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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'

#641

Post by Larrikin »

kalleboo wrote: post #532
0xB31B1B wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) trains go basically everywhere frequently in Japan, it’s very much a functioning rail network, they exist and kick ass. 2) a train doesn’t need to replace 100% of personal car trips to be useful. I’m sure you’re not transporting dishwashers or taking trips after 11 pm every day. Covering 90% of use cases is sufficient, and the other 10% can be handled by either renting a car or taking an Uber. 3) we can and should…

I life in a city of 600,000 in Japan. Trains DO NOT go everywhere. And as GP wrote, they don't run at night. Everyone here owns a car.

The biggest fault of the entire Japanese system is the stoppage at night. 24 hour service is not the solution and is one of the reasons the services there work very well. But I don't understand why they don't have a replacement system. In Philadelphia the (smaller) system is completely replaced by buses. In other countries the trains run 24 hours but only Friday nights and weekends nights which could increase the use case of 90% of riders to 95% of riders.

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

#642

Post by femto113 »

acdha wrote: post #268
femto113 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It it far more efficient of resources to have cars be used most fo the day, rather than sitting idle. This is better and more easily addressed by car sharing services like car2go than autonomous cars. The more I use them the more I wish for a world where every car was shareable: you need to go somewhere? you simply get into the nearest parked car and drive it to where you want to go. And, unlike autonomy, there are…

> This is better and more easily addressed by car sharing services like car2go than autonomous cars. This is not the conclusion I would draw from car2go failing out of North America. They still had the problem that you are required to find a legal parking spot and there's no guarantee that there will be a car available anywhere near you. Taxis and private vehicles solve the latter and former respectively but they all…

In the end the availability comes down to fleet size. car2go worked best here when they blanketed Seattle with Smart Cars, the fleet peaked around 750 and they were easy to find. After they switched to Mercedes exclusively the fleet was smaller and it became harder (though not impossible) to find them close by. My guess is that 2,500 cars would be enough to make them feel ubiquitous. A small fleet of autonomous cars won't mean it's likely one will be available to pick you up, and nobody has figured out how to deploy & maintain them at scale yet (I think Waymo in Phoenix is only running around a hundred vehicles).

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

#643

Post by dredmorbius »

cpitman wrote: post #538
qroshan wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you can always install sensors that can look as far as you want

Do you mean on the tracks? There are hard limitations on sensing onboard the train. Tracks that bend around hills, etc. I have some exposure to wireless communication for trains, and one of the limitations is that you can often not get a line of site even from one end of the train to another.

Not OP, but yes, along the right of way.

Since railroad tracks rarely get up and go walkabout, you can instrument them (conduction, video, lidar/radar) to the limits of your preferences and/or budget. Information can be relayed to both central control and individual trainsets.

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

#644

Post by paulryanrogers »

XorNot wrote: post #615
paulryanrogers wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bacteria in a sealed container will reproduce until all resources are consumed. Then they drop to anemic levels or die out entirely. Humans live in a relatively closed system. And modern technology sits atop a very fragile foundation. All that to say past evidence does indicate technology generally gets better, but not necessarily forever.

No we don't. We live on a planet around a midlife star. The amount of resources available to us over the next 10,000 years is staggering.

Humans haven't proven the ability to live sustainably on one planet. Sustainably utilizing resources beyond the planet is far from certain.

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

#646

Post by dredmorbius »

jussij wrote: post #423
camjohnson26 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do actually, the humans driving the car can respond to a threat that an autonomous car would have to be programmed to avoid

I'm not sure humans have the reaction time to avoid an object thrown from an overpass. On the contrary, over the years I've read on many occasions how drivers and passengers have been seriously injured or killed by the morons who get a kick out of dropping objects from an overpass. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/wilson/mt-juliet...

One brick can attack one car.

One bricked GPS system can attack an entire country. Or planet.

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

#647

Post by adrianN »

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…

I don't think the hard part of autonomous driving is recognizing the markings on the road. It's inferring what other people on the road want to do next. Including pedestrians and cyclists. Autonomous driving is a lot simpler if you only have to deal with other robots.

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

#648

Post by _bxg1 »

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…

We could have them tomorrow if we could magically ban human drivers overnight. Humans are the only thing making it so hard. And the problem is that until we have 100% artificial general intelligence, that can introspect and understand the human psyche the way another human can, there will always be an intractable tail of cases where AI will fail.

So it's like the IPv6 problem. If we could all coordinate at once, it would be easy-peasy. In reality, it's virtually impossible.

Edit: a commenter pointed out that pedestrians are also a major problem; even in a far-fetched imaginary scenario I don't know how you would remove those from the equation.

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

#649

Post by [deleted] »

_bxg1 wrote: post #648
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…

We could have them tomorrow if we could magically ban human drivers overnight. Humans are the only thing making it so hard. And the problem is that until we have 100% artificial general intelligence, that can introspect and understand the human psyche the way another human can, there will always be an intractable tail of cases where AI will fail. So it's like the IPv6 problem. If we could all coordinate at once, it w…

[deleted]

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

#650

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #649
_bxg1 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have them tomorrow if we could magically ban human drivers overnight. Humans are the only thing making it so hard. And the problem is that until we have 100% artificial general intelligence, that can introspect and understand the human psyche the way another human can, there will always be an intractable tail of cases where AI will fail. So it's like the IPv6 problem. If we could all coordinate at once, it w…

[deleted]

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