Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 501 posts

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#101

Post by Fricken »

muststopmyths wrote: post #88
Fricken wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit shows up in every HN thread on autonomous vehicles. Really only on HN. It's wrong, uninformed, and won't seem to go away. The challenges self-driving cars have nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with the other moving objects on the road. It's not that the vehicles can't detect the other things on the road. It's that they can't anticipate reliably what they're going to do. (However yo…

Unless… the infrastructure change they propose is removing the “other things on the road”. Sounds brilliant. You could call that system a “rail” road as the cars would be on rails in a manner of speaking

Vancouver's Skytrain has been fully autonomous since, I think, the 1980s.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#102

Post by incone123 »

brutusborn wrote: post #23
noobermin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we change city infrastructure to work with less than AGI driven cars? It sounds instead like yes, AV companies are over selling what they can do and they should be restricted to things like highways and the like where the easier, less complex driving environment already exists. Cities are by far the most complex relative to every other driving environment, in fact there is a good argument that, in cities,…

One good reason is to help the AIs make better decisions through greater certainty. For example, if a road sign has machine readable data there is a greater certainty that an AI will interpret it correctly. This could affect safety and ease of implementation.

If a so-called AI needs help reading a road sign then it stands no chance dealing with the rest of it's surroundings.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#104

Post by DebtDeflation »

Fricken wrote: post #72
case0x00 wrote: post #4

This article is kind of a wrapper for the linked bloomberg article, which is more interesting IMO. Driving of cars is a massive cooperative game with high stakes, and autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans. Fully autonomous cars would be sick, but IMO you'd need massive infrastructure changes (realistically restricted to cities/urbanized areas) i…

This bullshit shows up in every HN thread on autonomous vehicles. Really only on HN. It's wrong, uninformed, and won't seem to go away. The challenges self-driving cars have nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with the other moving objects on the road. It's not that the vehicles can't detect the other things on the road. It's that they can't anticipate reliably what they're going to do. (However yo…

Object detection is an issue, but it doesn't only apply to "moving" objects. The current state of the art is having trouble differentiating between a "solid" stationary object like a tire or chunk of metal that must be navigated around, and something like an empty plastic bag that can be safely ignored. Regarding infrastructure, AVs also seem to have a lot of trouble with faded lane lines on roads.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#105

Post by airza »

Keyframe wrote: post #48
batmanturkey wrote: post #32

WHY is a fully autonomous vehicle even interesting to pursue, given that wheeled vehicles and their infrastructural requirements are such a large expense and social and environmental problem relative to the benefits provided? I mean, out of all the moonshots, why die on this particular hill? I consider an actual hyperloop to be a much more compelling vision for the future: those pneumatic tubes the banks use in subur…

- 1.3 million deaths worldwide, annually (94% cause by human error) - existing infrastructure (roads) isn't going anywhere (no need to build anything) - reduced traffic congestion (autonomous vehicles can better react/drive) - improved supply chains (autonomous trucks) (can work 0-24) just to name a few off top of my head

The existing infrastructure is absolutely going somewhere. Maintaining asphalt roads and highways is a constant, expensive, and neverending struggle.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#107

Post by Retric »

subroutine wrote: post #56
roenxi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to nit-pick and say you're estimating some novel metric. The value add would be somewhat higher than that because the alternative is a human driver, so the value-add of the software is approximately ($/h value of driver x hours) that it frees up to do something else. Plus all the evidence I see suggests that whatever the current state, sooner rather than later computers are going to be superhuman at driv…

I think computers will become superhuman at driving under the right conditions . However, there will inevitably be conditions that require the use of general intelligence (rather than driving heuristics), and in those situations all you can do is pray the computer acts rationally despite not having GI. I think self driving cars have already passed the test of "number of crashes" or "number of fatalities" per mile dri…

Nothing says self driving cars can’t phone a call center for the 0.001% edge cases. Just add a cellphone connection and a Starlink receiver in the roof for a backup. At which point we would need to add some cell reception to some tunnels and cars can have literally global coverage.

High drips the problem drops from near AGI to not outrunning the cars ability to stop without hitting anything.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#108

Post by almost_usual »

batmanturkey wrote: post #32

WHY is a fully autonomous vehicle even interesting to pursue, given that wheeled vehicles and their infrastructural requirements are such a large expense and social and environmental problem relative to the benefits provided? I mean, out of all the moonshots, why die on this particular hill? I consider an actual hyperloop to be a much more compelling vision for the future: those pneumatic tubes the banks use in subur…

People in the US will absolutely die on a hill for their car.

Companies will invest endless amounts of money to convince you cars are the future, their infrastructure isn’t wasteful, and they’re good for the environment.

People buy into this because it fits their existing lifestyle.

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#109

Post by davidgerard »

mg wrote: post #14

$100B is not that much when you compare it to the value self-driving cars will create. There are over 1 billion cars on the road which need humans to drive them. How much are they used? I don't know. Let's say one ride per day. When cars turn into a service business, the "driver" will be software. What will be paid to the driver? Let's say $1 per ride. That is 1B * $1 * 365 = $365B per year. Give that a p/e ratio of…

> will create.

just think of the huge economic value that faster-than-light travel will unlock!!

you're assuming your conclusion

Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere

#110

Post by Fricken »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #104
Fricken wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit shows up in every HN thread on autonomous vehicles. Really only on HN. It's wrong, uninformed, and won't seem to go away. The challenges self-driving cars have nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with the other moving objects on the road. It's not that the vehicles can't detect the other things on the road. It's that they can't anticipate reliably what they're going to do. (However yo…

Object detection is an issue, but it doesn't only apply to "moving" objects. The current state of the art is having trouble differentiating between a "solid" stationary object like a tire or chunk of metal that must be navigated around, and something like an empty plastic bag that can be safely ignored. Regarding infrastructure, AVs also seem to have a lot of trouble with faded lane lines on roads.

If you're relying only on cameras, then yes, that's an issue. Level 4 vehicles can locate themselves without the need for lines on the road. Everything has been carefully mapped out ahead of time.
Post reply on HN