CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving • Hacker News Board

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#71

Post by wjamesg » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #44

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

A interesting analogy is the Washington DC Metro, which was automated but now isn't due to a significant accident in 2009 which killed 9 people. That's a train on rails. We have much less tolerance for computers killing people compared to people killing people.

The DC metro was once automated? Interesting

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#72

Post by bob_theslob646 » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #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 d…

This is a highly under rated take. The reason they didn't do so was industry pressure/competition.

The counter point could be that the technology is there, but the regulation is not.

Why must everything be retrofitted versus a complete system overhaul? The initial costs may be immense but the return on investment will be far greater.

Just my two cents.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#73

Post by meteor333 » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #69

meteor333 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for airplanes and trains, we still have pilots and humans behind the controller with 100% attention.

There's plenty of examples of driverless trains throughout the world. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_train_system...

Fair enough. Thanks for correcting me.

But i stand corrected. Guided tracks is hardly a good comparison for this.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#74

Post by adewinter » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

adewinter wrote: post #46

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

> Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? Monorail trains (like at the airport) Combine Harvesters Airplane Autopilot/autoland Elevators

Literally any operational (and unattended) machine in a modern factory

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#75

Post by viklove » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

kungito wrote: post #70

roughly wrote: post #48

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've seen a lot of goalpost moving in the other direction on this one, to be honest - Self Driving Cars started as "never have an accident again!" and have slowly migrated to "look, you suck at driving, the robot sucks less, so stop bitching when the robot runs over grandma"

*runs over grandma who us trying to ilegally and suddenly cross the street right in front of the car

*runs into a stationary median which is literally bolted into the road, in broad daylight

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#76

Post by mrshadowgoose » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

You can, today, go to Pheonix Arizona, download the Waymo One app, and summon a full self driving vehicle. This happened silently at the end of 2020, and was overshadowed by the ongoing pandemic doom and gloom. https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...

On the subject of danger. Literally everything we do is dangerous to some degree. Everything. Self-driving does not need to be perfect, but only better than human drivers. We're likely already at that point with Waymo vehicles.

On the subject of automation. Humanity is on track to have the computational power to perform whole brain emulation decades before 2100. Even if we don't solve the general AI problem through other pathways, we will solve it through this path. Ethical problems aside, once this is achieved, everything will be automatable at a human level of competence.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#77

Post by meteor333 » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

minhazm wrote: post #31

meteor333 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for airplanes and trains, we still have pilots and humans behind the controller with 100% attention.

We don't have fully automated planes because they're already safe enough and the economics aren't there. The probability of crashing with a plane is extremely low, even factoring in the higher risk of takeoffs and landings. The entire process is coordinated with Air Traffic Control. Since planes are so safe already and pilots are relatively inexpensive, there's no strong financial incentive to fully automate planes.

Disagree on the economics. Pilots cost significant money and since the airline industry runs on low margins this can be a huge plus.

But the main reason we won't see planes without pilots is political and related to trust. I think for the same reasons we are less likely to see truly driverless cars.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#78

Post by ryan93 » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #34

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

> 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…

No point in comparing planes to cars.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#79

Post by stefan_ » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #44

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

A interesting analogy is the Washington DC Metro, which was automated but now isn't due to a significant accident in 2009 which killed 9 people. That's a train on rails. We have much less tolerance for computers killing people compared to people killing people.

You would think that but then that Uber car ran over a pedestrian in the middle of a typical ultra wide deserted American throughfare with perfect lighting and.. kinda nothing happened? My pulse still rises when I think of that dashcam video they released that predictably shows nothing to blame that lady their negligence killed.

Maybe the common denominator is just cars. The regulators are fully absent - they care about the shape of your headlights, but do they care that SUVs have them mounted at the height of mirrors for every other car? Do they care that cars have absurdly overpowered engines that have no imaginable use? Do they care that trucks have fronts so high it's impossible to see a kid walking on a crosswalk and when you hit it, it's hit head-height and thrown under the wheels?

None of these things would ever fly on a train or airplane.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#80

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

meteor333 wrote: post #11

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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…

Even for airplanes and trains, we still have pilots and humans behind the controller with 100% attention.

> we still have pilots and humans behind the controller with 100% attention.

That really isn't true. Pilots, in particular, have huge challenges in keeping attention up between take off and landing. Likewise for trains, it turns out if you don't require humans to do anything but watch...it is much harder than if they were actually doing the flying/driving themselves.

The airforce is moving to unpiloted drones, though there is someone at a center to intervene as needed. It is only a matter of time before they decide that cargo can be moved in this way (think: fedex).