Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#81

Post by judge2020 » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

boulos wrote: post #23

tofuahdude wrote: post #2

This is both incredibly exciting and a little terrifying. As a pedestrian, I'm still a little weary around these cars.

Disclosure: I work at Waymo. At least the current fleets of AVs (Waymo, Cruise, etc.) are "obviously" potentially autonomous. I'm honestly more cautious now as a pedestrian when I see a Tesla coming after the FSD videos. I wish I could know "Is that Tesla owner using the FSD mode?"...

> I wish I could know "Is that Tesla owner using the FSD mode?"...

I wish I could know a lot more about the car and the driver in it too, such as if the car has pedestrian airbags[0] or if the driver is having a heated argument with their spouse. It's all risk management and ultimately the person behind the wheel is responsible for the exoskeleton on wheels they pilot, as the existence of cars at all is a net negative for pedestrian safety.

0: https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/23/files/23ESV-000...

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#82

Post by ra7 » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #38

ra7 wrote: post #19

It's fantastic to see Waymo's progress. SF is a real nightmare to drive. If they can nail it there, that's 2/2 for busy, urban street driving (SF) and "boring" suburban driving (Chandler, AZ). They've been quietly very confident of their tech, but this is a real test. Tangentially, I've also noticed that Waymo has picked up pace ever since the recent leadership changes. They are publishing more blog posts, offering m…

It may not scale to rural areas though. There are some roads were you don't need to look at the road in front of your: it is there and nothing else is. Instead you need to watch the ditches in a wide area around because that is where wildlife will jump out of in front of you.

Is there a market for taxis in the rural areas? They have little incentive to expand there if there's no money to be made.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#83

Post by kevinkimball » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

matchbok wrote: post #43

Great, they built a smaller, more expensive, less flexible, and less useful BUS. No city should be encouraging this. Every trip that this would solve for is also solved for by public transit. So silly.

If buses were a better alternative, people would take the bus. Unfortunately MUNI does not seem willing or able to compete on convenience

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#84

Post by Lammy » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

mjmahone17 wrote: post #80

Lammy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SF is a real nightmare to drive. 'cause they decided not to build most of the roads: https://www.cahighways.org/maps/1955trafficways.jpg

Wait do you mean? As in, the highways proposed in 1955 weren’t built? I’m not sure how highways going through SF would make it easier to drive in SF (outside of the highways): wouldn’t that generally increase traffic and conflicts?

> wouldn’t that generally increase traffic and conflicts?

When coupled to our additional refusal to build housing, sadly, yeah. What two things do people usually commute between?

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#85

Post by hn_go_brrrrr » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

I wonder if the cars will always have a human chaperone. Not as a safety driver, but to prevent riders from trashing the car.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#86

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #24

> We can’t wait to hear from more San Franciscans as they experience the Waymo Driver themselves. Beginning later today, San Franciscans can sign up for the Trusted Tester program and help us shape the future of mobility in this city. Just download the Waymo One app to get involved. Anyone else got this to work? I only see a message that says "It looks like you're not in our service area..."

[deleted]

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#87

Post by bryanlarsen » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #46

ra7 wrote: post #19

It's fantastic to see Waymo's progress. SF is a real nightmare to drive. If they can nail it there, that's 2/2 for busy, urban street driving (SF) and "boring" suburban driving (Chandler, AZ). They've been quietly very confident of their tech, but this is a real test. Tangentially, I've also noticed that Waymo has picked up pace ever since the recent leadership changes. They are publishing more blog posts, offering m…

SF is a real nightmare to drive. If they can nail it there, that's 2/2 for busy, urban street driving (SF) and "boring" suburban driving (Chandler, AZ) Both are low-hanging fruit. When it can navigate a snow-covered road at night while it's still snowing, get back to me.

Doing that better than the average human is a pretty low bar.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#88

Post by jeffbee » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #66

What's the biggest technical challenge that they have right now? And how much time and effort will it take to overcome? I feel like there is a lot of disconnect between the different media pieces and opinions I come across specifically when it comes to Waymo's self-driving - from "we're already there" to "it won't happen in the next 10 years".

If Waymo has a 10-year lead, the people who get paid by the word to write about the horse race don't get paid. That's why you'll often see articles on self-driving cars that don't even mention Waymo.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#89

Post by pbreit » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

espadrine wrote: post #47

Waymo is currently the only SAE Level 4[0] self-driving car in use, right? The wheel must not be used. Even though it is limited to two cities. Their technology seems an order of magnitude above the rest, although factoring in its cost could make it look worse. (Can it turn a profit, when including the development costs?) Tesla FSD is at best SAE level 3 (can need human fallback), and at worst level 2 (needs constant…

Most of the commercial value is achieved at Level 4.

I'm curious what all the folks who claimed this was decades away are thinking?

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#90

Post by morpheos137 » Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #77

morpheos137 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most important one you missed: Given sufficient qualitative and quantitative investment self driving may be technologically feasible at some point in the future but not price competitive with human driving. Self driving proponents seem to assume the tech is free. Just keeping sub meter scale 3d street maps up to date has a massive cost.

There are enough people in the developed world who are physically unable to drive or use public transportation in their area and who also don't want to be homebound that the economics could still work out even if they were the only market, which they aren't. > Just keeping sub meter scale 3d street maps up to date has a massive cost. True, but probably not actually necessary.

You seem to assume there is unmet demand that you can meet cheaper with automation than with human drivers. I agree there may be unmet demand but I don't see you get automation to be cheaper than a $10 an hour cab driver. I mean if automation was cheap and easy then our factories would all be automated before something quixotic like a car. It is frankly absurd.