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Waymo in Dallas

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Re: Waymo in Dallas

#102
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt this is correct. “It’s expensive to be poor” — a lot of people who can’t afford cars (or have bad credit) end up Ubering to/from work every day

How can that be anywhere near financially sustainable.

It's not. It's expensive to be poor.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting, because on one side we have clear data showing that autonomous cars at the Waymo level are safer than humans. On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones. Which means that self-driving cars need to be a magnitude of order safer than humans. And even though a self-driving car will…

I don't think you can just look at the statistics though. What I mean is that, the main issue is that the category of mistakes they make are going to be inherently different from the category of mistakes that humans make. IE, humans are more likely to make emotional mistakes, but self driving is probably more likely to make perceptual mistakes or fail to respond to novel situations. I think the "fail to respond to no…

IDK, I've been in the car with someone when they just up and up drove off the road because they failed to notice that there was a corner - and that's a sober human. Another time, someone else, they rounded a corner, saw a tractor in the other lane, and were so surprised that they hit a tree. My mother has totalled six cars - she insists it was someone else's fault every time, but the statistics are somewhat damning. My wife's driving has given me haemmorhoids, I clench so fucking hard. Blind corners at twice the speed limit, looks over her shoulder to talk to passengers, and I constantly find myself buying wing mirrors, fenders, headlights, body panels, hubcaps, and anything else she can break off on traffic, rocks, or street furniture. Well, I did until someone finally took her license away from her for a year.

So... not so sure. Every AV I've ever been in has driven incredibly cautiously compared to a human driver.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting, because on one side we have clear data showing that autonomous cars at the Waymo level are safer than humans. On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones. Which means that self-driving cars need to be a magnitude of order safer than humans. And even though a self-driving car will…

I don't think you can just look at the statistics though. What I mean is that, the main issue is that the category of mistakes they make are going to be inherently different from the category of mistakes that humans make. IE, humans are more likely to make emotional mistakes, but self driving is probably more likely to make perceptual mistakes or fail to respond to novel situations. I think the "fail to respond to no…

> humans are more likely to make emotional mistakes, but self driving is probably more likely to make perceptual mistakes or fail to respond to novel situations

Humans fail chaotically. AVs, at least Waymos, fail safely. In urban environments, there is a case to be made within a few years for banning (or making it massively cumbersome) to manually pilot a private vehicle.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#106
post #87

I live very close to LAX, and we have hundreds of Waymos in our area. At first i was a little weary, and kinda weirded out by all of them. They have become completely normal, and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. They are very predictable, and will always let you pull in front of them when changing lanes (unlike a lot of other LA drivers). I have seen a few incidents where they seem 'stuck', and i…

Been in a Waymo in SF — impressive tech. But I keep wondering: does the math actually work? Car + all the sensors + maintenance + mapping. Can a single vehicle ever turn a profit?

Are you running your replies through a LLM, or is the LLM producing them entirely?

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#107
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt this is correct. “It’s expensive to be poor” — a lot of people who can’t afford cars (or have bad credit) end up Ubering to/from work every day

How can that be anywhere near financially sustainable.

How can that be anywhere near financially sustainable.

All you have to do is basic math.

Monthly car payment (which is higher if you're poor) + monthly gas spent (which is higher if you buy it in a poor neighborhood) + monthly insurance (which is likely to be higher if you're poor, and/or live in a poor neighborhood) + maintenance is very often far less than what it costs to take a rideshare ride 14 times a week.

When I drove for Uber, about 20% of my rides were people commuting to and from work who could not afford a car.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting, because on one side we have clear data showing that autonomous cars at the Waymo level are safer than humans. On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones. Which means that self-driving cars need to be a magnitude of order safer than humans. And even though a self-driving car will…

> we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans This was the hypothesis. But based on e.g. FSD, it doesn’t seem borne out in reality.

We have a much higher level of tolerance for things that benefit us while posing a risk to others ("should my own car have FSD") than we do for things that benefit others while posing a risk to us ("should Waymos be allowed in my neighborhood").

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#109

I live very close to LAX, and we have hundreds of Waymos in our area. At first i was a little weary, and kinda weirded out by all of them. They have become completely normal, and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. They are very predictable, and will always let you pull in front of them when changing lanes (unlike a lot of other LA drivers). I have seen a few incidents where they seem 'stuck', and i…

It's very interesting, because on one side we have clear data showing that autonomous cars at the Waymo level are safer than humans. On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones. Which means that self-driving cars need to be a magnitude of order safer than humans. And even though a self-driving car will…

> On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones.

It comes down to accountability, IMO. We tend to be forgiven to humans because we are humans too and we know we, humans, make mistakes, and these can have serious consequences.

When a human makes a mistake, they are immediately accountable, and therefore judged and forgiven (or not). When technology makes a mistake, who's to blame? The CEO? The software developer who wrote the code? The tester? The architect?

Yes, we want technology to be an order of magnitude safer than humans for this reason, because we know that, given the current way our judicial system works, when technology makes a mistake, no one is held accountable.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#110

I live very close to LAX, and we have hundreds of Waymos in our area. At first i was a little weary, and kinda weirded out by all of them. They have become completely normal, and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. They are very predictable, and will always let you pull in front of them when changing lanes (unlike a lot of other LA drivers). I have seen a few incidents where they seem 'stuck', and i…

It's very interesting, because on one side we have clear data showing that autonomous cars at the Waymo level are safer than humans. On the other hand we don't give technology the same pass we give to humans, meaning that we don't tolerate machine incidents the same way we tolerate human ones. Which means that self-driving cars need to be a magnitude of order safer than humans. And even though a self-driving car will…

> a self-driving car will never … use the car as a weapon

You are lacking in creativity and vision. With networked autonomous vehicles, all cars can be used as a weapon simultaneously.

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