Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock • Hacker News Board

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#11

Post by ebikelaw » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #2

Waymo seems to be the only question mark in my mind making me doubt my bet that we're a decade or more away from usable self-driving cars. If Waymo has truly solved the problem while everybody else is just trying to catch up and/or bluffing, I guess I wouldn't be that surprised. Edited to add: The reason is that they've apparently ordered 10's of thousands of these cars. Can they really use that many only in good-wea…

All journalists covering the self-driving car beat are basically required to ignore Waymo so they can continue writing “When will cars drive themselves? Experts say nobody knows” articles. If you ignore Waymo it’s a race; if you include Waymo it’s not.

This article makes the further error of assuming “AI” is required for self-driving cars, rather than just a shitload of code.

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#12

Post by georgeecollins » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #3

This has been hanging out there for a while it's just that it never got much mainstream press. I wonder what it is specifically about the concept of "AI" that makes it so prone to the magical thinking that drives these boom-bust cycles. "I tell adult audiences not to expect it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students" "Merely dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions…

I think it is because AI, like intelligence, is undefined in a concrete sense. When someone creates a new algorithm that solves a problem of identification or logic we call it AI. So when people say a thing will be better with better AI you could say it would be better with more effective problem solving. What thing in life couldn’t be made better with more effective problem solving..?

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#13

Post by brookhaven_dude » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #4

The crashes that the article claims came from edge-cases that the engineers didn't account for weren't, in fact, edge-cases. The Tesla crashes are due to the way Tesla's system works, it doesn't recognize stationary hazards. Similarly Uber's system failed to brake for a hazard that it could clearly see. That's not an edge-case, it doesn't have to know that the object is a woman pushing a bicycle. It's a solid object…

Edges cases are what really matters in this case!

Isn't there a saying that 80% of the code is written to handle 20% of the cases?

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#14

Post by samirparikh » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

I work on self-driving cars. Imho, companies need to collaborate on certain aspects like perception instead of competing. The vehicle is basically blind beyond the range of the sensors or if you miss a detection. Collaboration on these issues will lead to faster progress instead of competing.

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#15

Post by Fricken » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #3

This has been hanging out there for a while it's just that it never got much mainstream press. I wonder what it is specifically about the concept of "AI" that makes it so prone to the magical thinking that drives these boom-bust cycles. "I tell adult audiences not to expect it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students" "Merely dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions…

Right now we have fully autonomous vehicles operating within a roughly 100 square mile geo-fenced area of Chandler Arizona. They are overseen by remote operates who intervene when the vehicles get hung up. The vehicles stop and start at predetermined pick up points. But within those constraints, they work.

Waymo has been developing the technology for 9 years, and have accumulated nearly 8 million real world test miles in that time.For the last 18 months (or so) they have focused their testing in the Chandler area, but are not yet ready for a commercial launch.

For every new area they head into they need to solve specific problems at specific intersections. The vehicles are not yet validated for a full range of weather conditions. There is a huge amount of preliminary work that goes into preparing an area for commercial operations.

Developing an autonomous vehicle that can go anywhere as well as a human might just be 10 orders of magnitude than for commercial aviation, but what Waymo has is enough to disrupt.

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#16

Post by brookhaven_dude » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #6

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #3

This has been hanging out there for a while it's just that it never got much mainstream press. I wonder what it is specifically about the concept of "AI" that makes it so prone to the magical thinking that drives these boom-bust cycles. "I tell adult audiences not to expect it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students" "Merely dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions…

You don't have to solve the entirety of the problem for a solution to be useful. The autonomous cars only drive when it's 80 degrees out, sunny and on predetermined paths? Still welcomed.

Why not just lay out a network of rail lines then?

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#17

Post by ianamartin » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #2

Waymo seems to be the only question mark in my mind making me doubt my bet that we're a decade or more away from usable self-driving cars. If Waymo has truly solved the problem while everybody else is just trying to catch up and/or bluffing, I guess I wouldn't be that surprised. Edited to add: The reason is that they've apparently ordered 10's of thousands of these cars. Can they really use that many only in good-wea…

I don't really see Waymo as being far ahead at this point. Uber pretty clearly stole Waymo's work. So unless Waymo had a major breakthrough since then that wasn't related to the basically everything Uber got then everyone is pretty much on the same page: promising it's almost here but in reality still about 10 years out or more.

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#18

Post by chronic821 » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

samirparikh wrote: post #14

I work on self-driving cars. Imho, companies need to collaborate on certain aspects like perception instead of competing. The vehicle is basically blind beyond the range of the sensors or if you miss a detection. Collaboration on these issues will lead to faster progress instead of competing.

> Imho, companies need to collaborate on certain aspects like perception instead of competing.

I also work on self-driving cars. Why would I share technological innovations with another company?

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#19

Post by Fricken » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

rbranson wrote: post #9

jtbayly wrote: post #2

Waymo seems to be the only question mark in my mind making me doubt my bet that we're a decade or more away from usable self-driving cars. If Waymo has truly solved the problem while everybody else is just trying to catch up and/or bluffing, I guess I wouldn't be that surprised. Edited to add: The reason is that they've apparently ordered 10's of thousands of these cars. Can they really use that many only in good-wea…

I tend to agree. Waymo ordered 62,000 Chrysler Pacificas with delivery slated for late 2018. Base retail on the hybrid model is $40,000USD. Even if they got an unbelievably generous 50% discount, that means they're $1.24B USD serious, excluding the cost of the additional autonomous driving equipment. So this will either be one of the biggest debacles in Google/Alphabet's history, or they really are ready to go.

Waymo has also ordered 20k Jaguar I-paces. Rumour is they have invested about 11 billion in R&d so far, and I'm crudely estimating the cost of their 80k upcoming robotaxis to be around 12 billion. Alphabet is committed.

Waymo estimates about 50 trips per day will be served per vehicle. At that rate, 80k robotaxis is enough to displace most of the taxi/rideshare services in the southwestern United States, though I'm not expecting to see all of them on the roads until 2022 or so. Waymo has a ton of work ahead of them. Mapping and validating in the ~100 square mile area of Chandler has taken them about 18 months so far, and supposedly they are on the verge of a commercial launch. Every city they hope to deploy in has differing signage, differing driving habits, and many funky intersections and road anomalies that need specific attention.

Re: Self-driving cars are headed toward an AI roadblock

#20

Post by Brakenshire » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

brookhaven_dude wrote: post #16

aantix wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to solve the entirety of the problem for a solution to be useful. The autonomous cars only drive when it's 80 degrees out, sunny and on predetermined paths? Still welcomed.

Why not just lay out a network of rail lines then?

The technology actually seems perfect for some kind of hybrid between road and rail, if we could build a city from scratch you could make something better than either, with train-like capacity alongside road-like routing.

Although I suppose the difficulty limits the market enough to make investment in such a scheme uncompetitive. Perhaps this is what Musk is hoping to get around that with his tunneling idea.