Driverless cars are stuck in a jam • Hacker News Board

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#241

Post by WhompingWindows » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

l33tman wrote: post #141

It's easy to make polarized judgements, like "AI driving can only follow lanes or drive on wide broad sunny streets". I recently watched a lecture where a guy from Waymo talked and demoed some situations, check out the 3 seconds or so in the timestamp in this video which made me re-evaluate that pessimism a bit: https://youtu.be/Q0nGo2-y0xY?t=865 Sure it's still nowhere near the general understanding necessary for co…

Nice clip. It's good to see actual evidence and data, rather than the rampant speculation that always comes up with SDC topics.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#242

Post by chosenbreed37 » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #204

mantap wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people like living in cities. There are many dozens of restaurants within walking distance of my home and quite literally thousands if I hop on the tube. How would my life be enriched if I lived in suburbia?

Many people like living in she suburbs. There they are exposed to less traffic and emissions from said traffic. We discussed this [1] last week and it seems less traffic has a major effect on air quality. The air you breath would literally be enriched if you lived in suburbia. But I do get your point, I live in a small town and when I travel to a place like Vancouver, it is fascinating to be able to choose from so ma…

I think both points of view are accurate. Cities offer a number of advantages but so do towns within commuting distance of cities.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#243

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #46

baroffoos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While we accept to be killed by our own mistakes at the wheel, society (we) will not accept that a machine makes the same Ideally we should not be accepting either. It is outrageous how many people we allow to be killed regularly for slightly more comfortable transport.

Cars are way more comfortable and more convenient than public transit. Working Parisians who take transit spend 113 minutes a day commuting: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y... DC, where most people drive, averages about 70 minutes. Commuters in Dallas, where everyone drives, spend just 54 minutes a day commuting: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hou...

Speaking from personal experience here, my commute time tolerance is roughly double if I'm commuting by transit versus driving. In other words, a 60 minute trip by transit is roughly as painful as a 30 minute drive. Other people I've talked to have also expressed similar feelings.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#244

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

emiliobumachar wrote: post #39

unityByFreedom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're imagining a scenario where everyone has a self-driving car and completely ignoring cost and social factors. Who among us would admit, " yes, I am a bad driver, I need this more expensive thing to take control in the event of an accident "? Very few is my guess. In 2019, people use these for convenience, not because they think the system is a better driver. I bet that's true even for Waymo's taxis. As for getti…

I don't think total coverage is necessary. If 10% of the cars are self-driving, to a first approximation there will be 10% less drunk drivers. Cost is definitely an issue, but reducing accidents and increasing convenience have a cash value which could pay for it if the research pans out. What social factors do you have in mind?

If self driving cars exist courts will be more likely to take away drivers licenses from those who drive while drunk. Thus I'd expect 10% of the cars being self driving to result in something like 20% less drunk drivers because such drivers are more likely to get the self driving cars - not that they want them more than anyone else but because they are not given any choice.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#245

Post by ivanhoe » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

What you're saying is taking into account only big cities and young population, but in small places and suburbs you depend on cars to do anything, get anywhere. Old people can't be expected to walk far or drive scooters and bikes everyday. And population is mostly getting older, plus with the rise of remote work I presume that more and more people will move outside the big urban centers looking for slower pace and cheaper life, closer to the nature. That means cars will be needed more, not less, and driverless cars can save you a lot of time when commuting everyday.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#246

Post by childintime » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #194

theieindjri wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why so many otherwise smart people fell for FSD hype. I'm not talking about the many con artists - I'm talking about the tech-savvy people who genuinely bought into FSD hype. How is it not obvious that FSD most likely requires artificial general intelligence and is, thus, probably somewhere between "many decades away" and "humans will never achieve it"?

> How is it not obvious that FSD most likely requires artificial general intelligence Waymo car fully self driving three days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_1YLHW65M8

Wow, I couldn't even properly identify the turn signals in 4 of the 6 turns. It was never as obvious as it should have been. Dirty windows, yes, but nevertheless. In an age of LED-lighting there's no excuse for not having excellent and properly colored lighting.

Now this felt like a student driver, overly busy with correctness, insensitive to the actual experience.

I think these cars should be marked, like student drivers, to signal their inevitable difference in behavior.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#247

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

petilon wrote: post #218

minutillo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been selling it for years, I think since 2016. They've delivered it so far to nobody.

But they just delivered "Smart Summon" feature where the car drives itself to you in a parking lot. The rollout of this feature has been glitchy. But it gives them a lot of data which they will learn from and improve. Once they fix all the bugs in Smart Summon they will have made a major step forward. Self-driving safely in a parking lot is very hard--there may be kids walking about randomly, other cars moving in unp…

Parking lots are hard for the reasons you mention, but they are also easier because the speeds are slow. Hit a kid at 5mph and it is probably not harmful, and even if it would be you get a lot more cycles to recognize the problem and need to react vs if you were driving at high speed.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#248

Post by evo_9 » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

I don't understand why there is so much focus on automobiles instead of just about everything else. In every other instance - airplanes, boats, long-haul trucking - the problem in significantly less complex to solve.

The only tangible reason I see for such disproportionate focus is some sense of false futurism; aka, driver-less cars have become the 'flying cars' of our times.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#249

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

rkangel wrote: post #143

There is an anecdote I half remember, that I would like to find the original source of, because it's illustrative when explaining the issues. It goes something like: In the 70s/80s a research group was working on a CAD system. After adding all sorts of features, the professor assigned a task to one of his students to make it respond to voice commands. The professor expected this to take only a few months. It is diffi…

The classic AI anecdote is that the problem of object recognition in images was assigned as a summer project in 1966. It was still considered an open research problem 40 years later.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#250

Post by tyfon » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #71

zaroth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quarterly safety numbers that Tesla releases are difficult to draw conclusions from, because they do not represent a controlled experiment over the same road conditions. However here are the numbers for millions of miles per crash (higher is better). With AutoPilot, Without AutoPilot but With Active Safety Measures, Without AutoPilot or Active Safety Measures, and NHTSA Average Vehicle 19Q3 - 4.34 2.70 1.82 0.50…

Good to see improvement, but is this controlled for the fact that autopilot is mostly on highways? I'm not sure what the crash rate per mile is on the highway vs driving in a city.

I use autopilot even on small roads even if it's not designed for it. After V10 it also handles roads without a centre line just fine.

However I do pay attention and keep my hands on the wheel, I think autopilot + human is much safer than either one, but since the latest updates I rarely have to take control if not going in roundabouts or junctions.

I also had one instance a few weeks ago where I tried to enter another lane manually and the car took control from me and put me back in my lane as there was someone in my blind spot without their headlights on so I didn't see it.