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Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

theinformation.com

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Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#41

Post by DevKoala »

ajkjk wrote: post #21
DevKoala wrote: post #17

I am not surprised. This is a competition between Tesla and Google, technology companies. I never saw Uber, a services company, as being part of this race.

That's a weird take. How come Tesla gets to be a technology company but Uber is a services company?

It’s just my perception, but Tesla and Google both have track records of developing new technology IP to overcome their challenges. Uber’s record is not the same, they don’t have any hard to reproduce software or technology IP at the core of their business. Their strength is the brand that has quickly entrenched itself in many cities fighting public legislation to satisfy its goals.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#42

Post by pvg »

paxys wrote: post #18

No one can read this article yet it is instantly upvoted to the very top of HN. Goes to show how discussion forums like this one just serve to amplify people's existing biases rather than actually educate them on anything new.

You can flag articles that aren't supposed to be on the front page and help correct this sort of problem.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#43

Post by nick0garvey »

not_a_moth wrote: post #35
necubi wrote: post #12

The Information sometimes unlocks articles for HN readers, but for those that don't have access the biggest takeaway to me is that Uber has made relatively little progress towards fully autonomous cars despite a huge amount of investment. The most shocking detail: > Uber’s vehicles had also been having what the company refers to as a bad experience—such as a sudden jerk or a potentially dangerous movement—every one-t…

> my general sense is that Waymo and Cruise (widely considered first and second) Thought Tesla was considered first, in part because Tesla's fleet collects an orders of magnitude of data greater than others.

I interviewed at Cruise, and when speaking with them, Waymo was the main competitor and Tesla didn't come up.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#44

Post by s0meone »

FandangoRanger wrote: post #26
wongarsu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real world evidence would suggest that human-level cognition is not enough to safely drive a car

And yet, as of today self-driving cars aren't nearly as good as a human even after 2-3 beers.

Hmmm.. Not accurate? At all?

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#45

Post by xiaolingxiao »

necubi wrote: post #12

The Information sometimes unlocks articles for HN readers, but for those that don't have access the biggest takeaway to me is that Uber has made relatively little progress towards fully autonomous cars despite a huge amount of investment. The most shocking detail: > Uber’s vehicles had also been having what the company refers to as a bad experience—such as a sudden jerk or a potentially dangerous movement—every one-t…

Indeed amazing because I know employees at Tesla who take it home on autopilot in the freeway! It’s also very unsafe ans I dot believe camera only is the way to go, but at least it can drive for more than a mile.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#46

Post by paxys »

yholio wrote: post #30

Clearly, we should aim for a less ambitious goal: ultra-compact self driving vehicles on dedicated and physically separated lanes, where cars cannot be encountered unless it's their fault, similar to bike and tram lines. This could increase city trafic capacity by an order of magnitude in congested central zones and suplement public transport in suburban, dispersed areas that cannot be properly served by buses. And i…

I don't see how setting up an entire new parallel road network all over the world is "less ambitious". Some of the best funded cities in this country aren't even able to lay a few miles of fiber for broadband internet.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#47

Post by felipelemos »

paxys wrote: post #18

No one can read this article yet it is instantly upvoted to the very top of HN. Goes to show how discussion forums like this one just serve to amplify people's existing biases rather than actually educate them on anything new.

Sometimes I upvote an article not because I agree with it's content, but to see it discussed. The same goes for comments in a lesser extent.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#48

Post by djsumdog »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #15

The real question should be: does driving a car requires human-level cognition?

I believe so. There are way too many variables when it comes to driving. I honestly don't think it's possible to solve the problem without huge advances in general purpose AI that can do its own goal setting ... and then I just imagine Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide...

"...one of the most advanced robots in the galaxy that can do billions of computations a second and you ask me to do the most mundane tasks... go open the door Marvin. Go pilot the ship Marvin. Go fix the reactor Marvin ... Go drive my Tesla Marvin ... I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed..."

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#49

Post by howlgarnish »

FandangoRanger wrote: post #26
wongarsu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real world evidence would suggest that human-level cognition is not enough to safely drive a car

And yet, as of today self-driving cars aren't nearly as good as a human even after 2-3 beers.

It's not that black and white. The unnerving thing is that self-driving cars have completely different failure modes than drunk humans: instead of falling asleep and drifting into the next lane, they do (to humans) absurd things like mistake the side of a tractor-trailer for empty space and merge into it.

Re: Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

#50

Post by justapassenger »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32
ajkjk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weird take. How come Tesla gets to be a technology company but Uber is a services company?

Uber has yet to show a vehicle with any semblance of reliable autonomy. Tesla has billions of experience miles at Level 2 autonomy (Navigate on Autopilot is close to, but not quite, level 3 autonomy).

Level 2 has 0 semblance of reliable autonomy. Those are completely different problems.
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