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Transportation AI Google Software

Waymo Self-Driving Cars Can Now Obey Police Hand Signals 119

Posted by BeauHD from the passing-through dept.
In the event that a traffic light is not working, Waymo's self-driving cars will now be able to use AI to detect and respond to the arm movements of a traffic cop as they wave traffic through an intersection. You can watch a demo of it on YouTube. Futurism reports: Waymo first claimed that its autonomous vehicles could respond to hand signals from nearby cyclists back in 2016. That particular research treated cyclists, from the vehicle's perspective, as obstacles to track and avoid. A new video published by Waymo on Wednesday is the first that shows its vehicles responding to gesture commands -- especially in the absence of the traffic lights on which it would normally rely -- and obeying police orders. The video, which runs at three times normal speed, shows a picture-in-picture display of the car's digital perspective and a video camera as it goes through an intersection.

The video shows the car approach the intersection where a virtual red wall blocks off the road, suggesting that the computer's software responds to the absence of a green light at an intersection the same way as it might to an illuminated red light. The cop in the video, represented by a small prism, teeters across the virtual representation of the intersection before finally waving the Waymo vehicle's vehicle through the intersection and along its way.
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Waymo Self-Driving Cars Can Now Obey Police Hand Signals More

Waymo Self-Driving Cars Can Now Obey Police Hand Signals

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  • Yea right on a perfect day in controlled (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Thursday February 21, 2019 @10:18PM (#58161600)
    and clear environment, Driver less works perfect in a sanitized controlled environments with known setup pre setup tests.

    We are at least 5 years away, go ahead push them out there. Going to be interesting how the failures and collateral damage are handled.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

    • I can’t think of how many times I need to actually make eye contact with the cop in order for him to clarify his signal. I wonder how the AI does that...

      • I used to help the city auxillary direct traffic, and that is exactly what they taught us to do.

        Look them in the eye.

        Point at them.
        (Chirp whistle)

        Point which way they are to go.
        (Blow whistle)

        Repeat

        You never waive someone thru without making eye contact, and being sure you both know where they are going.

    • Gonna be funny when the cars visit a gangsta hood and starts obeying hand signals :)

      • "Gonna be funny when the cars visit a gangsta hood and starts obeying hand signals :)"

        I sure hope so, then I can send my AI car to buy drugs for me.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And how do the car know it's a cop and not someone faking it?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        How does anyone?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

        This whole "ability to detect and obey a traffic cop's hand signals" is a great example of how the whole concept of self-driving cars is missing the forest for the trees in terms of artificial intelligence. The technology being employed is not intelligence at all. It's an algorithm - one that needs to be taught about such specifics about cops and hand signals - instead of understanding what a cop is and what hand signals are for. You can sweep this under the rug and pretend that the developers will be ab

      • Look forward to Apple Maps 1.0: The Cop. You're driving across a bridge... HARD LEFT ONTO THE INTERSTATE BELOW.

      • As a follow-up question, is it illegal to stand in the road not dressed like a cop and wave self-driving cars into hilarious situations?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have noticed that police in Texas are NOT consistent about what hand signals they use. I don't think you can program you way around that.

    • Just my 2 cents ;)

      I'm getting quite rich of all the 2 cents people have been throwing out about driverless cars. We can sum up with:

      "Yeah right! It can't do X".
      A few months later "Well I guess it can do X, but it can't do Y".
      A few months later "Well I guess it can do Y ..."

      Going to be interesting how the failures and collateral damage are handled.

      Nope, it's going to be boring and mundane involving perfectly normal engineering capable of putting anyone to sleep.

      • Too bad it can't drive driverlessly. That's the only thing it's supposed to be able to do.

        • And yet it has already. Good work playing right into my very example.

          • No, "it has" is not the same as "it can." My wagon has done self driving by your stupid definition.

            • You're right, my mistake. Let me reword: "And yet it can already".

              You happy now? An no your wagon has not done self driving by my definition, or anyone's definition. Have you gotten in the back seat of your car and and car without a driver, or safety driver, or anyone at all in control taken you to the other side of your city? Didn't think so.

              I'm not sure if you're ignorant of Waymo's capabilities, or just stupid.

              • I'm not sure if you're ignorant of Waymo's capabilities,

                There at level 3 self-driving, which is why they can't sell their cars.

                or just stupid.

                You're not stupid, but you can't admit when you're wrong.

                • They have demonstrated beyond level 3 driving. You're now confusing "can" and "does". You shouldn't mistake words like that, people will call you out on the internet for it.

                  You're not stupid, but you can't admit when you're wrong.

                  I always admit when I'm wrong.

  • Nice! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That means that I can control other people’s cars via simple hand signals.

    I can’t wait for that to become mainstream.

  • Just police? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Or will it follow the directions of anyone in a safety vest making arm gestures?

    CAPTCHA: lawsuit

  • Sounds fun to hack. I'm now imagining mischievous jumping into the middle of intersections & waving at cars.

    I expect it'd need to be quite advanced to reliably tell legitimate traffic cops from pedestrians.

