On highway is where it's at. City corner cases are going to be Impossible for a long time, but caravans of self driving trucks could easily happen in the next couple years. It already happens with a person in the front vehicle that is followed closesly in a train by robotic vehicles.
Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
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Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#22Nothing makes a huge group of us cringe more, than people saying it's just around the corner. The worst part is it also comes from people who should know better. >Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” autonomous vehicle—will basically never exist. At the Wall Street Journa…
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Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#23Self-driving tech muggle here. Could someone explain to me why any average Joe with minimal intellect can drive a car using only a pair of eyes but it's difficult to build a fully self-driving car even with 8+ cameras, GPS, LIDAR and other sensors us humans don't have?
A lot of those sensors and cameras are less accurate during the night or in weather or with sun glare.
I think one of the biggest issues is that people will not accept self-driving cars that are as safe as human drivers. They want perfect driving. If someone hits a pedestrian that jumps out from between two cars unexpectedly, it might get written off as an accident and the insurance company may not even have to pay if it was clearly the pedestrians fault. If it was a "robot" car that hits someone, there is going to be a suit for $500M because "Google killed my son!!!!!!". This also leads to people trying to get non-lethally hit by robot cars just to get money. The "robot" car has a big trolley problem that isn't easily solvable.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#24Self-driving tech muggle here. Could someone explain to me why any average Joe with minimal intellect can drive a car using only a pair of eyes but it's difficult to build a fully self-driving car even with 8+ cameras, GPS, LIDAR and other sensors us humans don't have?
Pointing a camera at something isn't vision. Making something recognize what they're looking at, and making it create a reasoned response to it, is wickedly hard.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#25I think it would happen this way: firstly you would automate things that go on a track - like trains - which I think we already have. Then secondly you could have certain lanes or roads that are designed for specific self-driving vehicles. This could help buses and trucks (in certain areas) get around. Then you would keep adding more of those, until many roads have those and very few manual lanes. It wouldn't immediately work in a big established city, but some existing highways or interstates can be fitted easily. Anywhere that has an HOV/Carpool/EV lane can be refitted to be an automated driving lane. Think of it like the Cash Only vs. Easy Pass toll lanes. At first there was 1-2 Easy Pass lanes, then the cash lane was just 1-2 - now we automate them reading license plates.
So to sum up, I think that the self driving will start in very specific areas, and then those specific areas would be expanded until they are the only areas. Especially if those roads contain automated taxi (Uber, Lyft, etc) which you can call with your mobile device. The main reason a lot of people drive is because public transportation in their area is junk and you have to go by it's schedule and route. But having a point-point self-driving option is way more convenient. It's like the subway, but it doesn't need tracks.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#26Nothing makes a huge group of us cringe more, than people saying it's just around the corner. The worst part is it also comes from people who should know better. >Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” autonomous vehicle—will basically never exist. At the Wall Street Journa…
If a human can do it, I see no reason why an autonomous system can't, eventually, do it. It might take a very long time, but "never" seems short-sighted.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#27Even if it will be technically possible, and I'm pretty sure some day that will be solved. That's the easiest part.
The biggest hurdle for self-driving cars will be ethics, such as 'the car brakes for a child suddenly crossing the street but then kills the old woman' or perhaps even make decisions based upon social status. Lots of options here.
Those ethics have to be agreed upon, and they will likely differ per culture, state, country, etc. It's a political and sociological challenge. It will be interesting crossing borders.
And then those ethics need to be implemented in software. I would refrain from saying it's never going to happen, but I doubt very much this will happen in our lifetime.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#28It seems like the easy answer is to kick human drivers off the road, right? That will eliminate a great deal of the unpredictability. Start with a small section of a city, and if the results are good, people will want to expand it.
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#29So, the singularity isn't imminent?
Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’
#30The following will happen before self-driving cars: - Robotic trash cans that perfectly sort recyclables and compostables without any contamination - Drones that fly around and kill invasive plants - Landscapers that show up with robotic lawnmowers - A dishwasher that can load and unload itself automatically - My Tesla can keep in its lane when it passes an on ramp (ect) The problem, IMO, with self-driving cars is th…
> - Robotic trash cans that perfectly sort recyclables and compostables without any contamination
Sorting trash is (at least to me) a surprisingly complicated problem. The frauenhofer here in karlsruhe is working on bulk sorting using computer vision with various sensors (sorting black plastic: https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2016/June/s... and sorting bulk goods: https://www.iosb.fraunhofer.de/servlet/is/15954/)
If automated, it probably makes sense to not sort the stuff in your home, but instead by your trash-collector companies.