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Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

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Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#111

Post by cogman10 »

kibwen wrote: post #109
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best example of why data collection isn’t the bottleneck is Tesla. They boast about billions of miles of data, yet they’re struggling to put out fully autonomous vehicles. Well, TBF, the tesla data was complete garbage with earlier vehicles. They had cheap and somewhat bad cameras in the earlier vehicles that was only somewhat recently updated. And even then, I don't think Tesla is at the end of their hardware…

> And even then, I don't think Tesla is at the end of their hardware journey. I dunno about that. Tesla seems completely adrift, pretending to pivot with random forays into humanoid robotics or whatever, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if they exited the consumer vehicle space altogether within the next decade. They have no answer for Chinese competitors.

Well, let me rephrase, the previous stated goals of Tesla around self driving cars isn't complete with the current hardware.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#112

Post by cyanydeez »

ra7 wrote: post #32

> The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology. “The bottleneck is data,” he said. “[Companies like Waymo] need to go around and collect the data, collect different scenarios. You may be able to say: in San Francisco, ‘At this school intersection, I want some data at this time of day so I can train my models.’ The problem for all the…

Yes, the way to make these things safer is to make up data and simulate on that.

Do you hear yourself?

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#113

Post by ra7 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #112
ra7 wrote: post #32

> The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology. “The bottleneck is data,” he said. “[Companies like Waymo] need to go around and collect the data, collect different scenarios. You may be able to say: in San Francisco, ‘At this school intersection, I want some data at this time of day so I can train my models.’ The problem for all the…

Yes, the way to make these things safer is to make up data and simulate on that. Do you hear yourself?

That’s literally how it works right now, so yeah.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#114

Post by ainch »

bobro wrote: post #88
ra7 wrote: post #32

> The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology. “The bottleneck is data,” he said. “[Companies like Waymo] need to go around and collect the data, collect different scenarios. You may be able to say: in San Francisco, ‘At this school intersection, I want some data at this time of day so I can train my models.’ The problem for all the…

I find the idea of learning from simulated data so unintuitive. How can you radically improve your model with just your model? I take it people do it, so it must work, but i just don’t understand it at all.

They're two different models - you can use the world model to train (or test like Wayve) a different car-driving model.

The world model is basically intended as a more true-to-life simulator.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#115

Post by cyanydeez »

ra7 wrote: post #113
cyanydeez wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the way to make these things safer is to make up data and simulate on that. Do you hear yourself?

That’s literally how it works right now, so yeah.

>Mapping out every intersection, sign, and signal Before our Waymo Driver begins operating in a new area, we first map the territory with incredible detail, from lane markers to stop signs to curbs and crosswalks. Then, instead of relying solely on external data such as GPS which can lose signal strength, the Waymo Driver uses these highly detailed custom maps, matched with real-time sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine its exact road location at all times.

https://waymo.com/waymo-driver/

That AI part is doing a lot of heavy lifting. They're using real data. We already know synthetic data is dangerous. Explains a lot of if you think it's more reliant on that than real data.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#116

Post by ra7 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #115
ra7 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s literally how it works right now, so yeah.

>Mapping out every intersection, sign, and signal Before our Waymo Driver begins operating in a new area, we first map the territory with incredible detail, from lane markers to stop signs to curbs and crosswalks. Then, instead of relying solely on external data such as GPS which can lose signal strength, the Waymo Driver uses these highly detailed custom maps, matched with real-time sensor data and artificial intell…

Mapping and simulation have very different purposes. Doesn’t look like you’re familiar with the basics of AV technology. Explains a lot why you’re confused about how real world and simulated data is used.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#117

Post by twobitshifter »

kibwen wrote: post #109
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best example of why data collection isn’t the bottleneck is Tesla. They boast about billions of miles of data, yet they’re struggling to put out fully autonomous vehicles. Well, TBF, the tesla data was complete garbage with earlier vehicles. They had cheap and somewhat bad cameras in the earlier vehicles that was only somewhat recently updated. And even then, I don't think Tesla is at the end of their hardware…

> And even then, I don't think Tesla is at the end of their hardware journey. I dunno about that. Tesla seems completely adrift, pretending to pivot with random forays into humanoid robotics or whatever, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if they exited the consumer vehicle space altogether within the next decade. They have no answer for Chinese competitors.

I recently watched some videos related to the production of cybercab, which has now started public testing. They’ve still done some great engineering, to the point that the car is now assembled like a matchbox car. All the drive components are contained in a single package for a FWD configuration that the body just drops down on. The car now has no controls besides the screen and door pulls. The materials are all lower cost and they even found a way to skip painting the cars. All of this should help them cut costs significantly.

As far as the self driving, they may be far off still, it’s hard for me to get a read on that and this vehicle is a bet that they will be able to achieve it - right down to the braille in the cabin, so maybe that’s why they still fail. The thing I will say is that despite the PR disaster that the CEO is, which gives us that feeling that the company has lost its mind, it seems they are still quietly doing some advanced engineering.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#118

Post by paganel »

msm_ wrote: post #100
paganel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or the new lane paint. I'd be surprised if this is a thing outside the biggest US (and European, for that matter) cities, judging from Google StreetView there are lots of streets in US cities/towns with almost no paint lines at all.

Do you mean in the API? I live in an European country and I don't think I ever saw an asphalt road without paint lines. This varies a lot between countries though.

Here in Bucharest there are quite a lot of big boulevards that do not have them, either because they haven’t been repainted over in a long time or because they laid new asphalt without bothering to repaint the lines (this happens a lot, unfortunately, and is very frustrating).

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#120

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

ra7 wrote: post #32

> The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology. “The bottleneck is data,” he said. “[Companies like Waymo] need to go around and collect the data, collect different scenarios. You may be able to say: in San Francisco, ‘At this school intersection, I want some data at this time of day so I can train my models.’ The problem for all the…

I.. am amused by the confidence on display, but I can't say that I am not concerned that people are confidently stating that real world data is not useful, because it can be just simulated. One would think that, by now at least, we know that simulation is at best an imperfect copy.

And I don't like the idea of even more data being harvested and used.. I just find the dismissal.. odd.

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