Thread

Uber arbitration award over Emily Normandin-Parker’s death

159 points · 192 comments · dataflow

calibas · 1790002537 · focus · HN ↗
> Stone rejected Uber's argument that it is "merely a technology company" connecting riders with drivers, finding that Uber provides transportation services to the public through its app, sets prices and controls key aspects of the rider experience.
> The arbitrator also rejected Uber's argument that Proposition 22 -- a California ballot measure approved by voters in 2020 that allows companies to classify app-based drivers as independent contractors instead of employees -- prevented the company from being held liable for Tran's conduct.
The dream of every major tech company, making ridiculous profits while taking zero legal responsibility for what you create...
1. xhkkffbf · 1790004516 · focus · HN ↗
  The bad guy here is the driver. Could Uber have done more? That's what the arbitrators concluded.
  But the reality is that this is a victory for the driverless cars (Waymo, Tesla, etc.). If you want to force Uber to take responsibility for the driver, the simplest thing is to get rid of the driver.
  1. jlongr · 1790005000 · focus · HN ↗
    There's this prevailing narrative that someday self-driving cars will eliminate all human-controlled driving and that these types of stories are like milestones in the path to that future utopia.
    But I don't think that's the case anymore than the narrative that LLMs will eventually displace all software engineers.
    eru · 1790006528 · focus · HN ↗
    Self-driving cars and trucks will eliminate human-controlled driving in the same way that engines (ICE, electric, steam, whatever) have eliminated human and animal powered transportation.
    Yes, there are a few people around who ride horses, have an ox-cart or pedal their own bikes, but in a commercial sense, those are rounding errors.
    Compilers have already replaced software engineers producing native code by hand. (Apart from a handful of exceptions.) LLMs will and do have a similar impact one level higher.
    I'm really, really happy when I see my less technical friends suddenly vibe-code things they have dreamed up!
    throwaway85825 · 1790006876 · focus · HN ↗
    And when will the self driving car be able to orthogonal park a trailer by backing down and alley?
    eru · 1790007207 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't know what that means. But presumably you are talking about some difficult technical feat that one can perform with a vehicle?
    I'm fairly sure, if it's something mechanical and a human can do it, the computers won't be far behind. But even if not, we can redesign the vehicles to make it easier for a computer, eg we can make all axes or even all wheels independently steerable and control their velocity individually. A human would be overwhelmed with that, they can barely keep hold of a steering wheel, but a computer wouldn't mind too much.
    throwaway85825 · 1790008805 · focus · HN ↗
    Not difficult just an edge case with a more questionable value proposition for implementation.
    Yes I considered independent wheels but a basic trailer is $3k, which doesn't leave much room for anything complicated.
    The point is there's a million of these edge cases for which autonomy will not economically compete for another hundred years.
    eru · 1790043830 · focus · HN ↗
    Have a look at how the shipping container took over global logistics. They also had to redesign nearly everything about that industry, but the savings and efficiency gains were too juice to ignore.
    > The point is there's a million of these edge cases for which autonomy will not economically compete for another hundred years.
    My prediction: anything a human can do by just manipulating the controls of the car (steering wheel, gas, breaks) will be automated fairly quickly. Especially stuff like parking maneuvers (I assume that's what you describe?), because those happen at low speeds and mostly involve fixed non-moving obstacles. And it's pretty easy to generate training data. When the autonomous system attempts these edge cases, they can simulate a myriad attempts with the on-board computer. There's not a lot of physics going on at low speeds. (Or rather, pretty simple approximations are enough.)
    The harder parts are dealing with moving and ambiguous objects (pedestrians, other cars, cyclists etc) at speed. But the industry is well aware of that.
    About what will take longer: at the moment a truck driver provides a lot of incidental labour around the truck. Like helping with loading and unloading, minor repairs, etc.
    If you have no person on board, you need to redesign how the industry is organised. If you need human help to unload at the destination, you need to preposition a human there, you can't rely on the truck coming with a human.
    throwaway85825 · 1790075350 · focus · HN ↗
    The logo of shopping lines is painted on co tainers because they own them. Cars on the other hand are owned by people. Millions of people own cars and may never switch go a self driving model. The average age of a car on the road keeps climbing because the quality of new cars is worse.
    I'd like to see cars with better autonomy features but theyre still far too expensive and non standardized. When the computer breaks or needs an upgrade the whole car is junked. The purchase data shows people aren't asking for autonomy.
    eru · 1790124817 · focus · HN ↗
    > The average age of a car on the road keeps climbing because the quality of new cars is worse.
    Huh, what? Cars are getting better and better and last longer; that's why the average age of a car on the road keeps climbing.
    Where I lived the average car has been about the same age for a few decades now. They are all really new.
    > The logo of shopping lines is painted on containers because they own them.
    Only some of the have a logo painted on them. (I happen to live within a five minute walk to a container port in Singapore.)
    > I'd like to see cars with better autonomy features but theyre still far too expensive and non standardized.
    Yes, this will get better.

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