Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere • Hacker News Board

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#271

Post by fooker » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #79

case0x00 wrote: post #4

This 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…

Cars are bad. Electric cars are a bit better than ICE cars, and self-driving cars might one day be better than human-driven cars. But they're still terrible: they're still big, inefficient, polluting, loud, dangerous, and take up precious space. Cars are completely unsuited to cities, and cities which are designed around cars are terrible . This to say: the future is having cars removed from cities entirely . Focusin…

>the future is having cars removed from cities entirely.

Sounds somewhat authoritarian to impose your idea of the 'future' to inconvenience a large number of people.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#272

Post by fooker » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

c-cube wrote: post #215

concordDance wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people also want to go to places outside cities! ^_^

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#273

Post by coldtea » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

Self-driving cars might not be going anywhere, but $100B made several people rich.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#274

Post by killingtime74 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

warbler73 wrote: post #270

cs702 wrote: post #185

In 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…

To be clear 23andMe does not do sequencing. They check for certain markers. However full sequencing IS available and runs around $1000. If I recall right the first human genome sequenced cost about $1 trillion. But we now have much better algorithms, mostly due to algorithms from works such as Knuth's AOCP.

Really interested how this one trillion figure came out, is it the sum of all medical research for decades? Are you talking US dollars

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#275

Post by warbler73 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

killingtime74 wrote: post #274

warbler73 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear 23andMe does not do sequencing. They check for certain markers. However full sequencing IS available and runs around $1000. If I recall right the first human genome sequenced cost about $1 trillion. But we now have much better algorithms, mostly due to algorithms from works such as Knuth's AOCP.

Really interested how this one trillion figure came out, is it the sum of all medical research for decades? Are you talking US dollars

Was going from memory. Official number was $2.7 billion in 1991 dollars. So now it's $1000, or someone said $299, 9 million times less.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#276

Post by CyanLite4 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

These companies are swinging for the fences and instead striking out. A base hit would suffice for most people.

I just want a reliable car that can steer in the highway so I can eat a burger or answer a text message. GM’s SuperCruise is nearly there but has too many safety restrictions. It doesn’t need to work in inclement weather or construction zones. Being able to answer emails or watch a YouTube clip on a long road trip gives me back precious time that is worth paying a few thousand for.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#277

Post by jonas21 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

Lutger wrote: post #106

Huge waste of money that could have been poured into public transport to actually solve our problems and improve our lives. What a tragedy.

This is all private money. If these companies didn't spend the $100B developing autonomous vehicles, it wouldn't suddenly be available for building public transit.

Beyond that, $100B doesn't go as far toward building transit as you might expect. For example, San Diego recently spent $2.3 billion on a light rail extension that's projected to have 34,700 daily trips by 2030. If you assume most of these are round-trips, it's serving fewer than 18,000 people. Spending $100B at this rate would serve around 750,000 people (0.2% of the U.S. population).

The most cost-effective form of public transit in most places is busses because they can reuse existing road infrastructure, and in the U.S., labor accounts for around 70% of the cost of operating busses. As a result, autonomous driving technology should be helpful in scaling public transit systems as well.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#278

Post by cycomanic » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

CyanLite4 wrote: post #276

These companies are swinging for the fences and instead striking out. A base hit would suffice for most people. I just want a reliable car that can steer in the highway so I can eat a burger or answer a text message. GM’s SuperCruise is nearly there but has too many safety restrictions. It doesn’t need to work in inclement weather or construction zones. Being able to answer emails or watch a YouTube clip on a long ro…

I believe there was some news that Mercedes was going for exactly that use case some time ago.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#279

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

CyanLite4 wrote: post #276

These companies are swinging for the fences and instead striking out. A base hit would suffice for most people. I just want a reliable car that can steer in the highway so I can eat a burger or answer a text message. GM’s SuperCruise is nearly there but has too many safety restrictions. It doesn’t need to work in inclement weather or construction zones. Being able to answer emails or watch a YouTube clip on a long ro…

[deleted]

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#280

Post by treis » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #148

viscanti wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 promis…

It's an enormous benefit to society. A huge number of people are killed or seriously injured in car crashes every year. Plus the quality of life benefits and reduction in property damage.