"Emergency Situations"

From a Road and Track article on a Nissan concept vehicle:

, but it's what it does when you put it in Piloted Drive that's amazing.​ The steering wheel ​retracts into the instrument panel​ and is replaced by a big flat screen . . . like something out of ​Transformers​, just without the guns...

But what if you need the steering wheel in an emergency situation? Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I'm quite certain that there will be at least one situation on the road you encounter that requires some kind of snap-decision making.

I think it hasn't yet dawned on the author that the almost point of these vehicles is that humans are "bad" at emergency situations and therefore will be replaced by the AI. In other words, the human IS the problem to be solved. This is why Google's car has nothing for the "driver". Everyone in Google's car is a passenger. The future as the industry (both the auto and insurance) is no human driver on public roads. EVER. The automakers and/or tech companies will make the technology available and the insurance companies will bankrupt any but the richest owner who wants to actually drive. That is if the government doesn't pronounce human driving a public health hazard and has it banned first.

Some Ideas About Automated Vehicle Development

What follows are the thoughts of a very much NOT ENGINEER. Just someone curious about it. Personally, I want to drive myself and change my own gears...with a clutch thank you very much.

So having watched the latest video of Tesla's auto-pilot make a dive for the opposite side of the road when it got confused I thought about how engineers are approaching automated driving. What follows is purely speculative as I have no idea what the engineers are actually doing.

The first thing I thought was that the focus that I see is on safety. It seems to me that automated driving, outside of DARPA, is overly concerned with safety. I was watching a test drive of the GLE AMG and the driver was complaining about how the safety equipment was interfering with the track testing. It killed the throttle, tightened the seat belts, etc. The car was being overly cautious because it assumed that the driver was not in control. I think that is a problem. The focus for automated systems should be to emulate an experienced driver. I know we like to ding humans for their multiplicity of accidents but the fact is that humans travel millions of miles without nary an incident. We take in and process, in real time vast amounts of information and do a lot of predictive analysis when we drive. For all our accidents we do a fucking great job….the vast majority of the time.

Lets make automated systems act like humans. First off, lets lower “safety” down a few notches in priorities. The human driver makes a bunch of assumptions when driving. We assume that everyone else on the road will act in a manner that will ensure their own safety. We humans look for a reason to NOT think this is the case. It seems to me that automated systems assume everything is a danger until it is no longer in range. Here's an example. You are driving towards an intersection and a vehicle is approaching it at a particularly high rate of speed but IS slowing down. Most humans would note this behavior but would NOT brake or take any actions to stop or swerve. 99% of the time this is the correct response. We are AWARE of the other car but we do not REACT to the other car. We also calculate, almost instantaneously whether we have enough speed to either cross the intersection before they would hit us or we have enough braking distance to stop if they entered the intersection. We also are aware of how much room we have to maneuver.

We also note that the other vehicle has a threshold to cross, the stop sign. Most of us wouldn't react unless we determined that the other vehicle was carrying to much speed/momentum to stop at the stop sign or the vehicle crossed the imaginary “stop line” demarcated by the stop sign. Automated vehicles need to be able to recognize stop signs from any angle so that it could make such judgment calls and react appropriately.

Following an “unmarked” Road

The two things I saw that bothered me the most was when on curved roads the Tesla simply went off road. The reason for this is that the car needs to “see” white lines to know how to position itself while moving. Who thought that was a good idea? Anyone who has road tripped knows that there are plenty of roads that have very poor or no lane markings. Lets not even begin to talk about snow. So I think the engineers are approaching the positioning question alllll wrong. Again, how do humans know how to position themselves. White lines are taken as cues to the shape of the road but we process more than that. Most of us cue heavily off of the vehicle in front of us. Automated systems should be built to prioritize the vehicle ahead as the cue for vehicle position just as humans do. These cues become even more important in situations like snow and heavy rain where the road is practically invisible.

Secondly the vehicle should do as humans do and establish road boundaries by analyzing the larger environment. Automated vehicles need to be able to know the “hard left” of the road. The “hard left” is the do not cross threshold for any car. It should not cross to the other side of the road unless it is the only option to not crash. Barriers, grass, double lines and oncoming vehicles should be used to determine the “hard right” of any road. In the absence of this an automated vehicle should be able to measure the width of the road, divide it in half and keep the car to the right of the mid point as a minimum requirement. This is what humans do when there are no markings.

