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Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#231

Post by jjoonathan »

VelkaMorava wrote: post #197
hammock wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way Did you expect something different? I can't really see a boardroom writing a roadmap that goes straight from test rides (no passengers) with a backup driver onboard to actual rides with passengers - no backup driver onboard with no in-between steps.

I wonder where "a country road with no lanes which barely fits 1.5 car in winter in the Czech republic" is on your scale... Something like this, just imagine the snowdrifts around it https://www.google.com/maps/@49.080269,16.4569252,3a,75y,307...

I'd still buy a self-driving car that refuses to drive on that road.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#232

Post by Swizec »

VelkaMorava wrote: post #197
hammock wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way Did you expect something different? I can't really see a boardroom writing a roadmap that goes straight from test rides (no passengers) with a backup driver onboard to actual rides with passengers - no backup driver onboard with no in-between steps.

I wonder where "a country road with no lanes which barely fits 1.5 car in winter in the Czech republic" is on your scale... Something like this, just imagine the snowdrifts around it https://www.google.com/maps/@49.080269,16.4569252,3a,75y,307...

As someone who learned to drive in the city, those roads make me sweat bullets.

My grandpa who drives on those roads primarily, sweats bullets in the city.

Maybe you’ll have different driving models to load in different scenarios …

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#234

Post by eagsalazar2 »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #59

“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way from full level 4 (and certainly level 5) autonomy in a busy city like San Francisco. The edge cases requiring immediate human attention are still too frequent for the human safety driver to be remote, as is the case in Phoenix. Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being…

You are making a ton of assumptions about what is driving this decision.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#235

Post by sandworm101 »

hammock wrote: post #148
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #59

“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way from full level 4 (and certainly level 5) autonomy in a busy city like San Francisco. The edge cases requiring immediate human attention are still too frequent for the human safety driver to be remote, as is the case in Phoenix. Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being…

>“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way Did you expect something different? I can't really see a boardroom writing a roadmap that goes straight from test rides (no passengers) with a backup driver onboard to actual rides with passengers - no backup driver onboard with no in-between steps.

Middle steps: (1) Board members use product to travel to board meetings. (2) Board members use product as replacement for personal vehicles. (3) Board members demand pay increases.

Back in 1999 the Chinese government announced that airline execs would be airborne at the changeover as reassurance that aircraft were safe from Y2K. Like or hate them, the incentive logic was sound.

https://www.wired.com/1999/01/y2k-in-china-caught-in-midair/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/chinese-airlines-won-t-be-bi...

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#236

Post by leesec »

sschueller wrote: post #123

If Google can't do it with its massive resources and sensors don't ever expect a Tesla to perform better than this. It's time for Elon to pay the piper and refund all users who were hoodwinked into purchasing FSD. Especially people who's cars are nearing end of life.

"If Google can't do it with its massive resources and sensors don't ever expect a Tesla to perform better than this."

10 years ago this might have read:

"If General Motors can't do it with its massive resources and sensors don't ever expect a Tesla to perform better than this."

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#237

Post by bobsomers »

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.

> It may not scale to rural areas though.

Most products, including this one, don't need to do everything to be both useful and profitable.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#238

Post by argc »

sandworm101 wrote: post #171
sschueller wrote: post #123

If Google can't do it with its massive resources and sensors don't ever expect a Tesla to perform better than this. It's time for Elon to pay the piper and refund all users who were hoodwinked into purchasing FSD. Especially people who's cars are nearing end of life.

>> who were hoodwinked into purchasing FSD. Fools and their money. Like most every expensive car, Teslas are luxury vehicles and fashion statements. People buy them because they are cool. That product was delivered. As for future features, nobody should believe Telsa's advertising any more than we do Microsoft's advertising about how the next version of Windows will solve all our computing problems. The hamburger nev…

I'm pretty sure the USA has consumer protection laws against deceptive advertising, so a company can't just say whatever they want when selling a product in order to convince someone to buy it. Maybe Tesla protected themselves with clauses in the purchase contracts that absolves them from having to pay the purchaser back in the event of their own failure to deliver, but I think a FSD purchaser might have a case just based on Elon's verbal promises that have failed to come true over and over again.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#239

Post by ren_engineer »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #59

“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way from full level 4 (and certainly level 5) autonomy in a busy city like San Francisco. The edge cases requiring immediate human attention are still too frequent for the human safety driver to be remote, as is the case in Phoenix. Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being…

Would it be easier to just build a "futuristic" test city built around the idea of self-driving cars to make it easier for them to work? If self-driving cars are so great people will move there naturally due to improved quality of life. Trying to make self-driving cars work in current cities is like building around crippling technical debt

Seems like Google and a few other tech companies could easily bootstrap a small city by planting some offices somewhere

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#240

Post by Mangalor »

TillE wrote: post #70
gfodor wrote: post #27

Kind of interesting to consider how this adjusts priors on these outcomes: - Self driving is not possible - Self driving is not possible anytime soon - Self driving is possible, but requires LIDAR - Self driving is possible, and can be done with normal cameras I've engaged with a lot of people who presume self-driving reduces onto AGI, therefore it will not be achieved anytime soon if ever. I wonder which of their as…

Yeah it's been really odd to see the take that self-driving must require strong AI. It needs to be done carefully, but it's clearly a manageable engineering problem if you have good sensors.

If there's a person at an intersection directing traffic, it will be very hard to have the car itself communicate with them as easily as a human can. Edge cases like that is where AGI would be needed it seems.
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