41–50 of 146 posts
EDIT: Apple maps has up to date satellite imagery https://maps.apple.com/?q=37.3718,-120.5749&t=k
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, and I must think we're looking to squeeze ~3 more orders of magnitude or more of the reliability before going full driverless ~(1m miles/disengagement)
is there a specific reason you think that, or is a million just a sufficiently impressive-sounding number?
To my surprise, railroad travel is more fatal at 29.0 deaths per billion miles traveled. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
[2] http://www.caranddriver.com/features/safety-in-numbers-chart...
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…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
is there a specific reason you think that, or is a million just a sufficiently impressive-sounding number?
Motor vehicles are interestingly less fatal than our intuition suggests: "only" 11.3 deaths per billion vehicle-miles. [1] To my surprise, railroad travel is more fatal at 29.0 deaths per billion miles traveled. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U... [2] http://www.caranddriver.com/features/safety-in-numbers-chart...
If you want to do it right, you start with geometry. The first step is capturing range imagery and grinding it down to a 3D model of the world. This tells you where you physically can go. That's where we were at the DARPA Grand Challenge over a decade ago.
Then comes moving object popout. What out there isn't a stationary obstacle? That comes from processing multiple frames and range rate data from radars. Moving objects have to be tracked.
Only then does object recognition come into play. Moving objects should be classified if possible, and fixed objects of special interest (signs, barricades, etc.) identified. Not all objects will be identified, but that's OK. If it can't be identified and it's moving, you have to assume the worst case - it's vulnerable and it doesn't follow the road rules. This will force a slowdown and careful maneuvering around the unknown object. (See Chris Urmson's SXSW video of their vehicle encountering someone in a powered wheelchair chasing a duck with a broom.)
Predicting the behavior of moving objects is a big part of handling heavy traffic. That's what Google is working hard on now.
Machine learning is a part of this, but not the whole thing. You can't really trust machine learning; it's a statistical method and sometimes it will be totally wrong. You can trust geometry.
If you want to do it wrong, you start out with lane keeping and smart cruise control, tack on recognition of common objects, throw in some machine learning and hope for the best. This produced the Tesla self-crashing car, noted for running into unusual obstacles which partially block the lane and for trusting lane markings way too much. Look closely at the videos from Tesla and Cruise, slowing them down to real time. They speed them up so you can't easily see how bad the object recognition is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Motor vehicles are interestingly less fatal than our intuition suggests: "only" 11.3 deaths per billion vehicle-miles. [1] To my surprise, railroad travel is more fatal at 29.0 deaths per billion miles traveled. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U... [2] http://www.caranddriver.com/features/safety-in-numbers-chart...
Does that mean trains are more dangerous than cars? It seems that way, I just wonder if I'm missing something.
https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...
you can see that 95% of railroad fatalities are classified as either "Trespassers" or "Highway–rail grade crossing". In both of those cases it seems likely that the victims are generally not actually passengers on the train, but rather are people doing something obviously dangerous near railroad tracks.
(Also the denominator wasn't clear for the quoted statistic: is it per passenger-mile, or per vehicle-mile? In any case here is a sensible denominator: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...)
It seems a best of both worlds solution would be a new type of job: Data gathering driver. It would be basically like the Google Streetview cars, but with much more sensors and input from the driver. These drivers would be assigned neighborhoods to drive through and note anything unusual or noteworthy. Stop sign is down because of last night's storm? Driver notes this and now all Waymo cars know. Street closed due to construction? All Waymo cars will avoid that street. This type of data requires intelligence to analyze and understand and it would be fed into the Waymo system for all self driving cars to benefit from it. There could be millions of self driving cars and a few thousands of these drivers feeding daily updated data to the system. You could even increase the frequency of the drivers depending on weather conditions. Maybe if there's a storm, the drivers keep driving in a loop hourly instead of once daily.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Motor vehicles are interestingly less fatal than our intuition suggests: "only" 11.3 deaths per billion vehicle-miles. [1] To my surprise, railroad travel is more fatal at 29.0 deaths per billion miles traveled. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U... [2] http://www.caranddriver.com/features/safety-in-numbers-chart...
Does that mean trains are more dangerous than cars? It seems that way, I just wonder if I'm missing something.