Exactly. That’s why I’ve always said the driving is a truly AGI requiring activity. It’s not just about sensors and speed limits and feedback loops. It’s about having a true understanding for everything that’s happening around you:

Having an understanding for the density and make up of an obstacle that blew in front of you, because it was just a cardboard box. Seeing how it tumbles lightly through the wind, and forming a complete model of its mass and structure in your mind instantaneously. Recognizing that that flimsy fragment though large will do no damage and doesn’t justify a swerve.

Getting in the mind of a car in front of you, by seeing subtle hints of where the driver is looking down, and recognizing that they’re not fully paying attention. Seeing them sort of inch over because you can tell they want to change lanes, but they’re not quite there yet.

Or in this case, perhaps hearing the sounds of children playing, recognizing that it’s 3:20 PM, and that school is out, other cars, double parked as you mentioned, all screaming instantly to a human driver to be extremely cautious and kids could be jumping out from anywhere.

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Bratmon 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Slightly off topic, but it's endlessly funny to me watching people set the bar for AGI so high that only a small percentage of humans count as AGI.

	▲	aleksiy123 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		humans aren't even a general intelligence at these requirements.

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webdood90 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How many human drivers do you think would pass the bar you're setting?

IMO, the bar should be that the technology is a significant improvement over the average performance of human drivers (which I don't think is that hard), not necessarily perfect.

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mlyle 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> How many human drivers do you think would pass the bar you're setting?

How many humans drivers would pass it, and what proportion of the time? Even the best drivers do not constantly maintain peak vigilance, because they are human.

> IMO, the bar should be that the technology is a significant improvement over the average performance of human drivers (which I don't think is that hard), not necessarily perfect.

In practice, this isn't reasonable, because "hey we're slightly better than a population that includes the drunks, the inattentive, and the infirm" is not going to win public trust. And, of course, a system that is barely better than average humans might worsen safety, if it ends up replacing driving by those who would normally drive especially safe.

I think "better than the average performance of a 75th or 90th percentile human driver" might be a good way to look at things.

It's going to be a weird thing, because odds are the distribution of accidents that do happen won't look much like human ones. It will have superhuman saves (like that scooter one), but it will also crash in situations that we can't really picture humans doing.

I'm reminded of airbags; even first generation airbags made things much safer overall, but they occasionally decapitated a short person or child in a 5MPH parking lot fender bender. This was hard for the public to stomach, and if it's your kid who is internally decapitated by the airbag in a small accident, I don't think you'll really accept "it's safer on average to have an airbag!"

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nearbuy 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The parent comment said the bar should be "significant improvement" over the average performance of human drivers.

Then you said, "this isn't reasonable", and the bar shouldn't be "slightly better" or "barely better". It should be at least better than the 75th percentile driver.

It sounds like you either misread the parent comment or you're phrasing your response as disagreement despite proposing roughly the same thing as the parent comment.

	▲	mlyle 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		All depends on what you read as "significant improvement". A 20% lower fatal crash rate compared to the average might be a significant improvement-- from a public health standpoint, this is huge if you could reduce traffic deaths by 20%. But if you don't get the worst drivers to replace their driving with autonomous, that "20% less than average" might actually make things worse. That's my point. The bar has to be pretty dang high to be sure that you will actually make things better.

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lkbm 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> In practice, this isn't reasonable, because "hey we're slightly better than a population that includes the drunks, the inattentive, and the infirm" is not going to win public trust.

Sadly, you're right, but as rational people, we can acknowledge that it should. I care about reducing injuries and deaths, and the %tile of human performance needed for that is probably something like 30%ile. It's definitely well below 75%ile.

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mlyle 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The counterpoint, though:

> > And, of course, a system that is barely better than average humans might worsen safety, if it ends up replacing driving by those who would normally drive especially safe.

It's only if you get the habitually drunk (a group that is overall impoverished), the very old, etc, to ride Waymo that you reap this benefit. And they're probably not early adopters.

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lkbm 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Uber and Lyft were supported by police departments because they reduced drunk driving. Drunk driving isn't just impoverished alcoholics. People go to bars and parts and get drunk all the time.

You also solve for people texting (or otherwise using their phones) while driving, which is pretty common among young, tech-adopting people.

	▲	mlyle 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Drunk driving isn't just impoverished alcoholics. People go to bars and parts and get drunk all the time Yes, but the drivers who are 5th percentile drivers who cause a huge share of the most severe accidents are "special" in various ways. Most of them are probably not autonomy early adopters. The guy who decided to drive on the wrong side of a double yellow on a windy mountain road and hit our family car in a probable suicide attempt was not going to replace that trip with Waymo.

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chasd00 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The bar is very high because humans expect machines to be perfect. As for the expectation of other humans, "pobody's nerfect!"