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Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

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Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#11

Post by jcalvinowens »

willio58 wrote: post #8
xnx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is absolutely delighting in their luck that Elon is so stubborn that he has kept Tesla from being anywhere close to catching up.

Elon cult members still to this day will tell me that because humans only use vision to drive all a Tesla needs is simple cameras. Meanwhile, I've been driven by Waymo and Tesla FSD and Waymo is by far my pick for safety and comfort. I actually trusted the waymo I was in, while the Tesla I rode in we had 2 _very_ scary incidents at high speeds in a 1 hour drive.

> humans only use vision to drive

I love this argument because it is so obviously wrong: how could any self aware person seriously argue that hearing, touch, and the inner ear aren't involved in their driving?

As an adult I can actually afford a reliable car, so I will concede that smell is less relevant than it used to be, at least for me personally :)

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#12

Post by youarentrightjr »

xnx wrote: post #7
tgrowazay wrote: post #5

Elon in shambles > Our experience as the only company operating a fully autonomous service at this scale has reinforced a fundamental truth: demonstrably safe AI requires equally resilient inputs. This deep understanding of real-world requirements is why the Waymo Driver utilizes a custom, multi-modal sensing suite where high-resolution cameras, advanced imaging radar, and lidar work as a unified system. Using these…

Waymo is absolutely delighting in their luck that Elon is so stubborn that he has kept Tesla from being anywhere close to catching up.

According to Elon, "sensor ambiguity" is a danger to the process [1], and therefore only a single type of sensor is allowed. (Conveniently ignores that there can be ambiguity/disagreement between two instances of the same type of sensor)

The fact that people still trust him on literally anything boggles my mind.

[1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1959831831668228450

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#13

Post by fhd2 »

0xffff2 wrote: post #9
xnx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is absolutely delighting in their luck that Elon is so stubborn that he has kept Tesla from being anywhere close to catching up.

I don't thing it's purely stubbornness. Tesla sold the promise of software only updates resulting in FSD to hundreds of thousands of people. Not all of those people are in the cult of Tesla. I would expect admitting defeat at this point would result in a large class action lawsuit at the very least.

It wouldn't keep them from equipping _new_ models with additional sensors, spinning a story around how this helps them train the camera-only AI, or whatever.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#14

Post by aggie »

tgrowazay wrote: post #5

Elon in shambles > Our experience as the only company operating a fully autonomous service at this scale has reinforced a fundamental truth: demonstrably safe AI requires equally resilient inputs. This deep understanding of real-world requirements is why the Waymo Driver utilizes a custom, multi-modal sensing suite where high-resolution cameras, advanced imaging radar, and lidar work as a unified system. Using these…

I've long expected Waymo's approach to prevail simply because - aside from whether vision-only proves good enough to some standard - it will be easy to lobby for regulations that favor the more conservative approach.

But I also don't think we can take anything from what Waymo claims about the feasibility of vision-only.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#15

Post by xnx »

youarentrightjr wrote: post #12
xnx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is absolutely delighting in their luck that Elon is so stubborn that he has kept Tesla from being anywhere close to catching up.

According to Elon, "sensor ambiguity" is a danger to the process [1], and therefore only a single type of sensor is allowed. (Conveniently ignores that there can be ambiguity/disagreement between two instances of the same type of sensor) The fact that people still trust him on literally anything boggles my mind. [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1959831831668228450

Truly. I don't understand why Tesla fans think camera/lidar fusion is unsolvable but camera/camera fusion is a non-issue.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#16

Post by xnx »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #11
willio58 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon cult members still to this day will tell me that because humans only use vision to drive all a Tesla needs is simple cameras. Meanwhile, I've been driven by Waymo and Tesla FSD and Waymo is by far my pick for safety and comfort. I actually trusted the waymo I was in, while the Tesla I rode in we had 2 _very_ scary incidents at high speeds in a 1 hour drive.

> humans only use vision to drive I love this argument because it is so obviously wrong: how could any self aware person seriously argue that hearing, touch, and the inner ear aren't involved in their driving? As an adult I can actually afford a reliable car, so I will concede that smell is less relevant than it used to be, at least for me personally :)

> hearing, touch, and the inner ear aren't involved

Not to mention possibly the most complex structure in the known universe, the human brain: 86 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#17

Post by stefan_ »

youarentrightjr wrote: post #12
xnx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is absolutely delighting in their luck that Elon is so stubborn that he has kept Tesla from being anywhere close to catching up.

According to Elon, "sensor ambiguity" is a danger to the process [1], and therefore only a single type of sensor is allowed. (Conveniently ignores that there can be ambiguity/disagreement between two instances of the same type of sensor) The fact that people still trust him on literally anything boggles my mind. [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1959831831668228450

If only there was a filter so we could fuse different sensor measurements into a better whole..

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#18

Post by jessriedel »

xnx wrote: post #6
garbawarb wrote: post #4

I'm forever baffled that GM gave up on Cruise just as soon as Waymo was proving that autonomous driving is feasible. (Disclaimer: former Cruise employee)

As an outsider I assumed it took GM a substantial investment just to realize how far out of their depth they were. It made sense to cut their losses once they figured this out. Having experience and capability to manufacturer cars has approximately zero benefit to create a self-driving software/sensor stack. It would make more sense for Adobe to create a self-driving car than GM.

Cruise was being operated as a separate company though. As a default, GM could have just not done anything and let Cruise operate as if it were independent. Any synergies (personnel, manufacturing expertise, etc) would have just been a bonus. And if they didn't want the financial exposure, they could have spun it out again.

Instead they chopped it up for spare parts, specifically, sending some Cruise personnel to work on deadend GM driver assistance tech and firing the rest. Baffling.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#19

Post by kjksf »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #11
willio58 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon cult members still to this day will tell me that because humans only use vision to drive all a Tesla needs is simple cameras. Meanwhile, I've been driven by Waymo and Tesla FSD and Waymo is by far my pick for safety and comfort. I actually trusted the waymo I was in, while the Tesla I rode in we had 2 _very_ scary incidents at high speeds in a 1 hour drive.

> humans only use vision to drive I love this argument because it is so obviously wrong: how could any self aware person seriously argue that hearing, touch, and the inner ear aren't involved in their driving? As an adult I can actually afford a reliable car, so I will concede that smell is less relevant than it used to be, at least for me personally :)

1. in US you can get a driver's license if you're deaf so as a society we think you can drive without hearing

2. since this is in context of Tesla: tesla cars do have microphones and FSD does use it for responding to sirens etc.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#20

Post by Hawkenfall »

garbawarb wrote: post #4

I'm forever baffled that GM gave up on Cruise just as soon as Waymo was proving that autonomous driving is feasible. (Disclaimer: former Cruise employee)

Cruise was actually just about to return to market after the October incident [1]. We had reached efficacy on all (much harder) internal safety benchmarks showing the car had significantly improved.

GM pulled the rug on us a day or two before announcing. The current Cruise CEO wasn't aware at all either. I have my own conspiracies of why GM did this, but GM also has a long history of fumbling the ball.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/nhtsa-robotaxi-cru...

[2] https://www.theautopian.com/here-are-five-times-gm-developed...!

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