Road Arches

There are two scenarios for curved roads. One has a vehicle ahead and one has no vehicle. Lets take the first. If there is a vehicle on a curved road the car should make one assumption..all curved roads are smooth curves. That is there are no corners. With this assumption in place the car should note that the vehicle in front of it is HIGHLY likely to not make an abrupt 90 degree turn. That is the vehicle ahead is following the curve. The automated vehicle should prioritize following the vehicle ahead over road markings because it is MOST likely that the vehicle is following the road. Using this assumption the vehicle should use the “best fit” model for what the road ahead looks like until it can actually “see” the road. Humans do this all the time on “blind curves”. Even though we know the curves on roads we drive daily and have stored it in our biological GPS, whenever we encounter a novel road this is what we do. We assume the curve will be smooth. We assume the car in front of us is following the curve and that we should mimic its actions and we predict what the road ahead looks like until we can see it.

This kind of driving works 99.9% of the time and that's a great rate!

Now with curved roads that have no other vehicle in front of us means that we cannot use the “mimic that” algorithm. Instead we fall back to road analysis. The vehicle should determine the hard right (and probably “hard left”) and place the car dead center of it's side of the road. In cases where the road is barely wider than the vehicle (relative to a wide two way road), the car would put itself dead center.

This idea of “hard right” and “hard left” cannot be stressed enough. The reliance on road markers is IMO a dangerous assumption. Perhaps engineers can start with the assumption that there are no markers on the road. There is only road and “not road”. Once you can get the automated system to determine the difference between the two, without lines, then a lined road is that much easier to handle. I realize this may be counter to the idea that we tackle the easiest problem first, but I think that by tackling the hard problem first (which is really a matter of dealing with perception) we can have automated systems that won't fail..and not try to cross the divider.

HitchBOT Killed in Philly.

For those who haven't followed, A "robot" was hitching a ride across the US and met its demise in Philly. The stated purpose of the experiment was to see if robots could trust humans. I would say that it was actually a social experiment on high and low trust societies.

The HitchBOT made its way clear across Canada without incident. Hitchbot went through parts of Europe unmolested. Hitchbot was stuck in Boston for weeks and somehow made it to Philly where it was dismembered. A glance at city data for Philly says a lot. In 2013 thefts represented 53 percent of all crime meaning that HitchBOT had a roughly 50-50 chance of making it through that city. If you added robberies and burglaries to the theft as representing taking stuff that doesn't belong to you, then the odds of HitchBOT meeting an untimely end in Philly skyrockets to 79%.

Perhaps the real lesson is that you don't leave valuable items in relatively high theft incident cities.

A Failure Of Leadership

Robert Gates, the head of the Boy Scouts of America said this during his speech calling for the Boy Scouts to allow Homosexual male leaders:

"We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” Gates said

It was the unwillingness to "deal with the world as it is" that got us things like The Golden Gate bridge

Every advance in science, medicine, architecture was made because someone decided to NOT deal with the world as it "is" and rather to make it as they want it to be.

Currently ISIS is having a field day in the Middle East because they do not accept the world "as it is". Not that I support ISIS, but at least they understand that the future belongs to those willing to shape it. What Gates is saying about his organization is that it is beholden to the whims and wishes of those largely outside it's organization rather than those who are in the organization.

The same can be said for the nation.

Rewatching Elysium

So I was rewatching Elysium last night. As someone acutely aware of the implications of automation, watching Elysium is pretty hard on the suspension of belief mental state that one needs to be in to take such a movie in. Some of the major problems with Elysium:

1) The driods are apparently good enough to act as police and on screen were very elegant in their movements. Since that is the case why are humans building these robots? Any robotic technology good enough to be that elegant is good enough to put a robot together without human intervention. Yes, I know that the accident needs to happen to move the plot forward but still, it may have been more interesting to see the struggling to make ends meet character try to make those ends meet while competing with robots rather than just being policed by them. This is a problem that Total Recall had as well, though there appeared to be far less automation in that particular future.

2) Speaking of accidents. What the hell was that? Again, I understand that the plot needed to be moved forward but a door that cannot be opened? Seriously? In this high tech future no designer decided on a button that re-opens a door if it is blocked? I mean c'mon now. Sunroofs, power windows and garage door openers have had this feature for decades now. They don't have this for factory equipment? Ok. You COULD assume that the business was so into being profitable that they ordered the model without the open-door-if-blocked feature. BUt if they really wanted to be profitable there would be NO HUMANS working there anyway!

