Comment by doright
5 hours ago
Reminds me of all the Waymo vehicles stalled during that San Francisco blackout a while ago.
I have always believed that when people cite statistics on Waymos beating human drivers on safety statistics, that is only in the case of the happy path, or "happy road". The safety statistics could plummet in specific scenarios that lack training data or forethought, and they could crop up at any time.
There must be a term for this fallacy.
“I’d rather survive 100% of the time in situations that happen 0.01% of the time than survive 99.9999@ of the time in situations that arise 99.99% of the time”
Right, but humans are terrible at the happy path. I’d take 20% safer on the happy path over 40% less safe in unforeseen circumstances. The failure mode being “stopped car” is also not that bad.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy. There’s the third part which is “foreseen but challenging circumstances.” Also, “stopped car” can be VERY bad in many circumstances. Stopped on lane 2 of a motorway, stopped in running water, stopped in snow.
Also I suspect many “unforeseen” circumstances happen regularly. The unforeseen part is “what” and “when.”
... stopped on a railroad track.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/waymo-trai...