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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’

#341

Post by almost_usual »

tigershark wrote: post #283
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…

There are Teslas with 900,000 km. It's a bit less than 3 times the distance from the earth to the moon and a lot of 30 years old card have less km than that.

A lot of 30 year old cars with less km than that? I think that's a pretty big assumption unless you're only considering non daily drivers or garage cars.

I also imagine most buyers who own a Model S today probably aren't going to keep that vehicle for 30 years because they're technically savvy and will want a newer vehicle. Hopefully I'm wrong but what I'm getting at is I don't want a new brand of vehicle that is treated like a cellphone.

Cycling cars every few years for hardware improvements cannot be good for the environment. Tesla also has a pretty bad reputation with self repair and rehabbing damaged vehicles which I imagine will deter the used market quite a bit.

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

#342

Post by gremlinsinc »

acchow wrote: post #327
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…

Is level 5 autonomous more or less likely to be achievable than cold fusion?

Cold fusion has a 100% chance of realization. It's a sound technology. There's no doubt that it will be realized and is achievable. The only doubts are the timescale -- those who work in the field often say it's always '30 years away', but some recent research seems promising to make it much closer than that. I'd say level 5 and cold fusion are both equally achievable, though level 5 automobiles may be airborne -- as then they'd have less obstacles just birds, trees, and other airborne vehicles, but pedestrians, cats, dogs, bicycles would be off the table.

Super AI's I think are achievable and will be developed. I just don't know which will come first level 5 or cold fusion that's a toss up. If everything though has sensors including bikes, pedestrians, cross-walks, roads, etc that can detect what is on the road, send out a warning signal to cars travelling towards that intersection then that also takes out some of the problems - but that requires a very smart grid.

On a long enough timeline though there's probably not much humankind can create. Though it could be 10 years could be 50.

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

#343

Post by gremlinsinc »

roymurdock wrote: post #250
bjornsing wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. “Never” is kind of a strong word in this context... My personal belief is that we could very well have level five autonomy within the decade, using only two video cameras and two microph…

This probably isn't going to happen. Getting to level 5 will require "V2X" technology - vehicles communicating with other vehicles and the road/traffic infrastructure itself. We will need a forward-thinking government to start building sensors and communication tech into roads, stop lights, parking spots, and a secure/interoperable internet for all these sensors to communicate autonomously. Currently the cost of impl…

Not really more expensive. If we have x deaths per year..let's say 10k for easy math. Over a decade that's 100k people dead. If self-driving cars can bring that to 0..that's 100k more people in a decade able to pay taxes because they didn't die. It's 100k families that maybe didn't lose their primary bread-winner and don't need to live off government assistance... So there's economic value in less people dying. It's also less in medical costs. Imagine what the bill for medicare for all would be if there were 0 traffic accidents across the entire U.S.A? Not to mention it could ease up congestion and make changes to the way they do construction or how often by maximizing speed and travel to make roads last longer somehow... Also less need for police to monitor traffic, I'm sure we get that sort of grid we'd also have a lot more big brother surveillance baked in too to make police jobs easier. Which I guess is good/bad depending on which side of the privacy ethics you are on surveillance and how 'honorable' our government is at the time (hopefully more honorable and less like china and it currently is)....

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

#344

Post by smileysteve »

snarf21 wrote: post #23
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Self-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 i…

> there is going to be a suit for $500M because "Google killed my son!!!!!!"

I'm pretty sure that Google, Apple, Uber, Ford, Gm, Chrysler, and all of their supply chains could get lobby for the tort reform they need, especially witb much of our current "representation"

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

#345

Post by pedrocr »

jakeogh wrote: post #319
pedrocr wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule already exists but is not enforced. If tickets were issued for not following it in the cases where the rule is ignored at low speed routinely it would be less likely to happen at high speed with risk of life. All the infrastructure and manpower as well as most of the rules are already in place. We just choose to ignore it routinely and then it's no surprise AGI is required to do self-driving within that mess…

I wasn't asking if the (unmentioned) rule existed, I'm asking how do you propose to enforce it?

By writing tickets to offenders in the cases where an officer witnessed the ofence? I thought that part was implicit. These are not cases where we need more policing or resources. Just rules that have been chosen to not be enforced and a few others that should be written. You don't need a police state to have better rule following. Just actually enforce the rules in the cases you catch and behavior changes much more broadly.

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

#346

Post by j05h »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #203
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…

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…

This is what GM is trying to do with Super Cruise. Seems like the right way to go on my book.

https://www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-...

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

#347

Post by smileysteve »

snarf21 wrote: post #23
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Self-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 i…

> A lot of those sensors and cameras are less accurate during the night or in weather or with sun glare.

But for relatively minimal cost, those sensors can easily 10x better than humans. Whether it's visible light or infrared, whether it's microphones outside the car, or networked effects to other vehicles or highway camera.

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

#348

Post by mrkstu »

leetcrew wrote: post #74
bryanlarsen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans can't do it. When your stopping distance (including reaction time) exceeds your visibility there's no way to drive safely, but humans do it anyways.

> When your stopping distance (including reaction time) exceeds your visibility there's no way to drive safely, but humans do it anyways. this is bad, but not quite as bad as it sounds. most of the time, you only need to stop as fast as the car in front of you. it's pretty uncommon to encounter a stationary object in the middle of the travel lane. in fact, outside of driving on surface streets in the city, I can't re…

They typically leave enough room to stop for their estimate of how long it would take the car in front of them to stop + the distance to that car. That initial estimate does NOT assume the car in front of them will stop instantaneously obviously.

While this usually will be fine, there are definitely issues when something stationary does pop up.

While caravan-ing to Yellowstone with 3 vehicles, all traveling in the center lane of the freeway, we encountered a small car with a passed out passenger in the middle lane. My bro-in-law swerved with some room to spare, immediately behind him I swerved with basically zero room to spare, and my father behind me (luckily for them in a Suburban, but bad for the man in the VW) had no chance- I was immediately looking in my back mirror knowing what I was going to see.

There is a decent likelihood that a machine could have swerved in time, but nearly zero that a typical human could/would have in our typical following patterns.

Humans route around inefficient practices. Just as human driving speeds are typically unaffected by posted traffic speeds, they will optimize for their typical experience over written codes for how they drive.

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

#349

Post by ghevshoo »

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…

They don’t need to drive perfectly. They only need to drive better than your average human.

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

#350

Post by mkl »

onemoresoop wrote: post #207
hateful wrote: post #25

I 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 immedia…

How about automating traffic lights? This could ease traffic in urban areas and I don't hear anyone talking about it.

Traffic lights are automated. They detect how many cars are waiting to know when to change, they adjust their cycle length depending on time of day, etc., they synchronise along long roads so people generally get a string of green lights.

What do you mean?

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