Argo AI “Safety Council” is hype and induces false confidence
Reference Article — Argo AI announces council to oversee safety standards of its self-driving cars
After following the herd and declaring they are “driverless” in several locations recently, Argo announced the formation of a “Safety Council”. (Of course, no one is “driverless or ever will be using the current industry development methods, simulation technology and the nascent state of general and deep learning. In addition, none of the folks who have made this false claim offer any meaningful proof of their claim.)
“Pittsburgh-based self-driving car developer Argo AI has announced the formation of a council that will oversee its autonomous vehicle safety.”
“The Argo Safety Advisory Council is made up of external experts who will advise the company on safety practices and building public trust in self-driving vehicles.”
“The Argo Safety Advisory Council’s members include a former medical officer and a former chairman for the National Transportation Safety Board, Mitchell Garber and Robert Sumwalt; former FBI assistant director Christopher “Todd” Doss; David Kelly, former acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and Annette Sandberg, former administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.”
At first this group will likely help public trust slightly by providing a false confidence boost. After all it’s a who’s who of former industry executives and insiders. However, over the long haul, as more and more of the public realized they were duped and used, this will backfire, especially with regard to Robert Sumwalt. (I would suggest that all of them, even possible Robert Sumwalt, is being duped and used as well. Having no idea how untenable and reckless the industry’s development and test approach is.)
Robert sumwalt, former chairman for the National Transportation Safety Board, was in charge when the NTSB released its reports on the tragic and very avoidable deaths of Joshua Brown and Jeremy Banner in similar Tesla needless human Guinea pig crashes. Those two reports suggested an impossible paradoxical solution. The NTSB suggested Tesla’s “Autopilot” (and by extension Full Self Driving) should not engage in Operational Design Domains (ODD) for which they are not designed to operate. At first blush this makes brutal common sense and I support it. The problem is that the system cannot get to that point for many crash scenarios unless there are repetitive crashes, injuries, and deaths so the system’s machine and deep learning approaches can “learn” the scenarios. And since there is no real inference or general deep learning yet, that will take thousands upon thousands of scenarios run over and over and over again to do.
Finally, I would suggest that if the CEO was serious about the following statement, he would switch their development approach. And announce they will adopt the (draft) EU AV Type Certification. (And remedy its gaps. More all of this below.)
“At Argo, our foundational value is safety,” said Bryan Salesky, Argo AI founder and CEO, in a statement. “Autonomous vehicles have the potential to profoundly and positively impact transportation safety and accessibility in cities.”
Below are a couple articles that explain my POV in more detail.
Now Argo AI declares they are “driverless” with no significant proof of capabilities
The EU proposes a driverless driver’s test that is pretty good — Waymo, Cruise, Gatik etc would fail it
How are Waymo and Cruise “Fully Driverless” Vehicles Legal?
· https://imispgh.medium.com/how-are-waymo-and-cruise-fully-driverless-vehicles-legal-5a25a495fdf1
Waymo and the industry can now legally hide proof their systems are not driverless or safe
By not providing any meaningful proof of being driverless, even fighting doing through a lawsuit, Waymo, Cruise and Gatik are misleading the public, putting their lives at risk, and collapsing
The Autonomous Vehicle Industry can be Saved by doing the Opposite of what is being done now to create this technology
How the failed Iranian hostage rescue in 1980 can save the Autonomous Vehicle industry
My name is Michael DeKort — I am Navy veteran (ASW C4ISR) and a former system engineer, engineering, and program manager for Lockheed Martin. I worked in aircraft simulation, as the software engineering manager for all of NORAD, a software project manager on an Aegis Weapon System baseline, and a C4ISR systems engineer for DoD/DHS and the US State Department (counterterrorism). And a Senior Advisory Technical Project Manager for FTI to the Army AI Task Force at CMU NREC (National Robotics Engineering Center)
Autonomous Industry Participation — Air and Ground
- Founder SAE On-Road Autonomous Driving Simulation Task Force
- Member SAE ORAD Verification and Validation Task Force
- Member UNECE WP.29 SG2 Virtual Testing
- Stakeholder USDOT VOICES (Virtual Open Innovation Collaborative Environment for Safety)
- Member SAE G-35, Modeling, Simulation, Training for Emerging AV Tech
- Member SAE G-34 / EUROCAE WG-114 Artificial Intelligence in Aviation
- Member Teleoperation Consortium
- Member CIVATAglobal — Civic Air Transport Association
- Stakeholder for UL4600 — Creating AV Safety Guidelines
- Member of the IEEE Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee
SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering magazine editor calling me “prescient” regarding my position on Tesla and the overall driverless vehicle industry’s untenable development and testing approach — (Page 2) https://assets.techbriefs.com/EML/2021/digital_editions/ave/AVE-202109.pdf
Presented the IEEE Barus Ethics Award for Post 9/11 DoD/DHS Whistleblowing Efforts
