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Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

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Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#141

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #77
tigershark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. And the video although not new is quite impressive. But if the claim of the author that San Francisco is a tough city in which to drive is true, than I fear that some parts of Italy (and probably A LOT of cities in the world) won't have self driving cars for a very long time. When I saw the video the first time I was very impressed, but I would have never imagined that for someone that was a VERY…

This is moreso true for China and India. If you've ever been to those countries, the first thing you notice as a westerner is that the streets are chaos, traffic rules are barely obeyed, and aggressiveness is required to get anywhere. Meanwhile, Beijing and Dehli have extreme pollution problems partially caused by cars. If any place was in need of point to point autonomous ride sharing, it's Asia. The reduction in ca…

From my experience in my home country, the only rule of the road there is the survival of the strong. I would imagine that designing algorithms that follow only one rule should actually be much easier. An unpleasant and dangerous environment like this would actually benefit much more from self-driving technology.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#142

Post by ghaff »

Animats wrote: post #17

Nice. It's annoying that they provide only 10x sped up video. Watching this slowed down is helpful. Notes: * There are frequent steering twitches to the left. This may be associated with passing parked cars. There are similar twitches to the right when in the left lane of a one-way street. * Crosswalk behavior when turning needs some work. The vehicle enters the intersection, then stops in the intersection before the…

Dealing with pedestrian crosswalk behavior is, in some ways, in the same class as left hand turns across unregulated traffic in the sense that both are situational. What I mean by that is that with few pedestrians/light traffic, it's appropriate to just wait it out. But there are definitely circumstances in cities where a bit more aggression is called for. I don't mean cutting right in front of a car or sending pedestrians scattering but you do sometimes need to take your space and go or you'll sit there for a very long time with horns blaring behind you.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#143

Post by Animats »

bluejekyll wrote: post #41
Animats wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed the "autonomous green light" was added in post-production, along with the timer and the company logo. Google had another crash last month.[1] As usual, it was probably the other driver's fault. Other driver apparently botched a left turn in a two-lane left turn intersection at Rengsdorf and El Camino. Google drives in traffic on the SF peninsula every day, and we know exactly how many times they've crashed.…

> It's not like Tesla slamming into something on a freeway at full speed. To be fair, Tesla is not selling a fully autonomous vehicle, yet, people are treating it like one.

Tesla was selling something which is marketed as being able to handle freeway driving under good weather conditions. It can't be trusted to do even that right. The "rams into vehicle stopped at left of roadway" feature is unacceptable. That's an expected possibility on a freeway. Users would legitimately expect auto-braking to activate for that.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#144

Post by stannol »

riffraff wrote: post #119
abalone wrote: post #57

At the risk of sounding pedantic this is not a Level 4 demo. It is a Level 2 demo where the driver didn't have to intervene during the demonstrated route. What's the difference? Apart from the legal requirement to have a diver ready to take over in test vehicles (which necessarily makes it Level 2), the fundamental difference is that you'd have to show a lot more than one demo to establish that you've achieved Level…

How is "downtown city" even defined? Driving in SF seems vastly different from driving in Rome, Istanbul or Ho Chi Min City.

I wondered that too. Pretty ridiculous that they claim "Self-Driving on the Streets of San Francisco Is Really Hard". City driving in the US is pretty much as easy as it gets. These guys are up for a real challenge when they try to make it work in Delhi, Bangkok et al.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#145

Post by grogenaut »

tgb wrote: post #73
grogenaut wrote: post #30

Random side thought: How do I signal in an ambiguous situation to the car on who's going first. Like Super high traffic and I want to merge in front of them or let them go first? Currently I do that with a wave. Which is super effective on a motorcycle as people almost always say "sure we can squeeze you in here" which lets me get places way faster.

I've read that insurance people strongly suggest to never wave: it's one of the top things that seems to occur during accidents. It's hard to distinguish from someone "waving you on" versus someone "waving to say thanks for letting me go". Trusting anyone else to check for oncoming traffic is a terrible idea. It's really easy to focus on the wave-giver and not check the rest of the traffic. And even if you are good a…

I was talking about at a 4 way stop or in 2 mph gridlock... Where is more like a construction site than traffic. I almost got smeared once by believing a blinker. Never again, I won't pull out until they are obviously in a turn.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#146

Post by rubicon33 »

hueving wrote: post #128
rubicon33 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you've ever been to those countries, the first thing you notice as a westerner is that the streets are chaos, traffic rules are barely obeyed, and aggressiveness is required to get anywhere." I'm going to get down voted for this, but it has to be said. The whole "well it couldn't drive in X country" scenario is ridiculous. Driving in unruly, chaotic, unregulated environments is NOT a problem for self driving ca…

If you're solution to the problem is to not solve it under the constraints offered, then you're not really solving it. Someone could easily use your argument to say we shouldn't have self driving cars in the US either when we can just use automated trains.

> "If you're solution to the problem is to not solve it under the constraints offered, then you're not really solving it."

That is of course, unless, you DO solve it under other constraints. Sure, you haven't solved X problem with Y solution, but you've still solved X problem. Self driving cars may not be the solution to ALL kinds of traffic problems, but it turns out, they don't have to be.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#147

Post by tgb »

grogenaut wrote: post #145
tgb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read that insurance people strongly suggest to never wave: it's one of the top things that seems to occur during accidents. It's hard to distinguish from someone "waving you on" versus someone "waving to say thanks for letting me go". Trusting anyone else to check for oncoming traffic is a terrible idea. It's really easy to focus on the wave-giver and not check the rest of the traffic. And even if you are good a…

I was talking about at a 4 way stop or in 2 mph gridlock... Where is more like a construction site than traffic. I almost got smeared once by believing a blinker. Never again, I won't pull out until they are obviously in a turn.

Yeah there's not much else you can do at a 4 way stop if the timing is bad.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#148

Post by bjelkeman-again »

halomru wrote: post #131
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something you often see in simulation. But I wounded if these simulations ever use different decision engines and criteria for different vehicles. The different manufacturers are going to produce their own software (some at least) and not treat an encounter the same way. Are we going to have race conditions or "database" lock-like situations (not sure what to call it), as cars try to interpret each others behaviour?

This example, and most simulations, seem to use an algorithm which is very close to "if there is space for me to drive, drive". In the medium term, I expect self driving cars will instead start to communicate with each other to find a better approximation of optional traffic flow (by finding the solution that is best for the negotiating vehicles). This has several competitive advantages over the simple algorithm: it…

In the medium term I agree, but there are som major standards issues and negotiations, like common implementation against the law in several major markets, to work out first, I think.

Re: Cruise Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF, Passing Uber and Maybe Waymo

#149

Post by gcheong »

kuschku wrote: post #78
gcheong wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that will be part of Level 5 or at least we will be very close to level 5(full) autonomy once complex situations like 4-way stops with lots of pedestrians have been mastered.

So you’re saying until we reach Level 5, autonomous cars will be entirely useless almost everywhere except a handful of US cities?

They won't be fully autonomous until we reach level 5, that is what level 5 is by definition. Whether or not a car that isn't fully autonomous but can handle a variety of common situations is completely useless to someone is an individual assessment. I personally look forward to the extra safety.
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