I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side?
And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100% attentive to their surroundings, especially since it's the first day of real, commercial trials.
Uber has enough money and power to be negligent and reckless unfortunately. I was a big Uber user but the way they treated me after an accident (where I was the hurt passenger) was truly terrifying. I thought the whole Uber is "evil" thing was overblown but it is not. Be very, very careful with Uber. They have a lot of resources to fight with, and most people don't have the emotional or financial resources to go to trial with them. They're like a playground bully who gets away with anything because even the teachers can't win against them.
In absolute numbers, their company probably follows more laws than most people on this forum, since they operate in many different jurisdictions. It wouldn't surprise me if the average HN commenter committed more felonies than the average Uber executive, or of Uber as a whole.
Then we are better off driving for real because `not driving, meaning not being in control, but being ready to take the helm at any time` must be more exhausting (because you have to focus on everything not under your control vs focus on everything that you don't have control minus what you actually control) and increase our reaction time (since some time will pass between the moment you notice you have to take the helm and the moment when you actually are in control) than just driving.
I watched quite the opposite problem the other day. Uber self-driving car pulled up to a red light on a busy intersection, in the left turn lane. The light turned green. I could tell that the car was in self-driving mode because it didn't step into the intersection like humans would do - not even slightly. The opposing traffic never let up enough to make a left turn, so the car stayed put, even through the yellow. Poor thing skipped a complete green light cycle. I think I heard a horn from some of the drivers backed up behind it.
Humans do this also. It makes me wonder what the driver did before left turn arrows were common. In driver's ed, i was tought to pull into the intersection blocking the right lane of perpendicular traffic (to my left), the lane just after the crosswalk. A surprising number of people don't pull up at all.
> Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side?
Because in our world - 'do it first and ask for mercy later' works better. It probably depends on situation if it's a unethical/bad tactics or not, though.
YES. I live 10 feet away from the garage. I've noticed over the past few months that they've been ramping in typical startup fashion: hockey stick growth.
After reading about Lyft's CEO, a narrative of "nice guys finishing last", I started realizing how unscrupulous Uber is. Sadly, cut-throat businesses win.
I recently took an Uber ride, where the driver was an un-retired man in his 70s. He recently just abandoned his failing dry clean business. This one hits close to home for me, because my parents are approaching their 70s, holding on to a failing dry clean business, too. For me, hardworking people like this, with arguably bad business acumen, are counter example to the notion of "if you're poor, it's because you didn't work hard enough." Before the dry clean business, the Uber driver ran a deli business, but that was a failure, too. No doubt he possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, albeit he probably shouldn't. I can't fault him for not being smarter. He proceeded to tell me about his idea to create a website where people upload images of their face, at different angle, and can get a custom printed 3d figurine, that he would hand paint them. I didn't have the heart to tell him that as someone in the top 1% income bracket of 20-something year olds, who consistently blows money on expensive toys / gadgets / dinners, I would never spend $300 bucks on a custom painted figurine. See, he was an artist before coming to America. He said "I want to be an artist before I die. I was too busy making a living when I came to America".
Uber gave this man a job. That's good. But he's being paid near minimum wage. To achieve that, he has to work 12+ hour days to acquire the bonuses that Uber uses to incentivize their drivers to become addicted. These are the kinds of risk Uber induces on its drivers, customers, and other people on the road. The sad reality is, he's going to be displaced from this minimum wage job by automation, much earlier than people expect. Uber doesn't care. I'm not saying Uber or any private company MUST care. I'm just illustrating how a company's values permeates itself, and precipitates to individuals' livelihoods.
I recently read an article about the unit economics of Uber. It doesn't work out. Uber, in it's current form is based on leveraging free VC money to subsidize and incentivize somewhat artificial demand. It's predatory monopolistic tactics. They won't be able to live up to their unicorn IPO valuation hype. They NEED to expand into other domains. Recently, Uber acquired an A.I. startup, which I think is an indicator of this. Alternatively, they can fix the unit economics equation to be profitable. Autonomous vehicles is the purported answer. This VC and unicorn valuation environment, I believe, is resulting in this kind of hastiness, at the increased risk of human lives.
Agreed, I think that driving only makes sense as a minimum wage job.
The notion that Lyft is significantly better is untrue. Lyft actually created the "ride sharing" portion of both apps (UberX emulated Lyft's model). Lyft didn't get regulatory approval either. Both have been ejected from Austin and other cities.
I think the unit economics work out, but perhaps not to the level their current valuation suggests. I think Lyft could have been successful if it had not been outspent/out-VC-raised by Uber. Lyft was the original innovator of the true ride sharing segment. Uber at the time was a broker/dispatcher for commercial limousines.
> I would never spend $300 bucks on a custom painted figurine
Not for yourself. But there are many people who love to have portraits of themselves on the walls, especially if the artist has a knack for that business ...
(This 'selfie' thing didn't come out of nowhere at all, to think of it ...)
> I recently read an article about the unit economics of Uber. It doesn't work out. Uber, in it's current form is based on leveraging free VC money to subsidize and incentivize somewhat artificial demand.
