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Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

techcrunch.com

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Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#51

Post by [deleted] »

samstave wrote: post #28
samstave wrote: post #14

I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved. I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing]) I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires? I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently) A driverless car gets into i…

OK - im replying to my comment because I find all these answers to be bullshit and here is why: So what these answers say is that you "no longer have any expectation of privacy while driving out and about" -- which is a fine argument to make in a police state, are we a police state - because guess what: this is now saying that any self driving car company has the ability to license plate scan you and take your pictur…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#52

Post by koolba »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42
hardtke wrote: post #26

What happens if these cars get in a situation where there is no legal way to move? For instance, the other day I was driving down the street and it was closed because of a Farmers market. Will they just sit there for hours? In gridlock, there is often no way to move without "blocking the box."

From what I read recently, they're going to have basically a call center the car will connect to for an operator to drive it remotely.

Cell service dead zones aside, is the latency and jitter for remote operation over a wireless link low enough to be feasible?

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#53

Post by numbchuckskills »

samstave wrote: post #28
samstave wrote: post #14

I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved. I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing]) I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires? I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently) A driverless car gets into i…

OK - im replying to my comment because I find all these answers to be bullshit and here is why: So what these answers say is that you "no longer have any expectation of privacy while driving out and about" -- which is a fine argument to make in a police state, are we a police state - because guess what: this is now saying that any self driving car company has the ability to license plate scan you and take your pictur…

Do you live in California? if so dash cams are legal there already and you already can't have an "expectation of privacy" around driving.

There! view changed?

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#54

Post by juliesulti »

dcsommer wrote: post #37

I hope these cars eventually drive more aggressively than the video shows. With zero traffic they seem to inch along.

The video shows the vehicle operating at 25 MPH in residential blocks, approaching speed bumps at 10 MPH, respecting a temporary 15 MPH school zone, and coming to a full and complete stop at stop signs and red lights.

That is how you are supposed to drive a car.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#55

Post by dabeeeenster »

icey wrote: post #10
eggpy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roads in Chandler are very regular (nice, wide grid), and the weather is clear and sunny the vast majority of the days. The particular geography helps isolate the number of factors the car needs to consider besides "just" driving. From a NYT article[0], >"The company did not say whether it was testing the driverless cars in environments considered challenging for autonomous vehicles, like bridges or tunnels, or more…

So crazy to see this video shot in the neighborhood I lived in the summers as a kid. Chandler's got a lot of good things going for it as eggpy mentioned -- well marked roads, wide, very little rain. On the downside, the entire Phoenix area has some terrible drivers, which I suppose is good training for the Waymo cars. It will be interesting to see if they park the cars during monsoon season; conditions can get pretty…

Everywhere has terrible drivers - that's the point!

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#56

Post by joshuamorton »

rayiner wrote: post #50
stale2002 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably alert Google HQ, who will then send a human to pick it up in 10 minutes? Or any number of other solutions, as I easily thought up that one in 5 seconds?

In New York, they sometimes block all of Lexington Ave. (a major north-south throughfare) at Midtown for pedestrian activities. What happens when a hundred self-driving cars all get to Lex and stop because they can't pass?

After one or two get backed up, they alert the others that traffic is stopped and to go another way?

In general the answer to all of these whacky what ifs is "whatever a human driver, or group would do, but with more efficient communication".

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#57

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dpiers wrote: post #18
samstave wrote: post #14

I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved. I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing]) I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires? I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently) A driverless car gets into i…

Your vehicle and face are recorded by half a dozen cameras on the self-driving car and uploaded to the local police department for the accident report.

I think it's safe to say if someone was going to intentionally attack a Google self-driving car, say to hack it and direct it at a target, they'd bother to make a basic attempt to counteract the cameras. Something like those glasses with infrared lights that blind surveillance cams? Put some near your license plates as well perhaps, I don't know.

Not that I agree with the parent this is likely, but most of the replies here seem to ignore that technology is pretty easy to mitigate if you know what you're up against.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#58

Post by agildehaus »

hardtke wrote: post #26

What happens if these cars get in a situation where there is no legal way to move? For instance, the other day I was driving down the street and it was closed because of a Farmers market. Will they just sit there for hours? In gridlock, there is often no way to move without "blocking the box."

Waymo has an operations center the car is in contact with. I would assume the car would call out to this operations center for human-provided instructions. And you'd be the only car to experience it, since all other cars would be notified and take an alternate route.

Part of getting this out into the world is finding good answers to these questions.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#59

Post by stale2002 »

mdorazio wrote: post #15
Kiro wrote: post #11

How is this legal?

Arizona's government has deliberately taken a very pro-autonomous vehicles approach. The governor's executive order [1] specifically allows driverless vehicles on the roads within the state, provided they follow traffic laws and there is a licensed driver somewhere who will take responsibility if something goes wrong. [1] https://azgovernor.gov/file/2660/download?token=nLkPLRi1

Let this be a lesson to other states. If you don't allow innovation to happen, then there will always be some other state that will, and then THAT other state is going to get all the cool tech, as Arizona is in this situation. .

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#60

Post by agildehaus »

koolba wrote: post #52
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read recently, they're going to have basically a call center the car will connect to for an operator to drive it remotely.

Cell service dead zones aside, is the latency and jitter for remote operation over a wireless link low enough to be feasible?

I would assume the call center would be able to provide instructions for a non-legal move to the car's planner. The car would do the rest.
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