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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’

#401

Post by D-Coder »

asdffdsa wrote: post #378
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…

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

"'move fast break things'" -- that was Uber. They learned their lesson. I don't think anyone else is doing anything nearly as stupid with cars.

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

#402

Post by staunch »

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?

The average Joe is the descendant of millions/billions of years of evolution. He is designed specifically to navigate this planet.

The fact that humans will be teaching computers to do the same kinds of navigation, with just a few decades of work, speaks to how impressive the above-average Joe is.

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

#403

Post by 8bitsrule »

nutjob2 wrote: post #81
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…

You get the feeling that they're solving the wrong problem though. No-one can can predict what other people are going to do, and what other drivers do is also affected by what you do. Most drivers aren't even paying that much attention. Realistically you can't model that to any useful level of precision. I think maybe vendors are trying to build a more deterministic system that can justify its actions, but to make au…

The 'wrong problem' might include trying to achieve everything with smart-as-an-ant cars on dumb roads. It may be possible to make any important road smarter inexpensively, so that the car's sensors could 'read' the road. Then the car has external, deterministic 'input'.

By reading the road, pinging dumb targets, the car has input to help it decide if it can drive safely. If the targets go missing, it quits safely. The dumb targets should ping thru snow. At certain intervals, the road is smarter, with powered, networked targets that can update the car about 'danger, Will Robinson' conditions in real-time.

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

#404

Post by sandworm101 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #236
sandworm101 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just bigger. Bigger can be fixed with more cpu time. It is a fundimentally different problem. Nobody has a good theoretical answer even with infinite cpu time. I say this while on a car ferry. Getting on this boat required me to navigate several strange road markings and obey a half-dozen hand gestures from staff, including several that were contrary to the painted lines. No AI is even contemplating car ferries.

It's not just car ferries. Accident scenes and construction zones sometimes require you to obey hand signals and ignore road markings. There aren't many car ferries around where I live. But there's plenty of construction...

Ever area had its little thing. They may be edge cases individually but edge cases, as a group, must be planned for.

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

#405

Post by rayiner »

mikestew wrote: post #57
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…

I think your prediction will turn out to be as closer or closer than any other. Certainly more on the money than the breathless “won’t be a problem in a few years when self-driving...” But as I read your probably-on-the-money prediction, I was thinking “here we go again, dumping money for the two-ton wheelchairs while alternative transportation goes begging again.” Where’s my fucking barrier-protected bike lane? Or a…

> Frankly, if that’s how it goes, I wonder if it happens at all. “Separate lanes for wealthy tech workers” is how that’s going to go. You know why we can’t even get bike lanes? Because people bitch and moan because they don’t personally use it. Expand that to an empty lane of moving traffic while the plebs sit in traffic.

It’s bad policy to spend scarce resources (in this case road space) on something few people use. Just 0.6% of people bike to work at leas once a week. Bike lanes are a phenomenon completely out of proportion to how many people use them.[1]

Self driving cars will be that way at first, of course. But the big difference is that self driving technology has the possibility of becoming mainstream. Biking, by contrast, will never become mainstream. The average American commutes 16 miles one way. That’s an hour of biking each way (in weather that, in most of the country, is too hot or too cold most of the year).

[1] It doesn’t help that bike lane resources tend to be focused in areas where they disproportionately benefit educated white men: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/06/biggest-obsta...

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

#406

Post by rayiner »

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…

> 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.

How many people? Folks in Atlanta will happily drive 55 on 75/85 in torrential downpours where you can’t even see the lane markings.

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

#407

Post by jmpman »

hi5eyes wrote: post #137
baggachipz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

if you dont think elon musk is a fraudster with this robotaxi bullshit sir you might have drank the kool aid repeatedly pretending that full self driving was anything more than a pipe dream is dangerous. everyone knows that except people that enable his scamming

Drove my Model 3 on autopilot today. Entered a roadway that had recently been repaved, and lacking lane markers. The Model 3 couldn’t handle it and wouldn’t let me engage autopilot. There aren’t robotaxis until that trivial problem is solved.

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

#408

Post by mlguy456 »

I wonder if this is partially because the people working on AI/ML intentionally don't put enough efforts into this. I'm one of those people and while I'm to increase accuracy of an existing ML model by 0.3% and collect a fat paycheck, I'd never release any really novel ideas if I happen to come up with some. The reason is our society isn't ready for AI: it's bent by greed and doesn't even recognize this as a problem. Bezos makes billions out of literally slave labor and is cool with that. The US ships containers with firearms to middle East and Africa for profit. The first world people are ok with slave labor in Africa and China as long as it makes the next iPhone cheaper. China and UK are proud of making fast progress in making the survelliance state happen. Australian billionaires open new coal mines and don't care about the rest of the world as long as they have clean air where they live. American healthcare mafia extorts outrageous prices for basic meds and services and would rather let millions die than cut it's profits. What can AI give to this world? Superpowers for the tiny ruling elite? Private armies that can't possibly be challenged by common people. I don't want to live in that world.

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

#409

Post by pretendscholar »

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!

Yeah good luck making your exit with those on your right. I cant believe people think that this would be allowed on the road. You thought one jack-knifed truck on the road was bad wait until the human driver makes a mistake for a platoon.
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