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Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#61

Post by dehrmann »

granzymes wrote: post #27
mrtksn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People die all the time, there are even higher profile cases like the Apple Engineer who slammed in the barriers at full speed: https://www.kqed.org/news/11801138/apple-engineer-killed-in-... There are some spectacular failures that are very scary because the car does something that a person would never do, unless unconscious, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU You don't hear much about it pro…

Wow that second one is terrifying. Particularly since that was only 7 months ago!

That was the article, but the crash was in March 2018.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#62

Post by justapassenger »

screye wrote: post #35

I worked with a self-driving product team a couple of years ago. Tesla's approach was looked upon with suspicion and often openly mocked. Tesla's entire self-driving strategy is led by Karpathy, who while brilliant, is an under-experienced researcher with a narrow expertise in large scale 2D CNNs. Tesla (and Comma.ai ?) seem to be the only groups that find Lidar unnecessary for L5 self-driving. I completely agree wit…

You can see in all public talks how Karpathy focuses almost exclusively on image recognition. Yeah, that’s great and important, but that’s a step one in making any autonomous vehicle. And the easiest one.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#63

Post by benlivengood »

majewsky wrote: post #17
jcfrei wrote: post #12

I have a feeling that AGI is a requirement for FSD. There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on.

> There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on. I have the feeling this bar disqualifies most human drivers, too.

> I have the feeling this bar disqualifies most human drivers, too.

There are plenty of people who wait for road-side assistance for a flat tire. It's arguable that a FSD system may be totally viable without having to solve every eventuality on the road. If it can stop someplace safe and call for help that's the most a lot of humans can manage.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#64

Post by rcxdude »

mxschumacher wrote: post #54
rcxdude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of how Tesla is viewed in the autonomous car industry. No-one thinks they are a serious contender when it comes to a driverless vehicle (and their business model basically doesn't match with the technology either: every other company is basically going to operate a taxi service because there's far more value to be captured and it can help pay for the hardware making driverless possible)

it's interesting how optimistic long term visions conflict - if you really think autonomous cabs will become widespread then by implication you are also saying that car sales will be drastically lower. Tough to be serious betting on both. The math of "you'll pay more for the car but the car will go out and make money for you as a robotic Uber" sounds like a pyramid scheme to me; if too many people do it, it can no lo…

Yeah, exactly. I did a fairly deep dive into what path the car industry is going to take with respect to electric cars (especially what a mass market electric car is going to look like), and it all had a huge asterisk associated with it of "but mass car ownership might stop being a thing before any of this happens", at which point thing change drasticly, because then you have a much smaller market of probably more specialised, expensive cars which are designed for way higher duty cycles than most consumer cars.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#65

Post by Udik »

raldi wrote: post #14

He seems so obviously correct that I can’t fathom how any engineer could see things otherwise.

I had to go back and re-read the article because I thought I had missed something. The whole content seems to consist of only three points:

1- that their sensors are better and lidar is indispensable.

2- that there is no continuum between assisted driving and fsd.

3- that they have already achieved full self driving.

That's it. Neither 1 or 2 are supported by any argument, and 3 contradicts the widespread opinion here that fsd is impossible (at least without agi).

Note: I'm not defending Tesla, I'm just saying that this article is very light on actual content.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#66

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

mxschumacher wrote: post #54
rcxdude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of how Tesla is viewed in the autonomous car industry. No-one thinks they are a serious contender when it comes to a driverless vehicle (and their business model basically doesn't match with the technology either: every other company is basically going to operate a taxi service because there's far more value to be captured and it can help pay for the hardware making driverless possible)

it's interesting how optimistic long term visions conflict - if you really think autonomous cabs will become widespread then by implication you are also saying that car sales will be drastically lower. Tough to be serious betting on both. The math of "you'll pay more for the car but the car will go out and make money for you as a robotic Uber" sounds like a pyramid scheme to me; if too many people do it, it can no lo…

The earnings, much like BTC has, would likely approach just above the cost of fuel and maintenance.

The real winners are the automakers that build the part-time robotaxi investment vehicles (literally), and the consumer who now pays way less for a frighteningly AI-driven future.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#67

Post by ra7 »

rio517 wrote: post #50
ra7 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the "more data will magically solve self driving" argument.

He didn't say that. You're putting words in his "mouth."

I mean, the argument literally was Tesla supposedly having more data than Waymo and nothing else. So I'm not sure how they didn't imply what I said.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#68

Post by benlivengood »

macintux wrote: post #22
jcfrei wrote: post #12

I have a feeling that AGI is a requirement for FSD. There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on.

To my mind there are certainly a lot of unknowns around interactions with people outside the vehicle. A simple scenario like someone directing traffic around an accident seems like a nightmare for FSD. (Edited: slight wording tweak.)

Waymo following police hand signals: https://youtu.be/OopTOjnD3qY

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#69

Post by kergonath »

missedthecue wrote: post #16
raldi wrote: post #14

He seems so obviously correct that I can’t fathom how any engineer could see things otherwise.

Musk seems more of a marketer than an engineer to me, even though he's always characterized as one.

He never got any engineering training. The closest he got was a BA in Physics. But yes, he’s a good marketer and his first product is himself.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#70

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

rcxdude wrote: post #64
mxschumacher wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's interesting how optimistic long term visions conflict - if you really think autonomous cabs will become widespread then by implication you are also saying that car sales will be drastically lower. Tough to be serious betting on both. The math of "you'll pay more for the car but the car will go out and make money for you as a robotic Uber" sounds like a pyramid scheme to me; if too many people do it, it can no lo…

Yeah, exactly. I did a fairly deep dive into what path the car industry is going to take with respect to electric cars (especially what a mass market electric car is going to look like), and it all had a huge asterisk associated with it of "but mass car ownership might stop being a thing before any of this happens", at which point thing change drasticly, because then you have a much smaller market of probably more sp…

In poorer nations autonomous cars could take much longer for mass adoption due to different, sometimes harsher road conditions, and lack of reliable road-map data.

In addition, self-driving vehicles would be pricier. For a poor nation, that price tag might be higher than human labor.

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