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CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

blog.waymo.com

51–60 of 248 posts

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#51
post #37

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

Waymo is full self driving, not partial

*Waymo is trying to develop full self driving, not partial

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#52
post #33

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

I think there's a crucial issue with sensoring. Companies are tackling the problem mainly using sensors that are contained within the car. Even with LIDAR (and not just cameras) it is very hard to "sense" the full scene[1]. What if our roads were built to communicate with the cars? What if there were only AVs on the street and they communicated with each other? What if every bicycle, school backpack, shopping cart di…

Then we can just build trains instead. Perfectly automated today.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I think this is just the usual goal post moving, if a machine does it then we decide it wasn't really dangerous for a machine to do it. Garmin Autoland will take a plane which is otherwise working and is in the sky and put it back on the ground because the pilot has a problem (e.g. your plane nut husband finally has another stroke† while…

> I think this is just the usual goal post moving, if a machine does it then we decide it wasn't really dangerous for a machine to do it. I strongly disagree. Most machines are not capable of killing you because it makes a mistake. Do you have an example of something humans did that could kill them that was automated completely that still can kill them, but generally does not anymore? An elevator is one example, but…

You mean, like the entire rest of his comment? Garmin Autoland...

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#54
I still think it was a mistake to hire this guy and partner with the auto industry dinosaurs. Should have kept going down the path of being independent and building their own cars without steering wheels. I never liked "Waymo" as a brand either.

Maybe just retrofitting off the shelf cars made sense if they thought they needed hundreds of thousands of cars ASAP, but it turns out they would have had plenty of time to develop the car and even build factories for it while waiting for the technology to mature. And they didn't really need to partner with any manufacturers just to retrofit existing cars anyway.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#55
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is just the usual goal post moving, if a machine does it then we decide it wasn't really dangerous for a machine to do it. I strongly disagree. Most machines are not capable of killing you because it makes a mistake. Do you have an example of something humans did that could kill them that was automated completely that still can kill them, but generally does not anymore? An elevator is one example, but…

Fully automated train systems? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_train_system... Not nearly as complex a problem as self driving cars, but I'd still rather not get hit by a train

My understanding of trains is that most of the safety advances have come from better signaling, not the automation of the trains themselves.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#56

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

How many of these completely automated things have lots of humans interacting and are outside an closed area?

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#57
post #21

Self driving is not possible without changes to infrastructure. We know this because NHS tried in 1960’s and was able to succeed with this approach. Government will have to solve problem first. How? Installing sensors on our highways that cars can use. Anything this big in scale can’t be solved by the private sector alone, you also need better infrastructure.

>Self driving is not possible without changes to infrastructure Humans seem to be perfectly capable of doing it though.

36,000 US driving deaths annually would beg to differ.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#58

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

full self driving would far easier if they weren't all trying to cover all cases at once. I, along with others, have mentioned that a far simpler problem to solve is freeway travel.

HOV and Express lanes make this easy. They have well established markings, limited access, and traffic goes in one direction. So industry and regulators would work together to solve standardization of markings for travel and entry and exiting.

Then you take it to the rest of the interstate system and then to limited access highways. Eventually you get down to the neighborhoods and city driving.

I see real promise in Tesla's beta system which has a few thousand drivers. What it tracks is far more advanced than what my current software does in my 3. They finally went to a persistent model and far better labeling. Now where my car shows cones around a parked vehicle they show the vehicle as well. They show all parked and stationary objects. Something the current software does not always do if at all.

Just within the US the lane markings, signage, and even signaling, is not consistent from state to state. Worse the rules for what is an acceptable lane is not consistent either. So the first step there is to standardize it all across the nation.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#59

"To start, I’m looking forward to a refresh period, reconnecting with old friends and family, and discovering new parts of the world." I suppose that is a nice way of saying wait out my non-compete....

Is Waymo not headquartered in California?

Yes you are correct and it probably is unenforceable if it exists. My mistake. It just reeked of that.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#60

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

The advancements in AI tend to happen in intermittent large leaps, but people tend to make linear projections based on the most recent leap. That’s why there’s always a big hype cycle followed by disillusionment and some sort of AI winter. I personally think 2100 is extremely pessimistic, but all those projections of full self-driving by 2025 were certainly even more extreme in their optimism.
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