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Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

nytimes.com

221–230 of 445 posts

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#221

I think there is no reel need for driverless cars. Having technological difficulties aside we should question whether there is really a need for self-driving cars. Life is not that bad without autonomous cars. I don't hear anybody complain about in real life not having driverless cars. Basically a driverless car is same thing having a private chauffeur and I know quite a few people who don't want to use their private…

Same for a washing machine 100 years ago. But once it got popular, it allowed for an entire different hoursehold to form.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million miles is not a lot. For comparison, the people of LA drove a million miles by 5a this morning. The drivers in SoCal will drive over 100 million miles just today. The fact that many accidents involving human drivers still make the news is telling. It's not commonplace.

This is a weird hill to want to die on. Self-driving is currently statistically safer than human driving. Yes, caveats, for only the domains on which self-driving has been well-trained.

This is a weird hill to want to die on. Self-driving is currently statistically safer than human driving. Yes, caveats, for only the domains on which self-driving has been well-trained.

My point was that the statistics aren't even remotely comparable. Out of literally billions of miles driven daily across the US in all conditions, there are approximately 100 deaths nationwide. Each day, US drivers drive literally tens of thousands times more miles than all self-driving cars combined to date. There are at least 6 deaths attributable to SD cars so far...in the US, not including smaller accidents, despite driving only in optimal conditions. Scaled up per mile, self-driving cars are currently several magnitudes more dangerous than human cars.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#223

I think there is no reel need for driverless cars. Having technological difficulties aside we should question whether there is really a need for self-driving cars. Life is not that bad without autonomous cars. I don't hear anybody complain about in real life not having driverless cars. Basically a driverless car is same thing having a private chauffeur and I know quite a few people who don't want to use their private…

There's no real need for anything in life other than food and shelter. If driverless cars work and don't cost much, some people will use them and enjoy them and that's enough.

There are levels above food and shelter. Having a car is a real need and it solves a problem for lots of people. However having a self-driving car may solves some people's problem but that don't seem to big part of human population. I think that makes the development of self-driving cars slower.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#224
post #190

Every time I read about autonomous cars, I wonder if these points have ever been discussed: - Yielding to an emergency vehicle with sirens on. - Moving backwards to a safe and large enough spot when the route is too narrow to fit self-driving car and oncoming huge lorry (and there is no line marking the limit between road and ravine). - Upon instructions from authority, recognizing that the highway is closed due to a…

- a broadcast radio signal and microphones can detect sirens. That seems easy.

- that's just flow analysis and basic perceptions of the environment. At a minimum, just tell the driver to take over.

- highways will benefit from convergent infrastructure, and alerts like this will be part and parcel of highway driving automation. Flying does this already, basically.

- sensors have 360 degree vision, and mesh networking between cars would help solve this, and automatically call towing/traffic control emergency vehicles to help with disabled cars

I don't worry about any of those situations, those can be readily incorporated into certification and testing of the algorithms/systems.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#225
post #5

"Never" is kind of equally absurd. It's just a brutally hard problem.

You will never define a complete and consistent algebra. You will never exactly measure the momentum and position of a particle. They're not brutally hard problems, they're not possible. We know that there are a set of things that are impossible. Why is recreating human intelligence in silicon beyond that consideration?

The reason why, is because people believe the human brain is just an incredibly complex state machine. If it is, then it should be reproducible.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#226

Nothing 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…

Agree that it's far off but saying never seems a bit pessimistic. Maybe more like never using the approach waymo is taking...

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#227

When read literally, there is no way that any system ever, human or automatic, will be able to drive on "any road" with "perfect safety". Crazy freak accidents happen, and human drivers regularly aren't able to handle them. On top of that, most people just can't safely drive in thick fog, icy conditions, or pouring rain. No amount of intelligence will allow a car to drive through a sufficiently flooded street. Just l…

>> Nobody's asking them to be able to drive at 70 MPH through a fog bank in Alaska with ice on the road, even if that is technically part of the requirements for Level 5 that even humans can't obtain.

What is required is a vehicle that can decide not to drive at 70 MPH when it's going though a fog bank in Alaska. Humans can drive that fast in such low visibility, but we (often) have enough brains not to.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#228

I think there is no reel need for driverless cars. Having technological difficulties aside we should question whether there is really a need for self-driving cars. Life is not that bad without autonomous cars. I don't hear anybody complain about in real life not having driverless cars. Basically a driverless car is same thing having a private chauffeur and I know quite a few people who don't want to use their private…

Same for a washing machine 100 years ago. But once it got popular, it allowed for an entire different hoursehold to form.

Yes but when we think about the difficulty of developing self driving cars we need way more powerful incentives.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#229
post #19

The 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…

You need to have an economic payoff to justify the AI development/training. Sorting trash perfectly in trash cans? That's a consumer $50 appliance with robotic arms, sensors, and software? No way

Drones flying around killing invasive plants? Capitalistic economics doesn't give a shit about the environment, because bank accounts are rarely affected by environmental problems, and certainly not in the next fiscal quarter. There's no funding for that.

- Landscaper robots need to beat immigrant labor in the US. That's tough.

- Dishwasher unloading to cabinets with robotic arms? The gain here is maybe 20 minutes a day. Payoff isn't as good as with driving which can be hours on a commute, or much more on long trips, and there isn't the safety improvement since dishwashers don't kill you in their use.

Re: Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

#230
Instead of individual cars we need a highly dense network of rail cars that can merge and split and allow u to travel from any one block in the city to another. Should be able to ship moving trucks via this system where it would deliver them to the near address from where an operator autonomous or otherwise takes over
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