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Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

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Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#411

Post by jsolson »

FriendlyNormie wrote: post #389
toasterlovin wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the software is fixable. Other humans are not.

At least other humans fear death as a consequence of driving incorrectly. Computers do not.

Some humans, when seeking to end their own lives, end the lives of others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

That's an extreme example, but automotive suicides that kill other passengers, drivers, or pedestrians fall into the same category. Consider also deaths from accidents involving drunk driving or fatigue -- thousands of motorists take to the roads every day modified in one manner or another that reduces their driving aptitude.

Also, while it may be correct to say that computers don't "fear death", there's no reason that "risk to self" can't be part of the criteria for decision making by an autonomous system.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#412

Post by ogre_codes »

_red wrote: post #277
macinjosh wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are millions of miles of roads just in the US that will never have that sort of infrastructure because the cost of keeping beacons running and marking in place would be astronomical. Sure maybe California will have some of that around big population areas but that's probably about it. What happens to all these markings when it snows a couple centimeters?' Fully self driving cars won't happen in our lifetime, pr…

its not only lines on the road though: Imagine you are following a pickup-truck and out of the back an obviously empty box floats out of the bed and lands directly in front of your car. For a human its trivial to know the box is empty and its ok to hit it....does "AI" know that? Multiply that case x1000 and you have the conditions self-driving cars will need to handle on a daily basis.

If someone drives around with loose crap in the back of their truck that flies out, the truck driver is at fault not the self driving car. This is a danger we already have on the road.

Humans make the wrong call on this sort of thing all the time. They also make stupid passes, yield the right of way at the wrong time, drive the wrong way down one way streets, cut each other off, fall asleep at the wheel, drive drunk, drive without their glasses on, get road rage, etc etc etc.

There is this sort of one-way lens when it comes to self driving cars. People want to throw up red flags about all things they might do wrong while ignoring the millions of stupid things that humans do to kill each other with cars every single day.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#413

Post by clouddrover »

scoot wrote: post #398
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't even bloody keep the yellow markings on the road visible, and "paint" is a technology we've had for thousands of years. Where in dog's name is the money for installing and maintaining all that smart infrastructure going to come from?

If you're going to try to swear like a 60's Brit, at least get you bloody grammar right. ;-) "bloody" is an adjective, not an adverb, so : "We can't even keep the bloody yellow markings on the road visible"

It's bloody well both: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloody

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#414

Post by the-pigeon »

baybal2 wrote: post #109

I think he is the one and only sane C-level person in the industry, after hearing this. People claiming most of AI hype barely know what the "AI" people mention is. And people who go as far as drawing rosy pictures of human like general AI being your personal chauffeur are past ridiculous. The entire idea of human-like general AI for practical applications is like trying to make people using horses for transport in 2…

AI and autonomous vehicles don't relate.

Driving a vehicle is not an AI problem and none of the serious autonomous vehicle teams are using AI.

Unless you are using a super loose definition of AI that includes anything with an if statement.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#415

Post by kortex »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #327
robbrown451 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. Most of the value is in taxi services, where you get dropped off / picked up exactly where you want, there is no need to dedicate so much land and structures to parking, there is no need to have cars sit idle for 95% of their existence, and no need to search for parking spots and walk long distances. Of course, I live in a city, where parking is a major pain. But the other things still hold. It it…

A car also functions as a usually-secure place to store a good chunk of stuff, rather than taking it with you. This is more relevant if you have children (carseats) or take multiple-destination trips.

This is such an under-mentioned point. Cars are fantastic for logistics and storage. Though I imagine if we can automate people-moving, we can figure out logistics bots as well.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#416

Post by NoSorryCannot »

bamboozled wrote: post #351
rmtech wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains kind of suck though. I used them a lot in the UK because I didn't have a car. The UK has an OK train network. The problem with trains is that they are very, very inconvenient for most journeys. Sunday evening? forget it. After 11pm? Nope. Journey that runs perpendicular to the local line to London? Lol, enjoy a 5 hour journey to go 100 miles. Want to take cargo like a new washing machine? Lol. Want to go somew…

"Trains kind of suck though. I used them a lot in the UK because I didn't have a car." You're blaming trains because you want to have a boozy night out? Get a hotel or start and leave earlier like everyone else. This is just a silly comment.

I can't find where the parent mentioned drinking.

But to stab at that anyway, it wouldn't be silly if he did. People driving impaired for lack of other good and affordable options is an emergent reality, no matter how morally hazardous it is.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#417

Post by smabie »

bordercases wrote: post #84
mymythisisthis wrote: post #16

Why not drone cars, driven remotely?

Because you need to be where the car ends up stopping!

You could pay someone else to drive the car remotely. Though, I suppose they could extract money out of you by threatening to kill you.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#418

Post by joe_the_user »

wwweston wrote: post #32

Opinion: level 5 autonomy would be cool, but it's not where most of the value of self-driving cars is. Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving. If it's possible to automate highway driving under most conditions (and safely transition either to a stop or human-piloting when…

Most of the value in being able to travel by auto without attention is in trips longer than 15 minutes. Commutes, tourism, vacations. Shipping. Most of which is certainly highway driving.

A 90% autonomous trip where I have to pay attention 100% of the time gets me no real value. It's just a slightly nicer, maybe, ride.

It seems unlikely you commutes would completely autonomous even people commute on freeways.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#419

Post by dodobirdlord »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #262
threeseed wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Drivers own the liability for illegal parking. Autonomous cars would make the developer liable. No government is going to tolerate systemic and wide spread violation of the law.

I think “making the developer liable” is jumping to a conclusion that isn’t certain quite yet.

Well, no company is going to be able to put in writing "Our plan is to have cars park illegally." Any system that gets built will be constrained by actually having to be law-abiding, which Uber drivers are not constrained by.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#420

Post by smabie »

jakeogh wrote: post #245

A car that has "self" is equiv to a living being, and it wouldn't be ethical to lock it inside a box. It's not going to happen any time soon and it will never happen with conventional binary computing; a non-wetware system capiable of emulating a mouse would melt itself through the road. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22061718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21250424

Are you suggesting that it's immoral to create a self-driving car? I'm not sure what you are talking about...
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