Lastly how are the rich people inhabiting Elysium making money? As the US will soon find out, if you decimate the spending class (that's middle class to you) then you have no one who can buy your goods and services. No one buys your goods and services means there's no money to be made. The entire economic model (since we saw no "middle class" earthbound people) of Elysium is built on quicksand, the entire movie makes no sense.

On a side note, I'm compelled to discuss the parallels between the recent news that the Chinese have gotten into genetically engineering embryos. One of the comments I've read about it is the difference in ethics between The West and the Chinese. Generally speaking the Chinese will do it if it can be done while The West, with it's history of slavery, Final Solutions and the like, have ethical qualms with doing these things. This brings us to the new RoboCop movie in which all the work done on RoboCop was done in what is clearly China. RoboCop is heavy on ethics and is watchable for that alone.

KIlling Cancer

Very interesting report from 60 Minutes on killing cancer with the Polio virus.

One of the important things here is that not only was this "cure" taken from treating brain cancer but that it also was tested on breast and prostate cancer among others with good results.

This underscores my main objection to "Titty Cancer Inc." in which the public has been made to think that breast cancer is the most important form of cancer ever and that defeating it is the best thing ever. I have long argued that cancer is cancer is cancer and that the focus on one type is probably bad. Of course 60 Minutes also did a report on "Disrupting Cancer"

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong notably said:

Patrick Soon-Shiong: A cancer is not what people think, cells growing. Cancer is actually the inability of the cells to die.

The key is figuring out the genetic mutation or glitch that prevents cells from dying a natural death. Soon-Shiong's hope is to provide patients with the precise genetic mutations that fuel their cancer regardless of where tumors are found in the body.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: The mutation that happens in lung cancer could be the exact same mutation that happens in the breast cancer. So you need to treat that patient based on its mutation not on its physical, anatomical location.

Interesting thing about the Polio experiment is that in a sense it goes to what Dr. Soon-Shiong says. The body kills the cells like it should.

Sanjay Gupta: That's a big idea. I mean, you know, the idea that the breast cancer specialist, they're looking for breast cancer mutations and they may be missing the ball.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

On The Jeremy Clarkson Dismissal

The BBC completely cocked up its handling of Jeremy Clarkson. It likely did so because it wanted to appeal to person who are not interested in Top Gear (Lefties). Yes it was likely that because when you read the criticisms of Jeremy Clarkson in much of the press they come down to:

He's white
He's apparently conservative
He's un PC
He insults people
He's boorish
Top Gear is a "boys club"

Essentially Clarkson represented everything that left wing UK (and US for that matter) stands for.

Apparently because I'm black I was supposed to be on board because of Clarkson's "catch a nigger by the toe" thing. Sorry, I don't offend easily. And I really don't offend easily when the person I'm supposed to be offended by insults just about everybody and THAT is a part of his "act". Personally I'm more offended by the perpetually offended who think that I, and the mass majority of black folks are too childish and thin skinned to hear that without falling to pieces or imagining Klan rallies and lynchings.

That said I do have to agree that Clarkson overstepped a major bound when he struck that producer. I am 100% against initiating violence. I am 100% for self defense, just so we're clear. The way I see it BBC should have suspended Clarkson and fined him in the form of oh, half his contract payout (preferably given to Clarkson's victim as recompense since it happened during BBC official business). Then the victim ought to have been given one opportunity to press charges. ONE time. Failure to do so would have ended the issue there and then. Had the producer decided to press charges, the BBC should have cooperated with any investigation and if any criminal conviction was secured they could have used that as grounds for dismissal OR to add that time to his suspension.

The thing is that when working for celebrities we KNOW that not a few of them have very very difficult personalities. Personally I think the producer should have knocked Clarkson right in the face one Clarkson assaulted him. It would have been quite funny to see an episode of Top Gear with Clarkson with a black eye.

But now BBC has lost a couple million viewers for whatever time slot Top Gear fell on. For BBC America, Top Gear was popular enough to run for HOURS and made up a large portion of it's programming (Star Trek The Next Generation, Dr. Who. Orphan Black being the others). I expect a definite impact on their bottom line. Maybe they don't care. That's there prerogative.

And on that bombshell...