Just a note, but this is a perfect time for companies to lay off low performers without getting a lot of flak. This is usually the case when you see companies lay off people while continuing to hire as well.
Last in, first out.
GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
101–110 of 296 posts
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#102It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
It's hard to find out how much has been invested in self driving cars, but I think you're massively underestimating the cost of building rail in the US. A billion dollars a mile is a realistic figure for rail in cities. NYC spent more than double that recently.
For those costs, you're probably getting somewhere between 5 and 100 miles of rail.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#103It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
I think we're very far away from general-purpose self-driving that can drive in all locations, conditions, and handle all scenarios. But we don't necessarily need an all-or-nothing solution - I think we could be reasonably close to a self-driving system that can handle a whitelisted set of roads and highways, especially if those roads were augmented to accommodate that self-driving in some way.
Regardless of road quality, weather conditions are unpredictable.
When the rain or snow or haboob kicks in, I guess your car will pull over to the side of the road and you'll need to drive manually until conditions improve. We'll need to keep the steering wheel around for the foreseeable future.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#104It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
There’s at least two success criteria for SDC tech:
1) How much safer than humans does SDC need to be before we can ethically use it?
2) When will it be legalized?
The ethics is a hard question. My preference is safety standards should be way higher than the vehicular carnage we accept today. I doubt most people think that way though.
Legalization (and commercialization, especially if corporate liability is waived), could come at any moment. Given the US government accepts 3000 daily COVID19 deaths as a reasonable baseline, it seems there would be little moral qualms. If SDCs are about as good (or maybe even no more than a little worse) than human drivers approval could be granted, ethics be damned.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#105Just a note, but this is a perfect time for companies to lay off low performers without getting a lot of flak. This is usually the case when you see companies lay off people while continuing to hire as well.
Comments like this show up on all stories about layoffs. I don’t really understand your point. There’s never any reason to have layoffs unless the company deems it a good financial decision, right? And surely all layoffs would hit the lowest performers (by the company’s estimation of performance, which obviously might be flawed), right? So what is the difference between “the company did layoffs of its lowest performe…
Layoffs don't just layoff lowest performers, they often layoff departments that the company doesn't find necessary anymore. High performers are laid off all the time.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's going to be a bit weird because a lot of those should come back because the underlying business didn't suddenly become nonviable.
The demand is there, say for food, but the capital has evaporated and the restaurant no longer exists. To start a new one you would need investors to pay for up front costs, labor, food, and commercial rent, and who is feeling bullish enough to start a business notorious for it's razor thin margins at the start of a recession?
This kind of thing is why it's so confusing to me that more commercial landlords haven't been willing to play ball with their tenants on rent breaks through this crisis. Like, what do you have to gain by throwing out a restaurant or other business that is ready to start right back up the moment the lockdown lifts, vs sitting on an empty unit for months and months while the economy remains in turmoil, getting nothing from it. I guess it's maybe a play for some deep-pocketed franchise operator to grab it on spec? Seems risky.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#107It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
There will be a large market/human-lives-saved benefit from the tech though, even if we never reach 100% self-driving autonomy
E.g. it is pretty standard now that pretty much every car on sale has automatic emergency braking that tries to avoid running over pedestrians even if the driver does not see them, many (but not all I admit) cars have lane-keeping assist that automatically keep the car in the lane, and will automatically adjust the speed to match the car in front and so on (right down to slamming on the brakes to avoid a rear-end shunt if needed). Then there are the self-parking cars, the ones with synthetic overhead 360 degree camera viewpoints, ones that prevent "unintended acceleration" in car parks, ones that read the road signs to let you know the speed limit etc. And these are "normal" cars that a common joe can afford, not high-end six-figure Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Tesla etc
This sort of tech was science fiction not so long ago, yet now it is literally standard-fit.
There will be a slow but steady "encroachment" of more and more automation into cars as the years go by - you can guarantee that companies like Cruise are churning out the patents at the least for this sort of thing, even if not outright directly licensing technologies. It feels like a land-grab phase right now, even if there is no real intention to reach L5.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost 40 percent of those in households making less than $40,000 a year had lost a job in March. Tech sector has had it easy so far.
It's going to be a bit weird because a lot of those should come back because the underlying business didn't suddenly become nonviable.
Jobs may come slowly back, but fraction of people and families will be permanently damaged in the process. People are not like rubber bands that return to where they were.
The effects can be generational when families have children.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#109It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
It's hard to find out how much has been invested in self driving cars, but I think you're massively underestimating the cost of building rail in the US. A billion dollars a mile is a realistic figure for rail in cities. NYC spent more than double that recently. For those costs, you're probably getting somewhere between 5 and 100 miles of rail.
A billion dollars a mile is for subways though, and I'm guessing tunnelling is the major component in that cost.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#110It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…
> I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all.
...
> I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable.
Take out "cars" from that phrase and I think there might be a different answer to it, sooner or later.
Specifically I liked Otto's original proposals and it sounded almost viable. The idea of having a Sacramento -> Chicago or Houston to Dallas routes for trucking with autonomous vehicles, with the last mile routes covered by normal container trucks sounded like it would work in the near term.
The fact that these are big rig trucks ensures the unit volume cost of the hardware isn't going to be a big problem (a 25k computer in a 35k car vs a 120k one in a 800k truck), the servicing can be legally mandated (patch upgrades or cleaning cameras), the power supply management can also be handled if they want to go electric with a container + rig model.
There are fewer questions about a long haul highway only self-driving route, maybe even something which will change the economics of shipping stuff through the panama canal vs going over land in a hub-spoke model without a train depot style unloading/inventory station.