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Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

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Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#81

Post by swsieber »

swsieber wrote: post #10
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

tl;dr we have built a car that does not self-drive, but like, some day, it will, we're pretty sure Funniest thing is they still use wiring harnesses. If you're manufacturing the car from scratch just build a digital bus into the frame.

"For now, there will still be a human behind the wheel." Yup. Total click bait.

"The launch of the world’s first mass-producible driverless car is a major accomplishment, but we’re not across the finish line yet. Building a few of these self-driving vehicles, or even a few hundred, won’t accomplish what we set out to do. And a self-driving business that depends on humans sitting behind the wheel is fundamentally unsustainable, so that won’t cut it either. We will achieve success by integrating the best software and hardware to deploy truly driverless vehicles at scale."

That's the last paragraph. It makes me think the writer views it as a technical problem - they need a human as a backup. But, there's not enough context, so I could be misreading it.

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#82

Post by smnscu »

QAPereo wrote: post #56
cruiseemployee wrote: post #48

deleted

deleted Hm. http://archive.is/VhWor

> Cruise employee here. throwaway for obvious reasons. It needs to be said that this is entirely marketing smoke and mirrors. The Cruise platform is significantly behind most other players in the market, and is having many many technical problems because of shortsighted leadership on Kyle's part, including high level people quitting (the head of planning and controls left last month because of Kyle, and more are threatening to quit) The reason I'm saying this is that this sort of public "everything is fine, we are the best" posturing leaks inwards. The opposite is very much true. Employees are very upset with Kyle because of things just like this. I make no exaggeration when I say Kyle is a mean-spirited, selfish person in private, and is very quick to publicly take credit for the work of others that he has emotionally and verbally abused. It's truly one of the most toxic environments I've ever been a part of.

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#83

Post by sbov »

aerovistae wrote: post #63

While I'm almost always bullish on new tech, self-driving cars are one where I frankly have a pretty hard time buying into the hype. I think when they really start to hit the streets, some issues are going to show up. Here's what I mean. Imagine this situation: You're pulling into your driveway in your self-driving car, and one of your kids left a lawn gnome there, blocking it. The car won't go forward because there'…

None of these contrived scenarios compares to the rate at which humans simply fail to stop when they should have stopped. I don't know anyone who got into or was rescued from an accident by pulling one of these maneuvers. I know plenty of people who got into accidents because someone (them or someone else) failed to stop when they should have stopped.

Considering humans can barely stop when they should, I don't give them a high likelihood to also be able to have the situational awareness and make the multiple split second decisions required to both decide to, and take action upon, directing their car towards the least-valuable obstacle in an emergency. By the time they decide what to do they will probably be rear ended.

Edit: your examples also ignores that with self driving cars, people won't be put in these situations in the first place. A driver not paying attention to the road, looking at their phone would be... not a safety hazard.

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#84

Post by adewinter »

arosier wrote: post #35

From my discussions with a friend with intimate knowledge of the software side of Cruise, there is wild skepticism within the co that they even have the hardware needed to go L4 or L5. Big promises being made to GM by Kyle which is leading to smoke and mirrors to distract/buy time from more critical problems "under the hood."

What does "go L4 or L5" mean?

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#85

Post by serg_chernata »

adewinter wrote: post #84
arosier wrote: post #35

From my discussions with a friend with intimate knowledge of the software side of Cruise, there is wild skepticism within the co that they even have the hardware needed to go L4 or L5. Big promises being made to GM by Kyle which is leading to smoke and mirrors to distract/buy time from more critical problems "under the hood."

What does "go L4 or L5" mean?

Levels 4 and 5 of driving automation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_drivi...

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#86

Post by oaktowner »

bjtitus wrote: post #75
aerovistae wrote: post #63

While I'm almost always bullish on new tech, self-driving cars are one where I frankly have a pretty hard time buying into the hype. I think when they really start to hit the streets, some issues are going to show up. Here's what I mean. Imagine this situation: You're pulling into your driveway in your self-driving car, and one of your kids left a lawn gnome there, blocking it. The car won't go forward because there'…

I always question whether humans are really any better at this calculation. In the gnome example, many people will probably stop to avoid damaging their property, not see the car behind them careening forward, and end up getting rear ended anyway. In an ideal world, ethical issues like the one you presented would be major hurdles but humans aren't going to be perfectly rational in the moment of many accidents, especi…

The other thing to bear in mind: I would guess that the vast majority of accidents are caused by people not paying attention -- distracted by a phone, person, great view, or even just because they're looking the wrong direction. Cars don't do any of those things. They will always be paying attention, looking in all directions at once.

