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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”

#151
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day, I came within two feet of a crash because the other driver completely disregarded a red light. It's pretty clear that if a human can't even pay attention to a light directly pointed at them, we have a very long time to go before humans can safely drive cars without a computer to intervene when needed.

One thing worth mentioning (even though I agree with the gist of your point) is that machines make the same mistakes consistently. This is pretty rare for a human. Imagine 10% of the cars on the road are autonomous and they all make this same mistake.

There are a lot of road design features that come from the fact that humans do make certain mistakes consistently. For example, the US's love affair with four-way stops comes from drivers' inability to safely navigate uncontrolled intersections, even when there's no particular reason they couldn't. Stoplights usually have a delay between the red light for one direction and the green light for the next direction because driver's often run fresh reds, or get stuck in the intersection and need to clear out. There are tons of warning signs because drivers can't be trusted to notice something as simple as a sharp curve coming up.

Of course, the road system is designed for humans' foibles, not computers' foibles, and computers will have to deal with that. But the bar is low.

Computers aren't really as consistent as you say, either. Obviously, a deterministic machine will produce the same outputs for the same inputs. But when your inputs are camera data from the real world, you'll never get the same input twice. For example, my car sometimes misreads or fails to read speed limit signs, but it'll usually read the exact same sign perfectly fine the next time I go past.

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

#152

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's no good reason to automate trains right now, aside for the sake of automating them. It would take a lot of cash to accomplish and it would put us exactly where we are now.

Fairly good reasons for passenger transport, actually. Transport authorities are reporting safer and smoother (which directly translates to "cheaper", both in power savings from optimal profile and in fewer scheduling delays) operation. For heavy cargo without a highly regular, high turnaround schedule, not so much: too many potential operating profiles.

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

#153
post #122
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 Similarly, opinions from those heavily invested aren't convincing. Are there people with credible experience, but without bias either way, that are giving projections on when it might be viable?

John Leonard at MIT is one long-time (going back to 2007 DARPA challenge) researcher who is very skeptical. e.g. http://searchcio.techtarget.com/blog/TotalCIO/Driverless-car... "I think that driving exposes fundamental issues in intelligence, fundamental issues in how the brain works. And we might be a very long way away.”

I think his research area (SLAM) might blind him a bit to the engineering side of things. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping is great if it works, but for something with high enough value... you can just map it from the start, and it makes your problem much easier. Which seems to be the approach people are taking.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think we will tolerate autonomous cars operating at speeds that create those situations?

if someone steps out in front your car going 30 MPH can you stop in time? i mean they walk right into your immediate path. do you think this kind of thing can't happen?

That isn't the problem you posed. Now there is no maneuver that can save the pedestrian, for any driver.

But for the most part, if there is low visibility and pedestrian proximity, 30 MPH is too fast. The streets here don't have much obstructing visibility other than parked cars, there are good sidewalks set well back from the streets and the speed limit is still 25 MPH.

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine writing a computer program than can drive a car in a video game, but not provide relationship advice to two freshly married people, or think of a fair and just and enforceable law to reduce discrimination at the workplace? Driving is quite a bit short of "same intelligence as humans"

what if there are 2 obstacles that the car can't brake fast enough to avoid so it has to decide which to hit. one is a person pushing a baby in a baby carriage, the other is a person pushing someone a wheelchair

The exact same thing that happens now: someone dies, usually selected arbitrarily based upon the driver's selfish desire to minimize harm to themselves. Because that situation doesn't allow enough time to make anything except instinctual choices.

The driver is found at fault for that death if they were not driving legally. Otherwise, and very often times regardless, the whole thing is written off as a tragic accident (millions happen every year, just in the USA), and the insurance people do their thing.

Ethical dilemmas are a non-problem for self-driving cars.

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

#156
post #47
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 Timesta…

And then an unequipped vehicle comes along; or worse, one broadcasting with malicious intent.

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

#157

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 th…

It's worth asking which problems fall into the set of those that can eventually benefit of exponential progress, and why. This reminds me of Taleb's distinction between mediocristan and extremistan, or non-scalable randomness vs scalable randomness.

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

#158
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better than speech recognition, handwriting recognition. Hello, Apple Newton, may you rest in peace. I'm not convinced we'll have handwriting recognition within my lifetime, and if we do I imagine that shortly after I'll go looking for Sarah Connor :)

Go to your closest Apple store, choose an iPad Pro and try an app called 'Nebo'. Let us know when you find Sarah :)

I'd be useless, I'd have to take my mother, the proverbial doctor, to try it out :o)

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

#159
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…

> I feel like I lose 5-10 minutes a week sitting behind people who are checking their phones unaware the light has changed.

A quick blip on a set of train horns can quickly change that behavior.

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

#160
The Roman Rule: The one who says it can't be done shouldn't interrupt the one doing it.

I agree that it's harder than, say, Musk or Waymo's teams want to admit. But it also seems to me like Toyota has a bit of sour grapes, everyone around them is doing interesting, useful things, and Toyota is stuck at lane departure and adaptive cruise control and blind spot detection, all of which work pretty well for them.

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