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Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

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Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#121

Post by fleischhauf »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #107
sva_ wrote: post #92

I've been observing that AI tools often don't really replace people, but rather amplify the amount of work that a single individual can do. In that way, rather than seeking to replace truck drivers, it might first be more useful to make it possible that one driver can navigate two trucks in tandem, and later perhaps more. The largest issue with autonomous driving seems to be the ~20% edge cases that may occur, and ha…

> two trucks in tandem, and later perhaps more. Or we could put them on tracks and physically attach them to one another.

you mean like a .. train

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#122

Post by ChuckMcM »

Great post with good details. I wonder whether a "truck only" roadway might be a reasonable simplifier here (yes building a 1000 miles of road for trucks only is billions of $ but there are perhaps segments between say ports and warehouses where that might make sense. And as someone who has been fooling around with robotics since the 80's the whole "sensors have to see far enough ahead to respond" is well known. The "workaround" is to go slower, and granted 40 mph trucks on the freeway would be annoying it gives you a way to test responses while sensors catch up.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#123

Post by thfuran »

maxerickson wrote: post #77
Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

Really the bar for humans to legally operate a vehicle is whatever licensing process is in place in a given state. We don't make them pinky swear to not do anything dangerous or illegal. If an autonomous system can get a CDL, it's probably gonna be more effective at continuously meeting that standard than a lot of the humans that do the same thing (but are distracted on a given day or have started using substances, o…

Maybe, but our driving tests are designed around assessing humans. A system that fundamentally works quite differently likely has very different performance characteristics and failure modes and may need to be assessed differently to demonstrate that it will probably perform adequately in non-test conditions.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#124

Post by vlovich123 »

johndhi wrote: post #30
vlovich123 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this satire? That’s not how humans work at all. Even a very rational player will make a relative trade off call of the probability of an action having an outcome and the size of the outcome. Case in point: driving with almost no sleep, driving while drinking, etc. and humans are quite often irrational and take risks just because they’re seeking the adrenaline rush. And that’s for their own life. We can easily also…

Not satire. People deciding to drive while sleepy doesn't mean it isn't scary to do so (in fact it's horrifying). People definitely make illogical decisions. Being afraid while driving isn't even necessarily a logical decision. It's just an emotion we feel. But I know I feel it and a lot of others do too.

But you get that not everyone has this fear and therefore extrapolating that this makes humans innately better drivers, right? Also fear and anxiety can make you more alert on what you’re focusing on, but it narrows your focus and can destroys your situational awareness that your peripheral senses give you. There’s no clear link that fearful drivers are better drivers.

> People deciding to drive while sleepy doesn't mean it isn't scary to do so (in fact it's horrifying)

You’re generalizing your personal emotional response and opinion and assuming everyone or a substantial majority feels that way. That doesn’t seem like a safe assumption given that fear driving tends to not be so common because that tends to be more common in people who learn as adults.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#125

Post by Xelbair »

crazygringo wrote: post #33
Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

> but I really don't feel like society will accept anything other than trucks / vehicles that are able to operate under all conditions Trucks are different because they're just for transportation of goods. As challenging weather arrives they can just wait at the nearest rest stop, pull over on the shoulder, etc. Your shipping will be delayed, but outside of that I don't think society will care. Totally acceptable as…

>Trucks are different because they're just for transportation of goods. As challenging weather arrives they can just wait at the nearest rest stop, pull over on the shoulder, etc.

Trucks? waiting? In "just in time" culture of storage management, where buffers are low and delays are nightmare?

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#126

Post by o11c »

foofie wrote: post #73
Havoc wrote: post #69

Yes trucks slow down slower than cars but that's just physics. You've got the exact same problem with humans driving under say rainy or foggy conditions. If anything driverless helps dramatically on this front. If you can run trucks 24/7 without stopping then you can cut their speed say 33% or whatever and still come out on top. You can also adjust the cargo to reduce stopping distance - use autonomous truckers for t…

> If anything driverless helps dramatically on this front. If you can run trucks 24/7 without stopping then you can cut their speed say 33% or whatever and still come out on top. I think that this line of reasoning misses the forest for the trees. If the promise of a silver bullet is a mode of transportation that can safely and reliably work 24/7 day and night with limited to no human interaction and be able to move…

The problem with rail is that most businesses don't want a whole train worth, and removing just a single car from the train is hard.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#127

Post by oatmeal1 »

> While MRC behaviors are annoying for other road users and embarrassing for the AV developer, they do not add undue risk on surface streets given the low speeds and already chaotic nature of city driving.

Except in the case of Cruise.

MRC could be handled somewhat successfully for trucks on the highway on sections of highway with good cellular data connection. You could have someone making minimal money play a driving game on the computer all day to keep them paying attention. If an autonomous truck encounters an unusual situation, their screen switches over to a camera feed for the truck, and they can take over the controls of the truck to get it past the obstacle.

Not sure what fraction of highway has sufficient connection to give them a sufficient live feed. Probably a lot though.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#128

Post by JumpCrisscross »

atahanacar wrote: post #112
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we’re back to reinventing trains The term you’re looking for is armchair logistics. Trains and trucks have been competing for a long time. Autonomous trucks, even in convoys, even where freeways have RFID signs, are vastly different from trains. You don’t need to lay and maintain tracks. You’re not limited to where tracks go. You can assemble and disassemble on demand.

Yet you need to lay and maintain roads, you're limited to where roads and RFID signs go. You also have the added inefficiency and environmental problems of rubber-to-asphalt contact. In addition, you need to carry batteries which means even more inefficient transportation.

> you need to lay and maintain roads, you're limited to where roads and RFID signs go

No, the roads and signs are already there and being maintained.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#129

Post by kortilla »

Edman274 wrote: post #106
jdewerd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's OK to have more deaths so long as we can punish someone with no expectation that doing so will fix the problem? I suspect you are right, but I don't think it reflects well on us.

I think a way to think about it is that we (at a societal level) wouldn't accept a desk calculator to be sold as a consumer product if it did correct arithmetic almost all of the time but then would spit out a close but wrong answer 1 time out of 1000, even if that would be significantly better than the average person doing arithmetic. Our expectation would be that it could (and should) perform flawlessly. If our tec…

I have a desk calculator with a worse error rate than that because of a button that sticks. I still use it

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#130

Post by sdeframond »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #122

Great post with good details. I wonder whether a "truck only" roadway might be a reasonable simplifier here (yes building a 1000 miles of road for trucks only is billions of $ but there are perhaps segments between say ports and warehouses where that might make sense. And as someone who has been fooling around with robotics since the 80's the whole "sensors have to see far enough ahead to respond" is well known. The…

You must mean a railway then ?

Edit: by the way, why don't we have autonomous freight trains?

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