Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo Safety Impact

waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 424 posts

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#121

Post by AgentME »

jjmarr wrote: post #53
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

Waymo saved my life in LA. When I visited LA, I rode in a Waymo going the speed limit in the right lane on a very busy street. The Waymo approached an intersection where it had the right of way, when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road. In less than a second, the Waymo moved into the left lane and kept going. I didn't even realize what was happening until after it was over. Most human drivers…

Waymos have since added support for YouTube Music thankfully.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#122

Post by jmalicki »

gowld wrote: post #68
jmalicki wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the traffic cops directing traffic that would likely require special programming, "proceed if the other car flashes its lights at you" is completely the kind of thing that could just accidentally fall out of a neural network learning to imitate humans.

That's not how Waymo works, though. Waymo doesn't imitate humans. Waymo is trained to obey traffic laws and avoid collisions.

Waymo has published a ton about the imitation learning they've been using since 2018. They're not imitating random cars but their drivers who are paid to drive around and follow traffic laws.

It's not enough so they use heavy reinforcement learning etc. but it's still a huge foundation to build on.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#123

Post by [deleted] »

fainpul wrote: post #91
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

> They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. You're absolutely right! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp0W5v8GOPc&t=520s

[deleted]

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#124

Post by ElijahLynn »

jjmarr wrote: post #53
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

Waymo saved my life in LA. When I visited LA, I rode in a Waymo going the speed limit in the right lane on a very busy street. The Waymo approached an intersection where it had the right of way, when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road. In less than a second, the Waymo moved into the left lane and kept going. I didn't even realize what was happening until after it was over. Most human drivers…

How ironic that an Alphabet company, Waymo, only works with a competitor streaming music service, Spotify, and not their own, YouTube Music. I guess that shows how separate they are.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#125

Post by 0x3f »

dbt00 wrote: post #120
whyenot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a different kind of increased safety. There is no driver. No weird conversations about slaughtering goats, no sexual advances. No worrying that your driver is going to assault you or attempt to kidnap you. I know, it's all very far fetched, and Uber/Lyft drivers are almost always nice, courteous and professional, but I have experienced a few times when that hasn't been the case. With Waymo, it's not eve…

This is like keeping your kids inside in case something bad happens to them. If your kids never leave the house, something bad definitely happens to them, they stay kids.

Is there some benefit to talking to weird Uber drivers I've yet to discover that's comparable with 'going outside at all'?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#126

Post by motbus3 »

If someone drives badly they might go to jail if they hurt or kill someone. If a machine does it who pays? I want to see waymo and other CEO for decades for each mistake.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#127

Post by ajp-stl »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #45
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

I ride my bike and rollerblade around Austin. If only Waymo's were on the road I wouldn't worry about bike path dividers at all. I sometimes pace them to act as a moving shield. Nothing else comes close, not even eye contact and being waved on by a human. The other autonomous cars that have been introduced are at least just as scary to be around as people.

sounds like you enjoy the predicability of Waymo vehicles. humans are unpredictable.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#128

Post by motbus3 »

jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

When it happens, who will go to jail?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#129

Post by uv-depression »

altruios wrote: post #71

Car centric design is ruining this country. The great deal: let's redesign our cities to be car free. Consider the economic boom that amount of renovation would produce. Consider the increased economic activity from happier and more productive people. Consider the increased space for nature, parks, real estate, development. Cars are the worst thing to have been invented. Optimizing the personal automobile leads to op…

Americans will vehemently deny this, but you're absolutely right. Decades of car industry propaganda has convinced people that the ability to drive anywhere is true freedom, and they can't see that the freedom not to need a car (all the time) is better for everyone; cities are quieter, more comfortable, and less polluted with fewer cars (no, electric cars don't fix this). It leads to other absurdities, like US cities frequently having parking minimums for bars. That's insane!

There's also the classic problem of people wildly misinterpreting statements and getting mad about it. You can say "we should design cities not centred around cars" and people will hear "I'm going to make it illegal for you to own a car". Or my favourite exchange, "Let's improve public transit" followed by "but public transit is bad for me, I can't take it".

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#130

Post by dbt00 »

jaesonaras wrote: post #102

I just watched a short that said some (all) Waymo drivers are not autonomous, but remote controlled by humans in the Phillipines. I'm sure it's a combination of both since the latency would mean immediate reactions are impossible, but the presenter raised an interesting point, and that was that the remote drivers are not licensed to drive in the states that Waymo operated in, which would make it illegal.

Waymo uses remote contractors to hint the Waymo driver when it can't figure out a path forward. They're not being remote piloted.

They are however, very cagy about how often this is necessary.

Post reply on HN