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GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

nytimes.com

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Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#11

Post by Animats »

potatolicious wrote: post #5
dventimi wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the article does it even support the title? I'll reread it but I didn't see anything about human operators.

> "Half of Cruise’s 400 cars were in San Francisco when the driverless operations were stopped. Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle. The workers intervened to assist the company’s vehicles every 2.5 to five miles, according to two people familiar with is operations. In other words, they frequently had to do something to remotely control a car after receiving a cellul…

That's a terrible disengagement rate. Cruise claimed in 2020 "Cruise, for comparison, clocked 831,040 miles with a disengagement rate of 0.082 (per 1000 miles)" [1] Something's not right here.

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2020-02-27-waymo-disengagement-cali...

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#12

Post by alkonaut »

hartator wrote: post #10
haltist wrote: post #7

It's not an allegation. It's the same as using human feedback for tuning large language models. There are no autonomous cars currently regardless of what is written on the marketing brochures. In various "emergency" situations the cars phone home and ask a human operator to take over the controls.

There is an emergency every 2-5 miles?

That sounds pretty low if it's city driving or poor conditions. I know some of the trial cities are basically easy mode (wide streets, almost never snows..) but still.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#14

Post by batmansmk »

Having to be remotely operated every 2.5 to 5 miles seem to defeat most of the economics of self driving cars.

Back of the napkin math, cars drive at an average of 18mph in cities, so every 10-20min. Let’s assume it takes over for 1min, and that you need remote drivers not too far for ping purposes, so at the same hourly rate. To guarantee you’ll be able to take over all demands immediately, due to the birthday paradox, you end up needing like 30 drivers for 100 vehicles? It’s not that incredible of a tech…

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#16

Post by l33t7332273 »

haltist wrote: post #7

It's not an allegation. It's the same as using human feedback for tuning large language models. There are no autonomous cars currently regardless of what is written on the marketing brochures. In various "emergency" situations the cars phone home and ask a human operator to take over the controls.

> It's the same as using human feedback for tuning large language models

It isn’t remotely the same. This would be like if human operators typed some of chatGPTs answers

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#17

Post by causality0 »

I thought being a social media moderator and being constantly exposed to violence, racism, and child pornography was bad. Having your whole day being a series of "quick, don't let these people die!" moments seems like the worst tech job on earth.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#18

Post by jonhohle »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #9
haltist wrote: post #7

It's not an allegation. It's the same as using human feedback for tuning large language models. There are no autonomous cars currently regardless of what is written on the marketing brochures. In various "emergency" situations the cars phone home and ask a human operator to take over the controls.

The latency on that has to be massive.

Why? UAVs are piloted remotely, video games are played remotely with sub-100ms latency.

Getting a remote driver connected might a while, but afterwards it seems like a mostly solved (in practice) problem.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#19

Post by haltist »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #9
haltist wrote: post #7

It's not an allegation. It's the same as using human feedback for tuning large language models. There are no autonomous cars currently regardless of what is written on the marketing brochures. In various "emergency" situations the cars phone home and ask a human operator to take over the controls.

The latency on that has to be massive.

It's good enough for the routes that Cruise uses in the city.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#20

Post by wolverine876 »

> Two months ago, Kyle Vogt, the chief executive of Cruise, choked up as he recounted how a driver had killed a 4-year-old girl in a stroller at a San Francisco intersection. “It barely made the news,” he said, pausing to collect himself. “Sorry. I get emotional.”

...

> Cruise’s board has hired the law firm Quinn Emanuel to investigate the company’s response to the incident, including its interactions with regulators, law enforcement and the media. / The board plans to evaluate the findings and any recommended changes. Exponent, a consulting firm that evaluates complex software systems, is conducting a separate review of the crash, said two people who attended a companywide meeting at Cruise on Monday.

After the first [edit: the first performative charade, about little girl in a stroller], why should we trust the second isn't also a performative charade? What independence or credibility does some hired law firm have, that the company itself does not? How about using an independent third party?

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