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The Waymo World Model

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Re: The Waymo World Model

#161

Post by iamtheworstdev »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #139
jellojello wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Lidar + the terrible quality of tesla onboard cameras.. street view would look terrible. The biggest L of elon's career is the weird commitment to no-lidar. If you've ever driven a Tesla, it gives daily messages "the left side camera is blocked" etc.. cameras+weather don't mix either.

At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt, like that weird decision of Steve Jobs banning Adobe Flash, which ran most of the fun parts of the Internet back then, that ended up spreading HTML5. Now I just think he refused LIDAR on purely aesthetic reasons. The cost is not even that significant compared to the overall cost of a Tesla.

he didn't refuse it. MobileEye or whoever cut Tesla off because they were using the lidar sensors in a way he didn't approve. From there he got mad and said "no more lidar!"

Re: The Waymo World Model

#162

Post by ASalazarMX »

sdf2erf wrote: post #154
ASalazarMX wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (gray) line is the degree of autonomy. My washing machine makes very small, predictable decisions, while a Waymo has to manage uncertainty most of the time.

Its irrelevant. A robot is a robot. Dictionary def: "a machine controlled by a computer that is used to perform jobs automatically."

TIL fuel injectors are robots. Probably my ceiling lights too.

Maybe we need to nitpick about what a job is exactly? Or we could agree to call Waymos (semi)autonomous robots?

Re: The Waymo World Model

#163

Post by jrm4 »

1. Still hard not to think that this is a huge waste of time as opposed to something that's a little more like a public transport train-ish thing, i.e. integrate with established infrastructure.

2. No seriously, is the filipino driver thing confirmed? It really feels like they're trying to bury that.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#164

Post by ActorNightly »

This is cool, but they are still not going about it the right way.

Its much easier to build everything into the compressed latent space of physical objects and how they move, and operate from there.

Everyone jumped on the end-2-end bandwagon, which then locks you into the input to your driving model being vision, which means that you have to have things like genie to generate vision data, which is wasteful.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#165

Post by mattlondon »

sdf2erf wrote: post #154
ASalazarMX wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (gray) line is the degree of autonomy. My washing machine makes very small, predictable decisions, while a Waymo has to manage uncertainty most of the time.

Its irrelevant. A robot is a robot. Dictionary def: "a machine controlled by a computer that is used to perform jobs automatically."

No one is denying that robots existed already (but I would hardly call a dishwasher a robot FWIW)

But in my mind a waymo was always a "car with sensors", but more recently (especially having recently used them a bunch in California recently) I've come to think of them truly as robots.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#166

Post by stackedinserter »

ginko wrote: post #48
xnx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be an example city? Waymo just announced they're ramping up in Boston: https://waymo.com/blog/?modal=short-back-to-boston "we’re excited to continue effectively adapting to Boston’s cobblestones, narrow alleyways, roundabouts and turnpikes."

Not grandparent but I was rather thinking of medieval city centers in Italy or Spain. edit: Case in point: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xxYQWHrzSMES8HPL8 This is an alley in Coimbra, Portugal. A couple years ago I stayed at a hotel in this very street and took a cab from the train station. The driver could have stopped in the praça below and told me to walk 15m up. Instead the guy went all the way up then curved through 5…

Do we really need FSD cars (any cars, actually) in medieval city centers?

Re: The Waymo World Model

#167

Post by smallmancontrov »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #139
jellojello wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Lidar + the terrible quality of tesla onboard cameras.. street view would look terrible. The biggest L of elon's career is the weird commitment to no-lidar. If you've ever driven a Tesla, it gives daily messages "the left side camera is blocked" etc.. cameras+weather don't mix either.

At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt, like that weird decision of Steve Jobs banning Adobe Flash, which ran most of the fun parts of the Internet back then, that ended up spreading HTML5. Now I just think he refused LIDAR on purely aesthetic reasons. The cost is not even that significant compared to the overall cost of a Tesla.

His stated reason was that he wanted the team focused on the driving problem, not sensor fusion "now you have two problems" problems. People assumed cost was the real reason, but it seems unfair to blame him for what people assumed. Don't get me wrong, I don't like him either, but that's not due to his autonomous driving leadership decisions, it's because of shitting up twitter, shitting up US elections with handouts, shitting up the US government with DOGE, seeking Epstein's "wildest party," DARVO every day, and so much more.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#168

Post by smotched »

jrm4 wrote: post #163

1. Still hard not to think that this is a huge waste of time as opposed to something that's a little more like a public transport train-ish thing, i.e. integrate with established infrastructure. 2. No seriously, is the filipino driver thing confirmed? It really feels like they're trying to bury that.

America is not europe, how would public transport work for the last 1/2miles

Re: The Waymo World Model

#169

Post by zzzeek »

themafia wrote: post #146
mattlondon wrote: post #89

Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense. I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts. Google/Alphabet are so vertically integrated for AI when you think about it. Compare what they're doing - their own power generation , their own silicon, their own data centers, search Gmail YouTube Gemini wor…

It's a 3500lb robot that can kill you. Boston Robotics is working on a smaller robot that can kill you. Anduril is working on even smaller robots that can kill you. The future sucks.

and they're all controlled by (poorly compensated) humans anyway [1] [2]

[1] https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/i-tried-the-robot-tha...

[2] https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/waymos-controlled-wo...

Re: The Waymo World Model

#170

Post by jellojello »

0xfaded wrote: post #145
jellojello wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Lidar + the terrible quality of tesla onboard cameras.. street view would look terrible. The biggest L of elon's career is the weird commitment to no-lidar. If you've ever driven a Tesla, it gives daily messages "the left side camera is blocked" etc.. cameras+weather don't mix either.

I have HW3, but FSD reliably disengages at this time of year with sunrise and sunset during commute hours.

Yep, and won't activate until any morning dew is off the sensors.. or when it rains too hard.. or if it's blinded by a shiny building/window/vehicle.

I will never trust 2d camera-only, it can be covered or blocked physically and when it happens FSD fails.

As cheap as LIDAR has gotten, adding it to every new tesla seems to be the best way out of this idiotic position. Sadly I think Elon got bored with cars and moved on.

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