication be
mediated by the cell phone companies? What combination of radar and lidar (a
radar that uses infrared or light waves) be used? How accurate must the road
maps be, and how is information conveyed concerning temporary detours,
construction, etc. Cars are supposed to be getting pretty good at detecting
pedestrians.
A year ago, Tesla was marketing an "auto-pilot" feature for their cars. Last
summer a driver in Florida was running his on auto-pilot and drove under a
truck that was parked across the roadway, killing him. Tesla didn't report
the accident immediately, and I'm sure that not all of the facts have come
out yet. But some speculation is that their system recognized the white
object in front of the car as a road sign, and didn't see that there wasn't
going to be enough clearance underneath it.
Depending on the regulatory environment, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration may require manufacturers to document how their algorithms
work and what situations they are programmed to handle. This becomes
problematic when you are training neural networks to recognize situations
and "understand" them, and you don't know what factors made the computer
come to the decision that it made.
We have gone from an era of total skepticism about the blind driveable car
(Mike Freeman was in that camp for a very long time) and into the era where
lawyers, marketers and engineers will have a field day. Don't believe
everything you hear. But don't disbelieve all of it, either, because a
revolution is coming more quickly than I had expected. The first effects
might involve long-haul truckers losing their jobs.

Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, MD
http://lras.home.sprynet.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Jones via blindtlk
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2017 1:24 PM
To: gwunder at earthlink.net ; 'Blind Talk Mailing List'
Cc: Judy Jones
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Driverless Cars

Very good advice.  This brings up another question I was wrongly assuming.

I was thinking that there might also need to be some kind of interactivity
with the roadways, but now, I believe my assumption was false.  That being
the case, a driverless car could perform on any road, but I think these need
to be tested on curvy mountain roads with switchbacks, as well as the wide,
straight highway, dirt roads, etc.

Also, if the driverless capability is inserted in to off-road vehicles, that
will be interesting testing as well.

This also may not be the greatest of comparisons, but makes me wonder.  Here
it is.  On sunny days, if one opens our garage around 1:15 or 1:20 in the
afternoon, because of the angle of the sun, our door will not close, as it
think it is detecting an object.  What is happening is that the sun is
hitting in such a way that a shadow is thrown across the sensor eye of the
automatic opener.  The solution to the problem is waiting till around ten to
two, then the door closes with no problem, as the angle of the sun is
slightly changed.  Weird? Yes,  Had our house been built at a slightly
different angle, this probably would not be an issue.  Even with all our
garage activity, we only deal with this 2 or 3 times a year.

Having said all this, is the driverless technology capable of distinguishing
a road shadow or a puddle from an object?  I would like to know how much
testing is actually happening and how much more to go.

Judy

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gary Wunder
via blindtlk
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2017 6:08 AM
To: 'Blind Talk Mailing List'
Cc: Gary Wunder
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Driverless Cars

Hello, Jen. Let me offer a contrary point of view, one that is more in line
with yours. I have no crystal ball, but the people from Google and other
developers of self-driving cars believe they will be on the road by 2020.
Uber believes they will be on the road very soon. I see all kinds of
scenarios in which it is judged that the computer will be less responsive
than the human being, and I find myself surprised by this. Certainly there
are plenty of scenarios to test for, but once you teach the computer, it
will not forget, become distracted, or decide that driving is monotonous and
that it should put its resources elsewhere. Why do we assume that a human
being will be more perceptive about a child running out into the street than
a computer which is constantly on watch for such things?

I am delighted to be a human being and thank God for the complexity of the
brain He has given me. Still, I think it is traditional for human beings to
question what makes us unique from other animals and now even unique from
machines. We are perfectly willing to concede that a machine can do faster
calculations than we can do and do them with more accuracy. We are willing
to concede that they do not get bored. Still, we cling to the belief that it
is we who can deal with more complex situations and that our innate
reverence for human life will make us better drivers. I think we must wait
for the future to determine this, for it is not our reverence for human life
that is in question but our ability to pay attention to small details and
have ways to react to the unexpected.

I do not know whether at sixty-one I will ever have the opportunity to own
or operate a self-driving vehicle. What I do know is that having one will
increase my independence. With a self-driving vehicle I will determine how
early to start out for an appointment and when I want to leave it. With uber
and other ride services, I have more control than I once did, but I can tell
you that there have been far too many times in my life when I was made late
by a family member who did not see the same urgency to get to a family
reunion as I did or who wanted to leave earlier than I did.

Bryan Schulz is right when he says that we are going to have to have a
number of laws changed in order to have this technology accepted. when an
accident happens, we want somebody to blame. It is our nature to have to
find fault. So, if it can be determined that a self-driving car caused an
accident or could have reasonably avoided one that a human would have, who
pays? I take Solis in the fact that insurance companies are one of the
driving forces behind the development of autonomous vehicles; they believe
that machines will eventually be safer drivers than humans.

So, Jen, at the risk of giving you false hope, which I was given when I was
sixteen years old, there may indeed be hope that one day you will be able to
own your own vehicle, go when you want to go and where you want to go, and
the presence of that very vehicle may allow you to get to and from
employment that is physically impossible now. Don't hold your breath; don't
forfeit other training available to you; don't pass up opportunities now on
the chance that something big will change in the near future. The only thing
I suggest is that you keep an open mind and that you follow the
technological developments as they appear in the mainstream press. Like
hawks we follow those things in the news that disturb us; let us at least be
as diligent in following those things that may make our lives better.

Warmly,

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jen via
blindtlk
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2017 3:22 PM
To: blindtlk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Jen
Subject: [Blindtlk] Driverless Cars

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year!

What is your opinion of driver-less cars? Personally, I can't wait for their
arrival on the road! I'm totally blind from birth and would like the chance
to drive, just to feel what it feels like. My best friend, who happens to be
sighted, feels otherwise though.

How about you?

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