Uber's Autonomous Car Detected The Pedestrian It Hit, Decided Not To Act
A month and a half ago, a pedestrian was tragically killed by one of Uber’s Volvo XC90-based autonomous test cars. Now, we’re getting a better idea of what went wrong on 18 March.
According to a new report in The Information, the prototype vehicle’s software did actually spot 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she crossed the road in Tempe, Arizona, but decided not to act.
Citing “two people briefed about the matter,” the publication reports that Herzberg was identified as a ‘false positive’. It’s deliberately built in to the system to ignore objects like litter in the road, so it does not brake or take evasive action unnecessarily. So while Herzberg was indeed ‘spotted’, she was not correctly classified by the system, and as a result, the car carried on regardless. Subsequently released footage also revealed that the human ‘operator’ of the car was looking down at the time of the accident.
Uber has so far refused to comment, owing to the current National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the accident. The company suspended its testing programme immediately after the fatal incident in March.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I remember a similar event from last week. (I know I posted this as a meme post but it is relevant thanks to Waymo being smug)
bit harsh on waymo, look at the video the other car came from nowhere after running a red and jumping the central curb!
When even computers get road rage
So you’re saying the computer called the woman trash and THEN ran her over?????
Useless tech
Indeed.
A system that is taking baby steps, which cannot make a difference between a paper bag and a grown up, is allowed to join traffic. That is the real problem.
Except it’s not. Had the driver actually done his job then maybe the accident would not have happened
Considering its in testing the human driver should be paying attention at all times for gods sake
This news isn’t really that big. This felt pretty obvious from the beginning. With all the systems the cars have that aren’t dependent of visible light, it would be expected that it had seen her, but then not realised that it was in fact a person, I reckon.
This is scary since i just finished reading Dan Brown Origin!