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

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

#81

Post by Johnny555 » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

dabeeeenster wrote: post #41

nwatson wrote: post #13

>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted" My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I'…

Why bother with ride sharing when the cost per mile would be so cheap?

Because "cheaper" is cheaper than "cheap".

I don't ride-share with Lyft because the per-ride cost is cheap enough for me -- but that's not true for everyone. No matter how cheap it is, there will always be people that want to pay less.

Plus, when cities are inundated with car-shares and institute congestion pricing, even if the car is cheap, the $20 congestion charge can be split among the riders.

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

#82

Post by eggpy » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #63

eggpy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno I can see this remaining small-scale for a while so Waymo can gather data about how people feel about the experience. I can see the backlash now if they were to suddenly unleash a battalion of fully autonomous vehicles on the unsuspecting public. I suspect keeping the numbers relatively low will be a good way to gather just how disturbing this is to the general populace without overwhelming people and ultimat…

The cars are a familiar sight in Phoenix, they've been testing there for a couple years now. They started up an early rider program in the spring, with real people volunteering to be guinea pigs while they refine the human UI and logistics. This isn't coming out of the blue.

I'm aware, I live in Phoenix :) I'm referring to this bit

> I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble

Waymo vehicles are far less ubiquitous than either Lyft/Uber vehicles. I expect to see a growth in Waymo cars, I just mean that I don't think we will see a huge ramp up in the number of driverless Waymo vehicles soon as people need time to acclimate and no one yet knows what the response will be. IT will happen, just not immediately.

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

#83

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #67

joshuamorton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

These aren't "wacky what ifs." I don't know what things are like in the Valley, but here on the east coast something unexpected changes my commuting route a couple of times a month (multiply that by tens of thousands of drivers). "Do whatever the human would do, but more efficient" isn't an answer. These cars can't get on WTOP the day before and listen to the warning that the Pope is visiting and X, Y, Z streets will…

>"Do whatever the human would do, but more efficient" isn't an answer. These cars can't get on WTOP the day before and listen to the warning that the Pope is visiting and X, Y, Z streets will be blocked off. One can imagine various contingency scenarios, but the devil is in actually handling all the edge cases.

Google maps already accounts for changes in traffic patterns and actively detects road closures, both based on municipal announcements and traffic flow data.

So yeah, they'd work the exact same way that I commuted on the east coast (which is the same way I commute in SV): the maps application had traffic information updates faster than the radio.

The answer is "do whatever the humans do, but more efficient", because the same technology has already made humans more efficient.

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

#84

Post by samstave » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #43

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…

What if instead of the ridiculous situations you provided, you just found a human driven car on a desert road outside of the city, and then shot the driver with a firearm? How does current society deal with THAT situation?

Given the latest situations with LV and TX, we dont.

But thats not the fucking point and youre literally be intellectually disengenious to yourself for not even being willing to think about the ripple-effect of implications to self driving cars.

So my questions are "ridiculous" -- I posted about the health-safety implications about elf drivin cars as well, care to share your perception on that?

So a person is taking a self drivin car service and decides that without human supervision its OK to shoot-up and ODs in the car? What do?

A person gets in WAY too drunk and passes out to the point there is no way they can et out, even assuming the car gets them safely to their destination, what do?

A person has a stroke or seizure or dies in transit, what do?

These are valid questions, so if you have them all solved, then please share?

BTW - my beef is with SELF driving cars... ELF driving cars are both cute and give off the right vibe....

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

#85

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #67

joshuamorton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

These aren't "wacky what ifs." I don't know what things are like in the Valley, but here on the east coast something unexpected changes my commuting route a couple of times a month (multiply that by tens of thousands of drivers). "Do whatever the human would do, but more efficient" isn't an answer. These cars can't get on WTOP the day before and listen to the warning that the Pope is visiting and X, Y, Z streets will…

[deleted]

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

#86

Post by eggpy » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

juliesulti wrote: post #71

eggpy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably Waymo has this traffic data by leveraging existing Android monitoring technology and can reroute accordingly. If you've ever used Google Maps for directions and come up to an accident or something you know it will suggest a better route as it becomes available. These cars will likely not get themselves into high-congestion areas with no way out simply because they already know about the high congestion are…

There are anecdotes of Google Maps causing traffic, routing people to dead ends, etc. There was the incident where Google Maps routed a lot of interstate drivers down a dirt road serving a prison. Last week in Oakland, Google routed drivers away from traffic on I-880, onto Embarcadero where the bridge is closed for construction. Last week, Google refused to route me over the open, clear Sonora Pass between Modesto an…

I wasn't aware of these, but with anecdotes like these then it makes perfect sense to have available remote human overrides! I don't mean to insinuate that maps is perfect, just that the number of times the cars will find themselves in this specific situation is probably minimal.

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

#87

Post by Johnny555 » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #48

nwatson wrote: post #13

>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted" My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I'…

>> The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of? So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center…

So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them

Ahh, if you think this is a new problem, you're too young to remember the fun of calling a cab by pay phone to some obscure address, then alternating between going inside and calling the dispatcher and then running out to the street to try to flag down the cab.

At least with a driverless car I can pinpoint my location on a map when I call it.

Person winds up being in an unsafe environment and needs immediate assistance.

Existing car-share (and cab) drivers are also willing to drop you off in an unsafe environment if that's where you told him you want to go. While sometimes they'll stick around to make sure you make it to your door (if you're female), that's by no means guaranteed.

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

#88

Post by kllrnohj » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #48

nwatson wrote: post #13

>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted" My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I'…

>> The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of? So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center…

> So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances

That's quite a huge leap you made there. Care to back up and explain how a drunk person calling an uber magically turns the uber into an emergency ambulance?

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

#89

Post by samstave » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #79

samstave wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not what I presumed the commenters to be saying: "driverless cars will have sensors and cameras that wil report anything back to the police" So, lets assume we turn on an amber-alert and activate all driverless car cameras and sensors to find license plate X... Sure that sounds great - but "just leave all driverless car sensors up all the time and track everything everywhere is what I hear in that comment. And…

>driverless cars will have sensors and cameras that wil report anything back to the police Well, driverless cars do have extensive sensor suites, and if you are a hit and run driver and I had a photo of your license plate, I would certainly use that to my advantage. I think you're reading the worst possible thing into what people are saying, which is your prerogative, but probably not constructive. >And like I said,…

You are aware that amazon is literally running .gov datacenter infra for exactly what I was talking about?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...

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

#90

Post by tonyedgecombe » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #78

edshiro wrote: post #68

If Waymo's tech is years ahead of the competition (say 18-24 months ahead minimum) then I think a lot of the self-driving companies and car manufacturers in the US will be having cold sweats. This may not be a winner-take-all market (I don't know honestly...) but I see this lead up enabling Waymo to capture significant market share in the US in regions where laws towards autonomous vehicles are friendly. One way the…

Do we have a good signal that truly indicates Waymo has more advanced tech? Or could they simply have a bigger appetite for risk?

Tesla seems to be the company with an appetite for risk in this area.