California governor vetoes bill requiring human drivers in robo trucks California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a state bill that would have required autonomous trucks on state roads to be chaperoned by a human safety operator. "Assembly Bill 316 is unnecessary for the regulation and oversight of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle technology in California, as existing law provides sufficient …
A blanket ban on them supported by Teamsters is job protection, that will be impossible to remove when the day comes that there is no safety reason to keep a "driver" on board. I agree with him that it should be handled by the same regulatory framework that currently regulates self driving passenger vehicles and will get expanded to handle heavier vehicles.
It took me a minute to figure it out, too, but this has all been done properly. See, only 95% of the PEOPLE vs 100% of a CORPORATION, it's obvious which wins, right?
We probably have to do away with those things, really.
You mean the framework that's allowed self-driving taxis to completely block streets just because the cell network got congested?
Gonna be real interesting the first time a semi loaded with hazmat cargo has a "connectivity failure" that stops it on some train tracks.
A reasonable compromise might be that Level 3 certified and below vehicles require a safety driver who is actively monitoring the environment and vehicle at all times. Level 4 requires a safety driver who can be napping studying or working on something else during normal operation, but is expected to take over if the vehicle alerts him/her or if it comes to a prolonged stop. Level 5 (if it ever comes about) can operate without a driver. Probably needs some additional nuances. Who does the certification? Is it valid in all states? And provinces? Worldwide?
BTW, Waymo and Cruise are currently Level 4. For cars anyway. Would trucks be different? Tesla is claimed to be level 2 (But Elon continues to promise "Full Self-Driving" any day now.)
Level 5 certification probably needs to be done by the city rather than state or national governments. A computer that is able to drive safely in San Francisco isn't necessarily able to drive safely in New York, and almost certainly isn't able to drive safely in London, or the Scottish Highlands.
I think they would need, and will eventually have, some sort of certification process. Like a driver's test, but for cars instead of people - far more involved since there would be far fewer such tests to conduct. But I don't think having a separate test per city is likely. I don't need to take a driver's test in SF or NYC or London to be able to drive there. It may not be as safe as some NYC residents would prefer for me to try to drive in downtown Manhattan compared to someone who has driven those streets for years, but NYC doesn't have a way to stop me from doing so (but I don't ever want to try, and have no reason to with the subway an easier alternative that doesn't require finding a place to park!)
The problems driving in SF may not be the same as the problems driving in NYC or London, but if a computer could pass driving tests in SF and NYC and London I think it would be OK in Boston or Dublin or Chicago. At some point you have to trust that demonstrating the ability to drive in enough other places means it should be allowed to drive anywhere that L5 vehicles are allowed, just like the UK trusted me to drive in the Scottish Highlands, on narrow single lane Irish roads, or getting out of and back into Heathrow and Gatwick and all over the place with the exception of central London! That's despite the added complication of driving on the other side and dealing with roundabouts I had no experience with (over the past decade a few dozen have been put in where I live, my experience in the UK made me more comfortable with them than a lot of others were who loudly complained at first lol)
Although I largely agree with you, let me assure you that driving in Boston is a unique experience. The problem is that almost everywhere else in the world traffic operates either on a relatively universal set of rules or on an "every man for himself" basis. In Boston however, the guiding principle is "He who has the least to lose in a collision has the right of way". And yes, I think that is likely to be a problem for autonomous vehicles.
As someone who lived in Massachusetts for many years, and realized that I had to leave when I screamed at a woman for **NOT** cutting me off in traffic, let me clarify about Mass drivers attitudes:
* In New York City, it's, "Get the f%$# out of my way, I'm in a hurry."
* In the Baltimore/Washington area, it's, "I'm too important to pay attention or to learn how to drive."
* In Massachusetts it's, "'I'm willing to sacrifice myself for God and Emperor so that you don't get there first."
Sure, but a taxi driver who passes the knowledge in London isn’t qualified to drive a taxi in Glasgow, or in the Highlands District. They are allowed to take a passenger there from London, or do a pre-booked return journey back to London, but otherwise, they are only allowed to work in London.
But there is the difference that you can recognise a roundabout you’ve never seen before[1], whereas that isn’t guaranteed for a computer.
[1] unless it is those particularly evil ones in Swindon and Hemel Hempstead.
Sure but that's an artificial restraint of trade that's not really necessary for driving a cab other than it allows people to ask to be taken anywhere and the cabbie knows where it is and the best way to get there. Learning "the knowledge" is about memorizing streets and routes, a skill which is pretty much obsolete in the world of smartphones.
