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

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

#91

Post by colordrops »

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…

Modern airliners _are_ mostly autonomous, and can even land themselves if necessary. Pilots are there as a safety margin.

I've been on an automated city train as well, I believe in China.

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

#92

Post by Bahamut »

chrismealy wrote: post #42
cryptoz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US death rate is lower than most countries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic...

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

#93

Post by devmunchies »

gwbas1c wrote: post #79
Eridrus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

With software, it's always easy to make something appear to work. All the corner cases make something take 10-100x longer than the functional prototype. This became painfully obvious with the article floating around where a car misread a stop sign with a small amount of marking as a 45MPH speed limit sign. It's pretty clear that if a car is mistaking a red sign for a white sign, we have a very long time to go before…

> a car misread a stop sign with a small amount of marking as a 45MPH speed limit sign

That's what happens when the sign were made for humans. They should start putting QR codes under traffic signs, with the human sign as a fall back or as a second point of reference.

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

#94

Post by redbeard0x0a »

People have a habit of thinking linearly, however technology builds on top of technology (leading to exponential improvements).

Half way through the Genome project, they had only mapped out 1% of the genome. A lot of people in that field and working on that project were thinking the same thing - "not even close". But the next 7 years, they completed the next 99%. This is the power of exponential progress.

The only thing that is going to halt this progress is to hit physical limits and not find a new way of doing things to get around the physical limits. New technology opens new possibilities.

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

#95

Post by ZeroGravitas »

gwbas1c wrote: post #79
Eridrus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

With software, it's always easy to make something appear to work. All the corner cases make something take 10-100x longer than the functional prototype. This became painfully obvious with the article floating around where a car misread a stop sign with a small amount of marking as a 45MPH speed limit sign. It's pretty clear that if a car is mistaking a red sign for a white sign, we have a very long time to go before…

"This became painfully obvious with the article floating around where a car misread a stop sign with a small amount of marking as a 45MPH speed limit sign. It's pretty clear that if a car is mistaking a red sign for a white sign, we have a very long time to go before the car can safely drive itself without a human observer to intervene when needed."

I think you misread that article.

Someone built their own toy implementation of an CV sign recognizer. Then, with full access to the code, they reverse engineered visual distortions that could seem innocuous to humans but trip up their model.

It's not a real world issue as far as I'm aware (though obviously signs can be misread or missed, but not invisibly vandalized)

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

#96

Post by bpicolo »

yazan94 wrote: post #17
bpicolo wrote: post #6

> unveiled a new concept car, the Concept-i Man sure would be cool if any concept car ever presented were actually released. They do look fancy and futuristic.

The Concept-i looks like it could come straight from Wall-E. I agree with you in general about concept cars being produced/released, but for this specific case, I don't mind. Looks funky

I totally want a car straight outta Wall-E, hah

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

#97

Post by w0utert »

skywhopper wrote: post #16
gboudrias wrote: post #4

I'm sure he's right, but then why is everyone joining the race now? Wouldn't it be way less expensive to wait until at least some of the problems are solved? Also, it sure seems like level 5 autonomous driving is just a few steps short of general AI, which is still lightyears away.

People are jumping in because they get attention and money for doing so (and because lots of non-experts who tend to be the money-distributors believe the hype) including government grants. The real threat is not that the hype will waste private investors' money (although it is) but that it will draw government funds away from transit projects that would be a far better investment.

>> draw government funds away from transit projects that would be a far better investment.

Not just government funds, but also car maker funds. I honestly don't understand why all the research in automated driving doesn't focus on making better versions of the driver assists we already have first, instead of shooting for full autonomy, which I honestly believe to be a pipe dream.

Of course many of the advances in researching autonomous driving will trickle down to safety systems for 'normal' cars, so that's a good thing. I just feel like everyone is approaching the problem from the wrong direction, wasting a lot of R&D effort that could have produced much better results much sooner if car companies would start from what we already have and incrementally improve it. You can blame car companies for being slow to adopt many things that could benefit all of us (such as electric drivetrains), but you can hardly deny car safety has already improved tremendously in a relatively short timespan. Whether they were forced by regulation or because they thought making safer cars would be more profitable doesn't really matter.

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

#98

Post by cc81 »

gboudrias wrote: post #4

I'm sure he's right, but then why is everyone joining the race now? Wouldn't it be way less expensive to wait until at least some of the problems are solved? Also, it sure seems like level 5 autonomous driving is just a few steps short of general AI, which is still lightyears away.

I think it is because there is also a lot of value of just assisting the driver.

It is much more comfortable to drive if the car itself keeps the same speed as the car in front of me and follows the road. I also feel a lot safer if my car would automatically brake if I'm distracted and a kid runs out in front of the car.

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

#99

Post by rayiner »

dperfect wrote: post #57

I've been saying this for a while. The problem is that people are mostly familiar with the rate of overcoming traditional technical challenges (e.g., making your current computer/phone more compact, improving graphics quality, making cameras and screens with more pixels, etc.). What people don't realize is that full autonomous driving will require more than just faster/smaller/cheaper technical innovation - it will r…

> and Siri/Alexa/Cortana are barely becoming usabl

And at least Siri is completely useless without a data connection.

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

#100

Post by joshuamorton »

skywhopper wrote: post #78
Eridrus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

It's important to point out that the WayMo project in Phoenix is only barely getting started, only serves limited areas, at limited times, and presumably in limited weather conditions; and most importantly that there's still a human driver in the vehicle at all times. A full-scale metro-wide service would need to operate at all hours, in most any weather, and without a human driver. That's not happening within four y…

>WayMo project in Phoenix is only barely getting started, only serves limited areas,

Sure but is this because of capability or number of vehicles?

>at limited times,

Sure, because drivers don't want to work late at night.

>and presumably in limited weather conditions;

Why's that?

>and most importantly that there's still a human driver in the vehicle at all times.

Sure, but this isn't due to capability, but for regulatory reasons. As far as I know, the firefly vehicles (the cute little bubble ones) don't have steering wheels, and were in use 3 years ago. This argument doesn't make sense to me.

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