Cruise fined $1.5M for failing to report right away its robo-car dragged a pedestrian

Embattled driverless taxi outfit Cruise has been fined $1.5 million for leaving some essential details out of its initial reports to the US government about an accident involving one of its robo-vehicles and a pedestrian last year. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced yesterday that General …

[elDog]

Wondering if these robotic cars are programmed to back up and make sure the victim is dead

It used to be a truism (or not) that a dead person wouldn't be awarded as many damages as someone who was still alive and could sue.

Now, Musk wouldn't be THAT evil, would he?

[Mike007]

Re: Wondering if these robotic cars are programmed to back up and make sure the victim is dead

A dead person is worth their estimated salary times their estimated remaining career.

An injured person is worth their estimated salary times their estimated remaining career, plus the cost of any medical treatment/disability aids/etc for the rest of their life, and maybe some compensation for the reduction in quality of life on top.

[jake]

As I said when first reported ...

... something smells funny about this case.

Still stinks like last week's fishwrap.

_{With apologies to Herb Caen ...}

[Grunchy]

Mars Robo Cars

They’ve got autonomous robot vehicles ripping around Mars at speeds up to, like, 1 mph! Because it would be a real disaster if they were to crash into no person nor any valuable property (kidding: more like 1/2 mile per WEEK).

I wonder how these robotaxi companies can just “let loose” their barely-in-control models at highway speeds with the barest comprehension of what’s around them let alone identifying people, property, hazards, etc. They have absolutely zero ethics. They’ve been menacing and killing people for years now, I’m glad somebody in law enforcement finally noticed the crimes being committed.

[werdsmith]

Re: Mars Robo Cars

Yes, unlike human drivers who kill nobody.

[ChoHag]

Re: Mars Robo Cars

It's a question of how to react to failure and the unknown.

When a human screws up they, assuming they are still alive, stop the car, get out and assess the situation before making it worse.

However when an AI screws up, apparently they back up and try again to make sure they screwed up good.

[imanidiot]

Re: Mars Robo Cars

Curiosity's top speed is 90 meters per hour, average move speed during commanded movements is more like 30 meters per hour. Average speed over the mission is 32.12 km (19.96 mi) over 104927 hours (4255 sols) or 0.031 meters per hour (roughly 1 foot per hour). So your "more like 1/2 mile per WEEK" is still a gross over-estimate ;)

[imanidiot]

Re: Mars Robo Cars

I just noticed I missed the last conversion. A week is 168 hours, so Curiosity, on average covers roughly 0.032 miles a week ;)

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: law enforcement finally noticed the crimes being committed

Hyperbole much?

This fine is not about hitting the pedestrian (arguably not Cruise' fault, the pedestrian was knocked into its path by another driver), it is all to do with not properly reporting all details to the NHTSA within the mandated time window.

Self-driving is still nowhere near fully autonomous, but the accident rates are still lower than regular human drivers.

[I am David Jones]

I don’t know why they haven’t already mandated that all telemetry data surrounding an incident be instantly and securely made available to authorities. Isn’t it obvious that the manufacturers will massage or remove any inconvenient data?

No doubt they will shout “commercially sensitive!” but there are ways to handle that.

[trevorde]

RoboTaxi FTW

Tesla's FSD would never do this. Just wait for Oct 10, it'll be one for the history books!

[MiguelC]

Re: RoboTaxi FTW

Did you forget the joke icon? I really hope so...