Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#51

Post by eloff »

jdashg wrote: post #39
eloff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that, but now I agree with George Hotz. Tesla uses machine learning to map inputs to control outputs. Google is using it just to build a model of the world and then use program logic to decide the control action to take. The problem with the latter approach is the long tail of real life variety doesn't lend itself to a fixed set of programmed rules. You'll always have more edge cases. I think Waymos a…

I think it's the other way around: Direct mapping of inputs to outputs will work great for a subset of conditions, but the last N% is infeasible without explicit logical programming.

You'll never run out of edge cases if you have to explicitly program the logic. At some point you have to let the machine learning decide it. Maybe there is room for a hybrid approach, but I think anything relying on programmers having thought of every situation ahead of time is doomed to fail.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#52

Post by tigershark »

Judgmentality wrote: post #20
anoncareer0212 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here is that now the "public paying customers" and "full self-driving" customer groups are merged - so this means there's genuinely a paid full self-driving service launched as of today! A miracle

Calling this service public is misleading, especially since Waymo created the bifurcation between Waymo One (no NDA) and Early Riders (NDA). Both of these programs you have to apply for and be accepted, so neither is public. And Waymo has made no claim of merging these. The upcoming driverless rides Waymo refers to in this article could very well be for the Early Riders still under an NDA - which theoretically could…

Wait, what? Waymo does also some rides hailed via lyft, or are you saying that you have to apply also in lyft? If this is not a public service with paying customers then I don’t know one... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/way...

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#53

Post by segh »

ipython wrote: post #21
panarky wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't set a dramatically higher safety standard for autonomous drivers than human drivers. When autonomous drivers have the same or fewer injuries per billion miles driven as human drivers, then for all practical purposes it doesn't matter if it's level 4 or level 5.

So it’s ok to have 1+ million dead per year? [0] If so why go through all this trouble to creat autonomous vehicles? I, for one, am glad this was not the prevailing attitude when commercial airliner regulatory bodies were set up. [0] https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

Zero deaths are ideal, but the point is that self driving cars don't have to clear a very high bar. The human driver alternative doesn't do very well, as outlined in your link.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#54

Post by mayukh »

harry8 wrote: post #36

How to predict: 1) Say what but don't say when. 2) Say when but don't say what. Never, ever, ever bet tempted to say something specific will happen in a bounded time range. Flying cars are on the way! That disease you hate, a cure is coming! Next year will be a big year for other breakthroughs not mentioned here.

Super. I'm going to steal this.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#55

Post by chris11 »

xvector wrote: post #32
mdorazio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s completely fair. Handling basic tasks on nice freeways is exactly what adaptive cruise control + lane keeping is for. Last I checked, autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode” claims.

I have never seen another TACC implementation that doesn’t ping from side to side. Which cars have you drive with a superior cruise control implementation?

Comma ai's OpenPilot makes freeway driving really nice. I've gone miles without touching pedals or the wheel, it's definitely better than stock. Though I haven't tried AP on Tesla, and OpenPilot is basically just a really good LKA and ACC.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#56

Post by ehsankia »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #31
Judgmentality wrote: post #4

This sounds familiar. Here's an article from 2 years ago saying the same thing: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16615290/waymo-self-drivi... Hopefully this time it's the real deal. I remain skeptical.

Agreed. FTA: > "are on the way" > "soon you may experience" Vague promises without any concrete dates attached make this seem like output from PR rather than engineering

Except in the previous article, driverless rides were already happening:

> since mid-October, the company has been operating its autonomous minivans on public roads in Arizona without a safety driver

The difference is that those were without any users inside. This new article is saying that the public offering, with real customers inside, will get rides with no one inside.

It is unfortunate that it took 2 years to get to the point where they felt safe putting people customers in the car, but it's very misleading to equate the two and use is as a way to imply they lied last time around.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#57

Post by Judgmentality »

tigershark wrote: post #52
Judgmentality wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling this service public is misleading, especially since Waymo created the bifurcation between Waymo One (no NDA) and Early Riders (NDA). Both of these programs you have to apply for and be accepted, so neither is public. And Waymo has made no claim of merging these. The upcoming driverless rides Waymo refers to in this article could very well be for the Early Riders still under an NDA - which theoretically could…

Wait, what? Waymo does also some rides hailed via lyft, or are you saying that you have to apply also in lyft? If this is not a public service with paying customers then I don’t know one... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/way...

I am unaware of anyone getting picked up in a self-driving car using Lyft (outside of Aptiv in Las Vegas and other testing that has nothing to do with Waymo). Although honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong on this one, and there have been people that got picked up in a Waymo using Lyft, but a quick search on twitter and google shows up nothing (but I spent less than a minute searching just now and welcome being proven wrong).

This just reinforces my point. Waymo can announce anything with vague terminology of things happening "soon" but we still don't have any verification of anything happening.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#59

Post by ehsankia »

seibelj wrote: post #13

I guess they are fundraising right now? Not sure why they would keep promoting something that won’t happen for a decade.

Techcrunch took an email sent to the customers from reddit and wrote an article from it. If they wanted to fundraise, they would've made a whole press call for it, not sent an email to their handful of users in Phoenix.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#60

Post by p1necone »

harry8 wrote: post #36

How to predict: 1) Say what but don't say when. 2) Say when but don't say what. Never, ever, ever bet tempted to say something specific will happen in a bounded time range. Flying cars are on the way! That disease you hate, a cure is coming! Next year will be a big year for other breakthroughs not mentioned here.

This is the golden rule of software dev too - promise features or promise a release date, but never both.
Post reply on HN