[HN Gopher] Driver Monitoring Raises Complexity, Adds Privacy Co...
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       Driver Monitoring Raises Complexity, Adds Privacy Concerns
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2022-09-02 13:19 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (semiengineering.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (semiengineering.com)
        
       | bmismyname wrote:
       | Can we please just have high quality public transit, including
       | high-speed inter-city rail?
        
         | treeman79 wrote:
         | Most of the country is low density.
         | 
         | Local buses were shut down for almost 2 years from Covid. Tons
         | of businesses shut down for sole reason that people couldn't
         | get to work. Not having a car is insane.
        
           | hayst4ck wrote:
           | The first time you go to a city that has incredible public
           | transportation you will have a very transformative
           | experience. Go spend a month in Seoul or Taipei.
           | 
           | Cars are poison. They poison walk-ability, they poison
           | commuting, they damage health from their exhaust, deprivation
           | of walking, and crashes, they require attention to operate
           | and thus literally steal your life hours. Cars require
           | parking and parking spaces. Cars require wide roads which
           | reduces density. Cars require surface level roads. Cars
           | create traffic. Cars spit in the face of economies of scale.
           | 
           | When I lived in the center of a city, I could run my finger
           | across my window seal and it would come up black from all the
           | car exhaust that had settled on it. That is going into our
           | lungs.
           | 
           | Structuring the operations of life around cars is insane.
           | 
           | Density is a policy choice.
        
           | bmismyname wrote:
           | This is a tired old argument that doesn't stand up to
           | scrutiny. The majority of people live in cities, not rural
           | homesteads.
           | 
           | Once upon a time we didn't have the interstate system, but
           | FDR created the New Deal, and with that the federal
           | government created the interstate highway system we have
           | today. We can do the same for rail, but the automobile
           | lobbyists won't allow it.
           | 
           | I'd argue that the interstate highway system is probably the
           | USA's greatest accomplishment, and one of the greatest public
           | works projects. FDR sold it by framing it as a national
           | defense initiative.
           | 
           | Maybe we need to use some of that national defense budget for
           | public transit? Sadly, I don't think we'll ever have a
           | politician with the kind of gumption necessary to save
           | ourselves from ourselves.
        
             | treeman79 wrote:
             | Low density cities. Few places are like Chicago or New
             | York.
             | 
             | The interstate highway system was actually for defense.
             | Moving things from coast to coast was far to difficult.
             | 
             | FDR saw the German Highway system during the war and was
             | rightfully jealous.
        
               | bmismyname wrote:
               | Let's say you're right, and cities are low density. So
               | what? What precludes them from having good public
               | transit? Roads exist, why can't they be rail lines
               | instead?
               | 
               | Roads are quite expensive, and there are many internet
               | resources with tons of evidence and arguments about this:
               | strong towns, not just bikes, climate town, etc.
        
               | toast0 wrote:
               | Roads are much easier to interconnect than rails because
               | road vehicles can make much sharper turns and handle
               | steeper grades.
               | 
               | Point to point navigation has high utility and is
               | difficult to acheive with rail.
               | 
               | Minimum viable roads are actually quite inexpensive:
               | clear large vegetation from the path and there's a usable
               | road. You can incrementally improve with path markers,
               | grading, gravel, pavement, etc. Minimum viable rail is a
               | much higher standard, which needs grading, railbed
               | preparation, laying the rail, signalling and operations.
        
         | briandear wrote:
         | Until a transit strike paralyzes it. Or until a storm shuts it
         | down. Or until government decides to shut it down Covid-style.
         | Or until the trains turn into homeless shelters with meth-
         | overdosing zombies. Last thing in the world I want to do is
         | spend time with "the public." Or have to haul kids and
         | groceries via train. Or have to get to a doctors appointment on
         | one side of town and then another event on the other side of
         | town and minimal time to connect those dots. I also don't want
         | to walk multiple blocks during heat waves, storms, or snow.
        
           | hayst4ck wrote:
           | > Until a transit strike paralyzes it.
           | 
           | People have had protests in the middle of a free way, so
           | human action resulting in paralyzed transportation isn't
           | novel. Storms, car crashes etc have "paralyzed" roads.
           | Bridges have fallen into water ways paralyzing transit. https
           | ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_bridge_collap...
           | 
           | > Or until government decides to shut it down Covid-style...
           | 
           | If you have widely used public transportation, then it can't
           | be shut down. The public won't allow it. It goes from
           | infrastructure to critical infrastructure. You would probably
           | see enforced mask mandates.
           | 
           | If you have public transportation used by the middle or upper
           | class, the tolerance for homeless and drugs will decrease.
           | 
           | > Last thing in the world...
           | 
           | And this is the fundamental selfishness. You want to rob
           | cities of economies of scale so they can subsidize your posh
           | suburban life style. Meanwhile, there's a whole bunch of
           | people just like you, and the end result is hour long
           | commutes for 20 minute's of distance or 10 lane freeways that
           | somehow seem to be some of the most clogged in the nation.
           | You have bad experiences with American "public
           | transportation" but probably haven't experienced functional
           | transportation. Your point to point trip in a city could be
           | unencumbered by the spectre of traffic.
           | 
           | > I also don't want to walk multiple blocks during heat
           | waves, storms, or snow.
           | 
           | If you travel to Asia, you will find that functional
           | transportation often comes with sprawling subterranean
           | complexes or covered walkways. Even when it doesn't there are
           | umbrellas for sale everywhere.
           | 
           | You still have to park and travel from your parking to your
           | destination. I don't know about you, but that's frequently
           | been blocks of walking for me in any city.
           | 
           | American public transportation is bad. It's not reasonable to
           | point to our bad transportation and say public transportation
           | as an idea is bad. It is a vastly more pleasant experience in
           | other places.
        
