The first death has been reported in self-driving cars. Our worst fears
about artificial intelligence are already beginning to come true.
A test man working with Tesla motors was killed after the autopilot
feature failed to see a bright-white 18-wheeler which was poorly contrast
against the bright lit sky.
It is unfortunate, and spooky, since white is the most common color for
tractor trailers, and the big rigs account for the most deadly accidents. One
wonders how a tiny, smart car making decisions of a computer would stand up
to such a vehicle.
Not “sophisticated enough to overcome blindness from bright or low
contrast light.” Videographers know how easily blown-out light that is too
bright can ruin an otherwise well composed shot. Cameras can do a lot, but
digital sensors aren’t usually good at compensating for this issue.
And it happens to be reason this man got killed, as Yahoo! reports:
The U.S. announced Thursday the first fatality in a wreck
involving a car in self-driving mode, the 40-year-old owner of a technology
company who nicknamed his vehicle “Tessy” and had praised its sophisticated
“Autopilot” system just one month earlier for preventing a collision on an
interstate. The government said it is investigating the design and
performance of the system aboard the Tesla Model S sedan.
Joshua D. Brown, of Canton, Ohio, died in the accident May 7 in Williston,
Florida, when his car’s cameras failed to distinguish the white side
of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn’t automatically
activate its brakes, according to government records obtained
Thursday.
[…]
The technology relies on multiple cameras, radar, laser and
computers to sense objects and determine if they are in the car’s way, said
Mike Harley, an analyst at Kelley Blue Book. Systems like Tesla’s, which rely
heavily on cameras, “aren’t sophisticated enough to overcome blindness from
bright or low contrast light,” he said.
This time, it wasn’t human error.
Let that sink in.
On the other hand, according to the report from the truck driver who collided
with the vehicle, the man was not only asleep at the wheel, but watching a
DVD or Harry Potter at the time of the crash:
Frank Baressi, 62, the driver of the truck and owner of Okemah
Express LLC, said the Tesla driver was “playing Harry Potter on the TV
screen” at the time of the crash and driving so quickly that “he went so fast
through my trailer I didn’t see him.”
“It was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter
mile down the road,” Baressi told The Associated Press
Wow. And you think others will be paying attention when they get behind
the wheel of these things?
Neither parts of this techno-tragedy bode well for the future.
People are quick to turn themselves over to conveniences and gadgets, and
many will happily put their lives in the hands of these vehicles.
But technology, no matter how sophisticated, can’t directly interpret
reality.
And cold hard reality is just what this car crashed into, and the sensors
didn’t catch it.
A few months ago, a Google self-driving car had the industry’s first car
accident.
Google Self-Driving Car Causes Accident For The First Time
Read more:
Self-Driving Cars Programmed to Sacrifice As They Hit the
Road: “Someone Is Going to Die”
Fed Up With Traffic? Highway “Straddling Bus” Would Carry
1400, Allow Cars to Drive Underneath
Hawking Warns Humanity Could Self-Destruct: “Spread Out Into
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