Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#331

Post by unclesaamm » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #228

jonmc12 wrote: post #146

Am I the only one feeling the press + big tech narrative of "driverless vehicles = safety" is way ahead of itself? OK, "driver error is blamed for 94% of crashes", but what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? In 2016, Philip Koopman of CMU discusses that there are non-trivial engineering challenges of achieving safety in NHTSA Level 4 vehicle automation: https://users.ec…

Imagine it's April 2018 and Waymo releases this statement: "In the past year our autonomous cars have driven a total of 50 million miles in real-world conditions. Over that period there were 4 collisions, plus an estimated 12 which would have occurred if our trained staff in the drivers seat had not intervened. Insurance analysts estimate that if human drivers had driven under similar conditions there would have been…

Is there a standard for "real-world conditions"? I could easily see Waymo driving their cars up and down the highway near their headquarters for 50 million miles and calling that "real world".

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#332

Post by amenod » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

petters wrote: post #177

monkmartinez wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you are not! HN seems to think the same way, and it is one of the worst cases of rose colored glasses I have ever witnessed. What about the cost? Who is going to be able to afford this? Also, what about people that rely on a vehicle for work? Retrofit $75K work trucks with another $75K in self driving gizmos? Find me a practical plumber, carpenter, A/C, lock smith, self-employed guy/gal that will sign up for that!…

In my opinion, the primary use case of self-diving cars aren't personal ownership. Society as a whole wastes a lot of resources when every household has a car that stands still 95% of the time. With self-driving cars, we can plausibly improve that.

I don't really buy this argument. Most of he stuff I own is sitting idle 95% of the time (except for computer I guess ;) and it is similar with other people I know. The outcome will depend on many factors, including cost of the car, the secondary functions it will get and similar (will it become an extension of our living space?).

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#333

Post by Noos » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:25 PM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #258

Asooka wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that they only let you borrow for now. Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? Will Waymo let you actually buy and own a car that isn't network connected and fully yours? Seeing how value extraction works in today's enterprise, i.e. via rent-seeking, I'm guessing we're headed to not owning cars any more.

"Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars?" Presumably. It's pooling for cost-saving reasons, much like cloud computing. If people want to be frugal, they won't buy a car.

You are losing a lot of time and freedom in the desire to save money though.

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#334

Post by monkmartinez » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #297

monkmartinez wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is how much to produce? Very important point you missed in what I wrote; Hardware and software package. A lidar without software is useless.

The price dropped from something ridiculous (~100K) to something manageable for a luxury car (~10K), and certainly reasonable as a cost offset by multiple consumers (like in a rideshare environment).

It doesn't matter. As we have learned with the John Deere tractor situation is that we will lose even more control. Think buying and maintaining a car is expensive now? Wait until you literally can't drive it without paying for a software update. I'm sorry, but I don't see anything cool in this other than a quick nap sometimes on a long road trip. Everything else quickly approaches pain in the ass levels to the point where I would rather have carburetors back.

Also, don't want to rideshare with a group of disgusting people. I work in EMS and I see first hand what nastiness is out there. Nope.

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#335

Post by mythbuster2001 » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

JDulin wrote: post #309

legulere wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Humans can calculate arithmetic perfectly accurately, why do we need computers to do it for us?" It's more like humans can think, why should we trust a computer with a task where unforeseen circumstances can arise? Further, if I got the current state correctly, no self-driving car system so far works in rainy conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51qqzFE0rsw

This is not rain. This is a drizzle on a very well maintained, center divided freeway, where the radar and ultrasonic sensor has a very nice reference (divider). Also with cars tracked in front. Example of (non-autonomous) driving in a real rain here for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3xKT98a3og

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#336

Post by jonmc12 » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

smlacy wrote: post #250

jonmc12 wrote: post #146

Am I the only one feeling the press + big tech narrative of "driverless vehicles = safety" is way ahead of itself? OK, "driver error is blamed for 94% of crashes", but what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? In 2016, Philip Koopman of CMU discusses that there are non-trivial engineering challenges of achieving safety in NHTSA Level 4 vehicle automation: https://users.ec…

Your argument is about the same as "Humans can calculate arithmetic perfectly accurately, why do we need computers to do it for us?" There are a host of obvious reasons why even a "simple" L4 car will beat a human hands down: * Reaction time. * 360 awareness / visibility. * Lack of exaggerated "Human Reflex" to surprising events (i.e. swerving violently to avoid a dog, and hitting other vehicles) * Keeping perfect sp…

Thats not the argument at all. In the attached paper, the author suggested validating driverless vehicle safety within constrained environments, like using beacons on roads.

