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The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

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Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#11

Post by sharemywin »

Animats wrote: post #7

Self-driving cars don't really need to talk to "the cloud" much, if at all. They need some map data, and they might contribute to map data. They can use some traffic data, and can contribute to traffic data, which needs about as much data as Waze. None of this is real-time; it can be seconds or minutes behind. Transmitting all the car's imagery to servers is an R&D activity. Google downloads all that from their vehic…

How do 2 cars cruise 60 mph through a 4 way stop without talking with each other.

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#12

Post by sharemywin »

Shivetya wrote: post #8

No, the most revolutionary thing is the freedom from police harassment it will lead to. Self driving cars will obey all local traffic laws to reach certification and deny the police a power the abuse which is the right to use a traffic stop pretextually. As in, stop you for speeding or running a light to regardless if that was his real intent. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... for a…

So, the cars aren't going to do Face ID checks before they start? Especially if it's a service.

Warrant no transportation.

Late on Child support can use the car until you pay.

Your had sex with a minor when you were 18. sorry you the car won't drive within 100 ft of a school.

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#13

Post by quasse »

sharemywin wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

Self-driving cars don't really need to talk to "the cloud" much, if at all. They need some map data, and they might contribute to map data. They can use some traffic data, and can contribute to traffic data, which needs about as much data as Waze. None of this is real-time; it can be seconds or minutes behind. Transmitting all the car's imagery to servers is an R&D activity. Google downloads all that from their vehic…

How do 2 cars cruise 60 mph through a 4 way stop without talking with each other.

That's a bit different from talking to "the cloud" as the parent poster was talking about. Cars will be using a short range radio technology like DSRC (5.9ghz band) to communicate locally. The FCC and DOT are already pushing mandates to have cars equipped with it.

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#15

Post by b_emery »

dang wrote: post #4
_cbsz wrote: post #2

Can we get this clickbait title changed? I even skimmed the article and I still don't know what "the most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars" is supposed to be.

I've taken a crack at it, but if anyone suggests a better title (i.e. more accurate and neutral, and using language from the article itself), we can change it again.

How about: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is the underlying digital technology

FTA: "the true transformation isn’t the car, but the underlying digital technology"

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#16

Post by sbierwagen »

sharemywin wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

Self-driving cars don't really need to talk to "the cloud" much, if at all. They need some map data, and they might contribute to map data. They can use some traffic data, and can contribute to traffic data, which needs about as much data as Waze. None of this is real-time; it can be seconds or minutes behind. Transmitting all the car's imagery to servers is an R&D activity. Google downloads all that from their vehic…

How do 2 cars cruise 60 mph through a 4 way stop without talking with each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-vehicle

Talking to other cars is different from communicating over the internet.

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#17

Post by Animats »

sharemywin wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

Self-driving cars don't really need to talk to "the cloud" much, if at all. They need some map data, and they might contribute to map data. They can use some traffic data, and can contribute to traffic data, which needs about as much data as Waze. None of this is real-time; it can be seconds or minutes behind. Transmitting all the car's imagery to servers is an R&D activity. Google downloads all that from their vehic…

How do 2 cars cruise 60 mph through a 4 way stop without talking with each other.

Nobody is seriously trying to do that in a production vehicle. That would apply only to a highway system with all cars automated. Like this.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_rlLyelQo

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#18

Post by Animats »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #9
ginko wrote: post #5

If I didn't miscalculate then 4TB/8h is about 150MB/s. That's quite a bit but I can't really say that's a shocking amount of image data to process.

Is there an actual source for that number at all? Intel did a marketing blog post [0] where they said 4TB per 1.5HR, but without any actual explanation of it, and since then a bunch of posts started using "per 8 hours". I'm cautious of this number because the camera and sensor feeds are very often reduced heavily in resolution and then passed for processing, so if they are considering raw uncompressed sensor streams…

In practice, far less data is saved. Tesla's production "Autopilot" saves and uploads 15 frames when there's an "interesting event", according to the NTSB report of a Tesla crash. (There's no imagery of the event where the vehicle plowed under a semitrailer, because Tesla's autopilot didn't detect anything that required braking before or during the crash.)

Re: The most revolutionary thing about self-driving cars is distributed computing

#20

Post by Animats »

Shivetya wrote: post #8

No, the most revolutionary thing is the freedom from police harassment it will lead to. Self driving cars will obey all local traffic laws to reach certification and deny the police a power the abuse which is the right to use a traffic stop pretextually. As in, stop you for speeding or running a light to regardless if that was his real intent. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... for a…

"(Cops) can follow self-driving cars all day but won’t be able to pull them over."

Yes, that's going to be interesting. I'm waiting for an event when some small-town sheriff pulls over a Waymo self-driving car without justification, and Waymo shows up in court with lawyers, full imagery, LIDAR scans, GPS info, a complete video reconstruction of the event, and the browsing history of the sheriff.

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