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

Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 498 posts

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

#301

Post by sarchertech »

bluGill wrote: post #295
sarchertech wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on you definition of “flood”. But here we’re just talking about dangerously flooded roadways, and in many parts of the US those happen multiple times per year. Definitely common enough that you can’t just shut down your fleet anytime there is a danger of it happening.

My experience with them is they only last a short time, and there is almost always an alternate route so you are not shutting anything down, just slowing things down a little.

Sure if your robot tax is correctly able to distinguish between a quarter of an inch of water on the road and 2 inches or more, which doesn’t seem to be the case currently.

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

#302

Post by llbbdd »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #285
llbbdd wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine but you still have to get to/from the train station, which is a problem cars solve very well. All the better if the car drives itself. They complement each other which is why I find it so strange that discussion of trains shows up in these threads so often as though though they're some kind of panaceanic alternative that is being overlooked. > because it's not some private ownership tech hype bullshit I d…

You're speaking authoritatively but you don't even understand the basics of a lot of municipal train systems. > they take up a lot of space that people can't walk on, that cars can't drive on, that isn't useful to park housing or commerce near there are multiple cities that already have systems where all of this is true through various sections — Boston for example has the green line, which has rail embedded in stree…

Not everybody lives in a dense city center or wants to, which is where the usefulness of trains ends and cars begins.

> children use them to get to school, they're accessible the elderly and disabled. Many things that automated cars can not do.

...all of those things are things cars can do today, why would automated cars be any different?

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

#303

Post by JimTheMan »

jimbo808 wrote: post #294
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 huge disadvantage they have over people is that their cars cost $250k, require a workforce of people to retrieve and repair them, maintain them, clean them, monitor them, etc. They are more expensive to operate than a normal car with a human driver, so far. The break-even point requires a lot of problems to be solved, and even then, the upside is not looking to be astronomical in the best case.

Hard disk drives were the size of washing machines. I don't see how they will ever be practical!

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

#304

Post by eradicatethots »

jimbo808 wrote: post #294
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 huge disadvantage they have over people is that their cars cost $250k, require a workforce of people to retrieve and repair them, maintain them, clean them, monitor them, etc. They are more expensive to operate than a normal car with a human driver, so far. The break-even point requires a lot of problems to be solved, and even then, the upside is not looking to be astronomical in the best case.

[dead]

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

#305

Post by robotresearcher »

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"

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious.

The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard.

In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

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

#306

Post by autoexec »

estearum wrote: post #275
autoexec wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is honestly kind of funny how clearly your comments read like motivated reasoning, and then one just looks at your username.

Probably not what you think unless you know what SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T5 means

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

#307

Post by jsrozner »

robotresearcher wrote: post #305
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"

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.

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

#308

Post by autoexec »

swisniewski wrote: post #268
autoexec wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

But humans do make mistakes like that (driving into oncoming traffic or driving down a light rail track). For example, here’s a case where a human did it to avoid an ambulance: https://www.click2houston.com/news/2012/09/18/10-injured-in-... This guy says he was blinded by the sun: https://kutv.com/news/local/trax-train-hits-vehicle-in-sandy Sometimes people are drunk: https://komonews.com/news/local/police-suspected-…

These people, even the drunk guy, weren't cruising down the tracks without a care in the world. They either stopped on tracks or were pushed onto them.

I was skeptical about the guy who claimed to be "blinded by the sun" and searched for more info only to find that people get hit by the light rail in Sandy Utah with alarming frequency. Not even just in cars. Pedestrians, people on bikes, people in wheelchairs, I'm starting to think it's cursed.

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

#309

Post by HDBaseT »

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…

A human has to pass a test to be able to drive. A human (for the most part) doesn't just unknowingly drive into floods.

Why aren't we holding computers to AT LEAST the same expectation as humans.

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

#310

Post by bitpush »

HDBaseT wrote: post #309
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…

A human has to pass a test to be able to drive. A human (for the most part) doesn't just unknowingly drive into floods. Why aren't we holding computers to AT LEAST the same expectation as humans.

Are you suggesting every DL holder knows all the driving conditions?

Quick, what should one do when the car starts drifting in ice? How about aqua planing?

If it is just taking a regular DL test, then waymo, Tesla and others would be driving all across the US by now. They already have a higher standard

Post reply on HN