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Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

reuters.com

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Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#31

Post by TehCorwiz »

mononcqc wrote: post #29
johngalt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the reluctance to trust new technology. If we are talking about the risk/cost of new developments, we should not forget the baseline costs we pay today. Self driving car tech will be the only method that can provide a hundred fold decrease in driving fatalities. Slowing down progress has a cost too.

You could also just reduce driving deaths by having better public transportation and reducing driving overall. Sounds like it would even be better in the long run.

Self driving public transportation could provide the benefits of both.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#32

Post by ashark »

ajnin wrote: post #9
dogruck wrote: post #2

I wonder if companies, like Apple, will segment their tech stack to extract areas where one could argue that it’s not ethical to have an intellectual advantage. Perhaps pedestrian detection is one such area. If two autonomous car companies are competing, it makes sense to fight on many feature sets. It feels wrong to compete on “ability to detect a bike rider.”

Historically competition has been one of the best ways to foster innovation, and as a society achieving a good "ability to detect bikers" is probably something we want in an automatic car. However, it is relatively wasteful since many resources need to be allocated to do the same thing several times. Alternatives could be : 1) deals between companies to not innovate in those specific areas, 2) a workgroup formed by c…

> 2) a workgroup formed by companies working together on that subject 3) a government program to research that specific area.

Part of Japan's postwar economic miracle involved doing both of these things at once: "hey three giant Japanese companies making products using [some technology], here's a pile of money, if you each also contribute a pile of money, we'll run some R&D on [some technology] to make it better, more efficiently than if the four of us spent the same money separately, and you can all three use it to compete with foreign companies"

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#33

Post by distances »

rockinghigh wrote: post #21
menacingly wrote: post #13

There was a time when I thought of regulations as progress killers, but I find myself shifting on that and getting nervous every time I hear about self-driving tech. It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane, and…

In the US alone, 35000 people die and more than 2 million are injured every year in car crashes. Technology is our best hope to reduce these numbers. Airbags, blind spot detection, lane keeping, emergency braking can all contribute. Self-driving level 5 will not suddenly appear and work everywhere in every situation. It’s a gradual process. Another thing to keep in mind is that insurers will not insure these cars for…

There are also other ways to successfully lower the death count, but as the recent NY Times column [0] says the American culture is working hard against any improvements based on restrictions.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/america-is-now-an...

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#34

Post by criddell »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #16
menacingly wrote: post #13

There was a time when I thought of regulations as progress killers, but I find myself shifting on that and getting nervous every time I hear about self-driving tech. It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane, and…

But there is so much low-hanging fruit in automated driving! People are really pretty bad at responding to road hazards, anomalies (dog runs into road) etc. Also people are terrible at attending to repetitive tasks. And people fall asleep. Its arguable (measurable) that automated drivers would be safer than human drivers. Resisting this is simple FUD?

> Resisting this is simple FUD?

There's some psychology at work as well. Say self-driving cars cut the road accident and fatality rate in half but in the remaining incidents, half of those are driver error but the rest are all due to hardware and software problems.

I think a lot of people would have a problem if half of all fatalities are due to system glitches even if the net result is fewer deaths and I don't think that's entirely unreasonable.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#35

Post by criddell »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #6
dogruck wrote: post #2

I wonder if companies, like Apple, will segment their tech stack to extract areas where one could argue that it’s not ethical to have an intellectual advantage. Perhaps pedestrian detection is one such area. If two autonomous car companies are competing, it makes sense to fight on many feature sets. It feels wrong to compete on “ability to detect a bike rider.”

I would expect Volvo to do something like that, and repeat what they once did with the seat belt.

> repeat what they once did with the seat belt

Make it standard equipment a decade after competitors offer it as an option?

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#36

Post by Retric »

zaarn wrote: post #11
Retric wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google shared some of their oddities in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsr3Fzi5clw (Including a lady in a motorized wheelchair chasing a duck with a broom?) Legally, if you can see it from a car on a public road their is minimal expectations of privacy.

Depends on your legislation. In Germany you would violate the rights of third parties by filming the road with intentions of sharing it with other third parties while not also making the former third parties unrecognizable (black bar)

I doubt that applies to Moderate resolution LIDAR images which provide ~20 or fewer data points about someones face. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*vrB0Jrbt4Sjhkw2g_... Might allow you to detect a long beard or very large hat, but don't allow for identification without other evidence.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#37

Post by ghaff »

criddell wrote: post #34
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is so much low-hanging fruit in automated driving! People are really pretty bad at responding to road hazards, anomalies (dog runs into road) etc. Also people are terrible at attending to repetitive tasks. And people fall asleep. Its arguable (measurable) that automated drivers would be safer than human drivers. Resisting this is simple FUD?

> Resisting this is simple FUD? There's some psychology at work as well. Say self-driving cars cut the road accident and fatality rate in half but in the remaining incidents, half of those are driver error but the rest are all due to hardware and software problems. I think a lot of people would have a problem if half of all fatalities are due to system glitches even if the net result is fewer deaths and I don't think…

It will also be somewhat new ground. As I've noted before, there are relatively few examples of consumer-facing technologies/products where properly maintained and used (or sometimes even misused) products kill and maim--and people are just fine with that because "stuff happens" and the cost/benefit is reasonable.

Drug interactions are one of the relatively few areas today and even those often lead to lawsuits. (And the US even basically indemnifies drug companies against side effects from standard childhood vaccines.)

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#38

Post by harigov »

calvinbhai wrote: post #14

So Project Titan is not really 'dead'?

I think Apple would much rather buy an existing car company than build one from scratch. I don't see them leaving that market because there is a lot of money to be made and they want to be there everywhere in your life.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#39

Post by lorenzhs »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #31
mononcqc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also just reduce driving deaths by having better public transportation and reducing driving overall. Sounds like it would even be better in the long run.

Self driving public transportation could provide the benefits of both.

Driverless trains have been here for a while. They're great. With platform-edge doors, nobody can fall or jump onto the track, not to mention that they increase brake cooling efficiency and decrease air resistance (less air to push).

But of course you weren't talking about trains.

I see this sentiment a lot on HN that self driving cars are going to fix everyone's transportation woes, but I'm not convinced that they will. For example, they're never going to be particularly efficient at really high speeds, due to tyre wear (due to heat) and air resistance (which can be reduced by driving in a convoy, but not enough). Rail (or maybe hyperloop, who knows) will still be much more efficient for high-speed travel, not to mention much faster. So maybe the cars will all be going 40% faster on highways than nowadays, which is nice, but still only half of what rail can do, and even less for hyperloops.

I don't buy the "it's gonna fix everyone's commute", either, because at the same time it's supposed to fix parking. So now you have loads of cars driving out of the city to park at the same time as you've got just as many driving into it. Sure, vehicle-to-vehicle communication and superhuman reaction times will allow for increased density on roads, but is it enough to offset the increase in traffic? And is the increase in miles driven and resulting road maintenance cost factored into the cost calculations?

Damn right I want cars to drive themselves, and it's going to be fantastic. But I don't think autonomous cars are the panacea that many seem to see in them.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#40

Post by StavrosK »

dogruck wrote: post #2

I wonder if companies, like Apple, will segment their tech stack to extract areas where one could argue that it’s not ethical to have an intellectual advantage. Perhaps pedestrian detection is one such area. If two autonomous car companies are competing, it makes sense to fight on many feature sets. It feels wrong to compete on “ability to detect a bike rider.”

They do compete on braking distance right now, isn't that the same?
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