Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly to drive between their various houses?
> Possibly to drive between their various houses? I'm guessing this is the old joke about Eric Schmidt?
"I save money by using nest thermostats in my various houses"
Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
521–530 of 691 posts
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#522Earlier 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.
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-ch…
The acid test will be (4) Board members use product on their children.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#523Earlier 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...
That's autopilot, not FSD beta though, at this point it's probably 10 generations old
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
People directing traffic use only a handful of signals.
> People directing traffic use only a handful of signals.
Sometimes. Other times they confusingly gesticulate or just shout out things, or even give conflicting signals. Humans can interpret these without much effort but it's a hard AI problem.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
SF is hardly a nightmare to drive. Try Boston during a winter storm.
This cars don't even work with a light drizzle.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
That's autopilot, not FSD beta though, at this point it's probably 10 generations old
Ah yes, because "autopilot" is not autonomous.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently Brits hate the Magic Roundabout, but it seems so shiny.. just the idea of a roundabout of roundabouts where the inner flow of traffic is reversed is really pretty. I'm sure it's one of those things that looks great in traffic flow simulations but falls apart when panicked drivers are trying to deal with each other and the unconventional traffic patterns.
I don't think most people in the UK who express an opinion on it have ever actually used it. I used to live round the corner from the magic roundabout. It's actually fine. The best analogy I have for it is juggling, if I concentrate too much and overthink it I drop the balls. If you over-think the magic roundabout it can seem intimidating, but when you're actually there it makes much more sense and you just go with t…
What I don't understand is what advantage it has over just a single big roundabout. A single car may be able to save a few seconds by going around in a different direction, but I can't picture any actual throughput advantage.
Needless complexity is all I see in it.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 man…
> 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.
Huh, what? Human drivers can already take advantage of all of those, and they still find snowstorms and torrential rain challenging.
The challenge is understanding what you see (and hear), and dealing with very noisy and limited--sometimes actively misleading--inputs.
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope, not even close. There's a very specific reason they've picked Chandler, and it's that there's relatively little weather and the roads are fairly simple (among many other things specific to Chandler). The vast majority of the contiguous United States is decidedly not "on the table" as of now. "The contiguous United States" is still a decade (or more) away. It may literally never happen.
> The vast majority of the contiguous United States is decidedly not "on the table" as of now. So the vast majority of the US has either significantly worse weather than SF, or a significantly harder ODD than SF? Could you elaborate on that?
I feel like San Francisco is a good progression - still generally good weather, but much more crowded, more traffic, more special cases, pedestrians and bikes, one-way roads, topography, limited visibility due to hills and no-setback buildings, construction, buses, etc. It's a significant leap in urban complexity, probably greater than 98% of the rest of the USA.
Regarding the weather, lots of people have mentioned snow, but much of the Midwest, Northeast, and especially the South can have sudden torrential rain. I haven't researched it but I would guess that a Florida rainstorm would be hard for both radar and visual guidance. I predict their next city will be Orlando, in partnership with Disney. Then somewhere like Boston (harder - older street pattern and more snow) or Philadelphia (easier). Each of those 3 would "unlock" new territory they can cover. I predict that NYC will be one of the last areas "unlocked".
Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco
#530“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…
There's no such thing as a remote safety driver.
Cell data connections aren't reliable enough, and having the car emergency stop (and potentially get rear-ended) when it loses signal wouldn't be acceptable.