    • Humans can't tell if a crossing guard is legitimate or is just impersonating a crossing guard. Oh no!

      https://xkcd.com/1958/ [xkcd.com]

      • Simply waving at a car is far less work & less conspicuous than going to the work of repainting road markings or finding & donning a disguise that looks like a local official.

    • There are many situations where it's perfectly legitimate for a non-cop to direct traffic, like when there has been a collision or a vehicle has become otherwise disabled in the right-of-way, or when a delivery truck is maneuvering in the roadway for the purpose of e.g. backing into a driveway. The correct answer to this situation is to put humans in a room, and show them the camera feed when there is a question about what to do. Algorithms aren't smart enough to make these decisions reliably, yet. All full

      • Phoning home? They're going to have to be connected constantly, or are you telling me the on board AI is going to be smart enough to determine whether a bag is blowing across the road or whether it is something to be avoided, like a goose.

        • That is not the dumbest argument I've heard, but it's close. A responsible driver doesn't care whether it's a bag or a goose, they don't want to hit either one. A bag could easily block ventilation of a heat exchanger. Do you seriously not avoid bags blowing across the road?

          Also, while many automakers are currently using what I consider to be a fairly inadequate set of sensors, sooner or later they'll all incorporate density-sensing radar. It's just a matter of cost.

          • Lol.. no you don't want people on the road stopping for bags. When it's a living animal you stop, otherwise it is dangerous to impede the flow of traffic.

            • You said it was blowing across the road, in which case I don't have to stop for it, just slow down a bit. Or is this bag sitting still in the road, in which case it could have hazardous contents? How about you make up your mind what you're talking about before you start? Then you might have a chance to make sense.

              • I was talking about a bag blowing across the road. The behavior will be different for the bag and the goose because the goose can always run back, especially if there are goslings. The car will have to be much more cautious with the goose.

                • I was talking about a bag blowing across the road. The behavior will be different for the bag and the goose because the goose can always run back, especially if there are goslings.

                  And the bag can float back, if the right vehicle goes by in the other lane. The vehicle has to be equally careful no matter what it detects in the road, not just because it doesn't know with a high degree of reliability what it is, but because it's unpredictable what will happen if it hits anything.

  • What about construction workers (in areas with no or overlapping lane marks?) / parking attendants (mainly at events in unmarked parking or even off road parking)

  • Hoping Waymo doesn't put the hand signals higher priority than obstacles. Last time I drove through an intersection with a traffic cop, the officer waved me through. I started to go, then a jogger with earbuds on jogged right in front of me. The officer shrieked 'stop!' and I stopped as the jogger kept going, oblivious.

  • This implies that they lacked this ability before. The further suggestion is that other "autonomous" vehicles still lack this ability.

    Pardon me while I say "poppycock" to all you loonies here who keep parroting that self-driving cars have been usable over the past two years.

  • I'm all for Google bashing, my god I could do it for hours on some topics, but when it comes to deploying a truly autonomous vehicle, on the road with all the variables of real life, frankly the project is astoundingly complex.

    Even designing an autonomous car that can only work in a single city (example one which works within 150 miles of San Francisco ONLY or within 50 miles of Vegas ONLY) would still be immensly complicated factoring in weather, emergencies, unpredictable animals, people, cyclists, scoote

  • Someone with a gun who isn't a cop uses cop-like hand signals to make your SDC stop, so they can hijack you.
    Meanwhile someone NOT in a SDC encounters the same situation, thinks "that's not a cop!" and FLOORS IT, getting away without being hijacked.
    Which car would you rather be in? The one piloted by an idiot machine that can't actually THINK, or the car YOU are piloting, and you CAN think?
    The answer should be obvious.

  • What if some yahoo in a beret and bland clothing sticks white gum on their shirt, jumps in front, and makes hand motions?

  • direct it to drive off a cliff?
  • Just like the Waymo software, I always obey the hand signals of police prisms!

  • I mean, it's not like random pranksters are going to start waving at Waymo cars to make them do something, right?

  • Does it go into road rage, and honk the horn. Blink the lights. violently get close to the car/person that did the gesture?

  • Please Continue Making Progress, but... (Score:3)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @12:25PM (#58164142) Homepage

    But please stop acting like the introduction and saturation of autonomous vehicles is imminent. I swear if I hear another grad student or middle-aged planner with a subscription to Wired exclaim how we need to be ready to change our entire road system because driverless cars are going to change EVERYTHING in the next 6 months, I'm going to scream.

    If they're going to succeed, they're going to have to be nearly perfect on the roads that currently exist and be sufficiently affordable to compete with the likes of Uber/Lyft and private vehicle ownership. Anyone saying anything is either looking for investors, website clicks, or book sales.

    They're just not there yet. They're not all that close. The closest (Waymo, Cruze) operate in extremely limited areas and are successful thus far by rote memorization, not adaptability.

    Automobiles are an operational and infrastructural component. They're not quick to develop. They're not cheap to produce. And they're fraught with massive liability and risk.

  • Now make them understand what I mean when I flip them off!

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