I want to see how it handles a blowout...in the rain.
I would imagine way better than a human. Computers don't get scared.
Google demos driverless cars
81–90 of 118 posts
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#82Not exactly real-world conditions, but a nice demo nonetheless. Maybe this is how they've been able to Street View so much of the world? I wonder how long until we see the iDrive. I'd love to not-drive myself everywhere, it's a massive time-sink IMO, I could be doing better things in the same time period. I understand some people enjoy it, but I don't.
If you don't enjoy driving, there are alternatives such as public transportation for short surfaces, and trains/airplanes for longer. And I don't mean this in a bad way, I'm just saying.
It seems like folks in cities, and some foreign countries, don't understand how much different the transportation situation is out in rural America. Getting to mass transit is frequently no easier than getting to your actual destination directly, even for non-trivial trips.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly enough, a car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow, and so forth would be rather more than 20% superior to the average driver. So that's easily dealt with - if insufficient sensory data is available, either hand control over to the driver or, if possible, pull to the side of the road. The average driver likely does really horrible in large crashes and pileups, so merel…
Problem is, in twenty years, the car would be handing over to a really amateurish driver.
If it allows the car to be driven. I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#84If anyone can make this work out to be used by the public, Google can. They seem to be fairly good at pissing off established business. (Though they're still learning as Android shows.) Demos are great, just reinforces that Google is really an AI Company. Where my pessimism lies for this reaching the public even if it's technically sound is that there are a lot of established multi-billion dollar businesses to conten…
I don't think insurance and traffic tickets are nearly as big of a roadblock as safety regulations for selling a computer that creates 2,000lb projectiles with humans inside.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a serious post ? How does an iphone "drive" a car ? If you think GPS and turn by turn instructions is the same thing has actually controlling the car on a road, you couldn't possibily be more wrong ... Your second point is strange too, do you actually think that a big tech company like google should not try to research new stuff outside of its comfort zone ? Or because one of their product is imperfect, they…
It was sarcasm. The point was that the iOS vs. Android wars pale in comparison to potentially world-changing research like this.
The ubiquitous spread of smartphones throughout the world is not world changing?
We're talking about platforms that struggle for mastery over an emerging market that will be bigger than the PC revolution.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#86Driverless cars are not going anywhere until they can prove themselves 20% superior than the average driver in ALL the following conditions: Dealing with Rain (visibility and deep water on the road), Hard to see tire eating potholes causing damage, Ice and snow (on road and caking on instruments), Snow accumulation ruts, causing car to move unexpectedly, Evasive driving - cutting across a lawn, (avoiding the pool and…
Interestingly enough, a car which simply refuses to drive in hurricanes, hailstorms, white-out snow, and so forth would be rather more than 20% superior to the average driver. So that's easily dealt with - if insufficient sensory data is available, either hand control over to the driver or, if possible, pull to the side of the road. The average driver likely does really horrible in large crashes and pileups, so merel…
One of the nice things about software drivers is that you can spend as much time as you want training a module for driving with, say, a given tire blown out and then swap that module in when actual conditions match the conditions that its trained for.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The craziest ideas are the best ;) and what's crazier: a car on rails or a self driving Prius from a search and advertising company ?
After looking at google maps/earth, especially street view, I would say they used driving data from that to feed the car driving learning mechanism.
Yeah, you blend your maps data with a bunch of sensors together and you have a self driving car. It's just a matter of speed and the other drivers + knowing where your going.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#88Unless all cars are driven by machine, the driverless car won't make a huge difference in our lives. You can already experience the magic of not having to drive by paying someone else to do it for you. The real gains of automation occur when a machine doing the job can do it faster than a human. Computers calculate and communicate faster than people, and factories/robots build stuff faster. A machine driving a car ha…
This is wrong of course. Imagine you could hire a driver, now imagine he worked for free and was always at his best driving ability. The things that self driving cars will do first, really really well, are: 1) Drive people around who currently use chauffers because they can use the driving time productively. 2) Lower the barrier to attending events, restaurants, etc in urban areas where parking is an issue. (if you c…
> 2) Lower the barrier to attending events, restaurants, etc in urban areas where parking is an issue. (if you car can go park itself a couple of miles away and you can phone it up when you want to go home, win)
It lowers the barrier on travel in another way too. Put a comfortable bed in the self driving car and anywhere within 8 hours drive is now a night's sleep away. Weekend tourism would be a lot more fun that way.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#89Unless all cars are driven by machine, the driverless car won't make a huge difference in our lives. You can already experience the magic of not having to drive by paying someone else to do it for you. The real gains of automation occur when a machine doing the job can do it faster than a human. Computers calculate and communicate faster than people, and factories/robots build stuff faster. A machine driving a car ha…
This view seems deeply flawed. One of the upsides of public transportation is that I can read / sleep / work / talk with people with 0 distractions. The downside is that the commute is 3-5 times longer. If I can get the shorter commute time of my car AND have the benefits of not having to pay attention, that's a huge gain even if my travel time isn't any faster. Additionally, there are plenty of use cases that don't…
The comparison to current public transportation is unfair. First, imagine what public transportation would be like today if as much money had been invested as has been invested in cars. There are more licensed vehicles in the U.S. than there are licensed drivers.
Cars simply cannot beat public transportation in raw material use, operating cost or road space utilization. My car occupies 70 sq ft of road space. At most, it can fit 5 people. That's 14 sq ft per person. A typical bus uses half that (calculated from an MCI D series). Since raw material use is more dependent on the volume, the savings will be even greater there.
My car gets 30 miles per gallon. Fully loaded, that's 150 person-miles per gallon. A fully loaded bus beats that even if it only get 3 miles per gallon. However, since buses run standard routes, they can be wired directly to the power grid, eliminating the need for separate fuel and eliminating the need for the batteries than an electric car needs.
And this is with current technology, developed despite substantially more money being spent on cars and highways.
The reason your commute is faster with a car is that there aren't enough buses/trains. Vehicles with dedicated routes (such as trains and buses driving on bus-only roads) don't get caught in traffic. If they were comparably common, there's no way you could beat them on time either.
Re: Google demos driverless cars
#90If anyone can make this work out to be used by the public, Google can. They seem to be fairly good at pissing off established business. (Though they're still learning as Android shows.) Demos are great, just reinforces that Google is really an AI Company. Where my pessimism lies for this reaching the public even if it's technically sound is that there are a lot of established multi-billion dollar businesses to conten…
I don't think insurance and traffic tickets are nearly as big of a roadblock as safety regulations for selling a computer that creates 2,000lb projectiles with humans inside.
Wouldn't it be fairly simple to run tests for awhile and give the thumbs up if the average, shall we say, carnage rate is lower than with human drivers? Seems like it would be a no-brainer.
And when there are inevitably problems (or even deaths) caused by the AI systems, it's not like car companies don't currently have liability for malfunctions in their designs. Seems it would be the same...