OOTS #1172 - The Discussion Thread

[Worldsong]

I've always thought this was kind of a silly point. I don't see how switching to a different logic and calculating the number of deaths caused by each course of action during the last fraction of a second before a crash would be meaningfully better than just keeping the "avoid crashing" functions running during that fraction of a second.

I admit to being a bit of a pessimist who believes that if you cling to trying to achieve a perfect result when the odds are too low you might end up with a worse result than if you aimed for a suboptimal result with better odds of success. Of course that doesn't mean I encourage giving up when there's still the realistic possibility of success.

[Dion]

I admit to being a bit of a pessimist...

The best way for a human on a street (not a track) reduce the severity of any crash is to slam on the brakes as hard as you can while trying to steer away from the hard stuff while you come to a stop.

That’s probably all an automated car will do.

Cars might also signal their evasive maneuvers in a way that other cars can understand their intent, and choose more appropriate maneuvers (like signaling “I am slamming on my brakes and turning left” so the car behind can say “ok, then I will slam on my brakes and turn right”).

But counting the number of people in each car and running the trolley problem? Fun to imagine, but not likely to happen.

[Fish]

I would say the biggest cause of accidents can be summed up in one simple phrase that encapsulates all those things: "Not being predicable." If someone is predictable, then a collision is very likely avoidable... Tiredness, impaired judgement, overconfidence, all these things wreck predictability.

Not just people: stalls, sudden blowouts, potholes, trash in the road, wildlife darting across the highway, car fires, catastrophic engine failure, lightning, sudden sandstorms, unexpected loss of traction, etc. We’ve all seen how the machine learning models suffer from training data bias: they do well when the request is right in its wheelhouse, and fail embarrassingly when confronted with low-data problems.

Edit: I don’t program self-driving vehicles. My degree is in computational linguistics/NLP, the application of machine learning to natural language.

[Schroeswald]

I'm still a bit confused by people thinking the IFCC have this factored into their plans at all.

I'm sure they're improvising, no way they planned to take V out when they did before at least when she fell into the pit, and even then they had no way of knowing if they needed to do it until he decided destroying it was the wrong decision.

[Kantaki]

I'm curious if the Three Fiends are going to pull V out of the fight before V can unpetrify Durkon if that is time sensitive. Do they want the world destroyed?

I don't think the world going kablooey is conductive to the Fiends plans.
No, whatever their goals, it involves this world.

So if they take V out of the game then only to protect them.
Assuming their plans still involve the elf that is.

[gbs5009]

Interesting... the dwarves have mentioned that half of them are being dominated in Dvalin's proxy's presence. Dvalin swore an oath to follow the *will* of the dwarven council. If he realizes that the vote is being manipulated, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him from just ignoring their votes and saying "no" at the godsmoot.

[Edward15]

Hey, there! I've been watching the webcomic for about a year now (or at least from the part where they fought the ice giants), and finally decided to join the forum to discuss the chapters.

Anyway, I have a theory about something I think people are overlooking. While I agree about Durkon's hammer returning and making another hole in the roof, what are the chances that BEFORE it returns, it ends up hitting something else, say a certain vessel the Order has forgotten about?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Interesting... the dwarves have mentioned that half of them are being dominated in Dvalin's proxy's presence. Dvalin swore an oath to follow the *will* of the dwarven council. If he realizes that the vote is being manipulated, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him from just ignoring their votes and saying "no" at the godsmoot.

Ignoring their votes is not following the will of the council. At best he'd wait for them to be de-dominated. At worst, the laws say nothing about domination invalidating the vote, and thus he doesn't care that they are dominated. Realistically, he has no way of telling - he cannot see through the eyes of his priest, and he refuses to directly observe the deliberations, since that too would interfere with the will of the council.

Grey Wolf

[D.One]

Interesting... the dwarves have mentioned that half of them are being dominated in Dvalin's proxy's presence. Dvalin swore an oath to follow the *will* of the dwarven council. If he realizes that the vote is being manipulated, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him from just ignoring their votes and saying "no" at the godsmoot.

We've been discussing this "will of the council" thing since Dvalin spoke about it many strips ago. No decisive conclusions have been achieved, with some passionate arguments from both sides.

The "will of the council" may be "the true desires of the council members' hearts, the desires they would express if they weren't under domination", or "the result of the council vote, performed under the established protocols" (regardless if any of the council members were under magical control, blackmail, drug effects or just in a bad mood day).

I have my preference, but I'll refrain to bring it here, for the sake of avoiding this fight all over again.

[Ruck]

Hah, I think Durkon has a cunning plan.

"This is no time for cunning plans and crazy capers!"
"Aw, you never want to do cunning plans and crazy capers!"

