Uber Self drive car not safe yet
Uber’s self drive car got involved in a fatal accident recently in the U.S. This has raised concern whether to allow such vehicles to be on road. The whole incident has been recorded on the dash board cam. The footage reveals that the car had acknowledged an object in the front but didn’t stop. The woman was seen crossing the road with her bicycle in Tempe, Arizona.
The National Transportation Safety Board is yet to determine the cause of the crash or issue safety recommendations.
Robotics is still at a learning Phase
It is reported that the Uber vehicle was driving at about 40 mph when it hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. About a second before impact, the report says “the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision.” But the system is not allowed to make emergency braking maneuvers on its own. Uber relies on its human operator to watch the road and take control when trouble arises.
The Autonomous system relies on machine learning. They “learn” to classify and respond to situations based on datasets of images and behaviors. The problem is that it’s hard to find images of every sort of situation that could happen in the wild. The car should be able to predict the object’s movements, and respond accordingly.
Technology needs to be more adaptive
Capturing all the strange, unpredictable incidents on public roads is impossible. To train systems to deal with them, is also very difficult. The car won’t get it right every time, especially not in these early days.
Uber’s self-driving software is not yet ready to replace humans. Herzberg, walking a bike loaded with plastic bags and moving perpendicular to the car, outside the crosswalk and in a poorly lit spot, challenged Uber’s system.
No matter how much we get advanced some real life situations can only be dealt by humans. Who can we blame for the accident, surely the system cannot be blamed alone.
