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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

cnbc.com

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Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#31

Post by xnx »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #10

I'm cautiously optimistic about this self-driving thing. Waymo at least seems to have figured out a lot of it. Would it be way better to make walkable neighborhoods, mixed-use developments, and reliable and frequent public transit? Yes. Yes it would. But, in lieu of that, self-driving has a lot of advantages in the long run, even if the technology isn't 100% perfect right now.

In most respects, Waymo is the modern version of reliable and frequent public transit, with a lot of additional benefits.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#32

Post by phkahler »

vinkelhake wrote: post #25

I live in the bay and occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time. I visited NYC a few weeks ago and was instantly reminded of how much the traffic fucking sucks :) While I was there I actually thought of Waymo and how they'd have to turn up the "aggression" slider up to 11 to get anything done there. I mean, could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when…

>> could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when the light is yellow and you know you're going to block the crossing traffic?

I wonder how many Waymos following the rules would be needed to reduce gridlock.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#33

Post by potatolicious »

SirMaster wrote: post #14
TulliusCicero wrote: post #3

It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities. Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

>despite having already launched service in several other cities. Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do? For example the first thing I can think of new for New York is snow and ice. It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to s…

> "Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do?"

New requirements come up all the time in technology. The existence of a new requirement isn't in and of itself justification for skepticism - is there a particular reason to believe that Waymo is not capable of solving for the new requirement?

The answer may be yes, but simply "ahah! It would need to do [new thing]!" is insufficient. "[new thing] is likely intractable because [reason]" would be more justification for skepticism.

> "It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to snow and ice."

Sure, but like above - is there a reason this is an intractable problem?

I'll throw this out there: your human-driven car already accounts for acceleration and braking on slippery roads, without the need for the human. Traction control systems and electronic stability control systems exist! They're in fact incredibly common on modern cars.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#34

Post by TulliusCicero »

SirMaster wrote: post #14
TulliusCicero wrote: post #3

It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities. Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

>despite having already launched service in several other cities. Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do? For example the first thing I can think of new for New York is snow and ice. It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to s…

A fair point about weather, but a lot of the assertions are like "how will they handle the double parking and suicidal pedestrians jaywalking across the street??" I'd say most of the concerns just don't sound very unique at all.

For weather, Waymo has clearly started out in warmer climates while slowly building out towards places with colder and colder weather, I'm guessing they're just incrementally getting better at it.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#35

Post by boringg »

I can't wait to hear how it goes in NYC -- its going to be a total cluster - with the significantly more chaotic behavior on the streets, bike scooters, pedestrians and then the oddness of the streets/aggressive driving necessary behavior.

Give it one month if they saturate it too much there will be political blowback on waymos causing traffic chaos. Queue track record in SF as datapoints.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#36

Post by wahnfrieden »

setgree wrote: post #28
vinkelhake wrote: post #25

I live in the bay and occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time. I visited NYC a few weeks ago and was instantly reminded of how much the traffic fucking sucks :) While I was there I actually thought of Waymo and how they'd have to turn up the "aggression" slider up to 11 to get anything done there. I mean, could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when…

Semi-related, but just once in my life, I want to hear a mayoral candidate say: “I endorse broken windows theory, but for drivers. You honk when there’s no emergency, block the box, roll through a stop sign — buddy that’s a ticket. Do it enough and we’ll impound your car.” Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…

NYPD cops don't like enforcing traffic violations: https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png (License holders and drivers on the road are up in the same period that summonses are down, too. Traffic is up since pre-covid.)

Now that I live in Toronto we face the same challenges. Politicians may introduce traffic laws to curb dangers and nuisances from drivers, but police refuse to enforce them. As they don't live in the city, cops seem to prefer to side with drivers over local pedestrians, residents or cyclists who they view antagonistically. Broken window works for them because they enjoy harassing pedestrians and residents of the communities they commute into.

So there is a bigger problem to solve than legislation.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#37

Post by binoct »

SirMaster wrote: post #14
TulliusCicero wrote: post #3

It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities. Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

>despite having already launched service in several other cities. Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do? For example the first thing I can think of new for New York is snow and ice. It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to s…

Launching in other cities with new problems gives experience dealing with new problems, and the meta-learnings transfer to better processes for adapting to new issues. But yeah, ice and snow are definitely major new environmental factors for New York (and DC, and many other places we are starting to see more serious testing).

Autonomous vehicles can and do take into account surface conditions, there’s not really any reason not to. There are pretty good generative models of the physics of vehicles with different surface conditions, and I imagine part of the data collection they are doing is to help build statistical of vehicle performance based on sensed conditions.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#38

Post by kevincox »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #10

I'm cautiously optimistic about this self-driving thing. Waymo at least seems to have figured out a lot of it. Would it be way better to make walkable neighborhoods, mixed-use developments, and reliable and frequent public transit? Yes. Yes it would. But, in lieu of that, self-driving has a lot of advantages in the long run, even if the technology isn't 100% perfect right now.

I think taxis have a place even in cities with great transportation. I live in Toronto and 90% of my commuting is walking, 8% public transit and 2% driving. But there are some trips that would be very difficult to do a way other than driving (for example carrying lots of stuff or awkward cargo) and taxis fill that gap wonderfully. Especially if self-driving taxis could handle long trips a lot better as inter-city is a place where Toronto public transit unfortunately sucks (for example visiting my parents in cottage country).

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#39

Post by darth_avocado »

phkahler wrote: post #32
vinkelhake wrote: post #25

I live in the bay and occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time. I visited NYC a few weeks ago and was instantly reminded of how much the traffic fucking sucks :) While I was there I actually thought of Waymo and how they'd have to turn up the "aggression" slider up to 11 to get anything done there. I mean, could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when…

>> could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when the light is yellow and you know you're going to block the crossing traffic? I wonder how many Waymos following the rules would be needed to reduce gridlock.

Waymo in SF pretty much drives like a human, and that includes doing human things like cutting lanes, stopping wherever it feels like, driving in the bus lane etc. I think it’ll be fine in NYC

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#40

Post by dmicah »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #13

I’m curious if autonomous cars will become targets for aggressive drivers. Like a driver isn’t going to be as scared cutting off a Waymo or tailgating one because the AI isn’t gonna get road rage or honk like hell. In some places I could see the Waymo’s getting severely bullied if that’s the case.

But why would you tailgate a driverless car? I think usually people tailgate to intimidate the person ahead of them to drive faster.
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