It's probably already been said, so I'll go ahead and say it anyways:

"...But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned..."

a Rainy Day would kind of ruin Durkon's plan, I think.

I suspect that something will come through the hole that was just made in the ceiling.

Well, something other than sunlight and air.

Not sure what it's going to be, but I have a feeling that the purpose of the hole is for entry, rather than destruction.

I think it's just sunlight, honestly. I said before that I thought the hammer would be part of Durkon's solution since it was the only element we know about that the vampires don't. The Ex-Exarch doesn't know the hammer magically returns to its user; I think it's going to do a lot more damage on its way in than out.

[Jasdoif]

I have my preference, but I'll refrain to bring it here, for the sake of avoiding this fight all over again.

I, on the other hand, would prefer to talk about the comic rather than the tyranny of the majority of self-driving Coruscanti car-planes. Or just to use that phrase, because it amuses me.

And to that end, I'm pretty sure Dvalin isn't going to discard the council votes because of the magical domination...primarily because it'll only come up if Durkon is superfluous to the resolution here; but also because Dvalin's already expressed a preference, and most variants of "I don't need the Council's vote to know their will" would still apply if they weren't magically dominated.

[Fanatic]

Do you suppose Thor could get a precision lightning strike through that hole? And would Dwalin be very angry at him if he killed the high priest to delay this vote?

So Thor and Loki both showed up to stop Hel from interfering while all the eyes of the gods were on the inside of the council chamber to watch the proceedings. But now it's being suggested that Thor could slip something by to interfere on the proceedings where all the gods are watching and not get called out on it by Hel and the other gods who voted yes?

[diremage]

Why would direct observation be considered interference? All the other gods are doing it, and even with Thor and Loki standing in the same room as Hel, they didn't think her showing the chamber in her cauldron was cheaty enough to call her on it.

There's a difference between a self-driving car robot and a modern car with lowjacking, collision avoidance, fancy airbags, power doors and windows, antilock brakes, computer-assisted fuel pumping and a radio keyfob. If you require a human sitting in the driver's seat making decisions, all those computer systems can fail, and if they're well designed they can fail safe such that the human can safely override the car's dumb decisions and bring it safely to a stop, or even continue to drive it in full manual takeover. Not saying all modern cars ARE well-designed; I've driven a car at highway speeds when it decides to shut off and lock the steering wheel, and that's not fun at all. Luckily I was able to restart it long enough to pull over. (There was a problem with the steering column and the car decided I didn't "really" have a key in the ignition, but I could hold the key in "start" and it would unlock the steering column).

With a car robot, you are supposed to be able to do that, but in reality, you can't. When the computer fails, it cannot fail safe, and therefore any major failure is a life critical failure. I personally have been in more than one situation where, if the car I was in was a self-driving car and had failed in the way that my car that I was driving DID fail, I would have died.

Don't get me wrong, car robots are the next step on the path to giant mecha, which are inherently good, but there's some serious problems with the current iteration of the technology and pretending otherwise can and does cause innocent bystanders harm.

[Schroeswald]

Why would direct observation be considered interference? All the other gods are doing it, and even with Thor and Loki standing in the same room as Hel, they didn't think her showing the chamber in her cauldron was cheaty enough to call her on it.

There's a difference between a self-driving car robot and a modern car with lowjacking, collision avoidance, fancy airbags, power doors and windows, antilock brakes, computer-assisted fuel pumping and a radio keyfob. If you require a human sitting in the driver's seat making decisions, all those computer systems can fail, and if they're well designed they can fail safe such that the human can safely override the car's dumb decisions and bring it safely to a stop, or even continue to drive it in full manual takeover. Not saying all modern cars ARE well-designed; I've driven a car at highway speeds when it decides to shut off and lock the steering wheel, and that's not fun at all. Luckily I was able to restart it long enough to pull over. (There was a problem with the steering column and the car decided I didn't "really" have a key in the ignition, but I could hold the key in "start" and it would unlock the steering column).

With a car robot, you are supposed to be able to do that, but in reality, you can't. When the computer fails, it cannot fail safe, and therefore any major failure is a life critical failure.

Don't get me wrong, car robots are the next step on the path to giant mecha, which are inherently good, but there's some serious problems with the current iteration of the technology and pretending otherwise can and does cause innocent bystanders harm.

Self driving cars are safer than human drivers, we have evidence that says that, I don't see why "they don't eliminate 100% of fatalities" is at all an effective argument.

[D.One]

I, on the other hand, would prefer to talk about the comic rather than the tyranny of the majority of self-driving Coruscanti car-planes. Or just to use that phrase, because it amuses me.

And to that end, I'm pretty sure Dvalin isn't going to discard the council votes because of the magical domination...primarily because it'll only come up if Durkon is superfluous to the resolution here; but also because Dvalin's already expressed a preference, and most variants of "I don't need the Council's vote to know their will" would still apply if they weren't magically dominated.

