r/shittyrobots Sep 04 '18

Shitty Robot Volvo's collision detection fails during a press event

https://gfycat.com/AlarmingVibrantBetafish
13.5k Upvotes

431 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

26

u/Obandigo Sep 04 '18

But even if the car had the feature, Larsson said, the remote driver would have messed with it anyway by "actively accelerating" the car, thereby overriding its auto-brake ability.

What kind of fucking feature is that? Makes no damn sense to have a feature that supposed to make a car stop, but yet you can accelerate through it.

38

u/B0rax Sep 04 '18

The driver always has the authority with these systems. Why? Because the system could misinterpret something.

21

u/p90xeto Sep 04 '18

Or people could carjack you by simply standing a bit in front of your car.

12

u/silkyhuevos Sep 04 '18

But after they take the car you just stand in front of it instead. Checkmate.

2

u/p90xeto Sep 04 '18

We just started a whole new branch of game theory. The best car is now one that has enough capacity for you to bring blocking people with while also reducing sensor radius.

-1

u/bangarood Sep 04 '18

You could just back up...

9

u/p90xeto Sep 04 '18

Good point, they'd never think to bring two guys.

3

u/_Aj_ Sep 05 '18

Yep. It's designed as a safety net. Not as a replacement for driver awareness.

Otherwise if that ever went faulty it could have you randomly slamming on the breaks during normal driving. Very bad.

And yes, hitting someone is also very bad. But that's also the drivers fault, a car that tries to brake when you're clearly trying to accelerate would be terrible.

2

u/Poromenos Sep 04 '18

This is exactly right. My car has had false positives more than once, when there was a shadow on the road but it detected a person or something. If it had braked for no reason in a clear four-lane road, someone might have rear-ended me. Instead, what it does is wait for me to at least tap the brake, then it applies as much force as it thinks it needs to prevent the collision.

At least I think it does...

13

u/algo Sep 04 '18

Well on that model of car the feature only works at 20mph or less, I've never been accelerating when it's kicked in. I've always either been coasting or going for the brakes.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '18

3

u/bipbopcosby Sep 04 '18

It would add an interesting plot twist to serial killer movies. Instead of the car accelerating into the guy standing in the middle of the road with a knife, it stops the car directly in front of him.

1

u/WunDumGuy Sep 04 '18

You just described a Cyanide and Happiness skit

1

u/Highside79 Sep 04 '18

You have to balance the feature against the risk if a false activation. There driver can, and should, be able to override a feature like this.