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

techcrunch.com

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

#151

Post by smt88 »

rayiner wrote: post #137
rubicon33 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year. Think about that. Self driving cars aren't just a solution to nuisance of driving. They're a solution to one of the leading causes of DEATH and INJURY in the country. Sure there are going to be edge cases where we as humans will be able to point at the car and say "damnit, we could have prevented that"! But I sure hope when we do that, the car points right bac…

> Sure there are going to be edge cases where we as humans will be able to point at the car and say "damnit, we could have prevented that"! This is a meaningless assertion unless you account for how often "edge cases" arise. If unpredictable pedestrians, unplanned road construction, etc., is an "edge case" the car basically won't work in DC or New York.

It doesn't need to work in every place to be useful or worthwhile.

Sleepy truck drivers are a major safety issue by themselves, and highways are easier for SDCs to drive on.

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

#152

Post by beerandt »

BurningFrog wrote: post #101
jonplackett wrote: post #42

I have very mixed feelings about autonomous cars. One side of me is so excited about the prospect and finds it all amazing and futuristic. I love reading about how Tesla and Waymo approach it differently. The other side of me is absolutely not ready to trust my life to a machine - even though I know I do that all the time in other ways in modern life. I think it will be people's emotional evaluation that will matter…

Like someone said, driverless cars will save thousands, and kill hundreds. It's obviously the best choice to adapt a technology like that, but I'm not sure our society has the fortitude to do it.

>save thousands, and kill hundreds

Seriously. Why does everyone assume this? Because Tesla's marketing department says so?

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

#153

Post by nearbuy »

2bitencryption wrote: post #61
jonplackett wrote: post #42

I have very mixed feelings about autonomous cars. One side of me is so excited about the prospect and finds it all amazing and futuristic. I love reading about how Tesla and Waymo approach it differently. The other side of me is absolutely not ready to trust my life to a machine - even though I know I do that all the time in other ways in modern life. I think it will be people's emotional evaluation that will matter…

every now and then I do something while driving that, IMO, requires "human cognition". Not just image recognition, obstacle avoidance, rule following, etc. Like, I'm cruising along at 45mph and a plastic bag is blown in front of my car. Yes, I see an obstacle and need to make a decision about what to do - but I do this as a human who knows what a plastic bag is, and how it is far safer to drive right over it than sla…

The flip side is every now and then a situation arises that requires machine reaction times or attentiveness.

Waymo cars have driven over 10 million miles so far without any fatal accidents. That's not nearly enough miles to compare against human drivers, but it'll be interesting to see who does better once they log some more miles.

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

#154

Post by masonic »

pjdemers wrote: post #84

This afternoon I was driving up Alma in Palo Alto, near the Embarcadero underpass. There was a Waymo test van behind me, and another two cars in front of me. My thought was: "look at me, actually driving my car, like a sucker".

If you then proceeded to Castro and made a right, you can see the Waymos misread that intersection every damn time.

I've also seen Waymos make panicked Lane changes near the JCC many times, willing to come to a dead stop in the right lane and wait indefinitely for a break, even though it's an easy go-down-another-block-and-Uturn

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

#155

Post by Dylan16807 »

beerandt wrote: post #147
Dylan16807 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the car occasionally stops for plastic bags, the self-driving is still a massive improvement in the experience I have. For children you might preemptively slow down, but a properly designed system can brake a whole lot faster. Should be fine.

These are both faulty assumptions. 1) If I'm considering whether to brake for a plastic bag, I'm also going to check for anyone tailgating me, and take that into consideration. Including whether said tailgater is a geo prism or a Freightliner attached to a tanker of gasoline. Slamming on the brakes for a plastic bag is not the universal safer choice. 2) Already mentioned this, but reaction/breaking time is meaningles…

> Slamming on the brakes for a plastic bag is not the universal safer choice.

...I didn't say it was. And you call me the one making assumptions.

> reaction/breaking time is meaningless without timely recognition.

If it can't quickly recognize large moving objects then it's not qualified to drive at all. I'm assuming it can do that because self-driving at all is part of the premise.

(Well, specifically the recognition is necessary for basic driving functionality, and being faster is a matter of adding compute power and using cameras at least as fast as the ones in an iphone.)

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

#156

Post by bobsil1 »

2bitencryption wrote: post #61
jonplackett wrote: post #42

I have very mixed feelings about autonomous cars. One side of me is so excited about the prospect and finds it all amazing and futuristic. I love reading about how Tesla and Waymo approach it differently. The other side of me is absolutely not ready to trust my life to a machine - even though I know I do that all the time in other ways in modern life. I think it will be people's emotional evaluation that will matter…

every now and then I do something while driving that, IMO, requires "human cognition". Not just image recognition, obstacle avoidance, rule following, etc. Like, I'm cruising along at 45mph and a plastic bag is blown in front of my car. Yes, I see an obstacle and need to make a decision about what to do - but I do this as a human who knows what a plastic bag is, and how it is far safer to drive right over it than sla…

Correct, they need a common sense / world model.

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

#157

Post by catalogia »

gpm wrote: post #133
scottlocklin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they all have remote control "employee inside." https://www.wired.com/story/designated-driver-teleoperations...

How many cars can one employee be "inside of"? If that number is an order of magnitude higher than 1 the cost of these employees is probably relatively negligible.

If it's an order of magnitude larger than one, then it's probably a pointless exercise anyway. What mortal can honestly say they're attentively watching 10 streams at once? A car accident can happen in the blink of an eye, if you're dividing your attention between several streams it would be very easy to have a slow reaction time to a child jumping out into the street, for instance.

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

#159

Post by cookie_monsta »

Cogito wrote: post #92
cookie_monsta wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I am confused. I'm just going on what Waymo says. The point is that "soon" is meaningless in this context and Waymo very clearly states that "a Waymo employee would likely be present in the vehicle initially."

That quote is from Techcrunch, I haven't seen it in any of the Waymo communications yet.

You are correct. I misread the source of the quote

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

#160

Post by cookie_monsta »

ehsankia wrote: post #125
cookie_monsta wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I am confused. I'm just going on what Waymo says. The point is that "soon" is meaningless in this context and Waymo very clearly states that "a Waymo employee would likely be present in the vehicle initially."

Like I said, a lot of different misleading statements are being confused people in this thread. 1. Waymo has been having rides with no one in the car for 2 years now. 2. Waymo has been having rides with real customers inside for 1 year now. 3. Waymo has told said customers in #2 that they may soon see rides with no employee inside I agree that the soon in #3 doesn't mean much, but at the same time, this wasn't a pres…

> it was a private email sent to users, so it's not like they're showing off.

Of course. Companies tell their customers about new products in the hope that they will keep that info secret.

I think the salient point about your list is that while 1 and 2 have been done separately for some time, the only timeline we have for them happening concurrently is "soon"

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