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Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

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Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#41

Post by derwiki »

LordHumungous wrote: post #31
scarmig wrote: post #13

I genuinely do not get Uber's strategy here. Even once self-driving cars are mature, they'll occasionally screw up and sometimes kill someone. And Uber's cars are so incredibly far from mature that operating without legal cover is... just insane. If they kill and hit someone, Kalanick is easily portrayed as a ready-made movie villain. Wantonly ignoring state and local laws in the hopes of getting ahead of the pack, s…

>I genuinely do not get Uber's strategy here Simple: distract investors long enough to somehow make ride sharing profitable.

Is this even possible with human drivers? I thought every ride was subsidized by Uber because at "market rate" the service is too expensive.

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#42

Post by scarmig »

robrenaud wrote: post #35
scarmig wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, if it's actually the case. It seems a bit of a stretch to me--Uber is still opening itself up to existential risk--but if by doing so it can plausibly kneecap Tesla and if it views Tesla similarly as an existential risk, this move might make sense. ETA: That is, from a business perspective. The fact that you might kill a couple people in the meantime is kind of a deal breaker from a moral point of…

How many people does delaying the progress of self driving cars kill?

Interesting point. Let's guesstimate it. I'll focus on the USA.

Let's assume that after the full transition, 0 people will die from automotive accidents. This isn't the case, but it's close enough. Naively, that would save roughly around 30k lives a year: in other words, every single day self-driving cars are delayed kills a bit under 100 people. The dynamics of the transition don't matter too much, assuming everything is simply shifted forward a year: you just move one year from the totally untransitioned state to the totally transitioned state.

That's huge. Anyone who does something that delays the transition one day is basically pretty much committing the Pulse night club shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting.

Now, another question: if a self-driving Uber slams into a group of children crossing the street, how much do you anticipate that to delay the transition to self-driving cars?

There's also a hidden assumption that getting inferior products on the road as quickly as possible is a necessary step in order to start iterating as quickly as possible. A day of clean room testing is worth some small fraction of a day of real world testing. I don't quite dispute that point, but just stating it explicitly.

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#43

Post by LordHumungous »

derwiki wrote: post #41
LordHumungous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I genuinely do not get Uber's strategy here Simple: distract investors long enough to somehow make ride sharing profitable.

Is this even possible with human drivers? I thought every ride was subsidized by Uber because at "market rate" the service is too expensive.

Short answer, no

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#44

Post by ijustdontgetit »

Every time Uber is mentioned, it blows my mind how many people care about the law at the expense of innovation.

According to google, 3,287 seem to die everyday on the road. I honestly don't see those numbers happening when humans are taken out of the equation.

I've asked this before, but will ask it again:

Why be apart of tech if you want to follow the rules?

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#45

Post by Dylan16807 »

ijustdontgetit wrote: post #44

Every time Uber is mentioned, it blows my mind how many people care about the law at the expense of innovation. According to google, 3,287 seem to die everyday on the road. I honestly don't see those numbers happening when humans are taken out of the equation. I've asked this before, but will ask it again: Why be apart of tech if you want to follow the rules?

The vast majority of Uber's activities have nothing to do with safety.

And the very basic laws around self-driving cars don't slow innovation in any way I can see. Not everything is a dichotomy.

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#46

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarmig wrote: post #42
robrenaud wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people does delaying the progress of self driving cars kill?

Interesting point. Let's guesstimate it. I'll focus on the USA. Let's assume that after the full transition, 0 people will die from automotive accidents. This isn't the case, but it's close enough. Naively, that would save roughly around 30k lives a year: in other words, every single day self-driving cars are delayed kills a bit under 100 people. The dynamics of the transition don't matter too much, assuming everythi…

Safety standards that delay the transition by a week might also save one person per day from being hit by a beta car during the transition period. You can't just tally deaths on one side and ignore the other.

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#47

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

danieltillett wrote: post #19

This sort of behaviour by Uber seems to signal an internal desperation. High risk gambles are what you take when you are a scrapy startup with nothing much to lose, not a multi-billion dollar business.

Wall Street did this for decades. Don't underestimate the human factor.

Re: Uber sets self-driving battle at permission, not existence

#48

Post by danieltillett »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #47
danieltillett wrote: post #19

This sort of behaviour by Uber seems to signal an internal desperation. High risk gambles are what you take when you are a scrapy startup with nothing much to lose, not a multi-billion dollar business.

Wall Street did this for decades. Don't underestimate the human factor.

...and didn't that end well in 2008.
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