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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

#111

Post by rebuilder »

falcor84 wrote: post #69
zdragnar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far, nobody seems to have full self driving without "safety drivers". A common saying around here is that we have two seasons: winter and (road) construction. Construction zones have pretty much every obstacle to automated driving you can think of: * painted lanes that don't correlate to the temporary lanes marked by cones * lanes that don't correspond to pre-programmed maps / gps * irregular and unpredictable v…

>Oh, and said protocol has to be hack-proof so trouble-makers can't start convincing cars that they're in the middle of a construction zone and force them out of their lanes on normal roads. Why would it be easier for trouble-makers to fool autonomous cars? As a human driver, I'd be fooled by pretty much any road marking or guy in an orange vest.

Apparently, people mess with autonomous cars simply because they're autonomous. It's hard to say whether that's just the novelty factor or something likely to persist.

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

#112

Post by calcifer »

jessriedel wrote: post #98
dmix wrote: post #95

> 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. Why would it riding on public roads matter when it's about what happens inside a private vehicle during a high-value R&D experiment? They got permission from Arizona to run the tests and it will likely benefit Arizona's ec…

That phrase is just thrown in there to stoke the reader and create a story out of nothing. It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity.

> It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity.

Or, the author is suggesting that public resources should be used for public, not private benefit?

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

#113

Post by rowanG077 »

calcifer wrote: post #112
jessriedel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase is just thrown in there to stoke the reader and create a story out of nothing. It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity.

> It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity. Or, the author is suggesting that public resources should be used for public, not private benefit?

Self driving car technology has huge public benefit.

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

#114

Post by Nokinside »

leoc wrote: post #110
Nokinside wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote operators solve these issue. Once you have autonomous cars that driving safely, but can't manage complex situations like you describe, you delegate those for remote pilots that are allowed to operate car in slow speeds. You need 5G network coverage with mission-critical features (mcMTC) to archieve that. BLER 10^-6 and E2E latency Taxi fleet of 10,000 vehicles might need only 100-200 remote operators to manage…

> You need 5G network coverage with mission-critical features (mcMTC) to archieve that. BLER 10^-6 and E2E latency I do wonder if that's a factor behind Musk's push into low-orbit satellite Internet. > Taxi fleet of 10,000 vehicles might need only 100-200 remote operators to manage the fleet. That kind of reduction in workforce provides huge savings. Even if all mileage was human-driven there would be very large bene…

Starlink can provide 25 to 35 ms latency from low orbits, so I don't think so.

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

#115

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #96
Judgmentality wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're focusing on the wrong part of the problem. You're thinking of everything as a giant physics simulation, and completely ignoring the hardest part: humans. Let's say you're driving through an intersection with a green light, and there's a pedestrian waiting to cross. The robot has the right of way and goes, but suddenly the pedestrian decides to cross in front of the vehicle. Even if the reaction time was 0.00 s…

> Let's say you're driving through an intersection with a green light, and there's a pedestrian waiting to cross. The robot has the right of way and goes, but suddenly the pedestrian decides to cross in front of the vehicle. Even if the reaction time was 0.00 seconds it's too late to avoid a collision. Why does a robot driver need to anticipate this? Does a human driver need to?

As both a pedestrian and a driver, I certainly have to read social cues.

If I'm walking up to a pedestrian crossing and a car is approaching, I don't just step out into the road, even though I have the right of way. I try to make eye contact with the driver to see if they recognize I'm crossing. They'll often nod or do something similar to signal that they're letting me cross.

A machine has to understand these social cues as well. It might even be helpful if the machine has a way to signal its intentions back to pedestrians.

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

#116

Post by leoc »

Nokinside wrote: post #114
leoc wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need 5G network coverage with mission-critical features (mcMTC) to archieve that. BLER 10^-6 and E2E latency I do wonder if that's a factor behind Musk's push into low-orbit satellite Internet. > Taxi fleet of 10,000 vehicles might need only 100-200 remote operators to manage the fleet. That kind of reduction in workforce provides huge savings. Even if all mileage was human-driven there would be very large bene…

Starlink can provide 25 to 35 ms latency from low orbits, so I don't think so.

Even 70ms isn't all that long compared to the the official (let alone real-world) thinking-time estimates for braking http://www.brake.org.uk/component/tags/tag/thinking-time , so it might not be an unacceptable delay, at least if combined with professional drivers and reduced speed limits and/or failsafe locally-controlled AI braking.

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

#117

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

jeffk_teh_haxor wrote: post #67

A week ago Lyft driver who drove like a maniac. Will he get a saucy exposé too?

If you're planning on cloning him millions of times and putting him behind the wheel of every car, then yes, he does deserve an exposé!

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

#118

Post by jddj »

rebuilder wrote: post #111
falcor84 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, and said protocol has to be hack-proof so trouble-makers can't start convincing cars that they're in the middle of a construction zone and force them out of their lanes on normal roads. Why would it be easier for trouble-makers to fool autonomous cars? As a human driver, I'd be fooled by pretty much any road marking or guy in an orange vest.

Apparently, people mess with autonomous cars simply because they're autonomous. It's hard to say whether that's just the novelty factor or something likely to persist.

I can easily imagine some bored teenagers (can even imagine a certain version of younger me doing it) blocking an empty autonomous vehicle from leaving a parking space just for kicks. I suppose coaxing other empty ones into a ditch or waterway isn't too much of a stretch either if the cars are owned by some mega-corp and become some kind of cheap public good like shopping trolleys.

As soon as it becomes a robot, a lot of the social pressure to be a good person falls away. Less so if there are people inside, but I can see empty autonomous cars being given a pretty hard time just for kicks.

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

#119

Post by BigJono »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #109
falcor84 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were "encouraged to be especially tough", I can promise you that the taxis I ride in would get a much worse score than 47% negative.

For entirely different reasons, though. Your taxi driver is not going to randomly freak out because they mistook a bush for a pedestrian or didn't understand what traffic cones mean. The bad taxi driver is just going to drive too fast while talking on their cellphone.

> or didn't understand what traffic cones mean

You'd be surprised. I've had a taxi driver turn up train tracks before.

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

#120

Post by jrockway »

calcifer wrote: post #112
jessriedel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase is just thrown in there to stoke the reader and create a story out of nothing. It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity.

> It indicates a lack of journalistic integrity. Or, the author is suggesting that public resources should be used for public, not private benefit?

How is someone driving to work in their private vehicle public benefit? The roads are for driving on, nothing more, nothing less.
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