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

nytimes.com

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

#331

Post by wbrinkley »

tyingq wrote: post #50
rwmj wrote: post #8

We don't need self-driving cars that can go anywhere (ie. level 5) for them to be widely useful. A car that only worked in bright sunshine on a preprogrammed set of roads would be immediately useful to me.

Semi trucks, solely on well done roads (Interstates in the US) seem more likely to happen sooner. There's an obvious strategy for "ports", dealing with exceptions, etc.

Tesla frequently talks about platooning when touting their Semi. "Self-driving" by almost blindly following a human-driven lead vehicle doesn't seem that far off. But I'm not looking forward to the day when I see a "train" of semi trucks speeding down the interstate only a foot or two apart from each other!

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

#332

Post by rsync »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #255
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the standard of self-driving becomes something akin to how airplanes fly, then weather will be a delay, bypass, or do not fly precondition to the execution of the flight plan. All this stuff about "it's right around the road" vs "it'll never happen" is all unspoken assumptions around what it means to take a "safe" "trip" "in a car" "driven" "autonomously". Safe? Compared to humans that are alert, humans with smart…

> 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…

"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."

Get ready to have your mind blown because the next leap in this line of logic is to physically fix "tracks" to the road and run the cars on these "rails" - possibly on a schedule.

It's a future star-trek world we in the United States can only dream of ...

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

#333

Post by bluGill »

kevinofe wrote: post #247
gre wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a gunman stopping the car. Will the car just let the passengers be robbed or executed mafia-style? (I'm rewatching The Sopranos)

I've always wondered why more attention isn't paid to this. A driver's ability to make a decision to run over a possible assailant is a huge deterrent that is not fully appreciated. To an autonomous vehicle all people will look the same and they will have to stop. I'm most curious about the self-driving trucks. If they are driving across the country through sparsely populated areas, what is to stop a group of robbers…

All those sensors on the truck will be very useful to police investigators afterwards. Sure they make off with cargo, but theft is illegal even if it isn't robbery. The police are generally pretty good (despite the real cases of bad apples). In most cases "the cops say they know who but there is no proof" (obscure Stan Rogers reference), and the truck will upload the proof they need in real time.

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

#334

Post by bluGill »

gurkancaner wrote: post #212

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…

I complain about it. I've lost good friends to bad drivers. I can't figure out how to improve humans so I'll take self driving cars when they get better than humans.

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

#335

Post by AnimalMuppet »

wbrinkley wrote: post #331
tyingq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi trucks, solely on well done roads (Interstates in the US) seem more likely to happen sooner. There's an obvious strategy for "ports", dealing with exceptions, etc.

Tesla frequently talks about platooning when touting their Semi. "Self-driving" by almost blindly following a human-driven lead vehicle doesn't seem that far off. But I'm not looking forward to the day when I see a "train" of semi trucks speeding down the interstate only a foot or two apart from each other!

That could work, for the platoon, while on the interstate.

It might not work for other vehicles on the interstate, though. If there's not room to pull in between them, then you have to pass all of them at one time. If you're a semi that wants to drive 1 or 2 MPH faster than them, that's going to be a very long, slow, pass. It will be even worse if it's in hilly country, where the semi attempting to pass may have higher speed on flat ground, but less power for climbing. That could block both lanes for a really long time. Human drivers in cars (some of whom want to drive faster than semis, and have more horsepower per ton at their disposal) will be very annoyed.

Then you get one "train" trying to pass another, and things get even worse.

Then the train gets off the interstate. They hit a traffic light. Less than all of the train makes it through the light in one cycle. Now what?

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

#336

Post by smileysteve »

beat wrote: post #165
bryanlarsen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accident rates in the US on the highway are on the order of one per million miles. And in a million miles of driving you will encounter quite a few stationary or otherwise unexpected objects in the middle of the travel lane.

Good example - deer. But human drivers hit deer all the time, and it's often unavoidable. An autonomous driver is probably more likely to miss a deer than a human, due to substantially better reflex time.

And one would think infrared vision that could be useful (except possibly when it's a magic number between 98.6 amf 104 degrees somewhere)

To me, every brown mailbox with a white reflector could be a deer coming to the road, to infrared, with a larger lens, it should be able to tell a lot better.

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

#337

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #330
casefields wrote: post #2

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…

> 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. That's equivalent to saying AGI is impossible. It's a pretty big statement.

I'm not sure it's any bigger a statement than saying that it is possible, though...

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

#338

Post by TeMPOraL »

rsync wrote: post #332
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…

"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." Get ready to have your mind blown because the next leap in this line of logic is to physically fix "tracks" to the road and run the cars on these "rails" - possibly on a schedule. It's a future star-trek world we in the United States can only dream of ...

Haha :). But no, we're talking PRT here, not regular trains.

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

#339

Post by smileysteve »

beat wrote: post #328
runarberg wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Until you need to carry something with you - like luggage, or a baby.

But this is where HN is blind; a non insignificant portion of America doesn't have access to a reliable automobile. So, there are already 10s of millions of Americans (and Europeans) that transport luggage and a baby just fine.

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

#340

Post by TeMPOraL »

eslaught wrote: post #321
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…

Am I the only one who's terrified of the security implications of such a system? You're talking about running (from the car's perspective) untrusted code on a fleet of cars, dynamically and in real time. Even if it's cryptographically signed or whatever, you're one or a handful of exploits away from remote attackers having the capability to crash every autonomous car, simultaneously, at least in a geographical region…

I'm talking about doing what airplanes and ATC are already doing, but in an automated way.
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