Re: requiring Ada(2020?) in self-driving autonomous automobiles

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

On 3/28/2018 11:56 PM, Dan'l Miller wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at 4:38:42 PM UTC-5, Bojan Bozovic wrote:
>> Programming (or software development, if you like that words better) methodology needs to be changed,
>> and verifying software against specification
> 
>    So the specification for self-driving cars is in good shape, defining exactly what the expectations in the problem-space are to emulate human-quality of driving?  No, they are not, because in general they are falling into the category of:
> 0) Use the reference implementations of realtime software provided by the sensor hardware manufacturers.
> 1) Have a neural network.
> 2) Train the neural network on dry roads on a sunny day without road construction.
> 3) Once the neural network drives no worse than a nervous teenager, add one hazard at a time to further train the neural network.
> 3) Then a miracle occurs.

My mother pointed out to me that if you see body damage on a car near 
you in traffic, expect the driver to do the same thing again.  Over 
fifty years of driving, probably helped me avoid several fender benders.

My father taught us to pay attention to the drivers around you on long 
trips, and choose to be surrounded by good drivers not bad drivers. 
When Lola was driving from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania for another 
sister's wedding, her steering failed catastrophically on the NJ 
Turnpike in the rain, at rush hour, in the leftmost lane.  Her car hit 
the guard rail, bounced, and ended up on the grass between the highway 
and a service area.

She was explaining what happened to me on the way to the rehearsal.  She 
said, "I have no idea how the car on my right avoided me."

I said, "Yes you do your father..."

"Oh, right!  I had picked him out about ten miles earlier."

Now what I want to know is how that level of training is going to get 
into a self-driving car.  The necessary data could be picked up from the 
records of other drivers.  Maybe Deep Learning can figure it out.  But I 
won't hold my breath.