Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’ • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by Raidion » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

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 ...

Trains work incredibly well, but they don't solve the last mile problem. Hi-rail trucks are pretty common in railway maintenance. There is probably some sort of steam-punk past that could have happened where we're all driving hi-rail cars on almost all highways, and just using cars for the few last mile trips.

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

#372

Post by runarberg » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

dms105 wrote: post #313

runarberg wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems there is a solution for your problem already: Busses. Although not strictly automated, they are externalized. That is you are not the one doing the driving, and therefor you are free to sleep, read, work, etc, while you wait to get to your destination. The beauty about busses is that they exists. There is no unsolved technology problems with busses. And they can be (and most likely already are) implemented w…

Many people want privacy and control over the vehicle they're in, and will pay a premium for it. When you take a bus you're sharing it with random people, can't stop to take a break whenever you want, and can't go directly door to door. Trains can be a superior alternative depending on what country you're in. In the U.S. we're far behind some other countries in high speed rail infrastructure, so over long distances t…

If there is political will to fund the research needed and create the infrastructure for autonomous highway driving lanes, surely politicians in the US can find the incentives to fund the infrastructure needed for extra buses (including luxury lines with first class seating; for those willing to pay the premium) and train lines.

Edit: As an example of political will for the established and proven solution of mass public transit system, over the unproven non-existent solution of autonomous highway driving lanes. Look at the steam (pun intended) the idea of establishing high speed rail between Portland OR, and Vancouver BC is getting from the public and politicians alike.

http://www.cascadiarail.org/

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

#373

Post by paulcole » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #125

skywhopper wrote: post #41

This has been obvious all along to anyone who has ever driven or used a computer before and thought about the reality for more than a couple of minutes. But the press and VCs bought into the hype from the likes of Uber who needed to keep generating huge new investment to stay afloat and Tesla which is run by a delusional snake oil salesman who had a single hit with the Model S. The shocking examples of crazy unexpect…

> Tesla which is run by a delusional snake oil salesman who had a single hit with the Model S Being that dismissive and willfully ignorant discredits your entire argument. A snake oil salesman produces nothing and hoodwinks people. I drive my "snake oil" every day and not only is it the best car I've ever driven, it's the coolest thing I've ever owned. I routinely watch his "snake oil" launch huge payloads to orbit a…

Until the relatively recent backlash, Tesla’s Autopilot page was carefully worded to trick the average reader into thinking that Tesla was far closer to autonomous driving than it really was.

That’s snake oil salesman 101.

> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

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

#374

Post by plutonorm » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

mhermher wrote: post #293

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps it is perhaps it isn't. But we can now equal and sometimes beat human perception on some standard machine learning datasets. Perception is one very large piece of the problem. The other large part shows some signs of cracking, consider the recent success in go and poker. AI can now beat professional players in both of these games. Agreed these are a different class of problem to realtime learning in a dynamic environment, but there is interesting progress here. I'd wager that we're less than 20 years away from a useful general intelligence that could say, earn money on mechanical Turk. And the recent succes with transformer networks understanding text. Incredible.

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

#375

Post by tigershark » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #341

tigershark wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tre…

21.5k km per year is the average driving distance in US: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm Multiply it for 30 years and you get 645k km. It seems to me that it’s well below 900k km. Do you have any official data that contradicts the US department for transportation to prove your assumption?

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

#376

Post by pas » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #149

tabtab wrote: post #146

We don't need all-or-nothing. A good many people stay off the road anyhow during poor weather, and those who do go out usually stay on familiar routes, such as to work or their favorite grocery store. If self-driving cars/buses stick to a subset of streets and don't go out in big storms, they can still be widely useful. Set up (require) a universal network/database of road conditions on the main streets that all self…

By admitting this fact you dramatically reduce the value of self driving cars and thus the inflated valuations of companies trying to create them. It is an uncomfortable truth.

The safe self driving is possible, but currently it is awkward, results in honking (because slow speed).

That is still valuable for the occasional take me home from the pub mode.

The rest of the time it should work with me and disengage prematurely if there's something going on.

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

#377

Post by mrep » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #276

bryanlarsen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they get in a situation they cannot handle, the car can stop and pull over to the side of the road before asking the human to take over. And it can refuse to navigate to areas where it wouldn't be able to do that. (And if you're in an area where an emergency stop is unsafe, it's unsafe for human drivers too. Getting rear-ended for an emergency stop is that fault of the following car for that reason.)

So I’ll still need to have a drivers license to use an autonomous vehicle? That pretty much defeats the whole purpose, at least for me.

Not for the millions of Americans that commute to work everyday. That'll free up so much free time.

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

#378

Post by asdffdsa » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #220

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…

Seriously, please automate highway driving first. You get all the benefits for shipping and efficiency and logistics, so the money is there. The problem is so much more simple, and there can be convergent infrastructure (embedded sensors, mesh network updates, higher standards of road quality). On long trips on highways it just kills me that I have to stare at the same image for hours basically, and that a program co…

As someone that rides a motorcycle, I'm deathly scared of self-driving cars and the tech companies that will try to automate highway driving, especially with their agile 'move fast break things' 'ask forgiveness not permission' mentality

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

#379

Post by DenisM » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

I can't help but notice that the hyper-enthusiastic media talk about self driving cars died down right around the time of Uber and Lyft IPOs.

Like, if you want to sell something, you want to create a sense of urgency, right? "If you don't invest into U/L you're missing out on the self-driving revolution, and it's going to be huge! Just look at all the media going crazy!".

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

#380

Post by oposa » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #270

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, please automate highway driving first. You get all the benefits for shipping and efficiency and logistics, so the money is there. The problem is so much more simple, and there can be convergent infrastructure (embedded sensors, mesh network updates, higher standards of road quality). On long trips on highways it just kills me that I have to stare at the same image for hours basically, and that a program co…

It seems there is a solution for your problem already: Busses. Although not strictly automated, they are externalized. That is you are not the one doing the driving, and therefor you are free to sleep, read, work, etc, while you wait to get to your destination. The beauty about busses is that they exists. There is no unsolved technology problems with busses. And they can be (and most likely already are) implemented w…

> There is no unsolved technology problems with busses.

They have similar physics problems as cars.

1. They can't go very fast nor carry a lot of weight before they become uneconomical or unsafe.

2. They especially can't go very fast for very long if they are electrical.

3. They need a driver which makes them expensive to run often or with few passengers.

If you get to choose, what you want is something like:

A. Medium speed trains. Cheaper than high speed ones, but still twice as fast as cars with more comfort and less attention. But they need to have good infrastructure, so they can go that speed well and consistently.

B. Local buses with fixed routes.

C. Better golf carts for local transport.

Eventually you would automate all of them. Which would be relatively easy because the fast trains go on tracks, the buses go known routes and the cars, that are the most complex to automate, go slow. Slow also wouldn't affect for example automated deliveries, or repositioning, over longer distances.

Also even before automation as the cars would be "underbuilt", relative to today, they are cheap. So the don't get the sunk cost of a car. And since they don't go outside the local area, each municipality can choose their own infrastructure more freely.

Of course I don't see it happening as things are today, but this is in my opinion more inline with what should be discussed. Since things relative to physics isn't likely to change quickly.