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Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

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Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#121

Post by duaneb »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

There is so much talk in the current rhetoric about the US losing its dominance in science and technology. But it is a tad myopic to not be excited about a country of a billion people pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It is not a zero sum game and we will all benefit.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their…

If the authoritarian nature of the government allows better enforcement, why are they so terrible at enforcing existing rules?

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#122

Post by imh »

hx87 wrote: post #61
imh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the DMV to only license drivers when they are safe, alert, and driving defensively, so I want the DMV to only license autonomous systems when they can meet or exceed the bar of safe, alert, and defensive drivers. We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed, but we can enforce it with autonomous systems. We are already happy regulating driving, and we shouldn't lower the licensing bar to…

> We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed Wait, isn't that what traffic police are for? Sometimes I wish speed limits were universally removed so that police will be forced to enforce the other 99.99% of traffic laws more strictly.

Maybe the word "can't" was a poor choice. My point remains that people pretty much always drive in ways that would fail a DMV driving test. Plus, I know I sure drive differently when cops are around too.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#123

Post by seanmcdirmid »

duaneb wrote: post #121
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their…

If the authoritarian nature of the government allows better enforcement, why are they so terrible at enforcing existing rules?

They focus authoritarianism on preservation and enrichment of the ruling class, everything else has less priority.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#124

Post by cesarbs »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #116
cesarbs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Seattle area and I see people doing "dumb ass" things on the road every single day.

I'm from Seattle originally. Every time I visited Seattle (well Bellevue/Redmond) for work, it wasn't that bad. People are pretty mellow, well, I guess you would have to go to Beijing to understand that there are different levels of dumb assery.

I'm originally from Brazil, so I've seen my fair share of traffic awfulness :) What I see in Bellevue is mild in comparison, but just as an example, today someone cut an entire lane in front of me to enter their garage.

An almost weekly occurrence is seeing people stick half their car onto the street when leaving a parking garage I drive by often, and only then stopping to watch for incoming traffic. I've parked in that garage before and I know there's plenty of visibility from the exit; it's like people don't realize there's a whole chunk of metal before the driver's seat.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#125

Post by JulianMorrison »

serge2k wrote: post #98
JulianMorrison wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to have jobs walking behind horses in fields, while the horses pulled ploughs and so forth. Pretty stultifying, dawn to dusk staring at horse's ass. A generation from now, manual driving will be viewed as maddeningly dull makework for human drones. Hours of staring at roads with instant death the punishment for dozing off? Wouldn't do it if you paid me. I'd have said, hopefully the world gets basic income…

> hopefully the world gets basic income and then a full leisure society sorted out Your job is gone? Here just have money. Dignity? Oh no see you don't need that. Just have money. What will you do all day in a world where people derive a lot of purpose from jobs and your basic income isn't enough to just do what you want? ummm... we could legalize pot.

Dignity? So you think economic coercion and slavery-with-a-choice-of-masters (or the non-choice of none, and starvation) is somehow dignified?

A leisure society is being able to do your vocation. It's about hackers being able to hack without needing a "day job" and without trying to squeeze what you want to do into the leftover energy after spending your day on makework.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#126

Post by JulianMorrison »

rubicon33 wrote: post #84
JulianMorrison wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to have jobs walking behind horses in fields, while the horses pulled ploughs and so forth. Pretty stultifying, dawn to dusk staring at horse's ass. A generation from now, manual driving will be viewed as maddeningly dull makework for human drones. Hours of staring at roads with instant death the punishment for dozing off? Wouldn't do it if you paid me. I'd have said, hopefully the world gets basic income…

How does "basic income" work? I have never heard it explained in a way that made any sense. Starting with a premise that resources are finite, you will always have power brokers who oppose the idea of spreading resources thin across the population. To think that would ever happen on a global scale seems as likely as us populating mars. It could happen, but certainly not in my lifetime.

Power brokers oppose all sorts of redistribution but public movements can demand it.

A minimum wage is already part way to a basic income. The other half, a minumum wage for just being human and alive, would require similar political support.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#127

Post by chrischen »

perfmode wrote: post #7
chrischen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the current generation will suffer, but the next generation and future ones will benefit from self driving cars.

Who owns the future though? While I am not a nationalist and I think it's commendable that the human race is making progress, I'm concerned that advances in technology are causing troubling concentrations of wealth among those who operate and control the technology.

Well if that happens, then the population would shrink to accommodate (and it sort of is happening as people are having fewer children).

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#128

Post by ryuker16 »

cesarbs wrote: post #114
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it "happens", but do you see it on almost all of your commutes? When someone does something dumb ass in the states, everyone is shocked and surprised, in Beijing it is just normal and should be expected (as a benefit, everyone is driving like everyone else is crazy). (And I wasn't driving, rather sitting in the taxi, but I digress)

I live in the Seattle area and I see people doing "dumb ass" things on the road every single day.

Here's how bad China is.... I rode with a guy a couple of miles into incoming traffic just to impress me.... on a motorcycle.

Remember those Scifi chase scenes in movies like fifth element.... Felt like that.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#129

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cesarbs wrote: post #124
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Seattle originally. Every time I visited Seattle (well Bellevue/Redmond) for work, it wasn't that bad. People are pretty mellow, well, I guess you would have to go to Beijing to understand that there are different levels of dumb assery.

I'm originally from Brazil, so I've seen my fair share of traffic awfulness :) What I see in Bellevue is mild in comparison, but just as an example, today someone cut an entire lane in front of me to enter their garage. An almost weekly occurrence is seeing people stick half their car onto the street when leaving a parking garage I drive by often, and only then stopping to watch for incoming traffic. I've parked in t…

> An almost weekly occurrence is seeing people stick half their car onto the street when leaving a parking garage I drive by often, and only then stopping to watch for incoming traffic. I've parked in that garage before and I know there's plenty of visibility from the exit; it's like people don't realize there's a whole chunk of metal before the driver's seat.

This would never happen in China! Yielding? Ha! Instead the car would just plow out of the parking garage irrespective of any cars or people on the road that weren't right in front of them! Same goes for right turns and anywhere else yield might be required...the concept just doesn't exist in China's driving culture.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#130

Post by alphydan »

ThomPete wrote: post #120
alphydan wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me have a go: When I was at university google had 8 employees :) ... who would have imagined then jobs like SEO/SEM Consultant, blogger, online life-coach, android indie game designer, stay-at-home person selling junk on ebay, etc, etc. For self driving cars... how about: - Guide (jump into the self-driving van, and I (human) will give you a personal and engaging tour of the region, parks, people, wines .... we'l…

You don't have to guess the numbers wont add up. Google and Facebook have way less people than other companies their revenue taking into consideration. What is happening these days is an increase of capital rather than labour heavy companies. The number of new companies is falling in all of europe and the size of the large companies is falling net. Most of those things are on the verge to be automated too. So you are…

When you say "Google and Facebook", you are talking about their employees. But how many new companies / jobs have been created using their ecosystem (How much additional sales and jobs are created with those platforms?). That number is a lot harder to establish.

Do you have any estimates or references about _that_ number?

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