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Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

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Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#21

Post by icelancer »

ForrestN wrote: post #13
damq wrote: post #6

> The data provide the most detailed view yet of the passenger experience inside vehicles from Waymo, which doesn’t disclose the information even though it uses public roads as its testing grounds. What's up with this statement? Should I be forced to publicize my phone calls just because I made them while driving on public roads? It's utterly bizarre that the author thinks he is entitled to see Waymo's data.

I'm not sure if I agree with the writer's statement here, and I'm not sure the right outcome is for Waymo to share data, but I don't think your analogy works. Your individual phone calls are made as part of your general participation as an individual in society. One of the largest companies in the world, which does its best to avoid paying taxes, is using public roads as a fundamental part of the infrastructure for a…

>> corporations were taxed at reasonable rates

Corporate tax is incredibly high in the United States. It is why corporations funnel their money into other areas where it is taxed at a lower rate. No one gets away without being taxed. Payroll taxes, property taxes, use taxes, L&I taxes, etc.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#22

Post by CloudYeller »

When are they going to just seal off an area so it's self-driving vehicles only, and test them there? In a 100% self driving environment, edge cases are probably much easier to reason about. And if the future is 100% self driving, they should probably get some training data from that environment anyway.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#23

Post by Judgmentality »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #18
paxys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All great achievements, but none of these is in the same ballpark of difficulty as creating a general artificial intelligence (which is pretty much what self driving cars need to achieve true level 5 autonomy).

Level 5 driving doesn't require AGI at all. It's an extremely narrow set of problems that have to be solved incredibly well. It mostly just comes down to creating an accurate 3d representation of the world from a bunch of sensors. You also have to correctly segment and label each object in that 3d representation. If you did those two things extremely well, the actual driving logic can be hardcoded. The problem is tha…

This is incorrect. The hardest part of developing a self-driving car is predicting the world around you in the immediate future. Knowing whether or not that object is a person is a lot easier than guessing whether or not that person is going to jump out in front of the car 1 second into the future. You have to know who is going to run stop signs, when cyclists are about to cut you off, when someone is about to back up into a parking spot.

I don't know whether or not AGI needs to be developed to make a useful self-driving car, but as time goes on I'm beginning to believe that's the case.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#24

Post by icelancer »

CloudYeller wrote: post #22

When are they going to just seal off an area so it's self-driving vehicles only, and test them there? In a 100% self driving environment, edge cases are probably much easier to reason about. And if the future is 100% self driving, they should probably get some training data from that environment anyway.

>> When are they going to just seal off an area so it's self-driving vehicles only, and test them there?

Talk about your all-time overfitting problem.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#25

Post by xivzgrev »

Despite the complaints, this is fucking amazing. I remember just earlier this decade I was pissed off at a taxi company for saying a taxi will come in 20 minutes...maybe, dispatcher can’t promise. Now we got Uber/lyft, and then...DRIVERLESS vehicles?? Always seemed like science fiction but the future is here...

The bitch of this business is the long tail of possible scenarios - before people have confidence you need to solve the long tail which is hard because not as much data / much less predictable. Sounds like from article though they are making headway!

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#26

Post by moomin »

This might just be me, but it strikes me that the biggest problem self-driving cars has is that no-one actually needs them. Don’t get me wrong, you try to sell me a car that has the (fully capable) feature I’d definitely want it. But need it? Well, you’re not going to solve the problem of too many cars and the slow traffic that results with cars. It’d be hard to get special treatment for cars with a premium feature. Then there’s the taxi model, where the aim of the game is to undercut people that Uber has already managed to push below minimum wage. I mean, there’s a margin there, but is it really “Next Google” sized? Even with dedicated vehicles, that’s a lot of hardware to maintain.

Now let’s assume it’s successful and sustainable. Let’s say we also manage to get it to work for freight. What have we achieved? Well, we’ve put a couple more of the jobs available to low-skilled workers on the scrap heap. There will be consequences to doing that, but I doubt Waymo will be footing that bill.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#27

Post by SmooL »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #18
paxys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All great achievements, but none of these is in the same ballpark of difficulty as creating a general artificial intelligence (which is pretty much what self driving cars need to achieve true level 5 autonomy).

Level 5 driving doesn't require AGI at all. It's an extremely narrow set of problems that have to be solved incredibly well. It mostly just comes down to creating an accurate 3d representation of the world from a bunch of sensors. You also have to correctly segment and label each object in that 3d representation. If you did those two things extremely well, the actual driving logic can be hardcoded. The problem is tha…

"If you did those two things extremely well, the actual driving logic can be hardcoded."

I mean, it _could_ be hardcoded, but there's millions of edge cases so it's pretty infeasible. I agree with parent comment that full level 5 requires something close to AGI - the difficult part in in getting a self driving car is giving the AI something along the lines of "common sense", the ability to reason about what to do in an unfamiliar situation.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#28

Post by flattone »

gowld wrote: post #14
ForrestN wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I agree with the writer's statement here, and I'm not sure the right outcome is for Waymo to share data, but I don't think your analogy works. Your individual phone calls are made as part of your general participation as an individual in society. One of the largest companies in the world, which does its best to avoid paying taxes, is using public roads as a fundamental part of the infrastructure for a…

Corporations are made of people that pay income tax and property tax

>Corporations are made of people that pay income tax and property tax

Exactly. and drawing a distinction between the two is essential. In the US it seems to be, an ideal anyway.

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#29

Post by gpm »

moomin wrote: post #26

This might just be me, but it strikes me that the biggest problem self-driving cars has is that no-one actually needs them. Don’t get me wrong, you try to sell me a car that has the (fully capable) feature I’d definitely want it. But need it? Well, you’re not going to solve the problem of too many cars and the slow traffic that results with cars. It’d be hard to get special treatment for cars with a premium feature.…

There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US [0]. They are paid at least minimum wage. Alphabet has 148.299B revenue per year [1]. A conservative estimate of the revenue waymo could earn just by replacing truck drivers is 7.25 (minimum US minimum wage) * 40 (working hours per weeks) * 50 (working weeks per year) * 3.5 million = $50 billion a year.

I think once you expand past the US, and past trucks, this is definitely "Next Google sized".

[0] https://www.trucking.org/News_and_Information_Reports_Indust...

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/reve...

Re: Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles

#30

Post by btrettel »

netinstructions wrote: post #3

I wonder how many people are upset that the vehicles had to drop them off in a valid passenger load/unload zone as opposed to the usual Lyft / Uber tactic of parking in a no parking / no stopping zone, bike lane, crosswalk, etc because it's most convenient for the drivers and passengers (at the safety and expense of everyone else sharing the space)... That quote at the end: > I guess Lyft has me spoiled. I like getti…

Cyclist here. In my experience, the majority of the time a driver stops or parks in the bike lane in an urban area in the US (e.g., I live in Austin), there's a legal parking/stopping spot within a reasonable walking distance, often within 50 to 100 feet. (If this isn't true where you live, consider the difference in the location. There are probably exceptions too. I'm told that legal parking isn't typically close in SF.)

Then again, my idea of "reasonable walking distance" seems longer than most people's. Having spoken to many drivers who have parked in the bike lane, I'm amazed by how negatively some have reacted to me recommending that they park as little as 50 feet away. In some cases the non-bike-lane spot is closer but the convenience of pulling to the side of the road rather than doing a more complicated maneuver seems irresistible.

If Waymo follows the law, good for them. Makes me more likely to be a customer of theirs in the future.

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