- The Information reported on Monday that Uber has determined the likely cause of the collision in March that killed a pedestrian was a problem with the software that decides how a self-driving car should react to objects it detects. The outlet said the car’s sensors detected a pedestrian but the software decided the car did not need to react right away.
Let's be clear: if the software detected anything, it could have made a beep or flashed a light or otherwise informed its minder "heads up, there's a thing in the road, a little help here, stop surfing Facebook" but it didn't.
Because Uber has no fucking business messing about with autonomous vehicles.
I mean, if you're qualified to work on a self driving car, there are plenty of companies that will be happy to hire you. At Waymo you can work with people who invented the techniques you'll be working with. At car companies you can work with people who have been doing industrial robotics since industrial robotics has been a thing. Or you can go to Uber, where management creates workplace drama on purpose because social darwinism or competition is always good or some business cargo cult thing, get puked on by coworkers who drank too much company-supplied wine, awkwardly pretend not to notice your boss and the new intern having sex in a conference room, and get the stigma of working at the tech company even hackernews cringes at.Because Uber has no fucking business messing about with autonomous vehicles.
I can see an impending Onion article headline already: "Uber ran over a plastic bag, mistaking it for an Uber driver"
Yep. I'm currently going to school for Computer Science and during my orientation our dean derided Uber and Tesla for "reckless" implementation of self driving. Right now it's all a data game, and companies are way too willing to test out unfinished software in real life situations to try and get ahead.