121–130 of 236 posts
(It's not just about seeing through moisture: it's also about traction, something you can't really use sensors to enhance.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waymo is ahead on the technology. They were ready to begin public trials with their Koala cars in 2015, but the California DMV shut them down, and many of their key people jumped ship. Waymo has since been proceeding a bit more cautiously, and their efforts at this point are oriented more towards smoothing out ride feel, testing under adverse weather conditions, and their early rider program in Phoenix. Whether it's…
Waymo already had a car driving with a blind person.
At this point, I'm not really going to be impressed until just ONE self-driving car company even talks about being able to handle snow and fog, preferably their cars knowing when they can't drive safely in the conditions. (It's not just about seeing through moisture: it's also about traction, something you can't really use sensors to enhance.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#R...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 th…
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?
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."
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 also want to see the CEO, CTO, and other C-level execs of the auto company to release a legally binding agreement holding themselves personally liable for criminal negligence if the vehicle is later found to have obvious flaws - obvious determined by an independent group of several thousand unaffiliated volunteer experienced software engineers.
Right now, if a car company slapped a 'self driving' car together that was designed to seek and destroy pre-schoolers, no one would say boo. Certainly not the courts. Toyota killed people by having ludicrously egregiously bad development practices (their developers did not even have access to a bug tracker... they followed 6 of 94 industry standard recommended practices... and worse) - and the courts acquitted them of negligence. That is disgusting, and makes it impossible for any reasonable person to trust any auto company doing development of something as significant and difficult as making a self-driving car.
They know that they will not be held liable no matter how bad of a job they do - would you drive across a bridge built by bridge engineers hired, managed, and made to work the way software engineers are hired, managed, and made to work in modern companies?
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."
The main reason for this is that current self-driving tech has plateaued with most companies going with the redundancy based approach (let's have 3 LIDARs instead of 1, and make that 4 IR sensors on each side instead of 2 etc.) simply because there is no revolutionary new tech that is a panacea to current L1 problems.
Sadly, explaining this to investors is next to impossible, so everyone keeps selling the same idea with a few more whistles as the next big thing while everyone is waiting for the big tech breakthrough that makes actual self-driving cars possible.
Until then, expect many more controlled environment (eg. airports or freeways where traffic is mostly smooth flowing, or roads with perfectly marked stop signs and pavement paint).
There are a lot of big claims in this article. As someone who hasn't been paying much attention, is it credible that they have a near-ready-to-go self-driving car right now?
They've got some damn impressive videos on YouTube. I think they're either neck and neck with, or possibly ahead of, Tesla.
The truth is, none of these companies is any close to full autonomy. Full autonomy _testing_ will begin once they deploy cars without backup drivers, to actually see how bad can things go without watchful human supervision.
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?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
Or maybe there's some notation collision...