I don't buy that argument. By that logic no taxi service could ever work out. It might not work out at the current price levels, but once they squashed all competitors they're free to raise their prices (similar to what Amazon does).
"This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."
I find it telling that they do not actually say whether the car was in autonomous mode when it ran the red light, only that it was "due to human error". Was the human error that they didn't assume manual control and stop the car?
They should release the interior video of the incident, then. It's their car and their employee (not one of their contractors) and with no passenger there's no privacy concern either.
Seems like a reckless statement on a couple of fronts. For one, it's openly disrespectful to the human drivers upon whom they've relied to this point--seemingly regarding them as nuisances which must be discarded post-haste.
And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? Their statement could easily be used against them.
If a driver is driving a car, and the car knowns it has red light. It has to take control over the driver and stop the car. Over. Why else do you think we need driverless cars? Literally, to fix drivers mistakes. It's Ubers fault, it was computer error. What else do you think Uber would say?
Why would an employee/contractor be suspended for a minor traffic violation? Nobody was hurt. I'd rather they talk about taking steps to train the people and algorithms better
Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right?
If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over.
edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?
The video, published by the San Francisco Examiner, was captured by a dashcam mounted inside a vehicle operated by Luxor Cab, one of SF’s licensed cab companies.
The car certainly should know how to respond to police lights/sirens. I was reading Google's monthly reports on their cars and they were talking about adding a pull over response to their system.
If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the worst hazards on the road.
There should be special fines for self-driving cars making errors. It would force companies to be more careful and lead to better engineering. Also, competing manufacturers could "turn in" to police other manufacturer's cars that misbehave.
Also, any changes to the software run on self-driving cars should be stored in an "escrow" service for at least X months before it is uploaded (preferably by an independent party) to the cars, to allow for sufficient testing.
We don't want to end up in the situation where car manufacturers make quick updates to cover flaws.
If the software is broken, the cars should be grounded, the software should be fixed and tested for at least X hours of driving.
This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a sustainable cost savings that doesn't involve lighting pile of cash on fire. It desperately needs driverless cars before Tesla and Google kills their business off.
Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. It's likely to hit more such obstacles until it realizes it's not really in the business of taxi but a business of acquiring market share with low interest rate capital.
It's not clear that Uber has hit a regulatory wall. The DMV wrote them a stern note, yes. Uber has received various scary-sounding threats of government sanction and has overcome them in the past (for example, at one point a German judge threatened to fine them 250k euros per car per day). They have often been successful in arguing their case or in going above or around uncooperative regulators.
The California state government is not a monolith, and Uber is an experienced lobbyist and negotiator. It's certainly possible that the DMV will prevail here, but not a certainty. And even if the DMV does prevail, Uber can get the appropriate permits and then resume, or else just pilot the program in one of the 49 other states.
Exactly. Uber is likely already following all of the permit requirements ($5 million insurance and experienced drivers) so they just need to apply for one. That assumes they don't challenge it in court based on the ambiguous language of the bill about what determines an autonomous vehicle, which sounds like their plan. They've demonstrated themselves to not be afraid of some bad press or the court room.
Hardly a major roadblock at the pre-market testing stage for such a big company already operating in Pittsburgh. They could easily shift testing to other people more welcoming states and countries in the meantime.
I recommend reading the actual letter from the DMV. It's impressively well-written, balanced, and thoughtful about autonomous technology. I was not expecting a response like that from the government.
The only thing that might surpass Google's inability to execute on their autonomous cars is Uber's congenital need to break the law for no reason at all.
Uber has the garages for both Otto and these cars on Harrison, between 3rd and 4th streets, on the side of the lanes headed to I-80W/101S. When they need to park either, particularly the semi-trucks, they get people in vests to come out, stop traffic for pretty much all lanes of traffic, and slowly park their delicate vehicles.... Glad to see this story.
Readit News
And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100% attentive to their surroundings, especially since it's the first day of real, commercial trials.
When did Uber obey the law? Why would they start now?
Edit: Apologies for my tone, but Uber has demonstrated quite a few times in the past that they don't have any respect for the law.
In absolute numbers, their company probably follows more laws than most people on this forum, since they operate in many different jurisdictions. It wouldn't surprise me if the average HN commenter committed more felonies than the average Uber executive, or of Uber as a whole.
Deleted Comment
I watched quite the opposite problem the other day. Uber self-driving car pulled up to a red light on a busy intersection, in the left turn lane. The light turned green. I could tell that the car was in self-driving mode because it didn't step into the intersection like humans would do - not even slightly. The opposing traffic never let up enough to make a left turn, so the car stayed put, even through the yellow. Poor thing skipped a complete green light cycle. I think I heard a horn from some of the drivers backed up behind it.
Self-driving cars might be a little too polite.
So it's a bad driver.
Because in our world - 'do it first and ask for mercy later' works better. It probably depends on situation if it's a unethical/bad tactics or not, though.
