Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#61

Post by w0utert » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:32 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #3

While this is very encouraging, the TC article is also very misleading. For example: "There have, of course been some accidents that involved Google’s self-driving cars in the past. All of these, however, happened while humans were in control of the cars." - isn't this far more likely to be the case, since the human only takes control when the car can't figure it out? Also, who's commute doesn't involve temporary con…

Good points. Without any statistics about the frequency and nature of situations where the human driver still has to intervene, numbers like '300K miles without an accident' are meaningless. For all I know the Google cars might have had a near-accident every 10 miles if it weren't for the human driver that's always there to save the AI when it fails. The fact that Google never discloses anything besides mile counts, and only lets outsiders take a ride with the Google cars under extremely controlled situations, is quite telling. Statements about Google car achievements like this are not much more than propaganda to me, until Google starts to share actual in-depth details about the performance of the cars. If it really works as well as they claim it does, what can they lose by disclosing everything?

Myself, I'm extremely skeptical about self-driving cars, and I've never understood why I seem to be massively outnumbered by people who are utterly convinced it is possible to create AI that can handle the billions of different and sometimes completely arbitrary traffic situations you'll encounter while driving on current road infrastructure. Sure enough it will work great 90% of the time in some places, but that's not enough. It needs to work 99% of the time everywhere. Simply looking at the achievements made in AI in the last 50 years or something doesn't really warrant a whole lot of optimism we'll get there anytime soon.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#62

Post by stephengillie » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:33 PM UTC

duck wrote: post #36

The cars still need to learn how to handle snow-covered roads That is going to be hard to pull off. For places that get a lot of snow, often you can't even be sure if you're on the road or not.

A snow-covered road is a situation where:

  1. Road indicators are difficult to identify
  2. Roadway has less traction than usual
  3. Humans are having emotional reactions (joy, terror) which impacts their processing abilities.

3 is mitigated by design. 1 is a sensor issue, it's also a problem that very accurate GPS can solve.

There are many causes of slick road surfaces, from snow and ice to excessive water, spilled materials, collision debris, and low-quality roadways (dirt and gravel roads). Driving in reduced-traction situations shouldn't be an edge-case.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#63

Post by e1ven » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:35 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #30

Long-haul tractor trailers. We need long stretches of highway where autonomous tractor trailers can carry goods. It'll provide a good business case and limit liability.

We have (one of the) largest freight-train networks in the world. It's great for things like that.

Trains are basically semi-autonomous, and out of the way of cars anyway.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#64

Post by adolfojp » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:35 PM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #25

Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. When economists think about technology, they look at it as a productivity booster. From that angle, robot cars will have a huge impact - so many commute hours will be transformed to work, or even leisure, which also boosts productivity. So many smart people are about to be given a 10% or better…

Eating food from a tube could also give us a lot more free time but we don't do it because it is not an enjoyable experience. We not only enjoy the flavors and textures that regular food provides, we also enjoy the rituals that accompany eating. In this regard driving cars is somewhat similar. A lot of people enjoy driving and many actually find it therapeutic. Some exceptions do exist, like driving in heavy traffic, driving long distances, and driving to places where parking spaces are limited, but better public transportation would solve those problems much more efficiently than autonomous cars ever will.

So, while autonomous cars could and probably will replace regular cars in places that have regular roads and good infrastructure they will definitely face a lot of resistance from consumers.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#65

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

dpcx wrote: post #47

pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't autonomous cars required to have a human "driver" while on the road? I can definitely see truckers lobbying to have some sort of law of that nature - they sit behind the wheel "in case something goes wrong", but would be allowed to drive longer hours with fewer mandated breaks. Sounds like a win for the profession in general... setting aside that longer drive times mean that at least some will be out of work.

They do now. Doesn't necessarily mean that in 5 years they still will.

Do unions still hold significant political sway these days? I can definitely see truckers pulling their weight to keep those laws on the books for commercial freight at least long enough to stay employed 'til retirement.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#66

Post by bartonfink » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

iskander wrote: post #38

nostromo wrote: post #32

Too bad it doesn't mention if this is better than a human or not. So, I decided to figure it out... 2.9 trillion miles driven in 2009 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf 10.8 million traffic accidents in 2009 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... If my math is correct the average american can expect to get in an accident every ~250,000 miles driven, (NYC to LA 90 times) s…

I don't know much about this google project. Can autonomous cars (i) drive on the highway (ii) drive at night (iii) drive in snow or rain?

Autonomous cars have driven on the highway in real-traffic conditions [1], [2], although they had a driver at the ready in the event of any problem. I don't know about night or weather conditions for these instances.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VaMP (their citations pages aren't responding at the moment)

[2] - http://www.argo.ce.unipr.it/argo/english/index.html

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#67

Post by kevinalexbrown » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

The most amazing part is that autonomous cars have completed 300,000 miles at all. Congratulations to the engineering team!

Around fifteen years ago, I read as a child with fascination an account in Scientific American about an automated highway project where sensors were to be placed every few feet on the road, and cars would follow them, until a driver retook control at the end. I imagined a future network of roads in which cars read from sensors to determine where they were, and was kind of saddened that governments didn't immediately start putting these sensors into highways. This is such a cooler solution, one that doesn't depend on a parallel development of infrastructure, one that would presumably take lots of bureaucratic steps that are naturally associated with usage decisions on publicly owned land (which makes sense).

What this reminds me of, rather spectacularly, is that if one method of getting to your solution fails, either because those sensors didn't work out, or the bureaucracy didn't, if you come up with a solution, and say "oh by the way I did it already", it's a lot harder for anyone to ignore it.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#68

Post by stephengillie » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

duck wrote: post #36

The cars still need to learn how to handle snow-covered roads That is going to be hard to pull off. For places that get a lot of snow, often you can't even be sure if you're on the road or not.

This brings up another question: How will these cars react when a street is blocked and unpassable, due to heavy snowfall (unplowed), heavy rainfall over the street, mudslides & rock slides, etc?

What about where a street has parked cars on both sides and just enough room for one car to go through the middle of the street - one of the narrow city streets where drivers have to wait in the intersection for oncoming cars - will these autonomous cars wait and let drivers through, or will they get stuck?

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#69

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #22

ams6110 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be OK with google tracking everywhere you go and serving you ads for every shop you pass?

If you have an android phone, Google already has the capability to do this.

I believe they do, as well. IIRC that's how the realtime traffic data comes in.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#70

Post by adamsmith » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:40 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #59

andrewljohnson wrote: post #25

Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. When economists think about technology, they look at it as a productivity booster. From that angle, robot cars will have a huge impact - so many commute hours will be transformed to work, or even leisure, which also boosts productivity. So many smart people are about to be given a 10% or better…

> Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Si…

Cars will become more appealing than public transportation over time. As the downsides of cars fall away, their packet switched functionality will ultimately win out, particularly for wealthier people.