So if they eliminate all of the accidents that are caused that way, but increase the number of garden-gnome related accidents...wouldn't that be worthwhile?

Another, less flippant way to say it: yes, we can imagine scenarios in which the number of accidents will increase. But what is the relative frequency of those types of accidents compared to run-of-the-mill rear-end, red-light run, lane change due to inattentiveness?

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#87

Post by jhkim »

adewinter wrote: post #84
arosier wrote: post #35

From my discussions with a friend with intimate knowledge of the software side of Cruise, there is wild skepticism within the co that they even have the hardware needed to go L4 or L5. Big promises being made to GM by Kyle which is leading to smoke and mirrors to distract/buy time from more critical problems "under the hood."

What does "go L4 or L5" mean?

http://standards.sae.org/j3016_201609/

no driving automation (level 0) to full driving automation (level 5)

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#88

Post by maxsilver »

InitialLastName wrote: post #37
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sprawl will never be environmentally sustainable. Assuming clean, renewable energy powers all electric mobility, why not? I do not want to live in a city/urban area, and I will pay more not to. EDIT: @InitialLastName Sorry, HN throttling kicked in, can't reply to your reply so I'm putting this here. If I have a well for water, septic for sewage, solar on my roof, and a gravel road to town, what's the problem? I und…

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason... Have a look at the graph of the cost of delivering utilities. This isn't about environmental sustainability as much as long-term economic sustainability. When towns sprawl, utilities with costs that scale with distance cost more per person.

> When towns sprawl, utilities with costs that scale with distance cost more per person. Have a look at the graph of the cost of delivering utilities.

That StrongTowns blog graph is intentionally misleading. It's not a cost of delivering utilities, it's a cost of utilities based on tax revenue a given parcel generates. It's an attempt to make cities "for profit".

Obviously, anywhere significant amounts of people live is going to come up "red", because we don't tax people the same rate we tax corporate offices, and because people use more resources there (most people live / cook / shower / sleep / etc at home, not in their cubicle).

That doesn't make it less worth that cost though (those downtown regions are only able to be "green" because there's lots of red around them). And it doesn't really have to do with sprawl. (The cost does rise with distance, but in mostly trivial ways. And those costs spiral backward again too -- 5,000 feet of new powerline in suburbia is far cheaper than 500 feet of new powerline in Manhattan, for instance).

> This isn't about environmental sustainability as much as long-term economic sustainability.

If that's the argument, then cities are almost entirely ruled out already. Cities aren't even economically sustainable for their current residents today, sprawl is the only thing preventing cities current economic issues from becoming even worse.

Sprawl is the only reason the majority of regular folks have any housing to sleep in at all.

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#89

Post by nrb »

adewinter wrote: post #84
arosier wrote: post #35

From my discussions with a friend with intimate knowledge of the software side of Cruise, there is wild skepticism within the co that they even have the hardware needed to go L4 or L5. Big promises being made to GM by Kyle which is leading to smoke and mirrors to distract/buy time from more critical problems "under the hood."

What does "go L4 or L5" mean?

It's a classification[1] for the level of automated driving capabilities in a vehicle.

1) https://www.sae.org/misc/pdfs/automated_driving.pdf

Re: Cruise's 3rd generation self-driving car

#90

Post by irq11 »

bjtitus wrote: post #75
aerovistae wrote: post #63

While I'm almost always bullish on new tech, self-driving cars are one where I frankly have a pretty hard time buying into the hype. I think when they really start to hit the streets, some issues are going to show up. Here's what I mean. Imagine this situation: You're pulling into your driveway in your self-driving car, and one of your kids left a lawn gnome there, blocking it. The car won't go forward because there'…

I always question whether humans are really any better at this calculation. In the gnome example, many people will probably stop to avoid damaging their property, not see the car behind them careening forward, and end up getting rear ended anyway. In an ideal world, ethical issues like the one you presented would be major hurdles but humans aren't going to be perfectly rational in the moment of many accidents, especi…

There's no ethical question here. You either see that it's a gnome, or you see that it's a child.

Humans may or may not be less situationally aware overall, but we have the gnome question down cold. Cars don't. They see "obstacle in front of bumper radar."

The OPs point is well-taken because it illustrates a technical risk that few are discussing: the "last 1%" of self-driving software may be equivalent to solving AGI.

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