A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles • Hacker News Board

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#111

Post by Etheryte » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:24 AM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #86

mulmen wrote: post #56

I rode in a Waymo recently and was amazed at how good it was. It was easily in the top 5 best drivers I have ridden with. Really really impressive. It wasn’t nearly as cautious or timid as I expected it to be. But it also wasn’t reckless. I would describe it as assertive, but I’m sure some people would call it aggressive. It knows the rules and what’s going on around and acts accordingly. This really should be the no…

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

The NASA space pen story as you call it is a nice quip. It's also a complete lie. The Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets. Pencil cores are made of graphite, when you write with it, small bits of graphite break off. On land it just falls down, but in space it floats around and attaches to things. Graphite conducts electricity and it caused countless shorts in electronics, as well as fires, all while in space. If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#112

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:25 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

rglullis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

> the story of NASA's space pen As an example of an urban legend/facile pop science take being treated as fact [1]? > if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S.…

Depends on your population density. Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#113

Post by michaelt » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:25 AM UTC

ZacnyLos wrote: post #81

mindvirus wrote: post #79

I think insurance prices will drive adoption of self driving very quickly. Consider: if a non-self driving car is in an accident with a self driving car, it'll almost always be the non-self driving car at fault. And with the telemetry from the self-driving car, they can prove it too, so accidents that would have been no-fault or shared fault become fully the non-self driving cars fault. And so I think insurance for n…

Outside of mapped and heavily driven teritory? Good luck.

Believe it or not, a lot of driving takes place in heavily driven territory :)

And I'm sure the autonomous vehicle will have a go-very-slowly mode for navigating people's driveways and similar places the mapping cars haven't been yet.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#114

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:26 AM UTC

Etheryte wrote: post #111

rglullis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

The NASA space pen story as you call it is a nice quip. It's also a complete lie. The Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets. Pencil cores are made of graphite, when you write with it, small bits of graphite break off. On land it just falls down, but in space it floats around and attaches to things. Graphite conducts electricity and it caused countless sho…

> Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets

Note, too, that NASA didn't pay to develop the pen. Fisher did.

> If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat

Guess what cosmonauts use(d) on the ISS? (Qualified because I don't know post-2022.)

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#115

Post by rowanG077 » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:26 AM UTC

meiraleal wrote: post #80

mulmen wrote: post #56

I rode in a Waymo recently and was amazed at how good it was. It was easily in the top 5 best drivers I have ridden with. Really really impressive. It wasn’t nearly as cautious or timid as I expected it to be. But it also wasn’t reckless. I would describe it as assertive, but I’m sure some people would call it aggressive. It knows the rules and what’s going on around and acts accordingly. This really should be the no…

> The future is bright. We have been there. The internet and then Google, Facebook were the same. Big Tech can't be trusted.

How does trust factor into it. I would not say trust is even applicable to a corporation.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#116

Post by rglullis » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:26 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

rglullis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

> the story of NASA's space pen As an example of an urban legend/facile pop science take being treated as fact [1]? > if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S.…

Way to miss the point. Yes, it is known that the "NASA space pen" was not really funded by NASA, but but its development still took millions of dollars in R&D.

> Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars?

For the 127th time: car dependency is not the same as car usage.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#117

Post by lucianbr » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:28 AM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #100

thiagocsf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. The old anti-privacy mantra: you have nothing to worry about, if you have nothing to hide.

I did write "besides privacy" because it is a valid concern indeed. But considering that most people don't give two damns about their privacy (or at least act like it, keeping 24/7 a tracking device on them and sharing all of their lives non stop) what would be their valid reason to not have a tracking device for insurance purposes on their cars?

Will the data collection and interpretation be perfect? What if the map with the speed limits is inaccurate and my commute goes through a road where the limit is 70, traffic drives at 70, but the system thinks the limit is 30?

My car displays the speed limit in the dash, as a helper, and sometimes the above happens. If it had automatic braking for crossing the speed limit, it would be a disaster.

Also, if I drive 70 on a 70 road completely covered in snow, will the system know I'm doing something dangerous?

Automatic judgement of people is a bad idea, and it surprises me that anyone who is working in software development would think otherwise.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#118

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:28 AM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #93

I just heard someone mention in a podcast how as a cyclist they need to make eye contact with drivers to be safe, and there is no one to make eye contact with. Waymo would say "don't worry, it sees you" and maybe the numbers even show they do some percentage more than the average human driver, but that still does not reproduce the self-help aspect of you looking at a driver until you see that that driver sees you. I…

> Maybe they will prove to be so reliable that you don't need to worry about them. You can just reliably assume and predict their behavior as animate objects about the same as you do for inanimate objects.

This seems to be what is happening. There was a comment here by some user not too long ago that said they deliberately drive in front of the Waymo’s because they trust them to slow down.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#119

Post by michaelt » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

michaelt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google/Waymo actually started way earlier, and had fistfuls of cash from the very start. Google hired a bunch of people who'd done well in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge [1] - including Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson who lead the winning team. Thrun is also behind Google Street View which in some regards [2] looks a lot like a self-driving-car sensor suite. So Google was having LIDAR-equipped, high-precision-GPS-eq…

> the confidence to design for L5 autonomy from the start L4. Waymo can't "drive everywhere in all conditions" [1]. (Nobody can. Not to L4 standards of never requiring "you to take over driving.") [1] https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

I thought L4 was Tesla Autopilot style, someone in the driving seat, hands on the wheel, ready to take over with half a second's notice, and taking liability for insurance purposes? And the geofenced "freeway driving only" stuff some German carmakers are coming out with?

Whereas Waymo's taxis don't have anyone in the driving seat at all?

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#120

Post by viraptor » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #77

rytis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even as a pedestrian. I'm sure AI will be fine to slow down if it sees a massive puddle and avoid soaking everyone in 3m radius just for lolz.

> Or even as a pedestrian Or even as anyone who is ever on the road. Despite the law, driving in America is a necessity for many. That means our bar for taking it away is high. Quantify the safety delta and have an available alternative, and we can start lowering the bar for taking dangerous drivers off the road. (Frankly either >1 DUI or >1 at-fault crash should result in license revocation. We should also delay lic…

> Quantify the safety delta and have an available alternative

I would love it if these comparisons included "bus stats / average passengers". There are ways to just reduce the miles driven and the chances of collisions at the same time, without new tech improvements.