Self driving cars and the problem of intuition

[Pete from Boston]

Haven't kept up lately, but I feel like this helps put a little more definition on issues many folks have with self-driving cars. 

https://qz.com/1064004/self-driving-cars-still-cant-mimic-the-most-natural-human-behavior/

"y building from a list of technical requirements, researchers neglect the single most important part of real-world driving: our intuition. Using it to determine the motivations of those around us is something humans are so effortlessly good at that it's hard to even notice we're doing it, nonetheless program for it."

[jeffandnicole]

Haven't kept up lately, but I feel like this helps put a little more definition on issues many folks have with self-driving cars. 

https://qz.com/1064004/self-driving-cars-still-cant-mimic-the-most-natural-human-behavior/

"y building from a list of technical requirements, researchers neglect the single most important part of real-world driving: our intuition. Using it to determine the motivations of those around us is something humans are so effortlessly good at that it’s hard to even notice we’re doing it, nonetheless program for it."

Ha.

If we're good at it, there'll be a helluva lot fewer accidents.

[The Nature Boy]

If everyone has a self-driving car, wouldn't intuition be less important because it'll be similarly programmed machines reading similarly programmed machines?

[kalvado]

Intuition is probably a bad word here. More like decisions taken without conscious understanding of things.
And then computer may be able to take those decisions "consciously" - but that only makes choices more difficult.
One can start heated discussion about some situations where human takes action without realising all small details, but choices become to difficult for conscious decision and software design.
For example: you suddenly have 2 kids running into the road. You cannot stop - you only can either hit them or steer on a sidewalk. But there are people on sidewalk as well.
If car is controlled by a human, whatever the choice would be - it is not questioned. It was an "intuitive" one.
Now, if you have computer which can analyze.. is there a difference  if sidewalk has:
-old lady on a wheelchair
-middle age man
-mother and child
-pregnant lady
-three older men
.....
And the single most frightening word in English is LIABILITY....

[Duke87]

If everyone has a self-driving car, wouldn't intuition be less important because it'll be similarly programmed machines reading similarly programmed machines?

Maybe, but these cars will still have to interact with bicyclists, pedestrians, and deer that are not driven by computer programs.

That said, the solution to this issue may ultimately lie not in finding a way to program self-driving cars to act like human-driven cars... but rather in people getting used to the fact that a car is not going to behave like a person. The challenge, then, is getting people to internalize that. Once they do, they may find that it is actually easier to predict the behavior of a car because it follows a consistent logical pattern while humans do not.

[Pete from Boston]

If everyone has a self-driving car, wouldn't intuition be less important because it'll be similarly programmed machines reading similarly programmed machines?

Maybe, but these cars will still have to interact with bicyclists, pedestrians, and deer that are not driven by computer programs.

That said, the solution to this issue may ultimately lie not in finding a way to program self-driving cars to act like human-driven cars... but rather in people getting used to the fact that a car is not going to behave like a person. The challenge, then, is getting people to internalize that. Once they do, they may find that it is actually easier to predict the behavior of a car because it follows a consistent logical pattern while humans do not.

Presently human drivers cannot internalize the existence of bicycles on the road.  In the US we do not often adapt without a fight.

[jeffandnicole]

Intuition is probably a bad word here. More like decisions taken without conscious understanding of things.
And then computer may be able to take those decisions "consciously" - but that only makes choices more difficult.
One can start heated discussion about some situations where human takes action without realising all small details, but choices become to difficult for conscious decision and software design.
For example: you suddenly have 2 kids running into the road. You cannot stop - you only can either hit them or steer on a sidewalk. But there are people on sidewalk as well.
If car is controlled by a human, whatever the choice would be - it is not questioned. It was an "intuitive" one.
Now, if you have computer which can analyze.. is there a difference  if sidewalk has:
-old lady on a wheelchair
-middle age man
-mother and child
-pregnant lady
-three older men
.....
And the single most frightening word in English is LIABILITY....

A good computer program - and sensors - would have detected those people long before you or I would see them.  And once we see them, it takes at least 0.75 seconds to process that, then another second to start the reaction process.

A computer - a self driven car - would do that in 0.000001 seconds...and that's after they sensed the danger that we don't even see yet.

[kalvado]

Intuition is probably a bad word here. More like decisions taken without conscious understanding of things.
And then computer may be able to take those decisions "consciously" - but that only makes choices more difficult.
One can start heated discussion about some situations where human takes action without realising all small details, but choices become to difficult for conscious decision and software design.
For example: you suddenly have 2 kids running into the road. You cannot stop - you only can either hit them or steer on a sidewalk. But there are people on sidewalk as well.
If car is controlled by a human, whatever the choice would be - it is not questioned. It was an "intuitive" one.
Now, if you have computer which can analyze.. is there a difference  if sidewalk has:
-old lady on a wheelchair
-middle age man
-mother and child
-pregnant lady
-three older men
.....
And the single most frightening word in English is LIABILITY....

A good computer program - and sensors - would have detected those people long before you or I would see them.  And once we see them, it takes at least 0.75 seconds to process that, then another second to start the reaction process.

A computer - a self driven car - would do that in 0.000001 seconds...and that's after they sensed the danger that we don't even see yet.

Thing is, there are always limited visibility situations, there are unpredictable events. Children suddenly running,  tires bursting, other drivers loosing control...

[Duke87]

Presently human drivers cannot internalize the existence of bicycles on the road.  In the US we do not often adapt without a fight.

I don't know whether that's resistance to adaptation, or simply a lack of perceived need for it. I drove 51 miles through suburban/outer urban areas today and did not encounter a single cyclist on the road... and this experience is not atypical. When such is the reality of driving, it is easy to forget that cyclists exist. Becoming conditioned to something requires regular exposure to it and there aren't enough cyclists out there in most places to effectively accomplish this.