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Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

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611–620 of 651 posts

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quote my question back to me and point out the presumption that the person is likely to disagree with?

I'll take that as a "no".

Take it however you want. You know what you're doing and it's intellectually dishonest.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how we've gone from "Taxis are gross and dirty, that's why I love Uber!" to "Ubers are gross and dirty, that's why I love Waymo!" in the span of 5 years. What do you think comes next? These cars are literally unsupervised.

>What do you think comes next? Public transport, hopefully.

Right, because public transit cleanliness beats Taxis, Ubers, and Waymos.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They only have a car that can drive with a human partner behind the wheel who's ready at any second to take over and prevent it from crashing. Even that is a faulty system. I really don't understand how people can think Tesla and Waymo are anywhere close to each other. Making a car drive itself is a much harder problem to solve than scaling production. If you look at what Tesla has, today, it is a vehicle that can…

Scaling production isn't the issue for Waymo, it's scaling and maintaining operational capabilities within cities at a cost that still lets them be profitable. I think it's possible, but it's definitely less trivial than scaling production of more self driving cars.

Those go hand in hand. In theory the successful mass production of their vehicles should drop the cost so that they can turn a profit. The increased number of vehicles and ridership cover the staff to maintain them. As I mentioned elsewhere I would not be surprised if the plush leather seats give way to easily cleaned hard plastic chairs.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is willing to sell to people who will pay $$$ for a self driving car. Waymo isn't. That's probably more important for now. Taxi drivers don't earn that much, and have some advantages AI can't easily replace (able to help with luggage, use petrol stations etc). Replacing them requires undercutting them which in turn means you can't generate a ton of revenue from that. Yet Waymo's business model, such that it is,…

> Tesla is willing to sell to people who will pay $$$ for a self driving car The very low take-up rate of FSD during the trial period indicates that most people are buying Tesla's because they are arguably the best EV with the best charging network. Not because of FSD.

Because the trial period showed that FSD will routinely try to kill you, on the routes I take around San Jose (interstate and normal roads). But having solar power and electric cars is awesome, and the car is a lot faster and more fun than my Prius was.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read the part where I said the understanding constrains the existing user base from antisocial behavior, right? This isn't about "commoners". It's that any large group of people contains assholes, assholes restrain themselves depending on circumstances, and the new users might well lack that understanding. It's fundamentally not about "commoners", but about a knowledge-based restraint falling away. (As for the "c…

The fact that a critique by someone else of what they think you sound like makes you accuse them of 'outrage' is exactly why you sound like a snob.

If that person had done me the courtesy of actually reading, I wouldn't object.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rate at which these systems are improving makes it almost useless to compare even six months ago.

Prove that. Because last time I checked in there wasn't a self-driving system in play that wouldn't faceplant into wet cement, blow through crosswalks, or find itself trapped in a cleverly deployed ring of salt. Additionally, by their own admission Waymo is nowhere near level 5 autonomy, which means they still haven't reached parity with what a mediocre human driver is capable of.

> they still haven't reached parity with what a mediocre human driver is capable of

When that driver is sober and alert and paying attention. Which I'm sure is at least 90% of the time.

If I'm coming back from a party, or an ER visit, or being 95 years old, I may not be in that 90%.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scaling production isn't the issue for Waymo, it's scaling and maintaining operational capabilities within cities at a cost that still lets them be profitable. I think it's possible, but it's definitely less trivial than scaling production of more self driving cars.

Those go hand in hand. In theory the successful mass production of their vehicles should drop the cost so that they can turn a profit. The increased number of vehicles and ridership cover the staff to maintain them. As I mentioned elsewhere I would not be surprised if the plush leather seats give way to easily cleaned hard plastic chairs.

No, I'm saying the problem is scaling that's not just building and maintaining the cars themselves, but rather building and maintaining capability around the cars.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a critique by someone else of what they think you sound like makes you accuse them of 'outrage' is exactly why you sound like a snob.

If that person had done me the courtesy of actually reading, I wouldn't object.

That person did read it, and the fact that you believe anything you wrote in the entire comment would not contribute to the notion that your are a classist snob is hilarious.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#619
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only will safety take a long time for technical reasons, but its extremely predictable under what financial conditions corporate execs sweep safety issues under the carpet. If Alphabet has a few tricky quarters good luck to everyone.

Oh sure yeah. It'd take exactly one legislative push to place full liability in the case of accidents onto the vehicle manufacturer (where it clearly belongs) to fold up every autonomy division in the industry like a wet towel. What galls the shit out of me is there's apparently enough dumb money afoot to float R&D spend equivalent to the GDP of a middle of the road 3rd world country just to make cabbies lives even m…

That dumb money mountain will go to fighting legislation as we have seen with big oil, telco, pharma, wall st etc. The money always flows and aggregates around anything that promises to become a monopoly tomorrow. And monopolies can then collect rent at whatever rate they want. This end state is what attracts money more and more. The money is not just to replace the existing solution, its reqd to capture and lock in talent, attention, suppliers, lobbyists, politicians etc. The more the spend the more competitors exit too, the closer to market capture. But they have been spending for a long time to end up in just 2 cities so the pressure to scale, monetize, compromise will keep growing.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#620
post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you completely missed the point of rate-of-innovation How is the "rate of innovation" higher but yet they've innovated less and have a less functional product? It's made up metric and was ignored because it adds no value to the conversation unless you have some actual data.

Waymo has spent more money, resources and started earlier than Tesla and yet it is only marginally better than Tesla at this point. from Fig 1: https://fooledbyrandomness.com/ConvexityScience.pdf Waymo (and most HNers) : Knowledge Edge Musk / (Billionaires hated by HNers) : Convexity Bias

> Waymo has spent more money, resources and started earlier than Tesla and yet it is only marginally better than Tesla at this point.

Tesla isn't even comparable to Waymo at this point because Tesla has zero level 4 capability. Teslas don't even have the redundant sensors needed for level 4+. All Tesla has is empty promises and an u unclear path for ever getting past level 3.

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