Time to spill some paint.
No clear cut lines means no Auto drive.
I'm also curious to see how well a spray layer of peanut butter mixed with ferrous metal dust disrupts those sensors.
I just happened to have a lot of peanut butter around and an surplus of metal dust from using my angle grinder.
I'm in the mood for some recycling.
A human driver can just put their head out the window.
I know that from personal experience when someone threw a fresh hot bean and cheese burrito from Taco Bell across my windshield.
I was so astonished I was laughing my ass off all the way to the gas station.
Last thing I ever expected. I couldn't help but find it hilarious to be in such a situation.
"Thumbs down, without explanation of why that could not physically function in that manner?"
Might not have occurred to you that the thumbs down isn't related to whether it would physically function, but more to the whole "using firearms and explosives to commit hijack and robbery", which is generally frowned upon among civilised people, however 'evil' the target might be.
"I don't give a fuck if autonomous vehicles are hijacked and robbed."
So what is the difference between the above statement and
"I don't give a fuck if a parked vehicle is hijacked and robbed."
or "I don't give a fuck if an ATM is broken into and robbed."
or "I don't give a fuck if a shop is broken into and robbed during the night when there aren't any humans in it"
???
> I don't give a fuck if autonomous vehicles are hijacked and robbed.
That would give a future governor the excuse to allow autonomous vehicles to have autonomous guns, which can shoot back to defend themselves..
And the next step after that is ED-209s instead of patrol cars
Sadly, big business always wins, and attacks by individuals just make it stronger.
"I don't give a fuck if autonomous vehicles are hijacked and robbed."
Even the one delivering something you need? Or the prices go up because others think like you?
Or do you already have everything you need in your bunker for the foreseeable future?
I already know that the world is full of various templates of approval and disapproval.
So does everyone else.
That's nothing new and so nothing worth expressing as it is obvious and discussing as such more belong to a feelings group processing how they feel collectively.
So back to the discussion of how to succeed in autonomous driving versus how to derail it
Regardless of whether you approve of the idea, it's plausible that someone else will. It's a threat, and the people promoting driverless trucking need to explain how their threat model accommodates it.
Just thumbing it down as a virtue signal contributes nothing to the discussion. It's anti-intellectualism at its finest.
"It's a threat, and the people promoting driverless trucking need to explain how their threat model accommodates it."
Let's start with the obvious, which is that human-driven trucks hardly ever get hijacked, because the value of goods on them usually isn't worth the hassle and the risk. A human driver on minimum wage isn't risking life or limb to protect their employers' cargo, and self-employed truckers have insurance against that sort of thing. Having robo-trucks won't change that calculus significantly from a criminal point of view.
It is also unlikely that high-value cargo would be transported by robo-trucks without additional security layers.
Thumbs down, without explanation of why that could not physically function in that manner?
I never use the thumbs down or thumbs up things, but it's plain to see you are receiving thumbs down because you are writing shit like you are 11 years old and appearing to be a twat.
"Thermite burn the doors open and grab what you can before the authorities arrive."
Thermite? Really? Any evidence that that is a common method? Most trucks are so flimsy, they can be opened up far more easily, safely and without risk of setting the cargo you are after on fire.
Ultimately the costs to society will rise as corporations get richer and the population increasingly becomes unemployed and has no meaningful income.
At the moment nobody is prepared to tackle this because those driving all this automation are going to make huge amounts of money in the short term.
Politicians are incapable of thinking beyond next week or the next bung so we are on a path to the complete breakdown or society,
This may be the first time I've seen something the California governor has done that I could agree with. The proper regulatory agency will be much better at coming up with the rules vs a gaggle of politicians that boggle at how amazing a light switch is.
I have to admit I didn't bother to read the vetoed bill so it could also be a sand trap of a collection of unrelated junk. The same thing as the "save the children act" that's really a spending bill with some paragraph in it that mentions kids. Just because the label says Scotch doesn't mean there's a nice single malt in the bottle. (I have a thin echo of a Jubal Harshaw quote in there somewhere but I couldn't find it with an online search and it's not yet time to reread Stranger in a Strange Land again.
"and it's not yet time to reread Stranger in a Strange Land again."