I must defer to your wisdow, Oh Wise Banana. (And also, I agree with you about Dvalin respecting the vote, whatever result it produces)

[littlebum2002]

S
Maybe this is a cultural thing but I’m amazed so many people are willing to let a computer rule their life

I take this to mean you've never flown in a plane before? Because if you have, like 95% of the flying that went on was done solely by computer.


I'm actually more amazed that we still let humans operate 3000lb death machines at 60mph.

[The MunchKING]

Why would direct observation be considered interference? All the other gods are doing it, and even with Thor and Loki standing in the same room as Hel, they didn't think her showing the chamber in her cauldron was cheaty enough to call her on it.

It's not. b_Jonas suggested Thor do a Tactical Lightning strike to fry Dvalin's Priest so the vote couldn't go on.

[Squire Doodad]

I take this to mean you've never flown in a plane before? Because if you have, like 95% of the flying that went on was done solely by computer.


I'm actually more amazed that we still let humans operate 1 ton death machines at 60mph.

Robots can be hacked
But humans can get drunk

Q.E.D.

[Arkain]

It's fine. V can fix him.

[gatemansgc]

i'm definitely going to have to backread to find out how this thread got derailed to computer controlled vehicles.

also, i knew that firmament was close to the surface, but not that the roof was THAT close to the surface of the mountain. the roof of the council chamber must be connected to the ceiling of the hollow area around it.

[diremage]

Self driving cars are safer than human drivers, we have evidence that says that, I don't see why "they don't eliminate 100% of fatalities" is at all an effective argument.

New self-driving cars, in good repair, with wealthy yuppies behind the wheel, have a lower rate of accidents than the average car which is 11.7 years old.

In other news, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette, the pesticide DDT has no harmful effects, and people with a latex allergy have a higher rate of fertility than the average.

i'm definitely going to have to backread to find out how this thread got derailed to computer controlled vehicles.

also, i knew that firmament was close to the surface, but not that the roof was THAT close to the surface of the mountain. the roof of the council chamber must be connected to the ceiling of the hollow area around it.

Page 2. The comic features a self-driving hammer, the thread is still on-topic.

I thought the council chamber was its own stand-alone building, and we just didn't see the area between the two roofs.

Edit: Looks like the best view is 1155 panel 2, and I guess I saw the columns and thought "Greco-roman architecture," and just assumed there'd be a dome.

Could've sworn we DO see a dome inside somewhere but I don't think we ever actually see the roof from outside.

Edit edit: We DO see the dome in 1172 panel 13, where the hammer punches through it, but we don't see the outside of the dome. Hmm.

[Edward15]

Seriously, nobody is interested in my theory about the hammer hitting the Mechane?

[AutomatedTeller]

I dunno what hitting the mechane would do, to be honest. no dwarves on board, so no one can enter. No magic, either. Shoot arrows at vampires hiding from the sun? kill dwarves?

[Rrmcklin]

I'm sure they're improvising, no way they planned to take V out when they did before at least when she fell into the pit, and even then they had no way of knowing if they needed to do it until he decided destroying it was the wrong decision.

They have specific plans for their time, though, even if we don't know what it is. This, meanwhile, is not something they had any way of seeing the Order getting involved in.

I'm sure they're aware it's happening, but in a "let's hurry up and get back to the good stuff" way not "well, guess we have to use one of our goes here" way.

This book is almost over, and V and the rest of the Order are basically on the sidelines now. Actually taking V away here would just seem very out of place.

[littlebum2002]

New self-driving cars, in good repair, with wealthy yuppies behind the wheel, have a lower rate of accidents than the average car which is 11.7 years old.

In other news, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette, the pesticide DDT has no harmful effects, and people with a latex allergy have a higher rate of fertility than the average.

So let me get this straight: all things being equal, you think a human is better at driving a vehicle?

[Agnostik]

Seriously, nobody is interested in my theory about the hammer hitting the Mechane?

This message works so well with your avatar.

[Edward15]

I dunno what hitting the mechane would do, to be honest. no dwarves on board, so no one can enter. No magic, either. Shoot arrows at vampires hiding from the sun? kill dwarves?

I'm saying that the hammer might hit the ship by accident and cause it to crash. Something has to happen to complicate the Order getting to the Kraggor's Tomb.

[Peelee]

Something has to happen to complicate the Order getting to the Kraggor's Tomb.

Why?
Wheee!

[danielxcutter]

Oh yeah, I forgot that the petrification automatically ends when the meeting is over. So no need to blow a Stone to Flesh or whatever.

[Dion]

Seriously, nobody is interested in my theory about the hammer hitting the Mechane?

What? I made the Deus ex Mechane joke!