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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

#301

Post by dragonwriter »

leesec wrote: post #236
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."

General Motors is offering unpaid but fully driverless rides in California now. They, like Waymo, are ahead of Tesla, and likely to remain there.

Tesla’s unique strength, when it comes to autonomy as opposed to battery-electric vehicles, is selling hype.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#302

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

minhazm wrote: post #218
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.

Google took a completely different approach and relies heavily on pre-mapped environments. Tesla has several orders of magnitude more vehicles, more data, and a more diverse set of data given their cars are in many different countries. It's not implausible to think that Tesla could arrive at FSD faster than Google.

Tesla relies on geographic whitelists to suppress problematic signals from their radar. Not what I'd want from an FSD machine.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#303

Post by burnished »

actusual wrote: post #111
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…

Definitionally, the achievement of self driving vehicles does not require AGI. Doing one task very well requires a subset of AGI called Weak AI.

Part of driving well requires a diverse of array of abilities, right? You know what is litter and what is debris because you can make a guess about material properties based on some observations, like looking at something that moves without being touched and is translucent, you probably conclude that its a plastic bag of some sort and not a hazard. Similarly you probably use a wealth of experience to judge that a small piece of tire is not a hazard, but a chunk is a hazard and a whole one is definitely a hazard.

Or, on seeing an anomalous enter the road you can probably guess that a child might follow shortly after.

I'm not suggesting that the problem cannot be solved without AGI, but you can see why some people might think that though, right?

My personal feeling is that we shouldn't be setting the bar at making a car that can handle any situation anywhere way better than any human at any time, but that we should also try to make roads that are more suitable for self driving vehicles. I'd rather we move to driving agents that don't get bored, frustrated, or angry.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#304

Post by zaphar »

nradov wrote: post #281
arsome wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen of Tesla's solution at least - even busy city centers and complex parking lots are very difficulty for present day autonomous driving technologies. The understanding level necessary just isn't there. These things are excellent - undeniably better than humans at the boring stuff, highway driving, even major roads. They can rightfully claim massive mileage with high safety levels in those circumstan…

Would you describe Tesla's tendency to crash full speed into stopped emergency vehicles during highway driving as "excellent"? https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/business/tesla-autopilot-fede...

I would say it's better then the Human's tendency to drive full speed into anything while impaired by a drug. Especially since the bug was fixed in Tesla's case but the bug in Human's case is probably un-fixable.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#305

Post by texuf »

skohan wrote: post #169
mosdl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah SF is very messy configuration wise and is more "european" in that way.

Partly due to challenges with the landscape right?

It's a thumb shaped peninsula seven miles across with a 922' peak in the middle. Market St runs diagonally through downtown separating two grid systems, the south side of which is offset by about 40 degrees. Columbus St runs diagonally in the opposite direction through Little Italy and China Town, itself a maze of one way streets, ancient buildings, triangular parks and steep hills. The whole thing is cut up by trolly tracks, makeshift bike lanes, and more pedestrians per square foot than most places in the US. Be prepared for your two-lane road to suddenly turn into a one-way street running towards you, seven way intersections, pedestrian traffic that never stops, and lane markers that completely disappear in the rain. On top of everything, intersections are only ever labeled in one corner, but never the same corner, and at least half of the stop signs are behind trees that should have been trimmed five years ago. Also it seems like 10% of drivers are drunk or stoned, and there's a moving van blocking 60% of the road everywhere, all the time.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#306

Post by pcurve »

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…

I'm guessing if all cars become Waymo right now, there will probably be reduction in vehicle fatality by 99%.

But people have hard time accepting with the notion that unmanned vehicle may be part responsible for that 1%.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#307

Post by dont__panic »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #114
XorNot wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't achieve any scaling benefits there. But also - trashing an autonomous car (aka a car full of cameras and sensors, which you charged to your credit card) seems like one of those self-limiting problems as the people who do it go bankrupt or to jail.

There's a neverending stream of way-too-drunk people who need a taxi (or at least there were, in the beforetimes). I don't see that happening. Also, I don't particularly want to ride in a car with a bunch of sensors and cameras monitoring my every move.

Agreed on both points. However... while I don't want to ride in a car full of sensors, I think the popularity of CCTV and Facebook demonstrates that a lot of other people are much more OK with that. Just look at busses, trains, and even gas stations -- I'd never want to have ads thrown in my face the way all of those systems push them on you, but a lot of people just seem to be... OK with it.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#308

Post by paxys »

nradov wrote: post #92
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 hardly a nightmare to drive. Try Boston during a winter storm.

I think people vastly overestimate the challenges of weather conditions for self driving. With modern car tech (traction monitoring, ability to redirect torque to a specific tire, ABS, radar) an automated car is going to have an easier time navigating snow/ice/rain than a human driver.

The real challenges when navigating city streets are the human ones – delivery vehicles blocking lanes, municipal worker fixing a manhole with a single cone to redirect traffic, pedestrians/bicyclists appearing out of nowhere, no one following traffic signs. This is the kind of stuff that tests "intelligence".

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#309

Post by nradov »

aaroninsf wrote: post #98
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…

I am in the AGI camp, but have wondered and still wonder, Why are efforts not focused primarily on interstate/highway travel, specifically, collaboration with DoT for mesh/distributed/coordinated long-term travel? I don't need a self-driving taxi. I would pay 20K for a car which participated in a federally-regulated framework which let me let go of the wheel when I get on a highway and let teh emergent cloud determin…

GM Super Cruise already allows you to take your hands off the wheel while driving on many freeways.

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/cadillac-super-cruise-is-...

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#310

Post by smeyer »

willyt wrote: post #255
VelkaMorava wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Lots of roads like that in Britian as well and the speed limit is 60mph/100kph. Not uncommon for two cars on a single track road to adjust speed to pass each other at a passing place without slowing down much, so at a closing speed of over 100mph. Perfectly safe for human drivers who know the roads.

This sounds like the sort of "perfectly safe for human drivers who know the roads" that actually results in a fair number of road deaths.
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