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

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

#41

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:23 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…

While I agree they are closest of all the competitors with published numbers they are still very far off from human drivers and just looking at the linked articles within the original article do make it clear they have a long way to go. the key difference is the level of caution Waymo is exercising.

So how do we get a determination of which disengagement events would have possibly lead to a crash? Plus I am still not convinced these numbers are even going to remotely similar over roads not heavily mapped and imaged. I think the hope many have for AV is that is allows for driving in the worst of conditions but in the end we will have AV for limited access or very tightly monitored road ways only. Which in itself is not a bad idea, rush hours could much safer and efficient with HOV/Express lanes redone to explicitly support AV.

We certainly aren't going to be able to get people to drive more lawfully when most think they are the better driver when compared to others.

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

#42

Post by dsnuh » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

vamin wrote: post #27

dsnuh wrote: post #22

This is tangentially related, and something I have wondered, so I will ask it here. Does anyone know how self driving cars will react to attempts by law enforcement officers to pull over the vehicle?

They will pull over.

By what mechanism though? I could see a big griefing opportunity if there is some automated system that allows law enforcement to signal the vehicle to pull over.

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

#43

Post by dsnuh » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

devy wrote: post #36

vamin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will pull over.

Another attack surface for self-driving cars

That was my line of thinking.

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

#44

Post by Fricken » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #40

rbranson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this scenario there's no moat for Lyft/Uber either. If Waymo can meet demand, they'll be able to undercut ride sharing prices so deeply that most consumers will switch overnight. Banks will be falling over themselves to provide the massive credit they'll need to bankroll the expansion.

> they'll be able to undercut ride sharing prices Why? I see comments like this constantly. But does anyone ever do even a basic spreadsheet to explain the unit economics of this argument? Low skilled people who can drive are pretty cheap and plentiful. Even if self-driving tech is flawless (spoiler: it's not and won't be soon) it still only replaces part of their responsibilities. Someone will still have to clean th…

Waymo doesn't have a business model if it isn't cheaper. It probably won't be much cheaper in the near term.

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

#45

Post by CPLX » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #44

CPLX wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'll be able to undercut ride sharing prices Why? I see comments like this constantly. But does anyone ever do even a basic spreadsheet to explain the unit economics of this argument? Low skilled people who can drive are pretty cheap and plentiful. Even if self-driving tech is flawless (spoiler: it's not and won't be soon) it still only replaces part of their responsibilities. Someone will still have to clean th…

Waymo doesn't have a business model if it isn't cheaper. It probably won't be much cheaper in the near term.

That's not true at all. There are a lot more use cases for self driving technology than taxi services. In fact I'm continuously perplexed as to why this specific use case, which is obviously the most challenging and likely to be the last to reach the market, is always first in these discussions.

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

#46

Post by xamuel » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

tonysdg wrote: post #5

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'd argue that it's because (true/hard) AI represents, in many ways, the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense -- they'll always be something else to study. But the notion of creating a thinking machine is, in many ways, the ultimate goal of studying nature and the world around us: to allow us to understand the processes and phenomenon at work well-enough to be able to capture/manipulate/rec…

>the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense

Real AI would literally be the final frontier, because at that point, all the scientists could quit their jobs. The AI could replace them.

But real AI is a lot different than what everyone is selling as AI these days, which is essentially a hyper-glorified generalization of linear regression.

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

#47

Post by xutopia » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

Zhenya wrote: post #33

I'm continually astounded by the Tesla hasbara: "Tesla and a host of other imitators already sell a limited form of Autopilot" Imitators? You mean GM, Mercedes and VAG that have had these systems for longer than Tesla are just bad copies of the glorious Tesla autopilot? Unreal.

Cadillac super cruise(GM) is only capable of handling itself on a limited set of highways. Tesla's nearly anywhere. Mercedes is considered subpar compared to GM's system in nearly all independent reviews.

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

#48

Post by Zhenya » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

xutopia wrote: post #47

Zhenya wrote: post #33

I'm continually astounded by the Tesla hasbara: "Tesla and a host of other imitators already sell a limited form of Autopilot" Imitators? You mean GM, Mercedes and VAG that have had these systems for longer than Tesla are just bad copies of the glorious Tesla autopilot? Unreal.

Cadillac super cruise(GM) is only capable of handling itself on a limited set of highways. Tesla's nearly anywhere. Mercedes is considered subpar compared to GM's system in nearly all independent reviews.

Maybe because their safety bar is a bit higher than Tesla?

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

#49

Post by Retortoise » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #38

How much better than human drivers do self-driving cars have to be to succeed? If you take a metric like fatalities or damage per mile I'm guessing we ask our robots to be much better than humans, even though it doesn't really make sense. Over time the differential will come down but a better intermediate strategy would be to keep humans away from robot cars until collision avoidance techniques improve substantially.

But the thing is most safety features can be applied to a regular car and we'd see a significant decrease in accidents. Adaptive cruise control and pre-collision breaking haves existed as premium packages. The biggest added safety feature I can think of self driving cars is sleeping at the wheel, CDC estimates up to 6000 fatal crashes a year but I wonder how much modern safety features would reduce it if it was required on all cars.

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

#50

Post by ska » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

chronic821 wrote: post #18

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?

   Why would I share technological innovations with another company?

Because nobody has a real market until some of these problems are solved significantly better than current state-of-the-art?

Having some baseline collaboration on common components and safety systems could plausibly move the entire industry towards viability much faster, both on a safety and tech trajectory and for regulatory oversight. It's not a crazy idea.