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Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

venturebeat.com

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Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#131

Post by advaita »

taneq wrote: post #108
vardump wrote: post #33

Yawn. Good lane markings, no rain/snow or other bad weather, perfect road surfaces. Just like all other self-driving demos. I'd like to see a demo like this on snow covered roads, with no lane markings visible. I think that would tell a lot more about the system's ability to deal with an imperfect world.

You lot are always so fixated on snow. Give it a decade or two and with global warming, the environment might meet us halfway on that one.

Doesnt climate change mean a higher probability of extreme events, and hence higher chances of severe winter storms/blizzard/snow?

I am out of my depth in terms of the topic we are discussing so I might be quite wrong.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#132

Post by gpm »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #88

> Handling yellow lights properly, involves us having to predict how long they will remain yellow for No. That isn't how yellow lights work in the US. If the light turns yellow and you have enough space/time to make a safe stop you do it. There's no need to predict the remaining time on yellow phase. We don't need robot cars bending these rules.

No. That's what the law says but not how you drive.

Suppose your 4 seconds from a yellow light traveling at a high speed. You can slam on your breaks and make a very abrupt stop, or you can cruise through that light and continue on your way.

If the light is about to turn red you should probably slam on your breaks, because you risk being t-boned in the intersection.

If you have time to get through the yellow light/before the cross light turns green, you should keep going because slamming on your breaks is mildly dangerous.

The law isn't nuanced enough to understand this, with good reason. You don't want to make a bad call about the safest action made in good faith illegal.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#134

Post by pj_mukh »

carapace wrote: post #124
pj_mukh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these companies run closed-circuit tests (aka nerf-golf-carts) and 1000's of hours of simulation. In the end, the only test that matters is the real-test. Real speed (sensor/computation latency et al.), real sensor feeds (lighting et al.) and real car size (momentum et al.). Source: Am Controls engineer. There WILL be bugs and un-modellable sources of error. The real hedging in these situations is the safety…

> Most of these companies run closed-circuit tests (aka nerf-golf-carts) and 1000's of hours of simulation. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I mean build a machine that, in the real world, can't hurt people. Make it light. Make it soft . Program it to limit its speed such that it can always stop before colliding with whatever ( whoever ) might leap out in front of it. If the top speed is five miles p…

"If the top speed is five miles per hour, so be it."

You are not really testing though. The whole point is to build a machine that can go the speed limit. You can test all you want at 5mph, but let me assure you, most of the real issues will show up when you go 45 in the real world.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#135

Post by thenewwazoo »

Gaelan wrote: post #94
xiaolingxiao wrote: post #2

What is the general view on Zoox's progress relative to other non-waymo playes. Such as Argo, Aurora and Cruise. There is the widely reported disengagement per mile, but most robotics people know it is just smoke and mirrors meant to make the regulators go away (disclosure, studied/researched robotics in grad school).

> There is the widely reported disengagement per mile, but most robotics people know it is just smoke and mirrors meant to make the regulators go away Are you saying that the numbers are inaccurately reported, or accurately reported but just don't tell the whole story?

Each company gets to decide for itself what qualifies as a disengagement and each event’s severity, and the formula used is a VERY closely guarded secret.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#136

Post by emmelaich »

Animats wrote: post #113

Interesting. Watch at 1/3 speed or so to see it in real time. (Self-driving car videos tend to be published sped up, so you don't see the mistakes.) The key part of this is, how well does it box everything in the environment? That's the first level of data reduction and the one that determines whether the vehicle hits things. It's doing OK. It's not perfect; it often misses short objects, such as dogs, backpacks on t…

> Watch at 1/3 speed or so to see it in real time...

The note in the top-right says its 2x.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#137

Post by harshulpandav »

emmelaich wrote: post #136
Animats wrote: post #113

Interesting. Watch at 1/3 speed or so to see it in real time. (Self-driving car videos tend to be published sped up, so you don't see the mistakes.) The key part of this is, how well does it box everything in the environment? That's the first level of data reduction and the one that determines whether the vehicle hits things. It's doing OK. It's not perfect; it often misses short objects, such as dogs, backpacks on t…

> Watch at 1/3 speed or so to see it in real time... The note in the top-right says its 2x.

Top-left

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#138

Post by stale2002 »

ghaff wrote: post #105
stale2002 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And as soon as you place too many restrictions, you no longer have a reliable transportation option. yes you do. There is a whole lot of driving that happens in perfect conditions. Think "Truck driving, on long highways". Replacing half of all truck drivers is still a trillion dollar industry. And for your robo taxi situation, you can simply only allow the robotaxis to run half of the time. Human drivers, can simpl…

>IE, in arizona, I am sure that it is safe most of the time, and there would not be any issues with snow. Parts of Arizona.

> Parts of Arizona.

Sure. Thats my point. And that is still very valuable.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#139

Post by carapace »

pj_mukh wrote: post #134
carapace wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of these companies run closed-circuit tests (aka nerf-golf-carts) and 1000's of hours of simulation. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I mean build a machine that, in the real world, can't hurt people. Make it light. Make it soft . Program it to limit its speed such that it can always stop before colliding with whatever ( whoever ) might leap out in front of it. If the top speed is five miles p…

"If the top speed is five miles per hour, so be it." You are not really testing though. The whole point is to build a machine that can go the speed limit. You can test all you want at 5mph, but let me assure you, most of the real issues will show up when you go 45 in the real world.

> The whole point is to build a machine that can go the speed limit.

Sure, eventually, when the machines and sensors and algorithms and so on are good enough. When the infrastructure can be rebuilt to accommodate them (e.g. Boring company tunnels for auto-trucking, sensors and comms in the roads and signage, &c.)

The rush to market is the whole problem. Not the ultimate concept.

I want a machine that can take my mother to her doctors appointment now that the dementia has gotten to the point where she shouldn't take the bus on her own anymore.

Let the experiences with the toy cars guide the incremental graceful adoption of faster machines.

> most of the real issues will show up when you go 45 in the real world.

Right! So don't go 45.

Re: Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour

#140

Post by torpfactory »

carapace wrote: post #106
torpfactory wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a different perspective that you could use (and I’m not necessarily advocating for it; hear me out): Human driven cars are dangerous to the tune of ~36,000 deaths per year. Every year without the implementation of full self driving we pay some large percentage of that number in lives. Self driving cars won’t make it out of the lab without real driving on real roads in real scenarios. Taking appropriate preca…

What about the nerf-golf-cart idea?

Speed is an important parameter: you can’t do freeway driving in a golf cart. IMO regular vehicles can be safe enough with appropriate supervision. It’s really once you get to the first runs without safety drivers where your backup goes away. Hopefully that will be only after your intervention rate is zero.
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