Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 443 posts

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#41

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

moxious wrote: post #12

It speaks to the trends of the day that an article which says something patently obvious to people in the tech field is considered news. This reality seems like it may pose a problem though, as some people's business models and valuations depend on this article being wrong. The thing is, we don't need full level 5 to get useful stuff out of this line of tech development. But in terms of the futurist vision of driverl…

Exactly. I park in a very small space in a busy city. While backing out I must monitor the street, pedestrians, and the cars parked to the front, back, and side of me.

Just this week, I missed one of those variables and cost myself $500 in damage. This is something a backup camera and automated system can and already does easily help with, and is a major efficacy leap. Small steps like this can really add up.

What I would like to see next is a system that alerts the driver when the light in front of them turns green. I feel like I lose 5-10 minutes a week sitting behind people who are checking their phones unaware the light has changed.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#42

Post by chrismealy »

cryptoz wrote: post #25
limeblack wrote: post #5

One thing I would love someone to explain is how can people assume cars are going to be automated soon when both planes and trains haven't been automated for various reasons. They are different issues I have gathered but essentially shouldn't trains be dead simple but to this day at least the trains(not metras though) often have someone to stop the train in case of emergencies. Planes are more complex but have lower…

30,000 people in the USA alone are killed each year because of human driving error. Humans are not getting any better at driving. Car safety mechanisms have reduced road death rates significantly in the last 50 years, but still - 30,000 deaths/year in the USA alone due to human driver error. Cars will be automated because cars have to be automated.

Other countries have much lower car death rates. It's a social problem that can be solved without waiting technological miracles.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#43

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

cryptoz wrote: post #25
limeblack wrote: post #5

One thing I would love someone to explain is how can people assume cars are going to be automated soon when both planes and trains haven't been automated for various reasons. They are different issues I have gathered but essentially shouldn't trains be dead simple but to this day at least the trains(not metras though) often have someone to stop the train in case of emergencies. Planes are more complex but have lower…

30,000 people in the USA alone are killed each year because of human driving error. Humans are not getting any better at driving. Car safety mechanisms have reduced road death rates significantly in the last 50 years, but still - 30,000 deaths/year in the USA alone due to human driver error. Cars will be automated because cars have to be automated.

Just because we want or even need something doesn't mean we get it.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#44

Post by noobermin »

adrianN wrote: post #13
limeblack wrote: post #5

One thing I would love someone to explain is how can people assume cars are going to be automated soon when both planes and trains haven't been automated for various reasons. They are different issues I have gathered but essentially shouldn't trains be dead simple but to this day at least the trains(not metras though) often have someone to stop the train in case of emergencies. Planes are more complex but have lower…

There are no good technical reasons why trains are not automated more often. The technology is there, many trains do in fact run autonomously. It's just unpopular for long distance trains because current systems don't do obstacle detection and its hard to secure long distance tracks against obstacles. But for high speed trains at least there is no point in trying to visually recognize obstacles: if you see an obstacl…

>It's just unpopular for long distance trains because current systems don't do obstacle detection and its hard to secure long distance tracks against obstacles.

That doesn't sound like it's just because "unpopular", in fact, that sounds like a technical reason. It sounds like you're really saying "they are limited, but people are bad too, so it shouldn't matter."

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#45

Post by Eridrus »

limeblack wrote: post #5

One thing I would love someone to explain is how can people assume cars are going to be automated soon when both planes and trains haven't been automated for various reasons. They are different issues I have gathered but essentially shouldn't trains be dead simple but to this day at least the trains(not metras though) often have someone to stop the train in case of emergencies. Planes are more complex but have lower…

If we had autonomous planes it wouldn't significantly reduce cost or increase usage. But there is a lot of investment in autonomous drones.

Planes also have a very high safety bar to begin with, which cars do not.

Same thing about trains, there's very little value in doing so, and resistance in the form of unions in some locations. Some trains are fully automated though, here's an article with some more info: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wnj75z/why-dont-w...

Frankly having some dude from Toyota, who don't seem to be very invested in this space, tell me he doesn't think it's going to work isn't very convincing. Chris Urmson saying it might take up to 30 years is far more convincing: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self...

But that's 30 years for the entire planet, not until it works at all. WayMo is already letting people ride their cars in Phoenix - presumably one of the places with good weather and easy roads, so I think metro-level deployment in the next 4 years seems about right.

[EDIT]: And on the topic of trains. The MTA in NYC can't even seem to handle basic technical projects, like upgrading signaling infrastructure, or just extending a rail line a few miles without spending billions of dollars, so there's probably a decent chance that some of these are not automated due to sheer incompetence.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#46

Post by CabSauce »

_m8fo wrote: post #14

Maybe I'm ignorant (very likely) but I've never understood the difference between full autonomous driving and a fully intelligent AI. If a car can drive in any environment and react to any circumstances surely said AI could also do anything else, no? EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone. Though, to clarify, when I think of "full autonomous" driving, I'm thinking of a car that can go from A to B regardless of the c…

The difference is that the same algorithm that drives a car can't be used to do other tasks. The self-driving car algorithm can't just be plugged in to recommend a movie or summarize an article. Many of the same underlying components can be re-used, but they have to be trained on data for the new task.

AI is kind of a silly term, imo.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#47

Post by nip »

_m8fo wrote: post #14

Maybe I'm ignorant (very likely) but I've never understood the difference between full autonomous driving and a fully intelligent AI. If a car can drive in any environment and react to any circumstances surely said AI could also do anything else, no? EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone. Though, to clarify, when I think of "full autonomous" driving, I'm thinking of a car that can go from A to B regardless of the c…

I do not think that a 'fully intelligent AI' is necessary for full autonomous driving: if a universal communication protocol for driving were to be introduced, cars could communicate with one another as well as announce themselves when entering intersections for example, therefore mitigating the need for an 'AI'.

"I am driving at 45mph at [GPS Coordinates] [UTC Timestamp]".

"I'm braking [GPS Coordinates] [UTC Timestamp]".

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#48

Post by mjamesaustin »

limeblack wrote: post #5

One thing I would love someone to explain is how can people assume cars are going to be automated soon when both planes and trains haven't been automated for various reasons. They are different issues I have gathered but essentially shouldn't trains be dead simple but to this day at least the trains(not metras though) often have someone to stop the train in case of emergencies. Planes are more complex but have lower…

One of my friends is a train engineer. I can tell you that it's ABSURD how little automation is used in many train systems, and it's definitely not because of a lack of technology.

To give an example, my friend has to memorize the required speeds for each different section and turn in every train he runs, and has to manually adjust the train's speed accordingly.

Literally all of that can and should be done automatically, but the industry hasn't caught up with what is technologically possible.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#49

Post by lern_too_spel »

Alternate title: Toyota executive frantically tries to convince people to keep buying non-automated cars to protect Toyota's revenue stream while other companies say automated cars are imminent [January 2017].

California is on the verge of approving new regulations that allow automated cars on public roads with no humans in the vehicle, and as soon as that happens, things are going to move faster than the people who believe 10-years-late Toyota think.

Post reply on HN