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The Waymo World Model

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Re: The Waymo World Model

#111
post #2

> The Waymo World Model can convert those kinds of videos, or any taken with a regular camera, into a multimodal simulation—showing how the Waymo Driver would see that exact scene. Subtle brag that Waymo could drive in camera-only mode if they chose to. They've stated as much previously, but that doesn't seem widely known.

I've always wondered... if Lidar + Cameras is always making the right decision, you should theoretically be able to take the output of the Lidar + Cameras model and use it as training data for a Camera only model.

No, I don't think that will be successful. Consider a day where the temperature and humidity is just right to make tail pipe exhaust form dense fog clouds. That will be opaque or nearly so to a camera, transparent to a radar, and I would assume something in between to a lidar. Multi-modal sensor fusion is always going to be more reliable at classifying some kinds of challenging scene segments. It doesn't take long to imagine many other scenarios where fusing the returns of multiple sensors is going to greatly increase classification accuracy.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#113
cue the bell curve meme for learning autonomy:

                 ____.----.____
          ______/              \______
    _____/                            \_____
    ________________________________________

    (simulations)  (real world data)  (simulations)
Seems like it, no?

We started with physics-based simulators for training policies. Then put them in the real world using modular perception/prediction/planning systems. Once enough data was collected, we went back to making simulators. This time, they're physics "informed" deep learning models.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#114

Imagine driving in a Waymo 'out of a raging fire'. Talk about edge cases. But, what would you do? Trust the Waymo, or get out (or never get in) at the first sign of trouble?

I can! If the Waymo got you into one on the way home because Google didn’t integrate with watch duty yet, that’s plausible

Re: The Waymo World Model

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered... if Lidar + Cameras is always making the right decision, you should theoretically be able to take the output of the Lidar + Cameras model and use it as training data for a Camera only model.

Sure, but those models would never have online access to information only provided in lidar data…

No, but if you run a shadow or offline camera-only model in parallel with a camera + LIDAR model, you can (1) measure how much worse the camera-only model is so you can decide when (if ever) it's safe enough to stop installing LIDAR, and (2) look at the specific inputs for which the models diverge and focus on improving the camera-only model in those situations.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#116

Still needs to be trained on the final boss: dense cities with narrow streets.

San Francisco isn't uniformly dense and narrow, but it does have both, and it's run remarkably well so far.

On that specific count, not really. There's a skate park north end of the Mission, and Stevenson St is a two way road that borders it, but it's narrow enough that you need to drive up on the curb to get two vehicles side by side on the street. Waymo's can't handle that on a regular basis. Being San Francisco and not London, you can just skip that road, but if you find yourself in a Waymo on that street and are unlucky to have other traffic on it, the Waymo will just have to back up the entire street. Hope there's no one behind you as well as in front of you!

Anyway, we'll see how the London rollout goes, but I get the impression London's got a lot more of those kinds of roads.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#118

Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense. I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts. Google/Alphabet are so vertically integrated for AI when you think about it. Compare what they're doing - their own power generation , their own silicon, their own data centers, search Gmail YouTube Gemini wor…

Tesla built something like this for FSD training, they presented many years ago. I never understood why they did productize it. It would have made a brilliant Maps alternative, which country automatically update from Tesla cars on the road. Could live update with speed cameras and road conditions. Like many things they've fallen behind

Without Lidar + the terrible quality of tesla onboard cameras.. street view would look terrible. The biggest L of elon's career is the weird commitment to no-lidar. If you've ever driven a Tesla, it gives daily messages "the left side camera is blocked" etc.. cameras+weather don't mix either.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely false: https://x.com/i/status/2019213765506670738 Listen to the statement. The operators help when the Waymo is in a "difficult situation". Car drives itself 99% of the time, long tail of issues not yet fixed have a human intervene. Everyone is making out like it's an RC car, completely false.

I haven't read anything about this but I would also suppose long distance human intervention cannot be done for truly critical situations where you need a very quick reaction, whereas it would be more appropriate in situations where the car has stopped and is stuck not knowing what to do. Probably just stating the obvious here but indeed this seems like something very different from an RC car kind of situation.

It’s not for that. It’s for things like the car drove into a protest area and people are surrounding the car. Or police blocked off an intersection and the car is stuck temporarily with people doing otherwise illegal u-turns or driving the wrong way on a one way road to get out of it.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#120

Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense. I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts. Google/Alphabet are so vertically integrated for AI when you think about it. Compare what they're doing - their own power generation , their own silicon, their own data centers, search Gmail YouTube Gemini wor…

> Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense

Google's been thinking about world models since at least 2018: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.10122

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