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Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#91

Post by stale2002 »

mozumder wrote: post #5

Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. The world would be much better off if we converted our roads to a rail/streetcar system and drop the personal car concept entirely. The hype around this is worse than VR.

Self driving cars work right now. Tesla currently sells them.

Sure, they only work on the highway, but that is still a large amount of driving time.

Replacing 50% of driving hours is still a world changing revolutionary benefit.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#92

Post by m_mueller »

traek wrote: post #75
ctdonath wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS is an offshoot of building the massive system needed to process the "we sell absolutely everything" goal. Methinks they just got so good at it, cloud services just kinda took on a life of its own and grew from there - but still feeds the retailing monster. Echo is a consequence of exploring digital appliances as marketing tools. If you're going to build a device which can voice-interface someone ordering 6 bottle…

In what way is the billions of dollars Amazon is spending on original content "just an extention to feeding the retailing monster"? It's easy to point to one failed product as proof that "straying too far doesn't work", if you can do the mental gymnastics required to classify all their successful products as somehow more connected to their original goal.

IMO you do have a good point: Nothing about Prime seems to play particularly to Amazon's strengths, other than the wide reach of their sales channels (but if that's an argument, you could as well have Walmart doing the same). This is especially visible when you compare their software to Netflix. Still light years ahead of Apple though.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#93

Post by briandear »

uberuberuber wrote: post #86

A vehicle with a similar external sensor array has been parked in a lot near my workplace every weekday at lunch time for the past several weeks. Given the proximity to AC3 at Central and Wolfe, my coworkers and I had all assumed it was an Apple test of some kind. Accords with the rumor mill surrounding Apple leasing a former Pepsi bottling plant down the street. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/03/01/ap…

Was it a Lexus?

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#94

Post by stale2002 »

mindcrime wrote: post #24
CaptSpify wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. It's already happened.

For the "happy path" case, in good weather, etc., sure. But that's the first 90%. The second 90%, dealing with all weather conditions, all traffic conditions, arbitrary road hazards, crazy road conditions, etc., might take a lot longer. To the point that it's not crazy to say "it'll never happen". That said, I do think we'll get there eventually, as I think we'll get to AGI (or even ASI) eventually. But I can't prove…

Who cares about that other stuff.

Replacing half of all driving is still a world changing benefit to society.

The self driving technology that already exists could change the world with regards to the trucking industry alone, as trucking hours are mostly done in "easy" conditions on the highway.

Trillions of dollars will be saved even if self driving trucks only ever work in sunny weather on the highway.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#95

Post by mozumder »

freehunter wrote: post #54
mozumder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And streetcars are great at moving people that last mile. Take that road in front of your office, and just put rails in it. If your local government can pay for a road in front of your house, it can pay for a streetcar. This applies to dense areas as well as rural areas. Rail lines actually cost less to maintain than roads, and they cost YOU less because you don't have to buy and pay for a car. And you don't have to…

But would a streetcar go past my house? How far do I have to walk to get from my house to a bus stop or train station? Because I own 19 acres and my nearest neighbor is three miles from my house. The nearest town is 20 minutes by car. How would public transport deal with that kind of remoteness? My office is one end of the equation, my home (and the homes of my coworkers) are the other end. It's surprisingly common w…

If government built a road in front of your house, they can build a streetcar line in front of your house as well.

This is the cost of living in luxury with your own 19 acres.

And if you have your own farmland, you are richer than half the country.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#96

Post by D-Coder »

BoorishBears wrote: post #46
segmondy wrote: post #44

Apple really is a one hit wonder. Outside of computing devices, phone, tablets, laptops, (let's throw in desktops & watches) They really haven't been able to build and innovate much since Jobs. I was short on the idea when they announced a self-driving car. Without a major change and internal culture shock, they are going to stay on this course, hit peak cash extraction until they start mortgaging cash quickly. The o…

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not

I'm reading it as, "What have the Romans ever done for us? Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health."

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#97

Post by damon_c »

segmondy wrote: post #44

Apple really is a one hit wonder. Outside of computing devices, phone, tablets, laptops, (let's throw in desktops & watches) They really haven't been able to build and innovate much since Jobs. I was short on the idea when they announced a self-driving car. Without a major change and internal culture shock, they are going to stay on this course, hit peak cash extraction until they start mortgaging cash quickly. The o…

What about the aqueducts?

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#98

Post by briandear »

mozumder wrote: post #49
hossbeast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trains and buses are much more efficient at moving people than individual cars, even if they're self driving" Dubious claim that needs evidence. I think you're underestimating the potential throughput gains from autonomy. As just one example, speed limits can probably be greatly increased when you take the realities of human reaction times out of the equation.

How much energy does it take to move 500 cars? How much energy does it take to move one train? That's your answer.

How much energy does it take to operate a train station or get people to the train station? What is the time and monetary cost spent getting to and from a train station and waiting on trains? How many NYC or Paris or Seoul subways run at 3am?

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#99

Post by MichaelApproved »

senatorobama wrote: post #4
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

Welcome to the club.

They probably realized that designing a safe (to their standards) self-driving car is equivalent to strong AI.

I think we will need roads designed for autonomous cars, to make them truly safe and autonomous. They'll need sensors and digital markers to augment the visual markers. Otherwise, conditions like snow or rain would make it too difficult to work.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#100

Post by Apocryphon »

freehunter wrote: post #62

How much energy does it take to move one train 500 miles? How much energy does it take to move 10 cars 25 miles each? That's your question. Why do people always frame public transport in the light of "everyone can just take a single train!"? It doesn't work like that. It never works like that. It's a ridiculous argument barely even worthy of a response. 500 people might take one train in LA or NYC, but how about Gree…

You raise good points, but they're specific to American urban design, and the long-term solution is probably to redesign and rebuild our cities to move away from those designs.
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