This cruise ship in San Francisco didn’t seem to know how to pull over on the narrow streets to let the bus pass.
Matt Rosoff, CNBC
Cruise CEO and founder Kyle Vogt commented on The Hacker News on Sunday, responding to accusations that his company’s robotaxis are not truly self-driving and instead require frequent assistance from people working in remote operations centers.
First, Vogt confirmed General MotorsFor this, the state-owned company does have a remote assistance team have a discussion Under the headline, “GM’s Cruise allegedly relies on human operator for ‘autonomous’ driving.”
The CEO wrote: “In complex urban environments, cruising autonomous vehicles receive remote assistance (RA) on average 2-4% of the time. This number is low enough that further optimization will not incur huge costs. Benefits, especially considering how useful it is to have humans review things in certain situations.”
CNBC confirmed to Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo that the comments were accurate and came from the company’s CEO.
Cruise recently took the drastic step of halting all of its driverless operations following an October 2 incident in San Francisco that injured a pedestrian. The crash and disclosure of information about Cruise led state regulators to revoke the company’s license to operate self-driving cars in California unless there is a driver on board.
The DMV previously said its decision was based on several factors, citing four regulations that allow it to be used when “the department determines that a manufacturer’s vehicle is unsafe for public operation” and “the manufacturer misrepresented any information related to the vehicle’s safety.” ” suspend the product. autonomous technology for its vehicles. “
As NBC News reported beforeThe California Department of Motor Vehicles accuses Cruise of failing to show them full video of the Oct. 2 crash in which a pedestrian was thrown into the path of a Cruise robotaxi by a human driver in another vehicle and hit her first .
In that incident, Cruise previously told NBC that his vehicle “braked hard before the collision because it detected a collision,” but then tried to pull over, pulling the pedestrian forward about 20 feet in the process.
Rival Waymo, owned by Google parent company lettercontinues to operate in the city.
How often do remote workers intervene?
A New York Times The story, which took place last week, provides an in-depth look at issues within Cruise that could lead to security issues and setbacks for Cruise’s reputation and business. One statistic in the report shows that at Cruise, workers step in to help a company car every 2.5 to 5 miles driven.
Vogt explained on The Hacker News that this statistic refers to how often Cruise robo-taxi initiates remote assistance sessions.
He wrote: “Many of these issues are resolved by the AV itself before a human sees it, as we often let the AV initiate itself before determining that help is needed. Many sessions are quick confirmation requests (that’s okay)” Continue? ) can be solved in seconds. Some problems take longer and involve guiding self-driving cars through tricky situations. Again, in driverless mode, this takes a total of 2-4% of the time. “
CNBC asked Cruise on Monday to confirm and provide more details.
Cruise’s fleet of self-driving cars triggers “remote assistance” sessions approximately every four to five miles instead of every 2.5 miles, a Cruise spokesperson wrote in an email.
“Typically, self-driving cars proactively initiate these maneuvers before determining that assistance is needed, such as when the self-driving car’s intended path is blocked (such as a construction blockage or detour) or when help is needed to identify an object,” she wrote. About 2-4% of the time on the road is in remote assistance, which is very rare. In these cases, the RA consultant will provide pathfinding intelligence to the self-driving car rather than remotely control it. “
CNBC also asked Cruise to provide information on typical response times for remote operations and how Cruise’s remote assistance staff are trained.
“More than 98% of conversations are answered within 3 seconds,” the spokesperson said.
She added, “RA consultants undergo background checks and driving record checks and must complete two weeks of comprehensive training before starting, including classroom training, scenario-based exercises, on-site observations and knowledge-based assessments. Consultants also receive ongoing training and Receive supplemental training whenever there are new features or updates. Regular reviews, refreshers, and audits to ensure high performance.”
As for the ratio of remote assistance advisors to autonomous vehicles on the road, a Cruise spokesperson said, “During autonomous operations, there is approximately 1 remote assistance agent for every 15-20 autonomous vehicles.”
Missy Cummings, a professor at George Mason University, an expert on self-driving systems, and a former safety advisor to the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Administration (NHTSA), told CNBC that regardless of whether the public still thinks Cruise cars are self-driving, it has become ” Industry Standard”. “Having humans on call to monitor the operations of drones, robots and now autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles.
“I started to worry,” she said, “when we use humans, how we use them. We’ve seen problems in other areas where, for example, air traffic controllers may fall asleep on the job.”
Cummings also said it was important to know whether Cruise vehicles involved in any collisions would seek help from remote operations, especially in the case of a pedestrian collision in October. “I would like to know if anyone was notified and what that person’s behavior was at the remote operations center.”
Cruise declined to say whether the Oct. 2 incident triggered a call to a remote assistant, whether a human advisor made the decision to authorize vehicle movement, or whether a Cruise employee called 911.
A company spokesperson said: “We have initiated a third-party review of the October 2 incident and are working with NHTSA on the investigation. As with these processes, we will await the outcome of the review before making further comment.”
GM said last month it lost about $1.9 billion on Cruise in the first nine months of this year, including $732 million in the third quarter alone.
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