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The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

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Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#421

Post by TeMPOraL »

Wilya wrote: post #251
TheEzEzz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be at least 50 million residential garages in the US alone. If we automate all cars and switch to a Cars-as-a-Service model that is 50 million large rooms suddenly available. That's a lot of reclaimed real estate. Edit: If the average garage is 250 sq ft (pretty small), average cost of real estate is $100/sq ft (pretty low), then this is a $1.25 trillion windfall. Not bad for a small side-effect of autonom…

Well, that's if you assume that Cars-as-a-Service don't need to be stored anywhere and magical disappear when they are not in use. I know Google has magical fairy powers, but last I checked, a self-driving car is exactly the same size as a regular car, and takes the same storage space.

Not everyone is driving at the same time, so Google can use their "magical fairy powers" (also known as statistics / data analysis) to determine how many cars are needed to support a city, maximizing the number of them that are constantly in motion, dropping one passenger and picking another. The ones that are not needed at the time can be stacked tightly in a dedicated multi-storey parking garage.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#422

Post by TeMPOraL »

jacquesm wrote: post #137
Zigurd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autonomous braking exists for those kinds of events: When a person steps out in front of a car, for example. Yet I don't see people deliberately jumping out in front of cars just to mess with them.

Google 'russia dashcam' videos and have your worldview adjusted. Incredibly, in Russia people apparently throw themselves in front of cars to try to get injury compensation. It doesn't happen often but often enough that people have made compilation videos. That and a whole pile of crazy drivers are the reason that dashcams are so popular in Russia in the first place, they give the driver some evidence to show what ha…

So maybe the data collected by the cars could be used to sue people deliberately running through traffic to the Moon and back.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#423

Post by scrabble »

prawn wrote: post #396
scrabble wrote: post #215

I'm wondering how a robot car is going to park in a driveway -- or in a parking lot.

Very easily. Not to mention that storage will be simpler as cars will be able to park closely together without requiring doors to open before moving to where you can enter them, or in elevated storage. At some point in the future, most people will be unlikely to own a car (just use one on demand) so their driveway will go mostly unused and their garage will be used for something else also.

The issue comes up somewhere like a townhouse complex. Maps does not contain detailed data on assigned parking spaces and the like for these areas.

This is not an issue if everyone is using self-driving cars. But when only some people are, I don't see how you'd avoid the need for cars to take over in these instances.

Same with street driving really, you already have self-parking cars, but the car would need to be able to not only determine where the parking spaces are (and deal with issues like faded parking lines) but also determine whether or not there are any laws restricting the use of that space -- not only handicapped spaces, but also time of day and week.

Again, not an issue when everyone is in self-driving cars because most of these rules seem designed to optimize traffic flow, but until that point (and maybe for a time after) these laws will remain in affect.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#424

Post by TeMPOraL »

sixQuarks wrote: post #212

What happens when some asshole with some knowledge of the algorithm decides to troll commuters? For example, standing around an intersection, pretending to move forward/backward, forcing cars to just stop there.

Someone will get angry enough to call the police to deal with that asshole. Also, every car will be a source of court-admissible proof that the person in question was in fact disturbing the traffic purposefully.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#425

Post by TeMPOraL »

monksy wrote: post #367

I wonder how that deals with potholes or roads that lack the proper markings or one way streets. Chicago has both of those.

Probably the same way humans do, only better. Computers do have memory, as well as access to external information.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#426

Post by justinpaulson »

jameshart wrote: post #343
ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

"a full network of communicating cars and fail-safes" is a long way away, though. And to get there you have to go through a long period of some self-driving cars, sharing the road with old-fashioned human piloted ones. As a human driver, I spend a lot of my time anticipating the behavior of my fellow road-users. That car coming up from the side street - did they see me? They're on their phone, maybe they didn't see m…

Some of the exact things you mention are covered in the video in the post. I think you are underestimating current AI.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#427

Post by TeMPOraL »

Morgawr wrote: post #117
skrause wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that now already, e.g. pretend to quickly step on a road while a car is approaching and watch the human drives hit their brakes. Yet I don't see that happening because the majority of people aren't jerks.

There is a huge difference between a kid playing a prank to a few cars on the road and a malicious hacker willing to take control of a portion of the street indefinitely. Imagine for example some hacker programming all the cars in the proximity of a bank to grind to a halt and cause congestion so his team can go rob said bank and have the police delayed because of the inconvenience. Yes, it sounds like the plot for a…

Today you can do this as well, just take (rent) a car or two, stop them in the middle of the road and get out. Things like this happen and will happen, it's what we have to deal with when the enemy actors are sentient beings. They will find workarounds.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#428

Post by justinpaulson »

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #416
ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

> We won't need to waste 4-10%+ of our entire lives staring at the road doing nothing. No you don't. That's why many people use public transport or combine travelling with exercise (bike). Self driving cars doesn't solve the real problem which is that people have the idea that cars are actually sustainable.

You must not live any where in the entire center of the United States

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#429

Post by TeMPOraL »

logikblok wrote: post #64

Genuine question, can anybody answer how these cars will: 1) Allow for situational aspects of driving eg I need to get there quickly so might drive faster because I'm running late? 2) Protect from people intentionally take advantage of safety mechanisms eg cutting in front, stepping out onto the road?

I think we'll adjust laws to handle 2). There will be more than enough court-admissible sensor data from cars to sue offenders from here to the Mars and back.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#430

Post by mcherm »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #301
pinaceae wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but this why ownership as a concept is actually quite nice - i can decide right now to do something with my car. i don't need to plan ahead. i am not dependent on anybody else. i gladly pay for that luxury.

Yes, and surely some people (particularly in less dense suburbs and rural areas) will continue to own cars. They will just be self-driving cars, because manually operated cars will be illegal.

You write: > because manually operated cars will be illegal.

I have a question for you. How many years after the introduction of the gasoline powered automobile did it take before horse-drawn vehicles became illegal on the roads?

Near where I live (eastern Pennsylvania, USA) one still encounters a horse-and-buggy occasionally, especially near Amish areas. And a few roads (interstates and limited access highways) are specifically posted for motor vehicles only.

I posit that there will be a LONG period in which manually operated cars will share the road with self-driving cars.

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