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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

#121

Post by dmix »

bastawhiz wrote: post #84
zitterbewegung wrote: post #78

Isn’t this a pivot I always thought Uber wanted to automate their whole fleet instead of having to pay people ?

Uber was working on self driving ten years ago. They had cars on the road loaded with cameras and sensors specifically to collect data. Then they negligently killed a woman crossing a street. This isn't a pivot, this is them trying to sheepishly reenter the race they were dramatically ejected from.

The main reason Uber sold their self driving R&D unit was because they couldn't afford it. So they sold it to another company taking a 25% stake in Aurora and Uber CEO joined their board, the company is still operating automated trucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Innovation?wprov=sfti1

They run trucks for Fedex in Texas and wants to offer an "Uber Freight network"

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

#122

Post by ssl-3 »

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.

Does Italy count? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Google_M...

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

#123

Post by ra7 »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #120
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.

“Real world data is not the bottleneck” != “Real world data is not useful”

No one is suggesting the latter.

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

#124

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

ra7 wrote: post #123
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Real world data is not the bottleneck” != “Real world data is not useful” No one is suggesting the latter.

Parent's post noted that it is not a bottleneck, because it can be readily simulated ( and thus not useful ). I am not sure if QED is too much in this case, but I stand by my amusement. Or are you arguing that real world data is somehow less useful than simulated data? It is very confusing. I would accuse of nitpicking, but I just noticed you are the parent:D You can certainly speak for yourself.

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

#125

Post by Animats »

> “The bottleneck is data.”

This seems to be wishful thinking on the part of Uber, and also Tesla. Google StreetView data is probably sufficient. Waymo's expansion into new cities does not seem to be delayed much by the need for more data.

Most of the reported problems with self-driving come from transient situations. More mapping data will not help with those.

China has the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone, where traffic cams and other sensors let vehicles see beyond their own sightlines.[1] That's been going on since 2020. That's the ultimate in sensing - full real time road info.

The Beijing test area is getting some expansion. The new direction seems to be to focus on airports and railroad stations, so that driverless cars can be aware of congestion in detail. That makes sense.

[1] https://sinocities.substack.com/p/inside-chinas-connected-ve...

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

#126

Post by Animats »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
LeoPanthera wrote: post #14

I'm honestly surprised that Tesla never took advantage of all the cameras in all its cars to do some kind of mapping project. I always thought that was incredibly valuable data. Sort of an automatically crowd-sourced street view.

> surprised that Tesla never took advantage of all the cameras in all its cars to do some kind of mapping Don’t they [1][2]? [1] https://www.privacyinternational.org/examples/1929/tesla-lea... [2] https://electrek.co/2020/10/24/tesla-collecting-insane-amoun...

How much cellular uplink data does a Tesla vehicle transmit per minute? Anyone know? If they're collecting video it would have to be a lot.

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

#127

Post by ra7 »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #124
ra7 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Real world data is not the bottleneck” != “Real world data is not useful” No one is suggesting the latter.

Parent's post noted that it is not a bottleneck, because it can be readily simulated ( and thus not useful ). I am not sure if QED is too much in this case, but I stand by my amusement. Or are you arguing that real world data is somehow less useful than simulated data? It is very confusing. I would accuse of nitpicking, but I just noticed you are the parent:D You can certainly speak for yourself.

> and thus not useful

Again, I’m not suggesting this. Bottleneck has a specific meaning. It means Waymo is limited by not having the ability to collect data. Well, clearly that’s not true because Waymo already has a reasonably scaled deployment across a dozen cities that no one else has and can handle millions of scenarios.

Real world data is absolutely required, but more of it doesn’t give you magical self driving ability as Uber’s CTO suggests. If it were the case, you’d see Tesla achieve fully autonomous driving years ago.

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

#128

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

ra7 wrote: post #127
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent's post noted that it is not a bottleneck, because it can be readily simulated ( and thus not useful ). I am not sure if QED is too much in this case, but I stand by my amusement. Or are you arguing that real world data is somehow less useful than simulated data? It is very confusing. I would accuse of nitpicking, but I just noticed you are the parent:D You can certainly speak for yourself.

> and thus not useful Again, I’m not suggesting this. Bottleneck has a specific meaning. It means Waymo is limited by not having the ability to collect data. Well, clearly that’s not true because Waymo already has a reasonably scaled deployment across a dozen cities that no one else has and can handle millions of scenarios. Real world data is absolutely required, but more of it doesn’t give you magical self driving a…

I accept your argument. I may have been a little too nitpicky and you do have several good points.

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

#129

Post by VorpalWay »

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.

Small country side roads routinely lack a central line in Sweden. Even smaller roads can lack the side lines too. And I'm talking asphalt roads here still. The same happens on many residential streets in towns and cities.

But sure, it would be rare to have a large road or street without markings. But most roads aren't large. Most travelled kilometers happen on large roads, but that is not the same thing as most roads. And many individual journeys would involve at least a little bit of small roads at the beginning, end or both.

And of course, if they are covered with snow and ice during the winter you can't see the markings anyway.

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

#130

Post by chung8123 »

Animats wrote: post #125

> “The bottleneck is data.” This seems to be wishful thinking on the part of Uber, and also Tesla. Google StreetView data is probably sufficient. Waymo's expansion into new cities does not seem to be delayed much by the need for more data. Most of the reported problems with self-driving come from transient situations. More mapping data will not help with those. China has the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demo…

Data should help transient situations as well.
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