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

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

#291

Post by dionidium » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:10 PM UTC

Keyframe wrote: post #48

batmanturkey wrote: post #32

WHY 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…

- 1.3 million deaths worldwide, annually (94% cause by human error) - existing infrastructure (roads) isn't going anywhere (no need to build anything) - reduced traffic congestion (autonomous vehicles can better react/drive) - improved supply chains (autonomous trucks) (can work 0-24) just to name a few off top of my head

> 1.3 million deaths worldwide, annually (94% cause by human error)

You don't need full autonomy to mostly fix this, but the fixes are politically untenable (currently). The cars should be speed-governed, they should be speed-limit aware -- the car should routinely be overriding the desire of the driver. No, you can't go into the bike lane to get around traffic. No, you can't make the split-second decision to swerve around a car braking in front of you. No, you can't operate the vehicle at 100 mph in a residential zone. No, you can't go that fast right now; it's raining way too hard, doofus. No, you can't operate your vehicle onto a scheduled parade route.

You don't need full autonomy to create cars that prevent a significant percentage of driver -- to put it charitably -- errors. These are fairly straightforward problems. The opposition is political.

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

#292

Post by jamiek88 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

oplaadpunt wrote: post #27

cinntaile wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just trying to solve a simpler problem. It wasn't what we were promised!

I know, I think the promises are unrealistic :) This has always been my own imagined future

I’d be very happy with that.

Especially in an RV. Enter the interstate, sleep for 8 hours, wake up 600 miles down the road.

That’s the dream!

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

#293

Post by Initial_BP » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #198

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…

I'm genuinely curious why you think Tesla is ahead compared to Waymo and Cruise. Autopilot struggles in my car on some fairly boring roads, while Waymo and Cruise are both operating real taxi services in vehicles without drivers. I can understand the argument that Tesla has lots of data from real world driving. But Google also has fleets of cars mapping out every road in the world.

Not sure about the current state of the actual ML, but compared to other self driving companies Tesla has a treasure trove of data because they have so many vehicles on the road at all hours of every day. The edge cases are the parts that are hard to identify and solve so having all that drive time data to identify edge cases would seem to give them a big advantage.

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

#294

Post by mota7 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

nichochar wrote: post #283

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…

[Disclaimer] I worked for Cruise for 4 years. I agree with everything you said, but chuckled at this particular part (which is very wrong): > Tesla is significantly ahead of everyone else. Everyone in the industry knows that Tesla is nowhere near the tip of the technology. What Tesla does is _fantastic marketing_. Their whole self-driving division is just a mechanism to sell more cars. At a high level, this is why: -…

Excellent example: "reflective cistern tank with a reflection of the back of a truck transporting stop signs"

People tend to forget just how hard the edge cases in vision are!

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

#295

Post by Initial_BP » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

cypress66 wrote: post #235

cs702 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep in mind that I'm talking about FSD Beta, not the current production software, which is dozens of versions behind. Are you on Beta 10.69.2.3? If I had to articulate my reasons: * Judging by the videos available online, my perception is that many situations that were impossible for Tesla FSD Beta a year ago have become uneventful in recent weeks. Take a look at Chuck Cook's videos for example (I like the fa…

As someone who also likes to watch Chuck Cook, I don't think Tesla is close to waymo. Tesla fsd in its current state will either crash or do some serious fuck up if you let it unattended for a few hours or maybe less (based on the disengagements in those videos). Forget about driverless Tesla with the current fsd. Waymo has been operating driverless since 2019. I do agree that it is progressing very nicely. Imo tesla…

I totally agree with you that Tesla FSD seems more likely yo have a serious crash, but if actual fully autonomous cars are the end goal, then the behavior of learning/beta models doesn't really matter except to the extent that it let's them get to the end goal (for the sake of this argument).

All fully autonomous cars are in a different legal situation then Tesla. Tesla sells Joe Shmoe a car and then tells him he can rub FSD but he's responsible and has to remain attentive then they get info about every disengagement and (mostly) avoid legal responsibility or accidents in many cases.

Waymo is fully responsible for every accident, etc so they HAVE to proceed more cautiously or they'll lose the ability to run their cars. As someone else pointed out they often are only operated in very specific areas, and often even specific streets within a geofence. So while on the surface Waymo may have full self driving operating more effectively with less problems, they're doing so in a much more controlled environment and not getting the variety of data that Tesla has from cars disengaging Literally anywhere in the US.

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

#296

Post by joshuaheard » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

I think the mistake was trying for full pattern recognition of the environment to control the car. Even human drivers need lane markers and traffic signals. They should make a custom "Botts Dot" that the AI can use to stay in the lanes. Every intersection should have a server broadcasting instructions to the vehicles to control traffic at that intersection. I'm not an expert, however.

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

#297

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:24 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #85

paganel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sparsely populated rural areas are really the only place where personal autos make sense. Long distance highway travel is better serviced by train. And transportation inside the city is better serviced by literally anything except a car (bikes, e-bikes, subway, trams, scooters, walking).

How do you get around the sparsely-populated rural areas at either end of the highway?

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

#298

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

nrclark wrote: post #218

rvz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by jboy55 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

Initial_BP wrote: post #293

bastawhiz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious why you think Tesla is ahead compared to Waymo and Cruise. Autopilot struggles in my car on some fairly boring roads, while Waymo and Cruise are both operating real taxi services in vehicles without drivers. I can understand the argument that Tesla has lots of data from real world driving. But Google also has fleets of cars mapping out every road in the world.

Not sure about the current state of the actual ML, but compared to other self driving companies Tesla has a treasure trove of data because they have so many vehicles on the road at all hours of every day. The edge cases are the parts that are hard to identify and solve so having all that drive time data to identify edge cases would seem to give them a big advantage.

If the data doesn't have the details required to build accurate models, then the data is just costing Tesla money. Since Tesla's are just cameras only, with telemetry, they can replay scenarios with existing roads, but what happens when someone cones off half of the road?

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

#300

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #72

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…

This bullshit shows up in every HN thread on autonomous vehicles. Really only on HN. It's wrong, uninformed, and won't seem to go away. The challenges self-driving cars have nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with the other moving objects on the road. It's not that the vehicles can't detect the other things on the road. It's that they can't anticipate reliably what they're going to do. (However yo…

This is where I see the problem being with autonomous vehicles, too. They can only react to other vehicles, they can't predict them.

Humans are good at predicting.

You don't consciously know you've seen the guy a couple of cars in front checking his mirror and his shoulder but you're hanging back because you just know he's going to pull out any second. The guy that's wavering a bit in the middle lane is about to dash across to the far lane of the sliproad that's coming up, clipping the zebra stripes a bit, because he's concentrating on the sat nav not the road, but you just know - out of all the other drivers in your space at the moment - that red Ford is the one that's going to do something boneheaded.

Autonomous Vehicles won't be able to do that, probably not ever.