Watch Zoox’s autonomous car drive around San Francisco for an hour • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by lolc » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

All in all I'm quite impressed with the demonstration. It was way more thorough than previous videos I've seen. The main things the car is failing at from what I see are the hard things: Object permanence and ad-hoc reasoning. So no surprises.

Regarding object permanence: I was impressed overall with their detection. Still, you could see kids walking close to parents blink in and out of awareness of the car. Now I'm not saying humans are very good at tracking a multitude of actors. So at some point the machines will be "good enough". But that point seems way off when significant objects like kids can just disappear from awareness when they pass behind a stroller.

And about the ad-hoc reasoning: They have the whole city mapped out! Including traffic lights and turn restrictions. I'm not even clear whether they try to detect the signs at all. I'd assume that they have an operations center that hot-patches the map with everything cropping up during the day. So the cars would send in unexpected changes to the road and they would classify those changes and patch the map. Meaning the car is tethered to that feed and not autonomous in the strictest sense. Sure, such a center would be marginal cost given a large enough fleet. Still it's a subscription you'd need for your own robocar.

They mention a lot of things they are prepared for. And I can't help but think "oh they're really good" when they say "detect backed up lanes" or "creep into intersections". But that always leaves the question what happens when they're not prepared for something. When the rules don't fit. Can the car go over a curb if the situation warrants it? Does it back out of a blocked off section? Is it even able to weigh whether backing out is an option at this point?

so I'd like to see a "what we're currently stuck at" video. But I understand one can't very well attract investors with such a video.

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

#152

Post by idavidrein » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

lolc wrote: post #151

All in all I'm quite impressed with the demonstration. It was way more thorough than previous videos I've seen. The main things the car is failing at from what I see are the hard things: Object permanence and ad-hoc reasoning. So no surprises. Regarding object permanence: I was impressed overall with their detection. Still, you could see kids walking close to parents blink in and out of awareness of the car. Now I'm…

I agree with a significant amount of your point, but with regard to object permanence, I would guess that they have prediction algorithms that don't only rely on the current-time perception, so if something blips out of sight for a second the system will still infer/predict it's existence (for a time - obviously if something is hidden for a long time it won't continue to not trust perception).

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

#153

Post by a_t48 » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

travisporter wrote: post #63

Fricken wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have faith in robotaxis abilities to handle safety critical things. The lizard brain stuff is under control. They are still just too stupid to navigate complex traffic efficiently, without regularly hesitating and getting tripped up. Robotaxis are Rube Goldberg machines, there are so many moving parts. The running joke at Waymo for a while was "How many engineers does it take to operate a self driving car?" Everybo…

Can you elaborate on the moving parts? Is it just too expensive to install/maintain the sensors, or do you mean the algorithm has to deal with multiple inputs/decisions? I could envision a scenario where a city council of a less populated city with lax regulations could deploy robotaxis to their economic advantage. Do you think we'll get there soon?

Not OP, but it's as much the algorithm having to deal with different inputs as the engineers having to build all the needed systems together.

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

#154

Post by idavidrein » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

chriswphoto wrote: post #130

rrdharan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the reason all of this makes more sense than just building tracks and trains just the fact that there’s an evolutionary path to get there with incremental releases along the way? Because every time I hear this kind of thing I keep finding myself asking why/whether mass transit systems aren’t just the same end state?

I used to believe that self driving cars were a panacea for mobility. Then I moved to Boston, sold my car, bought a bike and realized that in dense urban cities, cars are the enemy, doesn’t matter if the are Electric and autonomous. They generally don’t fit in cities. Cities should be built for people not for single occupancy high speed, deadly cars.

well the ideal cheap ride-sharing AV world would have much more spread out cities, no?

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

#155

Post by def8cefe » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #119

carapace wrote: post #89

It really really bothers me that these folks are using a live city with real, non-volunteer test subjects of all ages (little kids and old folks use public streets) as a test bed for their massive car-shaped robots. It's bad enough that people are driving cars all over the place, car collisions have killed more Americans than all the wars we've fought put together. I'm one of those people who say, "Self-driving cars…

Those were already made years ago at the start of SDC innovation. A few companies are way beyond the worst human drivers now, there's already a massive amount of motor vehicle death caused by intoxication that we should worry about. Not fantasy robodeaths that we can count on one hand.