Quoting Heinlein is like quoting the Bible. He changed his politics and attitude towards society so many times over his life, there probably a quote for every situation, even for opposing viewpoints :-)
Oh, full disclose, I still enjoy his books and re-read Stranger just a couple of years ago :-)
"Quoting Heinlein is like quoting the Bible. "
I was quoting Jubal! The quote was more of a truism than a political/societal viewpoint. In essence, you can't always rely on what's written on the label. At one of my factories I put up graphics advertising portable toilets on the doors for some added security. My company made loudspeakers but I really didn't want to plaster that all over the outside of the building. The corporate name was fairly generic so it could have been for any sort of product. I was thinking about the last place criminals would break into and a building full of smelly port-o-lets seemed to fit that bill to a T.
Not getting into the role debate about the bill, although I will say, letting the relevant department makes the rules rather than elected politicians who bend over to whoever pays them the most, seems like an entirely unexpected piece of common sense from a politician!
I can actually see a good use case for autonomous trucks to be running along highways in large lands like the US and Australia. Have them then taken over by a human operator for getting from the highway to the Depot (remote or actually in person I don't care). And you would have a system where the complex part is handled by humans, and the simple part is handled by computers.
Why make the system difficult, when it doesn't need to be?
"and the simple part is handled by computers."
You raise some interesting points. Although at the current and foreseeable state of "self-driving", I wonder how they will handle an Aussie road train needing to overtake, or contend with 'roos or camels suddenly veering into the road? Or change a wheel or three on a long trip driving over washboards etc while 500K from the nearest town?
I suspect the sort of long distance trucking you are talking about might actually be the last to go "self-driving". Shorter stuff on decent roads with a proper mettled surface might work, but even there, there's still tyre blow-outs to consider, especially it hotter climes.
Collision avoidance is already a part of self-driving algorithms (how good they are or not is another point entirely), so overtaking or slowing down to the speed of the car in front should not be difficult. As to avoidance of Roos, etc. a wider field of view would be advisable, but again should not be overly difficult to handle for. (Although I know that Roos are stupid and have a tendency to jump out in front of cars without warning).
As for actual crashes and wheel blowouts, then proper monitoring on the trucks should not be difficult. A crash sensor through an accelerometer should be able to say if the truck has hit something, and tire pressure monitors would alert to blowouts. In either case, then the truck should pull over and wait for a repair truck to arrive (same as any other time they hit something). A repair service at a "nearby" petrol station (yes I know we are talking about 100km+ distances here), should be able to arrive to fix things or to assess the damage within a couple of hours. It might be a longer time than if there is a human driver, but the costs saved in having a human driver for all of those long stints where nothing happens would I expect make it economically viable.
The truck being stationary for more than a minute, should trigger human remote operator intervention, allowing for overtaking of a stopped car on the road safely, before returning to "self-driving" mode.
As such, I really dont find the issues of highway driving to be at all difficult to sort.
"In either case, then the truck should pull over and wait for a repair truck to arrive"
If a truck driver loses a tire now, they can slow down and choose a safe place to pull over. Other than a front tire, it's likely they can still move, albeit much slower, to a place where they can fully pull off the road or at least where the stopped truck is visible. That's a highly variable decision and unlikely that an autonomous vehicle will be able to do it. With a tire fire, it may be better to block the middle of the road and not pull off to the side where there's a hillside of dry brush just waiting to be touched off.
I was stopped on the highway just a couple of days ago behind an accident where four lanes become one to squeeze by. Not too far behind me a highway patrol car was running a traffic break to bring the highway to a halt until they could get more emergency services in place and guide people out of the way. I was sitting still for a couple of minutes. Other times it has been much longer. Remote intervention would do nothing. Even if people had stopped an autonomous truck to steal its contents, in the US, the company would be up on charges if they injured anybody by moving the truck to get away since there would be no immediate threat to a driver.
A driver isn't just driving full speed down a highway. There can be all sorts of time spent doing paperwork, getting checked in at a depot, going through random inspections at weigh stations and getting pulled over to be notified of issues on the truck (registration, lighting, anti-sail flaps, etc). Drivers are also security for the load. Even if they don't confront thieves, they can call law enforcement or maneuver to get away. They can also spot traps. Many local drivers know there are places they shouldn't go or times of day that are unsafe even though it's legal to drive those streets.
"I suspect the sort of long distance trucking you are talking about might actually be the last to go "self-driving". "
There's already a system for that, trains. Short haul in town could be a problem as trucks with no drivers that can be fooled into stopping for safety reasons can be looted very quickly. While GPS is insufficient by itself for vehicle navigation, it will be a component and can be jammed in an area causing all sorts of issues.
