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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

#201

Post by mikeash »

technofiend wrote: post #74
nkoren wrote: post #15

Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. The latter will be an absolute game-changer; the former can yield some marginal gains in safety and congestion, but does not really shatter any paradigms. This is the former. The latter will certainly happen eventually, but is orders of magnitude more chal…

>Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. Surely the pay is far less for the passive driver? If not I assume it will be soon.

I don't see why. Driving is considered a base-level skill in many of the places where Uber operates. It's one of those things you just assume everyone employable can do, like reading or writing. Uber drivers are mostly being paid for their time and for their vehicle, not for their driving skills.

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

#202

Post by Nadya »

tcoppi wrote: post #136
gambiting wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the thing is, English is not the only language in the world. Google's voice recognition in my native language, Polish, is absolutely abysmal.

I feel like that is more a product of the fact that the effort put into most other languages is greatly lower at this point relative to English, rather than English is particularly easy or other languages are particularly hard. It will all come in time.

Not effort - but data. A large amount of the dictation learning was done through users using and correcting the software. If you have 40,000,000 English users but only 80,000 Polish users you can immediately see why the software may not be up to par.

Google Voice to Text, from my experiences, is bloody amazing for Chinese. My Chinese is abysmal (think "never gets the tone right") and for short phrases/sentences I've never had Google fail on me. Maybe it fails on larger sentences but it would be difficult for me to believe.

Japanese is another language it does very well in. I can only count on one hand how many times it has made a mistake - and usually repeating myself a tad slower and with less slurring and it will pick it up just fine.

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

#203

Post by user5994461 »

sbarre wrote: post #138
794CD01 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car driving around with no human inside poses less risk to human life than a car driving around with a human inside who is unable to control the car.

You are clearly not a pedestrian or cyclist in a major city.

I wouldn't be surprised if driverless cars were way more secure for pedestrians and cyclists.

It's really difficult to keep track of pedestrians and cyclists when driving, whereas a driverless car has 360° nightvision.

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

#204

Post by anon1385 »

kalleboo wrote: post #68
rwmj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a car which self-drives for 4 months of the year, and requires me to drive it the other 8 months. That's still a massive advantage over the car I currently own.

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.

>Indeed but the context here are all the futuristic predictions starting with mass-unemployment of taxi and truck drivers

Uber doesn't have any interest in self driving cars succeeding. It's a PR distraction to justify the exploitation of drivers ("you shouldn't complain because you are lucky to have a job at all when self driving cars are coming any day now").

Self driving cars that don't have drivers would completely destroy Uber's actual business model which is based on undercutting current taxi companies by shifting the capital, maintenance and insurance costs onto the drivers.

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

#205

Post by stale2002 »

kalleboo wrote: post #186
stale2002 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There would still be human driven taxis. The whole point of uber is that it is an on demand platform.

When it is sunny, the self driving cars are out and about, and the price is low.

When it is raining, the self driving cars stop taking passengers, and the price goes up, with surge pricing, which is handled by human drivers.

You don't keep drivers on retainer. You simply publish the price, and if the drivers like the price, then they can accept the job. If not, then they don't. If there is a shortage, then you use surge pricing until the shortage no longer exists at the given price point.

For trucks and supermarkets, if it is raining then you pay human drivers. If not, then self driving. BAM, labor costs have gone down by 50%.

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

#206

Post by jrussino »

gmisra wrote: post #140

> "Supervised by humans in the drivers seat" Ah, borrowing from the Musk marketing playbook, just say "self-driving" often enough, and enough uninformed people who have never seen contemporary luxury assisted-driving features will be impressed. Calling out Autopilot as "souped-up cruise control" is a nice touch. > For now, Uber’s test cars travel with safety drivers, as common sense and the law dictate. These profess…

I worked on a team at NREC that was building self-driving trucks for use in surface mines. The project was a descendant of CMU's work on the DARPA Grand/Urban Challenges. These vehicles actually went into production and are being used at a few mining sites around the world. Most of that team is now at Uber.

I can tell you that there is absolutely substance here. I have no idea what's going on inside Uber, but they have a group of people there (some of the only ones in the world) with experience building actual production-worthy fully-autonomous ground vehicles.

Having a safety driver in place during development and testing is common practice, and for sure they're still very much in the development and testing phase. Full autonomy on public roads is a harder problem that full autonomy in a more controlled environment like a mine site, for reasons that have discussed here and elsewhere, and I don't know how much progress they have made in dealing with those challenges. However, I have no doubt that they are working toward the goal of a fully-autonomous no-driver vehicle, not just the type of assisted-driving features you may have already seen in production.

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

#207

Post by andegre »

agumonkey wrote: post #21
nkoren wrote: post #15

Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. The latter will be an absolute game-changer; the former can yield some marginal gains in safety and congestion, but does not really shatter any paradigms. This is the former. The latter will certainly happen eventually, but is orders of magnitude more chal…

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

I believe level 4 is where the car takes over completely. Level 5 is where the no steering wheel is introduced.

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

#208

Post by eric_cc »

kalleboo wrote: post #187
eric_cc wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Most drivers earn money based on the amount of time they spend transporting people/things, correct? I don't believe there are many drivers who get a great base salary regardless of work output. Supply and demand would prevent people who tried to use driving as their primary income and the task would be taken care of by people willing to do it on the side when the demand is there

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

#209

Post by danielweber »

tajen wrote: post #11
thearn4 wrote: post #3

Lots of hills, and will have plenty of ice and snow in a few months. It seems to me like a logical place to test the resilience of a self-driving system against some predictable corner cases.

I'm surprised by their technology: > The company has been creating extremely detailed maps that include not just roads and lane markings, but also buildings, potholes, parked cars, fire hydrants, traffic lights, trees, and anything else on Pittsburgh's streets. If one city requires that much work, they're not scalable. Even if we assume the LIDAR on every Uber car collects the new data, the car will trip sooner or la…

If you have a fleet of networked cars, then as soon as one car encounters a new pothole, all the cars know about it.

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

#210

Post by fiveoak »

user5994461 wrote: post #203
sbarre wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are clearly not a pedestrian or cyclist in a major city.

I wouldn't be surprised if driverless cars were way more secure for pedestrians and cyclists. It's really difficult to keep track of pedestrians and cyclists when driving, whereas a driverless car has 360° nightvision.

Eventually, it might be. However just because the car has better sensors doesn't mean it will react better than a human would with less information.
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