Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what after those 2 years?
Same question applies to self-driving research.
The knowledge gained is forever. Once we learn something in science and engineering…
Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
211–220 of 501 posts
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#212In the short run, technological progress is much slower than anyone hopes, but in the long run it is much faster than anyone expects. My favorite example is that in 1987, the scientific consensus was that it would take "at least 100 years" and likely much longer to sequence the entire human gnome.[a] But the vast majority of it was sequenced by 2000, only 13 years later. Moreover, just two decades later, anyone could…
> Moreover, just two decades later, anyone could get their genome sequenced for pocket change by companies like 23andMe, founded in 2006.
Sequencing your genome is still relatively expensive, Probably around $15k. 23andme does not sequence your genome. They look at specific regions looking for specific markers. This doesn't invalidate your point of how great progress has been, though.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#213This article is kind of a wrapper for the linked bloomberg article, which is more interesting IMO. Driving of cars is a massive cooperative game with high stakes, and autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans. Fully autonomous cars would be sick, but IMO you'd need massive infrastructure changes (realistically restricted to cities/urbanized areas) i…
> autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans.
This is really an astonishingly large claim without any evidence.
I question if you understand what AGI actually is? It's not "AI that can solve game theory" or "AI that can play cooperative games" - conventional video game AI's do this all the time in a myriad of permutations.
For others agreeing autonomous driving needs "AGI", first read what it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn *any intellectual task that a human being can*.
It's a very difficult engineering problem but we don't need AGI to solve it.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#214This article is kind of a wrapper for the linked bloomberg article, which is more interesting IMO. Driving of cars is a massive cooperative game with high stakes, and autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans. Fully autonomous cars would be sick, but IMO you'd need massive infrastructure changes (realistically restricted to cities/urbanized areas) i…
Statements about X specialized task requiring AGI are questionable now, just like they were questionable when they were said about Chess, Go and Video Games.
Beyond questionable. It's anti-intellectual defeatism.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#215WHY is a fully autonomous vehicle even interesting to pursue, given that wheeled vehicles and their infrastructural requirements are such a large expense and social and environmental problem relative to the benefits provided? I mean, out of all the moonshots, why die on this particular hill? I consider an actual hyperloop to be a much more compelling vision for the future: those pneumatic tubes the banks use in subur…
I dunno, being able to easily get places (to visit or work or have fun) is pretty important. Time is finite and valuable, so things that less us spend time in more satisfying ways are valuable.
Denser cities and electric bikes would go a long way. But somehow in the US people only want to go places in a deadly metal box, even to fetch bread.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#216In the short run, technological progress is much slower than anyone hopes, but in the long run it is much faster than anyone expects. My favorite example is that in 1987, the scientific consensus was that it would take "at least 100 years" and likely much longer to sequence the entire human gnome.[a] But the vast majority of it was sequenced by 2000, only 13 years later. Moreover, just two decades later, anyone could…
> Moreover, just two decades later, anyone could get their genome sequenced for pocket change by companies like 23andMe, founded in 2006. Sequencing your genome is still relatively expensive, Probably around $15k. 23andme does not sequence your genome. They look at specific regions looking for specific markers. This doesn't invalidate your point of how great progress has been, though.
You're right. I updated my comment. Thank you!
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#217Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#218So? Okay, we're not there yet with autonomous vehicles, and have spend tons of money on it. But the tech we have now didn't exist a decade ago. Give it another decade.
Another decade for prototype self-driving cars to cover another state part of the US? $100BN in funding these gadgets and contraptions that don't work. Not even Tesla FSD can drive itself reliably at night without supervision, because it is not Level 5. Until LiDAR becomes more cheaper and these cars CAN drive themselves safely at night without supervision in any state at scale and as advertised like a robotaxi, then…
Out of curiosity, why is lidar necessary?
When a human drives a car, their only sensors are eyes, ears, and maybe vibration. Somehow we manage to muddle through it.
Why do L4/L5 cars need anything extra sensors-wise?
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#219In the short run, technological progress is much slower than anyone hopes, but in the long run it is much faster than anyone expects. My favorite example is that in 1987, the scientific consensus was that it would take "at least 100 years" and likely much longer to sequence the entire human gnome.[a] But the vast majority of it was sequenced by 2000, only 13 years later. Moreover, just two decades later, anyone could…
> but in the long run it is much faster than anyone expects
I saw the first Moon landing.
At the time, everyone, the experts, the public, everyone, expected us to colonize the Solar System within a few decades. We expected that fusion power would be too cheap to meter and that burning fossil fuels would be a thing of the past. We expected human life expectancy would soon rise to over a century in developed countries.
Serious, respected scientists said all these things, and everyone took them for granted.
None of these things did in fact come to pass.
Humans have not ventured in person even as far as the Moon in fifty years.
Our first atomic "pile" was 80 years ago in a few months, and we still don't have a fusion reactor. The tokamak was the big fusion design 50 years ago, and it still is, and we are better at them, but we still are nowhere near actually producing real power.
Life expectancy increases stalled quite fast, and then life expectancies started to regress. Americans have lost about two years of their life, basically because of their group mistrust of medical science.
It is simply diminishing returns on the amazing discovery that is the scientific method - it is unavoidable.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#220Huge waste of money that could have been poured into public transport to actually solve our problems and improve our lives. What a tragedy.
Well, why not then create bigger cars, or smaller buses? Between 5 people in a car or a 100 people in a bus, an optimal solution should be able to converge slowly, to 20 people in a vehicle. It would be different for every city, or region or country.
Most cars spend most of their time, being stationary in a parking lot or a garage, 93 percent of the time to be more specific, or 23 hours/day. Buses spend a lot less time being stationary. The trade off here is the speed of driving. Cars offer an unlimited amount of speed, while buses do not. An optimal economic solution should exist in which the economic actors, i.e. people will figure it out after a lot of trial n error.
A crucial factor in self driving cars no one mentioned, is the data the machine uses to drive should be incorruptible. A blockchain which supports billions of tps, offer a solution to that.
Additionally road variables change over time, and data should change as well. Economic actors, not just people should feed the machines with updated data every day. That means that a marketplace of information is required, in which the most efficient economic actors with the best accuracy and the best reputation are rewarded, and the worst economic actors, who's data aggregation cause a lot of crashes, fall off the market.
A marketplace of information, doesn't exist for the time being, so there is no chance for self driving cars to be safe and effective.