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

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

#51

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:33 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…

First, I've read over and over that the single largest cost in transportation is human labor (the driver). Low-skilled and low-paid they might be, but if you can replace them with a low-paid person behind a monitor that can handle 8-10 trips at once, you've saved a substantial portion of the labor cost.

Yes, that cost will be offset by the cost of the extra hardware, but that can be amortized over tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of miles. Likewise, the investment in software (programmers) will eat into profits, but once again, you can spread that cost out over hundreds of thousands or millions of cars. Besides, an awful lot of the latter is a sunk cost at this point.

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

#52

Post by ben_w » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:35 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…

> One one side you have plentiful cheap low skilled labor. On the other you have lasers, fast computers, graphics cards, cameras, and the associated programming inspection and maintenance costs. Why do we think the latter side is going to be cheaper in anything remotely like the near term?

Because, other than inspection and maintenance costs, everything on your list has been getting much cheaper really quickly for a long time.

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

#53

Post by myko » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:36 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?

Ethics

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

#54

Post by Fricken » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #45

Fricken wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are very good reasons as to why Waymo and all the other major players are focused on robotaxis.

A truck still needs to be able to drive in cities, and if you figure out how to automate all the other thing a trucker does you can replace 3 million of them. Big whoop. Robotaxis stand to challenge the economics of personal vehicle ownership, the potential market is many orders of magnitude larger.

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

#55

Post by dawhizkid » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

As someone who worked at a ridesharing co, I'm also really curious about the ops side of things, like how will passengers behave when there's no driver in the car? Will people try to have sex, do drugs, make a mess? What happens when someone vomits in the car or is very drunk (actually a very common problem in ridesharing)?

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

#56

Post by samirparikh » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #23

chronic821 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

So people don’t die. This is an example where companies could put people over profits and share what they’ve learned to keep things safe. I don’t see a lot of research papers (I see none) coming out of Waymo, Tesla, Uber, or Cruise.

This is another form of collaboration. You could publish your innovations in some technical forum w/o code and it'll automatically drive the industry forward since SOTA results will be available.

Right now, no one really knows the performance of the Waymo system. Millions of miles doesn't mean a lot. I can do billions of miles in a parking lot with no cars or pedestrians. Even millions of miles on road doesn't say anything about the performance of the components.

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

#57

Post by totaldick » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #7

Rodney Brooks gave an interview that was recently reposted on ArsTechnica. He has so much real world experience productizing AI and robotics that no one else really compares. He is not pessimistic just realistic about self driving cars. And he has great reasons why true autonomy is going to take a long time.

Rodney Brooks has a history of skepticism about AI (said in 2009 that he doesn't think AI is even possible), as does Gary Marcus (who's been anti-deep learning since 2011). "AI is hype" hit pieces always quote them.

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

#58

Post by pluto9 » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #35

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…

'It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go — maybe even longer,'' Piet Hut, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, told the NYT in 1997. ''If a reasonably intelligent person learned to play Go, in a few months he could beat all existing computer programs. You don't have to be a Kasparov.''

If you care to, you can dig up plenty of examples of people underestimating, overestimating, or correctly estimating the future capabilities of AI. Just because some guy in New Jersey underestimated it once doesn't mean we should accept AI hype uncritically, especially since much of that hype is driven by moneyed interests.

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

#59

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:43 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

Sure, if you're willing to risk going to jail for impersonating a law enforcement officer.

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

#60

Post by comesee » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

> “Rather than building AI to solve the pogo stick problem, we should partner with the government to ask people to be lawful and considerate,” he said. “Safety isn’t just about the quality of the AI technology.”

Wow. What a goal post move. I don't think this is how successful technology spreads. Governments usually accomodate tech because it proves itself in the market, not vice versa.