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

thedrive.com

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

#631

Post by WalterBright »

spookthesunset wrote: post #566
dodobirdlord wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or that they ever will be Eventually being better than humans seems like it's obviously going to happen. Not driving drunk, not getting distracted, and not sleeping at the wheel alone are advantages enough that I would be amazed if the balance doesn't eventually fall in favor of the self-driving car. Self-driving cars don't even have to be particularly good drivers to be better than the average human, given how muc…

> Self-driving cars don't even have to be particularly good drivers to be better than the average human, given how much the human average is dragged down by recklessnes Tell that to the jury when your self driving car runs into the side of school bus full of kids (which will happen given any reasonable adoption). Self driving cars would have to be held to an almost insanely high standard to be “winnable lawsuit” proo…

Such lawsuits are a net detriment to society. It's why light airplane design remains stuck in the 1960s, and why vaccine companies are protected from lawsuits.

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

#632

Post by justapassenger »

ericd wrote: post #329
spookthesunset wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about dirt forest service roads? What about the dirt parking lot at that wedding you just went to? How will it find a parking spot? How will it get into a ferry where people direct you to the correct spot? How will it deal with an accident up ahead where some drunk bystander is trying to direct traffic? How will it know to ignore the drunk guy? What if it isn’t a drunk guy but a sober person directing traffic? D…

How will it deal with an accident up ahead where some drunk bystander is trying to direct traffic? How will it know to ignore the drunk guy? What if it isn’t a drunk guy but a sober person directing traffic? Does the car obey in that case? Most people wouldn't instantly know how to handle those cases either. Many people would obey the drunk guy. Maybe that's the right thing to do. None of those are edge cases because…

> But Tesla's fleet is getting more driving experience every day than you will get in your entire life, and every time they train on one of those exceptions, the entire fleet will benefit.

That’s not how machine learning works. You can “train on exceptions” as much as you want, and you have 0 guaranteed results. It can help, it can make no change or it can cause unexpected regressions.

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

#633

Post by axguscbklp »

colordrops wrote: post #627
axguscbklp wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to modify the environment to make it easier for the cars, then you haven't achieved fully self-driving technology.

So unless cars can navigate without roads then they are not self driving?

Navigating off-road might actually be easier in practice for AI than navigating on roads, since off-road there are generally many fewer other cars to deal with.

As a rough rule of thumb, I'll call a car fully self-driving if, without any changes having been made to the road system to accomodate self-driving cars, I feel comfortable getting in the back seat, telling it to drive me to a certain house in a city a few hundred miles away, and falling asleep.

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

#634

Post by neckbeak »

est31 wrote: post #346
mavhc wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still better than humans, humans kill 3000 people using vehicles every day, and most of those aren't even trying

Yeah but if the system is designed in the wrong way, hackers could kill millions in a single moment. Admittedly, this danger already exists as in all modern cars between driver and car there is a layer of (hackable and wireless network connected) software.

Like a lot of technologies. Nuclear plants still happened.

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

#636

Post by JamesBarney »

xyzzyz wrote: post #541
mr_toad wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cost 2 billion in 1939. That’s over 20 billion in today’s dollars. That’s about the same as NASA’s annual budget.

Yes, and that's smaller than a rounding error in our current $4.7T budget. Hell, the $100B (today's dollars) Apollo program would also be smaller than the rounding error, since it was spread over a decade. The R&D costs on F-35 were almost triple the whole costs of Manhattan project. Truly, we are easily able to afford projects like Manhattan and Apollo today, it's just we aren't able to pull them off anymore.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/united-states-should...

But of that 4.7T budget we only spend 600 million of that on fusion research.

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

#637

Post by gsnedders »

usrusr wrote: post #504
siscia wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be simpler to just develop smaller trains?

Smaller trains with bimodal traction. Because steel on steel is terrible at spontaneous braking, hence the significantly bigger gaps between consecutive trains compared to the gap between consecutive cars or trucks. And because steel on steel is terrible at the long tail of events that would cause contingency diversion, be it maintenance, disasters or organizational confusion. And because it would neatly solve the la…

> hence the significantly bigger gaps between consecutive trains compared to the gap between consecutive cars or trucks

A lot of this is because railway signalling operates on a brick-wall principal: it is constantly assumed the vehicle in front could come to a dead halt instantaneously, whereas most road situations assume if you can match the braking performance of the vehicle in front with some margin.

The railway case is safe for the trailing vehicle in the situation there's a concrete block on the track ahead, the road one is not.

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

#638

Post by fyfy18 »

l0b0 wrote: post #561
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…

No, trains in the UK are not "OK", they are crap compared to most of Western Europe. Fewer trains and more cancellations than any other country I've ever used trains in, stupid connections and pricing structure, all because of privatization. Look to Switzerland for the best train network in Europe. Reliability is top notch, there's only one company to deal with, and prices are reasonable for the income level.

Reliability of trains in the UK really varies by route. When I was studying and when I first started working I extensively used mainline routes and had no issues.

The last train I could take on a Friday night was 10pm, but given it was a 3 hour journey that didn't seem unreasonable. Each year there was usually one incident that caused delays, but other than they worked well. If I took a fast train the journey time was around the same as driving - quicker in fact given on the journey I would stop for a break - and ticket prices were about the same as driving (for 1 person).

On the other hand I was working in London in 2018, and at weekends often flying from LTN. In the end I added an hour buffer (to a 45 minute journey) because the reliability of Thameslink was so bad.

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

#639

Post by rsj_hn »

colordrops wrote: post #165

I agree in part in that I am skeptical that full self-driving cars will happen in the next few years, but he is completely wrong when it comes to the long term. Not only will the tech get as good as humans, but most forget to account for the fact that the environment will meet the cars part way. We will eventually update markings and beacons on the roads to make it easier for the cars, implement networks in which the…

"May never happen" is such a cautious statement that to argue against it means "will certainly happen", and that's a pretty extreme position to take -- so extreme I would call it techno-utopianism. I'm still waiting for my flying car, but you are already promising me a thinking car, when there are so many obstacles, each of which could sink it:

- researching it may not be feasible

   * because it becomes a waste of engineering resources to continue the research

   * because almost self-driving cars may be good enough
- even if researching it is, it may not be economical because

   * political resistance or liability laws prevent mass rollout

   * the cost of building and maintaining required infrastructure is too high

   * not enough car purchasers may want it

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

#640

Post by dredmorbius »

WalterBright wrote: post #622
Animats wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volvo has proposed some rather simple infrastructure - driving magnetized nails into the pavement as a lane hint. This is mostly because they have to deal with heavy snow. It's not the sole, or even the primary guidance system, but it helps. They also suggest that snowplows could use the magnets for guidance. In snowy areas, it's common to use posts or flags or even overhead signs (in Hokkaido) to show where the road…

It's a cool idea, but nails rust, meaning a maintenance issue and outages. Is there a magnetic material that doesn't corrode?

The signal doesn't have to be strong, only detectable.

The nails aren't structural, only a signal.

Multiple nails mean the signal is highly redundant, depending on density.

Regular maintenance could detect weakening signal (rusting nails) and result in new nails being inserted.

Iron oxide remains (weakly) magnetic.

Treatments (galvanised nails, coated, etc.) could slow corrosion.

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