A California governor's veto can be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote in both the State Assembly and State Senate.
AB-316 passed the Senate with a 36-2 vote, and the Assembly with a 69-4 vote (both 94%). With that kind of a majority this is a slam-dunk for a veto override. Question is, will they Senate & Assembly do it, now that this is their decision?
The only debate we should be having here is to what extreme Newsom is ignorant to the will of the people.
"Question is, will they Senate & Assembly do it, now that this is their decision?"
I think, in a rare instance, the governor has put forward a good argument in opposition. He isn't against the idea of there being regulations, but that those regulations are better if they are done at a different level. The state assembly was very much in favor, but that's not always an indicator that they'd die on that hill by overriding a veto. Politics is also about quid-pro-quo so they have to be careful about things like this.
It would be much more fun to watch if it didn't have any real world affects.
Mechanisation of farming saw the creation of Unions to fight it, and yet the mechanisation continues to this day. Luddites violently objected to the mechanisation of the textile industry, and yet today it is a highly mechanised industry. No matter the immediate outcome of the current contest, the march of progress WILL lead to there being less and less truck/taxi/bus drivers.
The base problem as always is greed. Investors (people) want bigger returns from their investments in companies. Those companies want ever increasing productivity for ever decreasing costs to satisfy their investors. The companies workers (people) want ever increasing wages for ever decreasing workload. A great many professions are going to be automated out of existence by AI and self-driving vehicles, and by changes to how our society functions. It won't just be manual labour based jobs either. A great many jobs in IT will soon be able to be automated. How fast can you "upskill"?
"A great many jobs in IT will soon be able to be automated. How fast can you "upskill"?"
I've been working on "downskill". I keep getting better at fixing things. I am always looking for older stuff built in the past when quality was a big factor since those things are worth repairing/restoring and there are people willing to pay for something like a drill press that will work for another 50 years after I'm done with it. I've been re-learning how to sew so I can mend my clothes, buy things at the second hand store and alter them to fit and create specialty clothing for work. I learned how to can and preserve which has saved me tons of money by buying fruits and veg in season, in bulk, and having them all year. When I gift jams to people, I always get calls a day or two later for more. I also get the jars back as part of the plea. Not that the strawberry-apple lasts very long.
If you are doing a job that is simple enough to be automated, be afraid. If you need a thinking brain dog like Foul Ol' Ron, times could get tough.
"Investors (people) want bigger returns from their investments in companies. Those companies want ever increasing productivity for ever decreasing costs to satisfy their investors"
If it can be done, it will. The textile industry had no choice but to mechanize since inventors figured out how to automate many of the processes. A company that didn't mechanize would fall victim to those that did. The same holds today where a country can ban something like cloning which will only mean that the work will be done elsewhere if there are perceived advantages in the processes that come from it.
You also bring up a problem common with larger companies. Just like in physics, a larger more massive company has more inertia and can't change very much or very quickly so it looks to cost savings in materials and greater efficiency utilizing labor to keep making money for its stockholders (the c-level execs with big option grants). The problem is that a smaller startup company often founded by a former employee of INC, inc will come up with a better product that can be made more efficiently using lots of automation and the only way to beat those entities back is for the multi-nationals to buy them out and bury the new.
Humans are still very good at making things for humans. They are also much more flexible. A completely automated auto assembly line won't notice that something along the path is putting a scratch all the way down the side of every car going by unless there is some device that can and is programmed to look for that. A human at the next cell or two is doing to see that something further back has fallen in the way. This is one of the reasons why having people on an assembly line is always going to be a good thing. They don't require specific programming to see things going wrong.
Leaving aside the question as to whether or not they are capable of doing what's written on the box, the idea of mandating "autonomous" vehicles to have a human driver completely negates the purpose of these vehicles.
Either the vehicles are "autonomous" or they aren't. Personally, I'd rather way more testing to happen before the :autonomous" tag is allowed for a vehicle.
Either the vehicles are "autonomous" or they aren't. Personally, I'd rather way more testing to happen before the :autonomous" tag is allowed for a vehicle."
Agreed. And I think that's pretty much the point of wanting some form of regulation or law mandating "safety drivers", ie to prove the system over time.
Perhaps we should build dedicated pathways for these vehicles; hey, here's an idea! Lay down steel tracks and move the freight on special vehicles built to run on them. Call'em "trains," perhaps.
Going out on a limb here, one could even use these "trains" for carrying passengers.
Silly idea, no one anywhere in the world has ever made that work. Nevermind.
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