Autonomous Vehicles NOT Ready for Prime-Time

[Ronzuki]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrew ... 1c03a67c18

where's the ROFLMAO smiley when ya need it....it just keeps getting better and better....

[Ronzuki]

poor elan...

https://seekingalpha.com/article/425288 ... _rec=false

Several interesting points of light in the article. One of many I find interesting is: fewer cells in an EV's batteries...that can't be a good thing...for the consumer.

[Ronzuki]

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/consumer-r ... ent-driver

Not that I'm a huge Consumer Reports fan or anything, but....

[KuroNekko]

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/consumer-r ... ent-driver

Not that I'm a huge Consumer Reports fan or anything, but....

Without a doubt, Autopilot is not a better "driver" than an experienced and attentive human. However, not all humans drive in an optimal state. I'd much rather be driven by Autopilot than a human with a BAC of over 0.08 of which there are thousands on the road at any given moment. Machines will incontrovertibly improve and not get drunk, high, tired, or distracted. As for humans? Walk into any municipal courthouse to get a sense of how so many drive and those are only the ones who got caught.

[Ronzuki]

Machines will incontrovertibly improve and not get drunk, high, tired, or distracted.

Umm... yeah, don't bet on that. When one of our major U.S. automation control component suppliers, just this week, stated to me they wanted to start charging for call-ins relating to the unbelievable increase in their pre-mature failed components for return across the spectrum of their 'programmable' components (you know, to deter people from making claims...just buy another one), you had better think twice about that misguided thinking. You see, I spend much of my day, everyday dealing with this non-sense as opposed to doing something productive and billable. Do you know why? Cheap, cheap, cheap...make it cheaper (and do more). Something has to give.

Here's what happens, in the real world, when automation isn't designed properly, applied properly and/or fails:



2,500 pound 'top' running amuck, drilling holes in concrete, obliterating everything in its path.

Automated automobiles will be no different, as are airplanes, trains, or anything else that gets automated...and forgotten about.

[Ronzuki]

This from my colleague's commercial pilot friend. The guys in the left seats of anti-gravity machines tend to be concerned with these sorts of 'anomalies', as one of our automation suppliers likes to term these ever-increasing incidents...cars, planes, industrial equipment, home appliances, Alexa, your PC, whatever... makes no never-mind, the philosophy is absolutely no different in the end as the guy's last sentence would indicate.

It's not simply a Boeing thing - this is a systemic failure of the current mentality towards technology and automation.
Turns out, it also happened with an Airbus aircraft, as well, although it didn't make the press. Well, the code worked in the lab!
It's hard to believe that we're hearing so many things about bad software where human lives are at stake and very few people think that this is a real problem. Autonomous cars, vertical flight vehicles, airplanes, etc - it's all based on how well the code was written and/or tested (or usually not). The latter is probably not considered to be important - just test it with living human beings. It is a real problem and people are generally stupid or uncaring.

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/air ... -incident/

[Ronzuki]

whoopsie.... hmmm wonder whose GPS devices are deployed in the autono-bot vehicles?
Absolutely LOVE the "fix"...for the 'event'...that was a scheduled 'update' (update is a term for a f**k-up's fix btw).

Pilots, OEMs Dealing with Collins GPS Issue
The GPS signal disruption that has affected certain Collins Aerospace GPS-4000S receivers has caused flight delays and groundings, in part because some of the affected aircraft do not list GPS on their minimum equipment lists (MEL) or some aircraft require two working GPS receivers to dispatch.
Collins described the problem as follows: “The root cause is a software design error that misinterprets GPS time updates. A ‘leap second’ event occurs once every 2.5 years within the U.S. Government GPS satellite almanac update. Our software's timing calculations have reacted to this leap second by not tracking satellites upon power-up and subsequently failing.” A scheduled almanac update with this leap second was distributed on Saturday, “and the failures began to occur after this event.”
Collins is recommending that if you have not powered up your units, leave them off until after June 16, 2019, 00:15Z,” when the next almanac update is scheduled to occur.

[Ronzuki]

And the nasty truth finally, slowly, embarrassingly, comes out. Took much longer than I'd expected seeing how there were so many fatalities, and potential fatalities, involved.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeings- ... 57048.html

yeah...there ya go. I'm utterly shocked...(not).

Absolutely no difference than the garbage code we routinely see in industry. Be it firmware in a controller or the application software written to run on it. Anyone can program, right? Low bid wins, ALWAYS. Testing? We don't need no steenking testing! Fortunately, most of what we encounter is not deployed in such potentially lethal applications. I say most, not all. We've been fighting a firmware (software) issue in an industrial controller used in a high speed separation machine. 100+ installations all over the globe with this problematic controller in it. We'll see who is going to pony up the funds to implement the fixes (all over the globe), when the controller manufacturer finally takes ownership of their "anomaly" (they're really close after a two hour demonstration last week).

Meanwhile I get home from work yesterday and our Samsung over-the-range microwave was randomly turning on the range light and exhaust fan, intermittently, all on its own with nothing more than an " -SE- " on the display. Keypad was completely inoperable. Unplugging and repowering does nothing. The fix? Unplugged the POS, opened it up, disconnected / reconnected every connector on the crappy 3rd world PCB (circuit board) and on every sensor I could find. Buttoned it back up and it's good to go...for now.

Autonomous automobiles? Seriously? This is what we need? Want? Be afraid. Seriously. Be very afraid.

[Ronzuki]

Well no chit Sherlock...article title should read "would' instead of 'could'...

https://www.studyfinds.org/hacked-highw ... re-cities/

What else would one expect in this day and age of holding people (governments/businesses) for ransome?
Again, this is progress? Pass

[Ronzuki]

https://thenextweb.com/cars/2019/09/03/ ... -was-down/