Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 445 posts

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

#291

Post by mhermher »

chillacy wrote: post #136
mhermher wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Things are impossible till they aren’t. It’s not like we solved Go the board game, but we did build some killer AI which has now surpassed all human players. And that was within a matter of years: first it was a fluid game of human intelligence impossible for a machine, then it was obvious machines could be better.. but look at this other thing humans are still better at.

So, some things are actually impossible, provably so. Like the suggestions above.

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

#292

Post by runarberg »

beat wrote: post #275
runarberg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vote for neither. We don’t need to drive, and we certainly don’t need computers to do it for us. There are other—much more easily automated—systems that are several orders of magnitudes more efficient then driving and—if implemnted sufficiently—almost always faster. Autonomous driving doesn’t need to be perfect because we don’t need it. With sufficient alternative systems the only reason for driving will be for hob…

We need transportation. A world of sitting on our butts in front of a computer isn't a solution to much of anything. Maybe we don't need to actually operate the vehicle, but we need the vehicle. I'm not walking halfway across the country just to visit my mother.

Whoa. Misunderstanding here. I’m not talking about eliminating transportation. That is just stupid. Alternative transportation from driving include: busses, trains, bikes, walking, trolleys, bicycles, ski-lifts, airplaines, taxis, boats, rollerskates, escalators, etc.

The sum of these alternatives will almost always outweigh driving in terms of benefits with a notable exception of convenience. So if you are willing to sacrifice convenience when you want to visit your mother, you will almost certainly get there faster and more economically (with the right systems in place) then driving.

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

#293

Post by mhermher »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #225
mhermher wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But we actually understand so little about how the brain works, let alone how intelligence emerges from it.

What I am saying is that AGI may be impossible, but people are so determined that it's just around the corner with enough hardware and clever enough software.

It's just around the corner, and we don't even know whether it is possible.

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

#294

Post by amptorn »

HALtheWise wrote: post #166

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…

The important things that self-driving cars can't do aren't freak occurrences. They're elementary things like responding correctly to hand signals from someone directing traffic, or reading and obeying street signs written in plain English.

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

#295

Post by mhermher »

nharada wrote: post #183
mhermher wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will a computer ever write War and Peace or compose the 9th Symphony too? How about solve an unsolved math proof? No reason it can't be automated, right?

> solve an unsolved math proof Yes actually, although there are some philosophical objections to computer assisted proofs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem#Proof_by_co...

That's just grunt work that still had to be stitched together by a human.

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

#296

Post by ghaff »

bobthepanda wrote: post #290
ghaff wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually not a very useful quote because, as you say, taken literally it's an impossibly high bar. What is required to be useful is either 1.) Demonstrably better than human (whatever that means exactly) for a well-defined subset of roads and conditions such as interstate highways under some subset of weather or 2.) Demonstrably better than human for any roads and conditions that a typical adult human would typi…

There are open questions about whether or not intermediate levels of automation might actually be more dangerous because they lull human drivers into a false sense of security, so I don't even know that 1 is necessarily sufficient.

My assumption with 1 is in the vein of "we're approaching an exit in two miles. Please be ready to take over." i.e. planned disengagement. Yes, any automation system that may fail by going "OMG. Do something now!" is worse than useless. I'm not sure the question is even open.

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

#297

Post by mhermher »

ben_w wrote: post #234
mhermher wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will a computer ever write War and Peace or compose the 9th Symphony too? How about solve an unsolved math proof? No reason it can't be automated, right?

Amongst the other 22 million results Google gave me for “ai beethoven” was this about one of their doodles: https://interestingengineering.com/the-first-ai-powered-goog... While “ai mathematical proof” gave me “Google AI system proves over 1200 mathematical theorems”: https://mathscholar.org/2019/04/google-ai-system-proves-over... So… yes, that’s fine?

None of those 1200 were previously unsolved, btw, as I mentioned above.

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

#298

Post by mulmen »

bobthepanda wrote: post #285
TeMPOraL wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think what needs to happen is that you need programs tailored to specific routes/roads. As you drive any distance, you download/cache the programs for the routes and execute them. Wow. That's so obvious in retrospect. I wonder why I haven't considered it before, nor why I haven't read of it before either. I imagine having stationary "traffic controllers", semi- or completely automated, that keep real-time informa…

Who would be responsible for maintaining static sensor networks and processing centers? The current transport authorities who do such a great job maintaining dumb roads? A lot of the problems with AVs are not just technological, but political and social in nature.

Smart roads are commonplace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers%27_information_stati.... Plus we have traffic lights, adaptive speed limits, rest stop information boards, etc.

The responsibility for these systems obviously falls to the transportation authorities.

Scaling this capability up may not be easy but it's absolutely possible. As we expand our fleet of autonomous vehicles that can respond to these inputs it will become more and more useful and necessary.

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

#299

Post by jameslevy »

michaelt wrote: post #186
suprfnk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine you're driving down a street when a kid playing on the sidewalk runs behind a truck and disappears from your view. If the kid appears in the road from behind the truck, the computer can handle slamming on the brakes very easily - probably faster than a human can - without understanding the kid any better than a group of LIDAR points or a rectangle of pixels labelled 'obstacle' by a neural network. But if you…

Shouldn't it be possible to train for these scenarios using imitation learning and expert demonstrations? For example, Tesla seems to save replays of when its vehicles would have behaved significantly differently compared to how the driver actually behaved, and this data is supposed to be quite useful.

Is this type of crowdsourced driving data a crucial part of achieving Level 4+ self-driving? If so, it seems that driving around the same six city blocks of SF or cruising down Central Expressway in MV is going to produce diminishing returns in terms of producing measurable progress.

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

#300

Post by Majromax »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #227
HALtheWise wrote: post #166

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.

> Humans can drive that fast in such low visibility, but we (often) have enough brains not to.

I think your "(often)" is doing a lot of work in this sentence.

There are many unsafe conditions that don't require an icy road plus fog plus highway speeds: any bad thunderstorm is likely to combine poor visibility and the risk of puddles/hydroplaning, for example. But the highways don't clear out during summer thunderstorms; people seem (from their actions) content to take the risk.

If self-driving cars become common and maintain a high safety standard, I think we'll also need to see a culture shift. People will have to become comfortable saying (and hearing) "the roads aren't safe right now, so I'll not be there on time."

Post reply on HN