This post shows well why standstill is not a safe state for #selfDrivingCars.

A car is just one component of the larger system called traffic. If one car stops, the rest of the system is still fully energized. Only now you have a heavy obstacle forcing the rest of the system into more dangerous states.

(Also a prime example for humans cleaning up after sloppy #automation as it is so often the case with so-called “#AI”)

https://mastodon.social/@docpop/110993372955365641

Ars Technica: Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? https://arstechnica.com/?p=1964427 #Tech #arstechnica #IT #Technology #selfdrivingcars #SanFrancisco #Cruise #waymo #Cars #AI

Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? - August was an eventful month for driverless taxis in San Francisco. On August 10, ... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1964427 #selfdrivingcars #sanfrancisco #cruise #waymo #cars #ai

Global News BC: Are self-driving cars safe? A UBC study says British Columbians aren’t too sure https://globalnews.ca/news/9930216/self-driving-cars-safety-ubc-study/ #globalnews #britishcolumbia #news #UniversityOfBritishColumbia #SelfDrivingCars #RoadSafety #Canada #Study #Tech #Cars #SVDs #UBC

Waymo and Cruise were granted permission from California officials to expand their operations in San Francisco, but some of the residents are taking a stand and temporarily disabling the robotaxis. BBC journalist James Clayton seeks to understand why the city is so divided on self-driving vehicles.

https://flip.it/vtd.za

#SelfDrivingCars #Robotaxis #SanFrancisco

#Cars #RoadSafety #AVs #SelfDrivingCars: "A recent tweet from Matt Farah got the Jalopnik staff thinking about this. A system that’s 99.9-percent reliable sounds nearly perfect, but in reality, that 0.1-percent error rate is enormous.

So how good does a fully autonomous vehicle need to be in order to be safer than a human driver? As Jalopnik’s resident mathematician, figuring this out fell to me — and to data pulled from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to NHTSA, Americans drove 2,903,622,000,000 miles in 2021. That’s nearly three trillion miles, many of which were likely the sort of boring, uneventful highway driving where current Level 2 driver-assistance systems excel. American human drivers crashed 5,250,837 times in 2021 — once every 552,983 miles traveled.

Here’s how the numbers break down for human drivers in America:"

https://jalopnik.com/self-driving-car-vs-human-99-percent-safe-crash-data-1850170268

"Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco."

"It thinks it’s a road and it ain’t because it ain’t got a brain and it can’t tell that it’s freshly poured concrete."

#technology #tech #autonomousvehicles #driverlesscars #selfdrivingcars #Cruise

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/cruise-stuck-wet-concrete-sf-18297946.php?mc_cid=87e153a981&mc_eid=08b09b9628

Robotaxi breakdowns cause mayhem in San Francisco days after expansion vote | San Francisco | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/14/san-francisco-robotaxi-waymo-cruise-breakdown

OMG - hahahahahaha!
Ok, *not* good that people are at serious risk. But.... LOL!

#Robotaxi #SelfDrivingCars

Goodness… this is quite the colossal meltdown. I’m so excited we decided to put _more_ of them on the street /s.

https://x.com/bett_yu/status/1690812202532614144?s=61&t=MEVc8FrUCFbGgBP-C18nUQ

#twitter #x #Cruise #SelfDrivingCars

Here is me, today in San Francisco, stuck at a green light behind a self driving car that suddenly turned on its hazards and refused to move (I have a video that refused to upload, so here are some screen shots): #selfdriving #selfdrivingcars

Very worthwhile thread from @davidzipper about the impact of #robotaxis, with sources cited.

#CarBrain #SelfDrivingCars #AutonomousVehicles

https://mastodon.social/@davidzipper/110860569343655393

They spent $2.5b on #SelfDrivingCars, producing a vehicle whose mean distance between fatal crashes was *half a mile*. Then they paid another company *$400 million* to take this self-licking ice-cream cone off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Amazingly, self-driving cars were among the *more* plausible of Uber's plans.

6/

#USA #California #Privacy #SelfDrivingCars: "California’s newly empowered privacy regulators announced their first case Monday, a probe of the data practices of newer-generation cars that are often or always connected to the internet.

The California Privacy Protection Agency said its enforcement division would review manufacturer’s treatment of data collected from vehicles, including locations, smartphone connections and images from cameras.

The agency was established by a 2020 ballot initiative that toughened the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. As of July 1, it can conduct operations to enforce Californians’ right to learn what is being collected about them, the right to stop that information from being spread and the right to have it deleted."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/31/cppa-privacy-car-data/

»America’s Most Tech-Forward City Has Doubts About #SelfDrivingCars: Alphabet’s #Waymo and General Motors’ #Cruise are struggling to win over #SanFrancisco residents and officials.« https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-most-tech-forward-city-has-doubts-about-self-driving-cars-d6b098e0?eicker.news #tech #media

#SelfDrivingCars #AutonomousVehicles #Surveillance #Privacy: "It is imperative that as more self-driving cars occupy our city streets, collecting vast quantities of data, that we have strong privacy laws that address both the personal data that the cars process and police access to that data. We also need a better understanding of how much footage police request access to and when, if ever, companies that operate autonomous vehicles will push back against overly broad requests. It is also essential that we learn whether police are given historic footage or real-time live access to peer through the cameras on the vehicles.

In the coming years, cities and regulators will have to have difficult choices when it comes to how autonomous vehicles should be able to safely operate. It is imperative that, in addition to pedestrians and driver safety, regulators consider the civil liberties implications for the tremendous amount of data and footage collected by these self-driving cars."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/impending-privacy-threat-self-driving-cars

In L.A., Cruise will begin testing soon and then expand to self-driving ride-hailing. It will be the company’s eighth city of operation, up from one at the start of this year. And it won’t be the last. #selfdrivingcars https://slate.com/technology/2023/08/cruise-los-angeles-autonomous-vehicles-robotaxis-san-francisco-waymo.html

#Tesla #Cars #SelfDrivingCars: "As a child-size mannequin stands in a traffic lane on a rural two-lane road, a Tesla in Full Self-Driving mode barrels toward it. At the wheel: a giant teddy bear. The car’s driver monitoring system doesn’t issue any warnings. The front end whacks the mannequin, sending it flying into the air. And the car drives on, as if nothing happened.

It’s the latest salvo from activist organization the Dawn Project, which publishes videos aimed at showing how badly Tesla’s automated driving technology can behave. Dan O’Dowd, the wealthy, tech-savvy activist who founded and self-funds the Dawn Project, said he wants to ensure that “the safety-critical systems that everyone’s life depends on are fail-safe and can’t be hacked.”"

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-08-03/jumbo-teddy-bear-spoof-teslas-self-drive-system

Looks like self-driving trucks aren't as achievable as Alphabet's Waymo had hoped. They're cutting back on that effort. Robotaxis are now the priority. https://waymo.com/blog/2023/07/doubling-down-on-waymo-one.html
#selfdriving #SelfDrivingCars #Waymo #Google #Alphabet

BMW uses autonomous cars for boring, repetitive tests - Enlarge / Neither of these test BMWs has a human in the driver's seat. ... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956358 #autonomousdriving #selfdrivingcars #testing #cars #bmw

Ars Technica: BMW uses autonomous cars for boring, repetitive tests https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956358 #Tech #arstechnica #IT #Technology #AutonomousDriving #selfdrivingcars #testing #Cars #BMW