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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'

#841

Post by fastball »

macinjosh wrote: post #486
ogre_codes wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Right, except no one is claiming humans are perfect drivers but I have heard self driving car evangelists say countless times that self driving cars are going to bring an end to traffic deaths.

They will bring an end to avoidable traffic deaths caused by driving. They obviously will not prevent deaths caused by things falling out of trucks.

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

#842

Post by fastball »

F-0X wrote: post #225
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 think I am going to side with VW on this. I have always been skeptical of fully autonomous vehicles, and I do not believe they will _ever_ exist on the roads that currently stand. Driving safely in all conditions without aid from a human is simply too complex a task for code that can be audited and verified. If some AI model that's been trained on a billion years of driving experience shows promise, but it is some…

"I'm going to agree with the side I already agreed with."

... ok.

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

#843

Post by maxbond »

robbrown451 wrote: post #460
maxbond wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be rude, but I have strong feelings about this attitude. Let's take going to Mars. We can't reliably go to the moon. We can't even go everywhere on the Earth, where we have every possible advantage. Spend a year on the ISS and you'll develop all sorts of health issues. Spending time on Mars isn't likely to be less hazardous. We may send humans to Mars but it is by no means guaranteed. (And I would als…

"Until someone builds a real self-driving car it is just an idea." I think it's more than an idea when we have self driving cars, they just don't meet our standards for safety yet so they aren't legal on public roads. I mean, we had airplane flight in 1903. Good chance you'd die if you went up in one for the first decade. But we did have powered flight.

I think making a self driving car that is safe - they are billed as being safer than humans - is part of the problem definition. I could put a brick on my gas pedal and my car will drive autonomously, but I don't think anyone would be willing to give me credit for solving this problem. Clearly there is a threshold somewhere.

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

#844

Post by fastball »

supertrope wrote: post #822
rorykoehler wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5g networks could greatly help bridge the technical gap. A good example of unforeseen consequences similar to smartphones and 4g transforming society.

I don't understand how a vehicle or any other real time system can rely on 5G. For example, electrical utilities have such a critical responsibility for matching supply to demand and maintaining exactly 50/60Hz that the landline phone network is not good enough, they have to maintain a private signaling network. Cellular networks are notoriously unreliable with dead zones, dropped calls, congestion, power failure, et…

There is no one solution that is meant to not fail.

It is layers of redundancy. If one fails, the car continues to operate normally. If all are operating at peak, the car is near perfect. If multiple fail, it operates with somewhat degraded performance, but still markedly better than a human.

* Digital maps * P2P Networks * Human-reported obstructions and changes (Waze) * Machine-focused traffic markings * LIDAR * Cameras

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

#845

Post by maxbond »

javagram wrote: post #582
maxbond wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be rude, but I have strong feelings about this attitude. Let's take going to Mars. We can't reliably go to the moon. We can't even go everywhere on the Earth, where we have every possible advantage. Spend a year on the ISS and you'll develop all sorts of health issues. Spending time on Mars isn't likely to be less hazardous. We may send humans to Mars but it is by no means guaranteed. (And I would als…

We absolutely have the technology to go to Mars. We could probably have sent a manned mission to Mars in the 70s with the same technology level that took us to the moon. It’s just that it would cost an incredible sum of money for very little gain and so it hasn’t happened - even the mission to the moon was a huge drain on the budget and the program was canceled once we won the space race. Going to Mars is like supers…

I disagree. I'm sure that, if we really wanted to, we could put a person onto Mars. I don't think we have the ability to send someone & retrieve them, or for them to fend for themselves on the surface. So this is a bit like saying we have the technology to explore the inside of a volcano because we can jump into one. It's not really the proposition people are talking about when they say "go to Mars".

But I agree that it's actually a generous comparison to self driving cars. After all, we do occasionally send machines to Mars, and they work quite well.

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

#846

Post by dodobirdlord »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #571
dodobirdlord wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably whatever authority is responsible for the sign installation/road maintenance.

Makes sense assuming that authority doesn't leak their private keys like a sieve.

Provided they have a way to easily rotate keys via access to the physical hardware it's probably fine. If a local government loses a signing key they would have to register a new one and send a work crew to swap a micro SD card in every traffic light or whatever, but at least that's all they would have to do. In the meantime all an adversary can do with their signing key is install fake beacons, but that requires actually fabricating beacons, and putting themselves at risk by physically installing them in a place they will quickly be noticed, so the potential for damage is pretty limited. Much like how people can already steal stop signs or put up their own speed limit signs, in practice I don't think this will be more than a nuisance.

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

#847

Post by NotSammyHagar »

temporaryvector wrote: post #163
rapind wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet air travel is far safer than road travel and they embraced autopilot long ago. The problem with complete automation is how accidents are perceived. Probably a good thing considering how low the bar is right now for road safety. Being killed by a robot's mistake is perceived far worse than by human error. I think a middle ground like autopilot on the highway could significantly improve safety while still accom…

>The problem with complete automation is how accidents are perceived I don't think so. Airplane autopilot automates away the safe, boring parts of air travel, much like highway driving, so in that sense I agree with you. Truly autonomous landing is still a big deal, and planes that the benefit of ATC, and I don't think there are any planes that taxi or takeoff autonomously. Furthermore, accidents involving autopilot…

I think there are already studies about Tesla safety, both for self driving and based on the results of independent government studies.

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

#848

Post by njarboe »

rmtech wrote: post #766
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…

Look, from the point of view of a passenger, the best transport system goes: - where you want, - when you want, - carrying what you want, - as fast - and as safely as possible, - at the lowest cost possible. Trains are weak on multiple axes here: they do not go where you want to go and they do not go when you want to go, and you cannot carry large amounts on them. They are also quite slow. The only reason that anyone…

I agree. For people who really like trains, think of a bunch of automatic buses traveling right next to each other as a train.

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

#849

Post by wozniacki »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #175
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 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?

That's a tragedy of priorities. Priorities of the local municipality or even the federal government. A dysfunction of misplaced deliberations.

All the road and infrastructure taxes being funneled by the politicians to, other areas as they see fit to placate their constituencies or finance their pet projects.

Same with out-of-control grossly over-budget projects that dont deliver the bang for the buck.

If we - as an electorate - insisted on superior paint or "marking technology" for surface roads, we shall have them in one form or the other.

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

#850

Post by humanrebar »

aetherson wrote: post #562
cameronh90 wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping people from destroying yield signs and other safety critical road infrastructure now? Sometimes common sense helps, but it you're out to cause chaos, there's a ton of things you can do today that would cause crashes - but most of the time, people don't.

If you destroy a yield sign, maybe it will eventually cause some problems, or maybe not. We could imagine a world in which destroying smart infrastructure could pretty instantaneously and reliably cause massive traffic jams, which seems like it would appeal more to certain trolls and perhaps protestors. We could also imagine a world in which more subtle attacks could reliably and fairly quickly cause injury/fatality…

You can cause horrible traffic jams now by throwing a few mattresses or a bunch of caltrops onto the highway at the right time of day.
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