YES. I live 10 feet away from the garage. I've noticed over the past few months that they've been ramping in typical startup fashion: hockey stick growth.
After reading about Lyft's CEO, a narrative of "nice guys finishing last", I started realizing how unscrupulous Uber is. Sadly, cut-throat businesses win.
I recently took an Uber ride, where the driver was an un-retired man in his 70s. He recently just abandoned his failing dry clean business. This one hits close to home for me, because my parents are approaching their 70s, holding on to a failing dry clean business, too. For me, hardworking people like this, with arguably bad business acumen, are counter example to the notion of "if you're poor, it's because you didn't work hard enough." Before the dry clean business, the Uber driver ran a deli business, but that was a failure, too. No doubt he possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, albeit he probably shouldn't. I can't fault him for not being smarter. He proceeded to tell me about his idea to create a website where people upload images of their face, at different angle, and can get a custom printed 3d figurine, that he would hand paint them. I didn't have the heart to tell him that as someone in the top 1% income bracket of 20-something year olds, who consistently blows money on expensive toys / gadgets / dinners, I would never spend $300 bucks on a custom painted figurine. See, he was an artist before coming to America. He said "I want to be an artist before I die. I was too busy making a living when I came to America".
Uber gave this man a job. That's good. But he's being paid near minimum wage. To achieve that, he has to work 12+ hour days to acquire the bonuses that Uber uses to incentivize their drivers to become addicted. These are the kinds of risk Uber induces on its drivers, customers, and other people on the road. The sad reality is, he's going to be displaced from this minimum wage job by automation, much earlier than people expect. Uber doesn't care. I'm not saying Uber or any private company MUST care. I'm just illustrating how a company's values permeates itself, and precipitates to individuals' livelihoods.
I recently read an article about the unit economics of Uber. It doesn't work out. Uber, in it's current form is based on leveraging free VC money to subsidize and incentivize somewhat artificial demand. It's predatory monopolistic tactics. They won't be able to live up to their unicorn IPO valuation hype. They NEED to expand into other domains. Recently, Uber acquired an A.I. startup, which I think is an indicator of this. Alternatively, they can fix the unit economics equation to be profitable. Autonomous vehicles is the purported answer. This VC and unicorn valuation environment, I believe, is resulting in this kind of hastiness, at the increased risk of human lives.
The notion that Lyft is significantly better is untrue. Lyft actually created the "ride sharing" portion of both apps (UberX emulated Lyft's model). Lyft didn't get regulatory approval either. Both have been ejected from Austin and other cities.
I think the unit economics work out, but perhaps not to the level their current valuation suggests. I think Lyft could have been successful if it had not been outspent/out-VC-raised by Uber. Lyft was the original innovator of the true ride sharing segment. Uber at the time was a broker/dispatcher for commercial limousines.
If I have a choice, I don't take Uber.
Not for yourself. But there are many people who love to have portraits of themselves on the walls, especially if the artist has a knack for that business ...
(This 'selfie' thing didn't come out of nowhere at all, to think of it ...)
I don't buy that argument. By that logic no taxi service could ever work out. It might not work out at the current price levels, but once they squashed all competitors they're free to raise their prices (similar to what Amazon does).
Yes, it is in fact a key feature of laws and statutes that they (sometimes) keep people from just doing whatever they want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4
"This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
Also: Uber is not listed in the CA DMV list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles? https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...
My new side project is a The Aristrocrats joke, except it ends with "The Gig Economy!"
And, of course, it begs the question: what would their response have been if it was due to a technical glitch, which may yet happen? Their statement could easily be used against them.
If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over.
edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
The car certainly should know how to respond to police lights/sirens. I was reading Google's monthly reports on their cars and they were talking about adding a pull over response to their system.
It's going to be even funnier when the patrol car is an unmanned self-driving bot itself.
Deleted Comment
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...
We don't want to end up in the situation where car manufacturers make quick updates to cover flaws.
If the software is broken, the cars should be grounded, the software should be fixed and tested for at least X hours of driving.
Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. It's likely to hit more such obstacles until it realizes it's not really in the business of taxi but a business of acquiring market share with low interest rate capital.
We won't see an Uber IPO anytime soon.
The California state government is not a monolith, and Uber is an experienced lobbyist and negotiator. It's certainly possible that the DMV will prevail here, but not a certainty. And even if the DMV does prevail, Uber can get the appropriate permits and then resume, or else just pilot the program in one of the 49 other states.
Hardly a major roadblock at the pre-market testing stage for such a big company already operating in Pittsburgh. They could easily shift testing to other people more welcoming states and countries in the meantime.
I wouldn't be surprised if they just can say "sorry, misunderstanding", apply for a permit like everybody else and continue with a bit more oversight.
So, Uber only hit the wall in SF, and can still continue testing elsewhere.
That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do.
We gamble with pedestrian's lives every time we get in a car.
No one has seen how these vehicles perform in real world scenarios. It seems very possible they could perform better than humans on average.
Uber have the ear of the president-elect. That's worth quite a lot in terms of being able to ignore regulations.
Don't even know what DMV is.