[Freddy]

I imagine everyone has seen this. Is this the first person to have been killed (accidentally) by an AI ?

An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital. There was a vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash.

Full story at The Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/uber-self-driving-car-kills-woman-arizona-tempe

[infurl]

It's the first pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving car. Previously there was a driver killed in an accident involving a truck and his Tesla. Ironically that driver had publicly credited his car with saving his life on several occasions before that accident.

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-driver-in-fatal-florida-crash-got-numerous-warnin-1796226021

[Freddy]

saving his life on several occasions

This reflection does not really inspire confidence 

[ukrsolution]

The conclusion of investigation noticed that it's not fault of AI. There was a dark part of road and any person driving a car could cause the same accident.

[ranch vermin]

no way,  it was the car!
they arent ready yet to take EVERYTHING into account.  they are just little systems.
Dont think its magic,  i saw George Hotz machine drop out on railway lines.

So they should be outlawed soon,  i wouldnt doubt it.

[Art]

While the loss of life is tragic regardless of the person or circumstances, I detest the manner in which the slanted media Spins the story.

Self-driving Uber Kills Woman!

It could have read, 'Woman dies after walking in front of a moving Uber driverless car!', but it didn't.
The article made UBER and the autonomous car to blame.

Some view the unfortunate incident as a way to turn the tide against autonomous vehicles!

The media will continue to spin things and slant their views the way they've done for many years.

You can't fix stupidity!

[keghn]

Dashcam footage: Self-driving Uber fatally hits pedestrian: 

[Freddy]

I don't think most humans would have averted that.

I wonder if the cars have heat sensors.

[infurl]

I don't think most humans would have averted that.
I wonder if the cars have heat sensors.

From what I've read, the woman stepped out in front of the car so suddenly that it would have been physically impossible to stop in time, no matter how fast the response. Self-driving cars use LIDAR which is an active sensor and unaffected by ambient light levels. It is a weak laser beam that constantly scans the area in front of the car and measures the flight time of the reflection to build a range map. Video would also be in the infrared.

I believe that if an experienced human driver was at the wheel and they had seen the woman, they would have instinctively slowed down just in case the woman was stupid or crazy enough to throw herself in front of the car. However it was dark and the human driver couldn't see her. There is an opportunity here to make self-driving cars superior to human drivers. You just have to make sure cars know that if people can do something stupid, they will do something stupid.

It's either that or we go back to the requirement that someone has to walk in front of the car at all times, swinging a lantern and ringing a bell.

[infurl]

Now that more video has been released, it's apparent that the woman was actually crossing the road from the other side. She did not just suddenly step out in front of the car, she had to cross one whole lane to reach the lane where the car was driving. If everything had been working properly, the car should have been able to detect her in time to stop, even if a human driver would not have been able to in those circumstances.

Equipment failure is the main suspect now, but crossing a road at any time without looking at all is still the height of stupidity.

[Don Patrick]

Sometimes an accidents is unavoidable. While I understand that there is room for improvement on the LIDAR to make it perform better than humans, I'm not sure any car could have stopped in time at that speed. The lesson here is: Do not cross highways if you can see cars coming.

[Art]

Walking a bike at night, in the darkness instead of in the more well-lit areas, almost no attention/awareness to oncoming traffic or no sense of urgency to cross, no reflective clothing (as is highly recommended by most municipalities), leads to the unfortunate incident.

Even though it didn't appear as if the car was speeding, whenever a car impacts a human, the car usually wins.

Sad case indeed.

[keghn]

 I ride a bike a lot. At night with the car with its head light on is still not as good as day light, for thing in front of the car. Even worse
for thing and people to the left or right of the  car. I feel that the car had time to break, at super human speed, but
not avoid the accident. It would have reduced
damage to the victim, but may have cause the car to loose control and the passenger in the car could also have been hurt or killed.

[Freddy]

Well I've encountered dear standing in the road around the back lanes where I live and it's always been a close one. But those are standing directly in the line of my lights. If they had run in from the side and out of view I would probably have less chance of avoiding them.