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Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

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Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#241

Post by lapetitejort »

Muromec wrote: post #215
burnte wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ATL this happens often enough that it's not a shock when it happens, we have lots of drainage problems here. I agree that I would have assumed Waymo had tested in events like this, but clearly not. So what I can say is running in ATL is a great test case for these events, and also the people who live here don't do a better job than Waymo did. There were dozens of people who ruined their cars yesterday trying to dr…

As much as one could expect waymo to train on it, one could also expect a functioning city to not have flooded streets

Every time a city thinks flooding problems are fixed, nature invents a bigger storm

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#242

Post by cm2187 »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

The final boss will be driving in Rome

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#244

Post by pinkmuffinere »

ryukoposting wrote: post #232
burnte wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ATL this happens often enough that it's not a shock when it happens, we have lots of drainage problems here. I agree that I would have assumed Waymo had tested in events like this, but clearly not. So what I can say is running in ATL is a great test case for these events, and also the people who live here don't do a better job than Waymo did. There were dozens of people who ruined their cars yesterday trying to dr…

SV is the most cloistered place I've ever seen. I'm comfortable assuming that nobody in any position of power at Waymo ever thought to themselves "gee maybe the weather is different in this new city we're deploying to, perhaps we should test that"

This seems silly -- they roll the service out to individual cities in different regions, one at a time. Why do you think they do that? I'm pretty sure this is exactly that testing that you're referring to.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#245

Post by jfim »

ryukoposting wrote: post #232
burnte wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ATL this happens often enough that it's not a shock when it happens, we have lots of drainage problems here. I agree that I would have assumed Waymo had tested in events like this, but clearly not. So what I can say is running in ATL is a great test case for these events, and also the people who live here don't do a better job than Waymo did. There were dozens of people who ruined their cars yesterday trying to dr…

SV is the most cloistered place I've ever seen. I'm comfortable assuming that nobody in any position of power at Waymo ever thought to themselves "gee maybe the weather is different in this new city we're deploying to, perhaps we should test that"

There's a long tail of unpredictable events in the AV industry that you end up seeing, especially since the cars in aggregate end up driving more than one could over a lifetime.

At a previous employer, we've seen anything from cars getting mooned, a SUV slowly driving past the AV, the rear window roll down, and someone poke their head out and start throwing dollar bills at the AV, a convention of people dressed up in animal costumes, the "Miami left," and so on.

So it's much less of "maybe we should test that" and more of "we don't know what we don't know, so let's gather some data." In practice, the cars have lidar so they won't crash into solid objects that aren't recognized, they just end up getting stuck in embarrassing situations like these.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#246

Post by fwip »

jfim wrote: post #245
ryukoposting wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SV is the most cloistered place I've ever seen. I'm comfortable assuming that nobody in any position of power at Waymo ever thought to themselves "gee maybe the weather is different in this new city we're deploying to, perhaps we should test that"

There's a long tail of unpredictable events in the AV industry that you end up seeing, especially since the cars in aggregate end up driving more than one could over a lifetime. At a previous employer, we've seen anything from cars getting mooned, a SUV slowly driving past the AV, the rear window roll down, and someone poke their head out and start throwing dollar bills at the AV, a convention of people dressed up in…

A flooded road is a very predictable event, though.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#247

Post by WarmWash »

etempleton wrote: post #90

This is really my bear case against AI. I am not against it. I actually think it is really neat! But we have been working on driverless cars for how long and spent how much? And still things like a flooded roadway completely throw them. Tesla failed to deliver driverless cars but now is pivoting to the much more complex fully autonomous robots. And we can’t get AI to stop hallucinating facts, but any day we are going…

One of the biggest challenges with self driving cars is that the cars must be substantially safer than human driven cars.

Human driven cars kill tons of people. Everyday in the US 115 people wake up who will be dead from a car accident by midnight.

But if a self driving car kills one human? Your company and mission is cooked.

Besides the immense engineering challenge, the bar is also way way way higher.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#248

Post by autoexec »

RealityVoid wrote: post #225
autoexec wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, nobody has been hurt from floods while in a Waymo. They hide their safety data from the public though ( https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/28/22906513/waymo-lawsuit-ca... ) so it's hard to say for sure. They've certainly been involved in crashes, killed pets (I actually give them a pass on the bodega cat), run over elementary school children, etc. Waymo has said it's only a matter of time until they ki…

This feels disingenuous to the extreme. Yes, chances are that some people will die run over by a Waymo. Put enough miles in one and someone will die eventually. Compare the numbers to human drivers. Would you, if they had LESS fatality rates than human drivers, say that the difference is "lives saved"? - I don't think you would. In 5 years, after someone is eventually fatally injured you'll just jump up and say "AHA!…

> In 5 years, after someone is eventually fatally injured you'll just jump up and say "AHA! Told you Waymos are unsafe!"

That'll depend on the circumstances. If someone is killed because of a mistake a human wouldn't have made (like driving into oncoming traffic or down a light rail track) it'll be entirely their fault. Even if they do something humans sometimes do but never should like running a red light I'd argue that it makes them unsafe. To our knowledge they've only been involved in one human fatality so far but it wasn't their fault so I don't blame them for that.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#249

Post by [deleted] »

grumbel wrote: post #151
dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

I am a little worried that this is still a problem after 20 years. Don't they have simulators to test every weird and unexpected road condition offline? And flooded roads aren't exactly an unusual event to begin with.

[deleted]

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#250

Post by WarmWash »

3498q2 wrote: post #218
RationPhantoms wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will posit something that guides my own thinking about this; robotaxis will never drink and drive. I'll take whatever flavor of mistake they conjure over that. I can deal with stupidity, I cannot (and don't want to) deal with malice.

Many people don't drink and drive either. You can drive defensively, choose your own route. Even on two lane roads: if an idiot overtakes into oncoming traffic there is usually just enough space for three vehicles next to each other. Can a Waymo move sharply to the right so there are two cars on each side with the overtaking idiot in the middle and all just fit on the road? I had to do that maneuver at least twice. C…

Its funny because (at least years ago) accidents would get posted on /r/idiotsincars , and like clockwork everyone would pile on the idiot in the car.

However sometimes the dashcam would be from a motorcyclist, and the video would get posted over in the motorcycle sub as well. There, no one would talk about the idiot, and everyone would shred the motorcyclist for poor defensive driving.

The takeaway is that most regular drivers think that they are totally powerless on the road, and have no ability to avert any situation arising from someone else.

Motorcyclists die if they don't learn this skill, so they tend to be pretty sharp defensive drivers.

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