You make an argument like you have a hammer in your hand and you are looking at a row of nails. I'm suggesting it is short-sighted to look at the problem from only that lens.

For instance, with a more holistic lens you might explore the right place for humans drivers vs autonomous vehicles. You might simulate entire cities from the ground up, specifically optimized for transportation. What if the real breakthrough in transportation systems actually comes from the ability to quickly construct / deconstruct roads? Or dynamic city zoning? Or any number of non-vehicle innovations? What if we were actually optimizing for safety in transportation and not just trying to compare machine ability to human ability in limited contexts?

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#337

Post by potatolicious » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #80

maverick_iceman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans will do stupid things. A self-driving car has to drive safely in spite of them.

How do you avoid being rear ended at a stoplight? There may be ways to avoid some of the other types of accidents, but those ones (which have happened several times) are difficult to escape. The real question is what's the safety threshold - safer than median human? 90th percentile? 99th?

> "How do you avoid being rear ended at a stoplight?"

The same way defensive (human) drivers have been doing for a long time: leave room between you and the car in front of you. Gauge cars coming up behind you and roll forward if they need extra room to stop.

Does not prevent 100% of rear-endings, but a large portion of them. Most rear-enders are not cars plowing full-speed into you, it's someone misjudging their braking and not being fully at-rest when they needed to be. Leaving some margin for this kind of error helps avoid the whole incident.

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#338

Post by rainbowmverse » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #292

c22 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the odds of a single drunk driver killing thousands of people?

What are the odds of many drunk drivers killing thousands of people? p(x)=1.0, it happens every year.

Humans are bad at risk assessment. You won't convince everyone a self-driving car is safer with math.

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#339

Post by monkmartinez » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #272

jsymolon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want the convenience of having access to transportation 24/7 no matter where they are and when. Ever call a taxi (not in city) ? 30+ minutes. Also, tragedy of the commons ... who was the last one to use the car has to pay for clean up. How to accomplish that ? ... "No the other guy did it ..."

I'm skeptical about the "no one will own" meme. That said, there's no reason cleaning would be any more of an issue than it is with Zipcar today. If you go to pickup a car and it needs cleaning, you refuse it and report the problem.

Then what? What if you have something pressing to get to? All these rideshare arguments fall flat on their face when it is anything other than "going out" without much of a timeline.

Re: Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

#340

Post by nradov » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:36 PM UTC

thereisnospork wrote: post #298

monkmartinez wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the suburbs. I have a family with two grade school kids that participate in seasonal team sports and year-round gymnastics. They attend a charter school with no school bus system. Let's say each ride cost $10... that is $20 to $40 per day just for the kids on most weekdays. Add in birthday parties, saturday games, doctor/dentist, trip to grandma/grandpa that live 7 miles away... and we are talking $1000 per…

Who says you need to be the rider, and not the car owner? You could be making that $10 a ride renting your Toyota Highlander to other suburbanites when your kid's sports aren't in season? Or when you're on vacation, or at work for an 8 hour chunk? To say nothing of the convenience of a car that can drop off/pick up the little one from soccer practice on its own if you have a scheduling conflict.

This type of naive suggestion totally ignores the way that most middle-class American families actually use their cars not just as transportation but for storage and as a mobile base of operations. Please explain how I'm supposed to let others use my car as a short-term rental during the day while it's full of child seats, snacks, extra clothes, sports equipment, etc. Plus I don't want random people coughing / eating / having sex / using drugs in my nice clean cars. Outside of maybe a few affluent urban areas populated largely by young childless people it's just a silly unrealistic idea.