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

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

#81

Post by takk309 » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

comesee wrote: post #60

> “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.

This statement stood out to me too. If this were truly the way forward, just make the cars inherently unsafe for pedestrians. Then we will all learn that these vehicles mean certain death. That has generally worked well with poisons like cyanide. Don't drink cyanide, it will kill you. We can say the same for autonomous cars, don't step into the road, the AI cars will kill you.

To be clear, I am not in favor of building our urban transportation networks with an automotive mode focus. I feel that non-motorized transportation and safety needs to be the main focus, even if that means auto modes become inconvenient.

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

#82

Post by chrischen » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:18 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.

You can always sell the cars if it fails.

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

#83

Post by takk309 » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:18 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.

I read this as Tesla is also an imitator. There system is not autonomous driving, it is just a poor imitation of autonomous driving. Tesla, GM, etc. are all just advanced cruise control.

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

#84

Post by deepnotderp » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:22 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?"

That's a weird thought to have. Humans need on the order of ~15K a year in the US. On the other hand, even an ultra high end SDC computer costs only around ~12K in production and much, much less to actually make since Waymo will no doubt use their own TPUs. Lasers are cheap, compact and efficient fiber lasers. Cameras are mass produced in immense volume and are dirt cheap for very high quality. The only other factor is software development costs which is mostly a fixed cost.

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

#85

Post by Jyaif » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

dawhizkid wrote: post #55

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)?

This is also my main concern. It's the reason (non autonomous) car sharing is failing in France: the people behave like pigs and the cars are disgusting.

One solution would be to add censors to check after each ride if the interior of the car has been degraded.

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

#86

Post by jonknee » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:23 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…

Uber currently pays these "low skilled people" ~75% of the fare which leaves a lot of headroom to lower prices and still pay for vehicles and cleaning.

Rental car companies show how few people it takes to maintain a very large fleet of vehicles and it will take even fewer if they can drive themselves (an autonomous car can go through a wash on its own, charge itself, show up at a detailing station on demand, etc).

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

#87

Post by jonknee » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

dawhizkid wrote: post #55

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)?

You have a credit card on file for anyone who gets in, it seems pretty easy to police. Even the most simple method of a button on the app to report a problem with the car when it arrives would work fine.

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

#88

Post by mark-r » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

pluto9 wrote: post #58

endymi0n wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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.

People are just bad at estimating in general. They tend to assume things will go in a straight line. You can see this most often when the curve is exponential, but asymptotic curves will throw people off too.

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

#89

Post by vonzeppelin » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #65

microcolonel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, good luck marketing a product which only works when everyone is lawful and considerate, and otherwise has a considerable chance of killing occupants or pedestrians.

Cars that you can buy today are such a product. As are kitchen knives.

Kitchen knives don't kill people. People kill people.

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

#90

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

vntok wrote: post #79

jtbayly wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what he's saying is that we don't "think" in if/then statements. So true AI will never be intelligent-like if you judge intelligence as thinking like us.

What do you mean? Neurons work exactly like if/then statements. If (input > level) {transmit information}

Ummm.... no. You might be able to make the case that a neuron can be simulated with a very complex set of if-then statements, but that assumes that we can know everything about the state of a dozen inputs, which we can't. At any rate, the brain is not a computer: https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-informati...