Live data from Hacker News

Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

theatlantic.com

21–30 of 146 posts

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#23
Really well-written and engaging article. It seems the main point of an article like this from Google's perspective is gaining the public's trust. I'm sure most people are worried about the edge-cases that are so hard to run into in the real world, but are so important to get right. This is Google saying "we may not see that edge-case exactly, but we know when it could happen and simulate the situation a million times to make sure we get it right if we ever see it again."

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://qz.com/694520/tesla-has-780-million-miles-of-driving... Tesla has an enormous amount of data at their disposal. The recent change concerned video footage from the onboard cameras.

And not much lidar data, right? I don't work on this, but I imagine the quality of the data set makes a big difference. From what I've learned, lidar and radar are typically used for object detection (i.e., avoiding other cars; perhaps augmented with camera data), while cameras are used for things like lane detection and traffic sign detection. If Tesla is trying to solve the same hard problems as everyone else, usin…

Tesla has decided to use only radar (+ cameras), so none of their vehicles have/are planned to have lidar at all.

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#25
post #23

Really well-written and engaging article. It seems the main point of an article like this from Google's perspective is gaining the public's trust. I'm sure most people are worried about the edge-cases that are so hard to run into in the real world, but are so important to get right. This is Google saying "we may not see that edge-case exactly, but we know when it could happen and simulate the situation a million time…

I occassionally come across construction that is marked in an unusual way - at 65 miles an hour when the speed limit is 75. Also, when they are changing freeways and restriping them (leaving the original old faded lanes and before new lines go up) sometimes it's confusing to me and the traffic is flowing at 80 miles an hour, IIRC this was happening on 880 for a while about 10 years back.

If the AI is confused by a roundabout as described I wonder how they handle that or if this is something that only fools me because I am only using visual sensors.

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#26

Interesting stuff. I wonder to what extent Google and Tesla could benefit from sharing each others datasets, Tesla has far more real world data than Google at this point in time but Google has the better virtual environment to test in.

Interesting. Google's data is more thoroughly tested in simulation, but Tesla might discover more interesting miles by sheer number of cars in their fleet.

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#27
post #6

Now this is doing it right. That's how car companies do it. Big test tracks, and years of test track time, plus simulation and test rigs. As the article points out, Google has far more autonomous driving miles than everybody else put together. They're on the hard cases, too; not just driving on freeways.

Do they have anything that works in rain/snow?

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#28
post #23

Really well-written and engaging article. It seems the main point of an article like this from Google's perspective is gaining the public's trust. I'm sure most people are worried about the edge-cases that are so hard to run into in the real world, but are so important to get right. This is Google saying "we may not see that edge-case exactly, but we know when it could happen and simulate the situation a million time…

I occassionally come across construction that is marked in an unusual way - at 65 miles an hour when the speed limit is 75. Also, when they are changing freeways and restriping them (leaving the original old faded lanes and before new lines go up) sometimes it's confusing to me and the traffic is flowing at 80 miles an hour, IIRC this was happening on 880 for a while about 10 years back. If the AI is confused by a ro…

Aren't those examples in which it'd be fine for it to be confused? That confusion shouldn't lead to any dangerous situations, just a different speed than other cars.

It would also be interesting to know whether Waymo factors in other cars' behavior. If everyone is going 80 while the speed limit is 65, will it factor that in and go 80 or keep with the speed limit?

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#29

The fact that Waymo revealed their "secret" tools for advancing this crucial technology implies that either: 1) They believe no one can quite catch up before they can launch the technology. Since they know several competitors have huge resources and brilliant people, it means they are quite close to launch. 2) These tools have become open secret within the industry, so no harm is done to their competitive position by…

3) this is a pr puff piece that shares no real secrets

Re: Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

#30

The fact that Waymo revealed their "secret" tools for advancing this crucial technology implies that either: 1) They believe no one can quite catch up before they can launch the technology. Since they know several competitors have huge resources and brilliant people, it means they are quite close to launch. 2) These tools have become open secret within the industry, so no harm is done to their competitive position by…

3) this is a pr puff piece that shares no real secrets

Did you read his comment? That's 2)
Post reply on HN