General Motors’ Cruise says it’s suspending its driverless operations nationwide as the robotaxi service works to rebuild public trust.
Cruise has also previously maintained that its record of driverless miles have outperformed comparable human drivers in terms of safety, notably crash rates.
But is this actually true? I hate that they just printed this without any attempt to verify it. Surely some independent body has looked into this by now.
I suspect there is something more to this than just that. After all, the car in question did this:
Earlier this month, a Cruise robotaxi notably ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle driven by a human. The pedestrian became pinned under a tire of the Cruise vehicle after it came to a stop — and then was pulled for about 20 feet (six meters) as the car attempted to move off the road.
It seems like there are unsolvable safety problems going on.
There is no logic for this issue and I swear everyone will see this problem reoccur for every scenario that hasn’t been accounted for. This will happen in almost every self driving car because it just hasn’t been accounted for.
Yes, the car does not appear to have safety features that let it know a body is caught underneath, but it did try to get out of traffic after the collision.
Since this never happens to human drivers that means autonomous cars are unfeasible.
Or it is an opportunity to add some additional sensors underneath that will make it miles better than human drivers.
Really the main problem with autonomous cars at this point in time is a combination of the co panes hiding issues and the public expecting perfection. More transparency and a 3rd party comparison to human drivers would be the best way to both improve automation and gain public trust when they actually see how bad human drivers can be.
Driverless cars are certainly less error-prone overall than human operated ones. Distraction, sleepiness, intoxication, hubris, and other common “human error” causes of accidents are eliminated. Now we’re seeing, though, that human beings - even pretty average ones - are still able to make better judgments in unique situations.
Because the recent incidents have been so laughably stupid from a human perspective, the instinct is to doubt the accuracy of driverless cars in all situations. The robots are able to do the comparatively simple things extremely well. It’s just the more complex things they still have trouble with - so far. They’re still safer than human operators, and will only continue to get better.
