VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance • Hacker News Board

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#31

Post by dasbo » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #14

Argo also released a relatively massive 250GB dataset recently: https://www.argoverse.org/ The problem of Perception has a long road ahead at any of these companies and Argo is taking a very long position with this funding round. The headcount growth is rather worrisome but other than Aptiv there aren't many fleets that span multiple continents.

It's best not to think in GB terms when talking about AD datasets. E.g., when you record raw data of a multisensor setup (lidars, radars, cameras), the data rate can reach 10+ TB/h. Camera-only datasets are in comparison much smaller.

Taken out of the argoverse dataset description: - One dataset with 3D tracking annotations for 113 scenes - One dataset with 327,793 interesting vehicle trajectories extracted from over 1000 driving hours - Two high-definition (HD) maps with lane centerlines, traffic direction, ground height, and more

1000 driving hours is ok'ish for research (imho).

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#32

Post by dasbo » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

RaceWon wrote: post #15

God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today; when the self-driving cars might actually be able to give me a run for my money.

At least you will have autnomous traffic jam assistants much earlier, which allows you to spend more time on HN while stuck in traffic on your way to work on true self-driving vehicles ;)

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#33

Post by zerr » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:21 AM UTC

Pittsburgh - I guess they are after Uber ATG talent.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#34

Post by dasbo » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:24 AM UTC

boxcardavin wrote: post #2

This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more bi…

Hm, I would say that some consolidtion happened with that deal. Quote: "VW is also handing over Autonomous Intelligent Driving, the self-driving subsidiary that was launched just two years ago to develop autonomous vehicle technology for the Volkswagen Group. AID is valued at $1.6 billion.

The Munich-based AID team will become Argo’s European headquarters, a move that will expand its staff 40% to more than 700 employees."

AID has been Audi's L4/L5 development arm, which was separate from VW's main research arm. It also helps to judge the size of this deal, because VW only seems to invest one billion in capital and the remaining 1.6 billion investment is AID. It would be interesting to know, how they came up with that valuation ...

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#35

Post by Hydraulix989 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:24 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #11

boxcardavin wrote: post #2

This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more bi…

> SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Listen to them more. What else do you expect fund managers to say? We will not see any real self driving in our generation, and may be not even after. That is much more for practical consideration than that of technical possibility. Second to that, just how many self driving and AI startups are plain fraud? The amount o…

> We will not see any real self driving in our generation, and may be not even after.

I think we can once we build purposeful infrastructure (think cars "on rails" with mesh-coordinated intersections).

> Second to that, just how many self driving and AI startups are plain fraud? The amount of companies getting 9 digit valuations with nothing more than OpenCV hello worlds should make people to at least scratch their heads

Argo, although lesser known (but still out of early Waymo and CMU's Robotics Institute), is every bit as competitive as the other major players. If anything, they are less bombastic than the Elon Musks of the world falsely tweeting that we would all be taking naps in our cars by last year.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#36

Post by Hydraulix989 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

zerr wrote: post #33

Pittsburgh - I guess they are after Uber ATG talent.

You mean Carnegie Mellon University talent.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#37

Post by Hydraulix989 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #25

sschueller wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Elon [1] Tesla will have this by the end of 2020. At some point reality has to kick in or not? [1] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-drivin...

Of course. Which is why many of the key members of the Autopilot team have recently left. https://bgr.com/2019/07/09/tesla-autopilot-team-elon-musk-sh...

How can you be so sure?

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#38

Post by Hydraulix989 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #22

nutjob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the corporate types are assuming that throwing money and engineers at the problem is going to "win" it, but I'm not sure it will. Google has plenty of both of those things and they seem to be stalling at the moment, or the very least they're not confident enough to go out and claim the market for themselves. I think the engineers have been probably been wildly optimistic as usual, and the last 5% of car auton…

Not sure how many Data Scientists you know but I've worked with hundreds over the years and have never met a single one who was irrationally optimistic about the work they do. In fact generally it is the opposite. But you know the sort of people who are wildly optimistic and prone to over-exaggeration. Executives like Musk.

Seems like those types are the ones fetishized here in the Valley (and end up getting showered with cash accordingly).

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#39

Post by Hydraulix989 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #27

choppaface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber proved it's possible to burn a lot of money on a team that is ineffective due to needless infighting and excessive internal competition.

In other words, you can't just throw money at the problem.

It's R&D and depends on a lot of new innovation to be solved (new ASIC hardware for real-time inferencing, new ML model types -- potentially a new breakthrough even).

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#40

Post by Harrybells » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #35

baybal2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Listen to them more. What else do you expect fund managers to say? We will not see any real self driving in our generation, and may be not even after. That is much more for practical consideration than that of technical possibility. Second to that, just how many self driving and AI startups are plain fraud? The amount o…

> We will not see any real self driving in our generation, and may be not even after. I think we can once we build purposeful infrastructure (think cars "on rails" with mesh-coordinated intersections). > Second to that, just how many self driving and AI startups are plain fraud? The amount of companies getting 9 digit valuations with nothing more than OpenCV hello worlds should make people to at least scratch their h…

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