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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

#181

Post by grecy »

jbb555 wrote: post #8

I can understand self driving cars eventually being practical on long simple roads. But I can't even imagine how one could get to my house. My road has cars parked on both sides. Sometimes vans. Sometimes they almost block the road. Sometimes there is a car coming the other way and you have to look for a space to pull into to so they can pass, or maybe back up 1/4 of a mile. Or hope the other car does. There are cone…

> I can understand self driving cars eventually being practical on long simple roads. But I can't even imagine how one could get to my house.

I can understand planes eventually being practical for transport, but the wind and noise and short distances they fly make them useless for passenger transport.

I can understand computers eventually being practical for business-y folks, but the rooms they take up make them useless for normal folk.

I can understand this internet thing is useful for nerds, but I can't see how regular people will ever use it.

I can understand a "portable" telephone is a nice idea, but the breifcase of a battery I have to carry around makes it's way to big and heavy.

... need I go on?

It's happening, whether you can imagine it or not.

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

#182

Post by epistemenical »

jonknee wrote: post #123
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia covers the legal aspects reasonably well, with a map of state laws. "In 2016, 7 states (Nevada, California, Florida, Michigan, Hawaii, Washington, and Tennessee), along with the District of Columbia, have enacted laws for autonomous vehicles." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Legislation

Interesting that Pennsylvania is not on this list considering Uber is doing this in Pittsburgh.

There's a pending bill: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/BillInfo.cfm?sy....

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

#183

Post by soundwave106 »

aianus wrote: post #156
soundwave106 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony here is that I would say most companies are, in one way or another, driven by consumption. Our present economic system, generally speaking, relies income earned in jobs to fuel this consumption. If everyone is obsoleted, who will have the income to consume what the robots and fancy technology produce? I personally don't see the current business / economic system being very well prepared for the possibility…

If the robots double the profit margins then you can sell half as many widgets and make the same profit.

Right, but the robots displace jobs to the point where only 1/4 of the amount of people can actually afford to buy your widget, your profit will fall.

(Obviously, if jobs merely shift, as has happened in previous technological disruptions, this scenario isn't a problem.)

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

#184

Post by stenius »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #73
stenius wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes this stop sign a challenge?

In most places, when you merge onto a highway you have a ramp of decent length with a yield sign. You are able to get up to speed and merge safely. In this particular spot, the end of your on-ramp has a stop sign. So, you're sitting at a dead stop with 65+ mph traffic 10 ft in front of you. Things get even more complicated since you're merging into an exit ramp. You have approximately 1/4 mile of road to merge into t…

Wow, that is really weird to me.

In Houston, on I-10, there are some on ramps with stop lights to control the amount of traffic entering but they are not always used and are turned off when freeway traffic is traveling at speeds. Additionally you still have some space to accelerate which it looks like isn't available here.

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

#185

Post by TheCoelacanth »

rayiner wrote: post #80
Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could drive down every road in the US for under 10 million dollars. So as long as you can keep them updated I don't think highly detailed maps are a problem. Especially if this is supposed to be a backup for GPS.

Considering how often GPS gets confused here in DC, I'm amazed we are suggesting relying on it to drive the car.

Considering how often human drivers get confused here in DC, I'm amazed that we rely on them to drive cars.

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

#186

Post by kalleboo »

stale2002 wrote: post #143
kalleboo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed but the context here are all the futuristic predictions starting with mass-unemployment of taxi and truck drivers (indeed that's what Uber is selling their market valuation on). If drivers are still needed 60% of the time, they're going nowhere. The hype right now is so great that even if the reality is amazing it will be disappointing.

The disruptive effects still happen even if we don't get to 100%. For example, a train of self driving trucks can be led by 1 in the front. Yes, I know, REAL trains exist, but they don't go everywhere. A train of self driving trucks could save a lot of money. If self driving Taxis don't work in the rain, then Uber can just NOT drive them when it is raining! For example, Maybe the penetration rate will be very low in…

Uber's main selling point has been availability when there are no taxis (hence surge pricing). If you can't get an Uber once it starts raining, someone else will eat their lunch.

And for trucks, will you let supermarkets go dry once it starts raining? Otherwise you need to keep drivers on retainer. And then you might as well just have them drive for minimum wage.

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

#187

Post by kalleboo »

eric_cc wrote: post #172
kalleboo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed but the context here are all the futuristic predictions starting with mass-unemployment of taxi and truck drivers (indeed that's what Uber is selling their market valuation on). If drivers are still needed 60% of the time, they're going nowhere. The hype right now is so great that even if the reality is amazing it will be disappointing.

> If drivers are still needed 60% of the time, they're going nowhere. Think about what you're saying here. If manual driving is still required 60% of the time there will still be mass-unemployment of taxi and truck drivers. These guys are not paid well enough that they can afford half the amount of income that they currently have.

So you fire all the drivers when summer starts. Then it starts raining. Who's gonna drive?

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

#188

Post by linkregister »

wavefunction wrote: post #89
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add in hiring, benefits, vehicle transport and repair, sanitizing the data, hiring managers to manage the folks that do all that... any large project is unexpectedly expensive. Still point taken that its just millions.

"benefits" This is Uber we're talking about.

The drivers of the fancy LIDAR vehicles are direct hires:

https://www.uber.com/careers/list/20169/

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

#189

Post by linkregister »

aedron wrote: post #14

It feels like a lot of what Uber does these days is just hyping up the stock price. Of course that is a very short term strategy, if your ever more audacious announcements keep falling flat. We saw a lot of this in the last throes of the dot-com bubble, before the inevitable implosion. As for this announcement, does Uber have any credibility in this field, which combines the most individually complex AI, robotics and…

They have acquired their way into credibility. They controversially hired the majority of the CMU robotics laboratory in order to start ATC. They also hired a number of Google self-driving engineers, including the former head of the self-driving effort. Today Uber announced their acquisition of Otto, a self-driving truck company.

The ATC is isolated from the rest of Uber.

Volvo has been working on self-driving cars for years; before the Uber ATC effort.

Regulatory work is one thing that Uber excels at.

To be fair, Google also hired/poached most of its self-driving experts from university robotics laboratories.

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

#190

Post by kamaal »

jayjay71 wrote: post #35
puranjay wrote: post #31

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

I think it actually doesn't make that much difference. The problem, I believe, is that people are used to rapid advances in software. Lots of small iterations can take you a long way, but sometimes you just reach a hurdle which requires a breakthrough. A fully self-driving car would need a huge breakthrough in perception (which most people categorize under AI) in order to work. Computer vision actually started out in…

>>sometimes you just reach a hurdle which requires a breakthrough.

When there are billions of $'s to be made. Generally there is way.

I understand from where you are coming. But if the trend grows, and one companies sees the billions coming. Others are forced to innovate. Also a whole new ecosystem is born.

See pre iPhone and post iPhone mobile industry. Sometimes you need one company to do something insane to drive others down the same path.

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