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Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

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Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#91

Can anyone comment on the connection between Uber a company based in S.F. and Pittsburgh? Does this have to with proximity to CMU? Something else?

It's in the article. They hired a big part of CMU's robotics division, which made quite the headlines a while back. They were (and maybe still are?) based in Pittsburgh. It's also imaginable that Pittsburgh has some features that make it interesting, such as cold winters, loads of bridges (difficult!), and both grid and messy road patterns.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#92

I saw one of these a month ago when I was biking around the North Shore (downtown Pittsburgh). Its cameras on top were far more conspicuous than the renders in the article, though. This article said it would pick people up downtown, but how far would they go to drop off? The golden triangle is mostly grid-based, but go elsewhere in the city and the road topology gets jacked up fast (like Boston), especially in the so…

Knowing Pittsburgh, the amount of road and bridge construction that goes on there would also concern me, not to mention the condition of the roads. There's also a ton of roads that are extremely steep (multiple residential streets with an over 30% grade) which can be extremely dangerous in the winter. It's an interesting choice of a city for this for sure.

The roads are getting better. It seems like half the roads are, will be, or have been closed at some point just this year and you can't drive more than 30 minutes without encountering a detour or being taken on one. My 10 minute commute to work is mostly streets that have had ongoing nightly or weekend work for almost a month.

The steepest street in the US is in Pittsburgh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_Avenue

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#93
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

Also, more importantly, you have to verify that the user is not at the moment incapable of operating a vehicle, i.e drunk.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#94
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

I'm not a lawyer but I assume any funny business there would be charged to the person using another person's account, and the person who owns the account. That's how it works with regular cars if you use someone else's ID.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#95
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

How do you do this verification when someone rents a car?

I've rented a car before where the only thing they verified is that I presented a credit card with the same name as the one on my driver's license, which they never asked to see because I had already put in the number online. I guess it's possible they were able to look up my photo from DMV records and were matching my face to it, but I'm guessing not.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#96
post #7

I wonder how Uber drivers feel about working for a company that is actively trying to make them obsolete. Not passing judgement or anything, just kind of a strange thing to contemplate.. Uber kept saying they were disrupting the taxi industry by letting more people participate when really in the end they're trying to remove the people from the equation altogether.

I worked in an IT dept as it was migrating it's staff to India. I bailed as soon as I could, and half-assed it while I was there, because that's the American Way

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much has the recent interest and investment in self-driving cars impacted this estimate? 5 years ago, I would have said that level 4 automation is 20 years away. With all these billions pouring in, I'd cut that projection in less than half. I'm certain that I won't be driving a car ever in 2030

How many billions have been poured into speech recognition? I don't anyone here would trust controlling a car with Siri or Google Voice lest it misinterpret something you said.

Have you used Google Voice in the past ~year? I have a standard american accent so I might be the best case scenario for it but I haven't seen it miss a word I've said anytime I can remember in a year or two. I mostly use it in the car to reply and send texts, works even with the radio and ventilation on. I've used an Amazon Echo and that is right 99% of the time too.

Now, interpreting the words I say is a different matter, but as far as transcription I'd say we are at basically 100% right now and have been for a while.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about Ford announcement, IIUC they're skipping level 3 (semi auto autos) straight to level 4 (wheel-less).

Everybody wants to jump straight to 4, because 3 is actually dangerous and likely to cause deaths as people are lulled into a false sense of safety. The question is how long will it take? Some people say 2 years, some people say 20.

Both 2 years and 20 years are good estimates, depending on whether you're talking about a robocab that ferries people from their suburban homes to the train station when the weather is nice, or a vehicle that drive empty across the country in a snowstorm.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#99
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

You could use an RFID chip, with an understanding that sharing it bad. Not perfect, but not unlike how drivers pick up a ZipCar now.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#100
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

No you wouldn't. Car sharing clubs like Zipcar deal with the same issue - they hire out cars on a completely unattended basis. If a customer chooses to pick up one of their cars and drive drunk or lend it to their cousin with a suspended license, the customer is liable.
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