> fantasy robodeaths

They're not a fantasy, they've occurred. The reason we can count them on one hand is because few cars currently drive autonomously and there is a fail-safe human at the wheel who (most of the time) is paying attention to the road.

Even if autonomous cars are better than human drivers they will still inevitably strike and kill pedestrians and vehicle occupants; they are not a magical solution to vehicle collisions.

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

#156

Post by the-dude » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

carapace wrote: post #89

It really really bothers me that these folks are using a live city with real, non-volunteer test subjects of all ages (little kids and old folks use public streets) as a test bed for their massive car-shaped robots. It's bad enough that people are driving cars all over the place, car collisions have killed more Americans than all the wars we've fought put together. I'm one of those people who say, "Self-driving cars…

So you are bothered by this, but then casually compare it to 'all the wars' you have fought?

Are you counting US casualties only, or all humans who perished in these adventures?

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

#157

Post by l33tman » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

TheSmiddy wrote: post #61

Fricken wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine an uncontrolled intersection. The Robotaxi is approaching from one direction. In the opposite direction is a cyclist who intends to turn left across the Robotaxi. There is also a pedestrian that may or may not cross the street, and another vehicle about to cross in front of the Robotaxi from the other direction. There are a huge number of ways this scenario can play out, and any decision made by one agent can…

In Australia there are no uncontrolled intersections (that I am aware of). Every single junction clearly marks who must give way and we don't have any 4-way stops, instead using roundabouts in these situations. It's possible that for self driving to work road systems will have to be more formalised to remove the ambiguous situations you've described. I can't imagine it working well in China or Indonesia where traffic…

Also people regularly just ignore the lane markings (and break all the other rules too...). You have to consider all those cases as well.

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

#158

Post by lolc » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

idavidrein wrote: post #152

lolc wrote: post #151

All in all I'm quite impressed with the demonstration. It was way more thorough than previous videos I've seen. The main things the car is failing at from what I see are the hard things: Object permanence and ad-hoc reasoning. So no surprises. Regarding object permanence: I was impressed overall with their detection. Still, you could see kids walking close to parents blink in and out of awareness of the car. Now I'm…

I agree with a significant amount of your point, but with regard to object permanence, I would guess that they have prediction algorithms that don't only rely on the current-time perception, so if something blips out of sight for a second the system will still infer/predict it's existence (for a time - obviously if something is hidden for a long time it won't continue to not trust perception).

I'd be very interested to know how that works. But I don't think they have it.

The boxes they draw are very wobbly and dimensions expand and contract directly with sensor input. Maybe they only show fused output (in itself an achievement) and there is a later step they don't show. That would be weird though because if they want to brag about their model they would definitely show it if it was any good.

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

#159

Post by ghaff » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 11:58 AM UTC

fratlas wrote: post #128

taneq wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely uncontrolled intersections once you get out of the cities. My understanding is that if unmarked, there’s an implied give-way at the side road in a T-junction and all roads in a four-way junction.

I imagine self driving cars won't be outside of cities for years and years.

Outside of cities on limited access highways seem like the much easier situation--and, frankly, a pretty significant win for both comfort and safety once people give up their dream of having a personal chauffeur for their entire lives. It's self-driving in e.g. Manhattan or Boston that I can't really begin to imagine in less than decades.

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

#160

Post by ghaff » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

cmendel wrote: post #109

dev_tty01 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Are you asserting that driving in actual traffic in the rain is easier than navigating a parking lot in the rain? Yes, several of us generalized the issue. I don't see why that is troubling.

Because the generalization changes the question. There is a world between "can drive 90 % of the time on 90% of roads" and "can drive 100% of the time on 100% of roads." The former is still extraordinarily valuable, the latter effectively impossible. When you conflate the two there really isn't even a point in having a discussion. In the given example "driving in a parking lot +rain" it's completely reasonable to pas…

The former is very valuable so long as:

- The handoff of control to a person is well-defined and not too sudden

- You accept that autonomous driving is essentially a convenience and safety feature with a competent driver behind the wheels at all times. No using an autonomous car to drop little Jimmy off at soccer practice. (And no summoning a shared robo-taxi service.)