Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo’s Hiring Binge

theinformation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 157 posts

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#71

Post by scarejunba »

bko wrote: post #38

This may seem like a stupid question, but why isn't there a company that just outsources driving to remote drivers? Imagine a car simulation in which someone in a low cost country sees what the driver in the car would see, including the surroundings (side mirrors, behind them, etc). She can look around, same way as someone in the car and that person can drive. And her actions gets sent to the car half way across the…

Yes, this is called remote operation or teleoperation and many people have attempted it. But as far as I can see, they all hit against the latency/bandwidth/availability barriers. The hope is that 5G will help.

Currently, everyone is vaporware. Including Phantom.

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#72

Post by selectodude »

nradov wrote: post #69
bko wrote: post #38

This may seem like a stupid question, but why isn't there a company that just outsources driving to remote drivers? Imagine a car simulation in which someone in a low cost country sees what the driver in the car would see, including the surroundings (side mirrors, behind them, etc). She can look around, same way as someone in the car and that person can drive. And her actions gets sent to the car half way across the…

Latency is literally a killer problem in remote operation. For example, the US Air Force operates Predator drones all around the world remotely from a base in Nevada. But for takeoff and landing (the most hazardous phases) they usually hand over control to another pilot located at that airfield.

The only surprising thing in your statement is the fact that the drones can’t land themselves. Even large commercial passenger aircraft can do that. Nobody dies if a drone cocks up on landing.

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#74

Post by nickodell »

wpietri wrote: post #53
bko wrote: post #38

This may seem like a stupid question, but why isn't there a company that just outsources driving to remote drivers? Imagine a car simulation in which someone in a low cost country sees what the driver in the car would see, including the surroundings (side mirrors, behind them, etc). She can look around, same way as someone in the car and that person can drive. And her actions gets sent to the car half way across the…

I think it's crazy for reasons other people state, especially latency and connection reliability issues. But I think a related idea can work pretty well. Self-driving cars are classified into 6 SAE levels, 0-5. 5 is full autonomy, 4 is autonomy in limited conditions, 3 is self driving but there has to be a driver ready to take over. Getting to 5 is really hard. It could take decades, because there are a zillion edge…

In the case of the Uber crash in Tempe, the car did kick the decision over to a human operator. However, it did so 1.3 seconds before impact. This wasn't enough time for the human to assess the situation and decide what to do.

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#75

Post by Fricken »

nradov wrote: post #70
dpq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to https://phantom.auto

They have a clever market strategy but those vehicles don't operate on public roads.

They sure do, or at least have operated on public roads:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sel...

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#76

Post by polishdude20 »

iamaelephant wrote: post #37

> Mawakana just hired a new head of fleet operations, Ryan McNamara, who previously worked on product quality for the Google Pixel phone As the previous owner of 2 Pixel phones, this man is the last person on Earth I want in charge of operations of a fleet of 2-ton automated vehicles. No offence.

I don't know man. My pixel 2 is the best phone I've ever had.

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#77

Post by dpq »

nradov wrote: post #70
dpq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to https://phantom.auto

They have a clever market strategy but those vehicles don't operate on public roads.

That's incorrect; Postmates, for one, uses Phantom Auto (https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/09/23/postmate...), and they definitely operate on public roads.

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#78

Post by jpm_sd »

bko wrote: post #38

This may seem like a stupid question, but why isn't there a company that just outsources driving to remote drivers? Imagine a car simulation in which someone in a low cost country sees what the driver in the car would see, including the surroundings (side mirrors, behind them, etc). She can look around, same way as someone in the car and that person can drive. And her actions gets sent to the car half way across the…

There was. They are doomed. It's a bad idea.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/exclusive-mass-layoffs-rep...

Re: Waymo’s Hiring Binge

#79

Post by numpad0 »

selectodude wrote: post #72
nradov wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency is literally a killer problem in remote operation. For example, the US Air Force operates Predator drones all around the world remotely from a base in Nevada. But for takeoff and landing (the most hazardous phases) they usually hand over control to another pilot located at that airfield.

The only surprising thing in your statement is the fact that the drones can’t land themselves. Even large commercial passenger aircraft can do that. Nobody dies if a drone cocks up on landing.

So the drones has a few strains, Predator is a frontline ones akin to A-10, reportedly uses some Cisco VPN gears in it. There are Global Hawk, which is basically modern Air Force U-2, or X-37B or X-47B, controlled like stah-tegic wargame piece, and how each ones fly are different.

For whatever purpose they fly Predators manually.

Post reply on HN