They should have hired game developers, they have a headstart
Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
141–150 of 501 posts
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should we change city infrastructure to work with less than AGI driven cars? It sounds instead like yes, AV companies are over selling what they can do and they should be restricted to things like highways and the like where the easier, less complex driving environment already exists. Cities are by far the most complex relative to every other driving environment, in fact there is a good argument that, in cities,…
One good reason is to help the AIs make better decisions through greater certainty. For example, if a road sign has machine readable data there is a greater certainty that an AI will interpret it correctly. This could affect safety and ease of implementation.
Then someone spray paints the sign, a taxi parks in the bike lane just behind a box truck blocking half the entrance to where you're going, meanwhile a cyclist rides the other direction directly toward you because human agents are chaotic and cities are full of them. Oh, a racoon!
Less tongue in cheek: I think we should optimize city centers for human scales and activities, rather than sending cars right through them at all. We already sacrifice so much for cars in their current state, if we have to optimize for their mobility even moreso we are going in the wrong direction I feel.
I'm not saying get rid of cars, just keep them out of the denser parts of cities and the CBD. Put them on roads, not streets.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always imagined the future of self driving cars wouldn't lie in cities (except maybe some main ringroads or arterial roalds) but in highways. Just tell the computer to go to highway X exit Y, and from there the driver can drive the last few miles. Basically geofencing known 'sane' locations, which cuts down on the boring bits of driving significantly.
And then in those safe geofenced locations we could put down metal guide rails so that navigation is easier. And then use metal wheels with flanges to reduce rolling resistance. And then hook many cars together into one long vehicle. And ...
I'd be impressed a train service that had 8 parallel lines plus dedicated lines at each station so that it was economical for 1-5 people to alight directly at their destination.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should we change city infrastructure to work with less than AGI driven cars? It sounds instead like yes, AV companies are over selling what they can do and they should be restricted to things like highways and the like where the easier, less complex driving environment already exists. Cities are by far the most complex relative to every other driving environment, in fact there is a good argument that, in cities,…
Not all driving outside city areas happens on the highways. My brother lives in the countryside (somewhere in the EU), and, as a driver, he shares the paved road just outside his house with the village’s cows (including his two cows). I don’t see any non-AGI system being able to negotiate that, as at times is difficult even for me, a reasonably AGI system, to make sense of it all when I encounter a herd of loose cows…
Sheep are worse. They run from one side of the road across you to get away from you.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#145Self driving trains would be far more achievable and practical…more tiny engines and smaller cars means latency and switching delays would go down. I don’t think it even needs much technology.
> "more tiny engines and smaller cars means latency and switching delays would go down." Thorougly disagree. The whole reason why trains are so efficient is due to their ability to haul so much weight in one go without practically any other traffic being in the way. Train track infrastructure could not handle multiple mini trains without more track which, as we know from the excessive road construction for car traffi…
Yeah, efficiency for a train means cargo divided by the cost of the driver and the costs of the locomotive.
Take the driver out of the equation, and suddenly making the train longer doesn’t provide any savings. You might as well switch to smaller and cheaper engines and divide one train into 10.
There are a lot of variables that affect efficiency but new technology alters the landscape. Self driving public transit is one such thing. Would you rather be on a bus with one driver or a self driving taxi that costs the same?
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always imagined the future of self driving cars wouldn't lie in cities (except maybe some main ringroads or arterial roalds) but in highways. Just tell the computer to go to highway X exit Y, and from there the driver can drive the last few miles. Basically geofencing known 'sane' locations, which cuts down on the boring bits of driving significantly.
And then in those safe geofenced locations we could put down metal guide rails so that navigation is easier. And then use metal wheels with flanges to reduce rolling resistance. And then hook many cars together into one long vehicle. And ...
That could be more than just a joke though: special lanes for computerized slipstream driving could make cars and trucks approach railroad efficiency. A "driver agent" posts its itinerary to the routing network, finds peers going the same direction at roughly the same time, accelerates/decelerates to find them and hook (contactlessly) into the moving paceline, at a position that fits the vehicle's frontal area (you wouldn't want small cars breaking the slipstream between trucks). The routing network bills some of the slipstream savings on behalf of the vehicle(s) in less favorable positions at the front.
Like the visionary dream of individually routed rail cars, but built bottom-up, with cars/trucks that are perfectly useful in standalone driving on regular roads. And it could scale even closer to rail: perhaps some long-haul connections get metal rails integrated in the floor like tram rails, that some long-haul trucks with a special bogey option could slot in, in the fly? That would be an impressive stunt if performed by humans, but easy for computers. Perhaps some connections add overhead wires? Perhaps some trucks, with the overhead wire pantograph option, add a robotic power handover arm because that's cheaper than wear and tear on two pantographs? Could all start bottom up, with few installations.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#147Huge waste of money that could have been poured into public transport to actually solve our problems and improve our lives. What a tragedy.
I think the goal is to solve public transport by having a fleet of autonomous vehicles that pick you up where you are and drop you off where you need to go and would roam freely in between - basically driverless, electric ueber.
As cars need charging, they would congregate at some charging plot outside the busy areas.
Personally, I rather like this vision as it combines the best of public transport and car traffic. Especially, if the existing, personally owned cars that just stand around 99% of the time vanish over time.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
One good reason is to help the AIs make better decisions through greater certainty. For example, if a road sign has machine readable data there is a greater certainty that an AI will interpret it correctly. This could affect safety and ease of implementation.
The question is what value would a city get after, what seems to be, a very expensive process? What value do they get from unlocking semi competent AI cars that's worth the time, effort, and requires dedicated street space and an inconvenience to everyone else who travels a different way? It doesn't seem like it's replacing public transit and if someone needs a private vehicle to go beyond the area that's optimized t…
A very small benefit for society but potentially a very large benefit for a select few stakeholders.
Musk largely became the richest person on the planet off the back of the promise that nobody else would have decent EV tech (turns out, they do), nobody else would have the battery production capacity (turns out, they do, plus super ironic when Tesla is partnering with Panasonic for battery production), AND the promise of fully self driving cars (which will happen for Tesla immediately after flying cars).
I don't have a good term for this, but it's basically corruption: a few benefit at the cost of everyone else.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
AV is basically level 4 or 5 in the SAE classification ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car ). And those vehicles are either not existing yet (i.e. just marketing ploys), or far from it (requiring remote drivers, for example), or just research prototypes that have not been really tried at scale.
Cruise has robo-taxis operating in San Francisco [1]. Obviously we don't know to what extent they have remote drivers but you wouldn't be able to run such a service if every ride required them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP1rvCYiruh4SDHyPqcxlJw
When I was recently in SF, one early morning I came across a Cruise vehicle on a one way street at a 30 degree angle blocking traffic (of which there was very little at the time). Another was pulling up behind it (maintenance vehicle?). Not sure what the story was with it.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
One good reason is to help the AIs make better decisions through greater certainty. For example, if a road sign has machine readable data there is a greater certainty that an AI will interpret it correctly. This could affect safety and ease of implementation.
It seems like it would be cheaper and easier to get rid of cars entirely
But not politically palatable :-)