       | cgearhart wrote:
       | I realize that everyone involved has the best of intentions, and
       | that some of these things will save lives. Still, I don't
       | actually trust that the technology (like the Gaize test device,
       | AutoPilot, etc.) actually _work_ reliably and without bias. I
       | feel overwhelmingly certain that we need _more_ data privacy
       | guarantees, not more private companies like insurance groups and
       | car manufacturers slurping up ever more data. This all sounds so
       | boringly dystopian.
        
         | xapata wrote:
         | Once the data is spreads past a certain minimum availability,
         | it's better to make it widely available instead of restricted.
         | For example, my Social Security Number has been leaked every
         | few years over the last decade or so. Yet, its partial
         | restriction makes knowledge of it appear to be useful for
         | authentication.
         | 
         | Similarly, if a trace of my location is only known to my mobile
         | network provider and government surveillance, then if I get
         | swept up by some mistaken dragnet, I'd be disappeared. If it
         | were published to all my friends, family, and neighbors, they'd
         | at least be able to see when and where I was taken, and maybe
         | be able to fight for my release. Ideally, the security camera
         | video of my capture would have been live-streamed to the public
         | as well. We can't rely on individuals to be present and taking
         | out their cameras. The public needs its own surveillance to
         | protect itself from the state.
        
       | trinsic2 wrote:
       | Privacy concerns aside regarding how this information in a
       | negative way. I want my alertness to be monitored. One of the
       | smart cars I was driving recently poped up a recommendation on
       | the console that I should pull over and take a short break, or
       | something to that effect. I realized that I was tired and groggy
       | and I thought that was a good idea. So I pulled over and rested
       | for about 20mins then got back on the road and I was more alert.
       | I think these prompts are great because sometimes I don't realize
       | that my lack of alertness can be dangerous. Having that reminder
       | is a great plus in my experience.
        
         | hitpointdrew wrote:
         | I think the solution should be to be more self-aware, not to
         | jam highly invasive technology into vehicles. I don't want my
         | car to have any sense of my "alertness" at all, ever, I don't
         | care if it keeps that data local, it should never ever be
         | recording/monitoring it in the first place.
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | when I was taught to drive by a professional driver,
           | alertness, eye movement, passenger safety and control of the
           | vehicle are part of the driving. After thirty years of safe
           | driving, it is stunning to see people voting to include
           | "alertness monitoring" .. you want that ?!? It seems like
           | mental illness to me, to want that in your car, when you
           | cannot turn it off.. Secondly I have posted about NO being
           | tracked at all times, and gotten downvotes for that .. really
           | honestly, what are you asking for voters?
        
           | csours wrote:
           | The problem with losing alertness is that you also lose your
           | ability to monitor alertness.
        
           | thfuran wrote:
           | Yeah, and we can rip out all those pointless and expensive
           | seatbelts and crumple zones and airbags and replace them with
           | just a bit more unerringness.
        
         | PaulHoule wrote:
         | It's been an active research topic for big truck and military
         | aircraft operators since the 1980s with a reputation of being a
         | very challenging problem.
        
         | Schroedingersat wrote:
         | Sounds like a great use case for a train.
        
           | briandear wrote:
           | Is there a train to Aspen?
        
             | hooverd wrote:
             | There should be.
        
         | fma wrote:
         | The Rav4 has an aggressive driving indicator too I believe. One
         | day my wife was out and we had an argument over the phone (my
         | fault, of course...) She drove back in an emotional state of
         | mind snd the car suggested her to pull over.
         | 
         | I don't see why driver monitoring data needs to go to the
         | cloud. If the car senses swerving and large fluctuation in
         | acceleration then the driver should take a rest.
        
           | Wohlf wrote:
           | The pull of the lane assist alone helps me realize when I'm
           | not paying enough attention to the road.
        
         | Swenrekcah wrote:
         | That is very interesting. Do you know what the system used to
         | determine your alertness?
        
         | Bancakes wrote:
         | And there you go. Self driving cars won't take over because AI
         | is as good as humans, rather because humans regress below AI.
        
       | ulnarkressty wrote:
       | Driver and occupant monitoring will save lives, at least until we
       | get high level autonomy. E.g. monitoring driver attentiveness and
       | sleepiness or pet / child detection in hot cars (the latter will
       | get points soon in EuroNCAP testing [0]).
       | 
       | There are already cameras monitoring humans inside rental cars
       | and nobody seems to mind. If privacy concerns really become
       | paramount there's always lidar/radar that offers relatively high
       | anonymity.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/GRSP-70-30e.pd...
        
         | giobox wrote:
         | > There are already cameras monitoring humans inside rental
         | cars and nobody seems to mind
         | 
         | While i'm fully aware my rental can often have GPS tracking etc
         | for the rental company, I have never, ever seen a rental with a
         | camera filming the occupants, and I've rented _a lot_ of cars
         | around the world. I cant find any evidence of this online
         | either.
         | 
         | The one example I can find where a lens was present in the
         | cabin from Hertz appears to be part of a navigation system
         | feature that was never used, and Hertz even then had to handle
         | public backlash for the disabled camera. The public
         | backlash/reputation damage of filming private occupants in the
         | cabin solely for the security benefit of the rental agency
         | would be pretty significant too, to the extent I can't imagine
         | this happening in most Western nations.
        
         | staringback wrote:
         | Dear god 38 fatalities a year in a country of over 300 million,
         | we must scramble to deploy this new technology in all vehicles
         | with no delay!
        
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       (page generated 2022-09-02 23:01 UTC)