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

Post by gregkerzhner » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

sam_goody wrote: post #160

It is phenomenally simpler to have autonomous driving in an area where the only things on the road are autonomous and there is a standard for interacting cross manufacturer. Many new cars, and in some countries all new cars (by law), have enough sensors to be made self driving. Standards are already being worked on. A basic level of autonomy - good enough for an area without human drivers - is being worked on by ever…

Post by opportune » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

darepublic wrote: post #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

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

drewpink wrote: post #151

almost_usual wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to judge Tesla at this point, most automotive companies really can't be judged until their vehicles are on the road heavily for over a decade. I've said this before but I can't imagine a Tesla on the road today being on the road in thirty years. Hopefully I'm wrong. Otherwise we're going to have a lot of 'good for the environment' vehicles in landfills like cellphones. While the gas guzzling 30+ year old To…

Tesla Roadsters have been on the road for over a decade. I have a 2012 Model S and a 2018 Model 3. Best cars I've ever owned, and my almost seven year old S keeps getting better with software updates. I totally get people hating on Elon, but it must largely be jealousy of what he has accomplished.

Post by jakeogh » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #120

60654 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Autonomous navigation is still a huge open research problem, in the sense that we don't even know how it _could_ work, there is no AI work capable of integrating all of the necessary pieces. Heck, we don't even know how simple bird or lizard intelligence works, much less be able to replicate human cognition that goes into operating heavy machinery in a busy multi-agent social context. So promising that it…

> much less be able to replicate human cognition that goes into operating heavy machinery in a busy multi-agent social context This holds if you expect self-driving cars to be able to work like humans in picking up "body-language" cues around other drivers. But we can also approach the problem the other way around and set better fixed rules for how driving needs to be done and adjust the road and car infrastructure t…

Post by glitchc » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #176

beat wrote: post #157

It doesn't have to work perfectly - it just has to work better than humans. Our sensors ain't real great in snow and rain, either.

It needs slightly more than that: when it fails, it needs to be able to demonstrate that no human would’ve succeeded in its place. This isn’t a moral or a technical issue, just public relations. If a system reduces road deaths from ~30,000 per year to 365 per year, but one of those deaths was it mistaking a grey skirt for an open road [1], there will still be calls for its use to be outlawed — basically what’s happen…