Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare • Hacker News Board

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#21

Post by hnbear » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:41 PM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #4

intrasight wrote: post #3

"This is a really, really high bar." And an arbitrary one, in my opinion. We will be racking up millions of driven miles by hundreds of autonomous trucks before that bar is reached. We will have drivers in the trucks. We will have connections to remote operators.

The article calls out the challenge of stopping distance and sensing range. Drive Hwy80 over the Sierra Nevada mountains in winter, stopping, predictability, many other factors come up as well.

Yes, some routes are dangerous, but the trucks don't need to take those initially. There's a lot of scope for a phased ramp up.

A lot of I80 is really straight, same with other highways. I70 from Denver to St. Louis is incredibly boring all the way through Kansas. I90 from Wisconsin through Minnesota and South Dakota is the same. Just dead straight easy roads. Down south I10 was pretty easy too.

Just because there are a few tough stretches, that doesn't mean the auto-pilot can't drive the other thousand miles on the route, with human support where necessary.

Pick the MVP routes that are easiest. I95 is trivial from Florida, all the way up to DC. Then it remains mostly easy with some really annoying bits around DC, Philly, and NYC. I wouldn't want it trying to get through the traffic over the GW and through the Bronx, but after that it's mostly smooth all the way through Maine.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#22

Post by mxwsn » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

Whoa hold on, table 1 of stopping distances is calculated for 2.5 second reaction time which is 10x longer than conventional human reaction time. Then the stopping distances are compared to radar/lidar/camera to argue that AVs can struggle to stop within detection range. It's possible a computer might need 2.5s to make a decision to stop. But the current analysis isn't based on that.

This analysis seems really suspect to me. Any clarification would be appreciated.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#23

Post by creer » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:44 PM UTC

linkjuice4all wrote: post #7

jmspring wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article calls out the challenge of stopping distance and sensing range. Drive Hwy80 over the Sierra Nevada mountains in winter, stopping, predictability, many other factors come up as well.

I know that “just put it on a freight train” doesn’t solve every logistics problem but it does kind of address this one. Maybe their solution should be focused on improving transloading between truck and train and using autonomous trucking to solve the “last mile(s)” problem for trains.

Trucking and railroads have been competing for a long time. The current balance is not random.

By this I mean, significantly shifting it might be a harder problem than self-driving. For sure it is now a harder problem than human driving.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#24

Post by WhatsTheBigIdea » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

tldr; Why not slow down when sensor range is shorter than stopping distance?

It seems the basic argument is that sensor range is not always long enough to fully encompass stopping distance, but the data presented in the article shows that this is only the case at 70mph.

At 50mph, it seems that sensor tech is well within requirements in all published conditions.

Perhaps an autonomous truck could simply slow down when grade or surface conditions reduce its stopping distance?

While it is nice to do 70mph all the time, slowing down when you can't see or stop well is exactly what is expected of human drivers.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#25

Post by NoZebra120vClip » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

mxwsn wrote: post #22

Whoa hold on, table 1 of stopping distances is calculated for 2.5 second reaction time which is 10x longer than conventional human reaction time. Then the stopping distances are compared to radar/lidar/camera to argue that AVs can struggle to stop within detection range. It's possible a computer might need 2.5s to make a decision to stop. But the current analysis isn't based on that. This analysis seems really suspec…

A human decision to stop is not binary 1/0. If I am approaching a hazard, first thing to do is raise alertness. Also, lift foot off accelerator pedal. Then, put foot on brake. Then, apply some pressure to brake. All this stuff happens on a gradient depending how quickly I need to react and stop.

So between which endpoints shall you measure "reaction time"? I'm already priming my reaction by actions which lead up to it. Obviously, an automated driving system doesn't need some of these steps, but it's still running through the same scenario and "thought processes" to reach a decision and course of action.

Once at lunchtime, I had two coworkers in my car. I was driving a manual-transmission Acura Integra in light rain, heavy traffic in downtown Palo Alto. I had a left turn signal and I proceeded through the intersection, when an oncoming car was coming straight at us and couldn't stop. I punched the accelerator and sped through the turn without incident. My coworkers both congratulated me on making the correct decision: to hesitate, or to hit the brakes, would've surely crashed us. But what was my reaction time? My foot already on the gas, I simply made a snap decision in the moment to follow through.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#26

Post by Edman274 » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is higher than "safer than human drivers" -- like, we wouldn't allow someone to be an Uber or Lyft or truck driver if they were candid and said "I'm going to text on my phone, and be drunk driving and sleepy and distracted as often as the average motorist".

Also, I feel like there's a lot of talking past one another in these conversations because one person will say "Let's see an autonomous truck shipping hazmat to Pittsburgh in February with freeway lanes shut down" and another person might say "that's a rare instance" but I really don't feel like society will accept anything other than trucks / vehicles that are able to operate under all conditions, with greater safety than the safest human driver. We tolerate human failures but to use them as the benchmark for autonomous systems would be perceived as unethical, because autonomous systems are deliberately designed and any failures by them would be seen as an intentional oversights and errors, and no one at Waymo or Tesla or where ever is ever going to be charged with vehicular manslaughter for an autonomous vehicle error. We'd demand a way higher standard because these companies don't really have any skin in the game, except for financial penalties which we now understand is not a deterrent for anything. My observations are only moderately related but I'm anticipating the same well-trod talking points coming up and want to address them.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#27

Post by creer » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:54 PM UTC

Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

Truck or cars are not strictly required to operate in all conditions in the current system: roads, entire freeways close when the conditions demand. Or demand that vehicles stop and put on chains. There is precedent.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#28

Post by hutzlibu » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:55 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #10

If he thinks driving cars in cities is the easiest problem, he does not have experience driving a car in a European city with lots of cyclists and pedestrians. Driving a car in inner Copenhagen is a stressful situation due to the insane number of cyclist you have to watch out for, see https://youtu.be/FaySp9i2zMA?t=113

Now imagine all those cyclists and pedestrians would also drive a car, would also be on the road at the same time. You think driving would be less stressfull then?

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#29

Post by Edman274 » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

creer wrote: post #27

Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

Truck or cars are not strictly required to operate in all conditions in the current system: roads, entire freeways close when the conditions demand. Or demand that vehicles stop and put on chains. There is precedent.

I think that if you were reading my comment charitably you could infer that I meant "under all conditions where a car is legally allowed to operate." I don't think you actually believed that I was saying that a truck should have the capability to drive on the road when a roadway is not legal to drive on.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#30

Post by johndhi » Sun, Jan 14, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #15

johndhi wrote: post #5

Just spitballing but it seems a unique aspect of a human driver is their fear for loss of life. We're all subtly terrified we are about to die and that keeps us sharp and responsive and thoughtful while driving.

Is this satire? That’s not how humans work at all. Even a very rational player will make a relative trade off call of the probability of an action having an outcome and the size of the outcome. Case in point: driving with almost no sleep, driving while drinking, etc. and humans are quite often irrational and take risks just because they’re seeking the adrenaline rush. And that’s for their own life. We can easily also…

Not satire.

People deciding to drive while sleepy doesn't mean it isn't scary to do so (in fact it's horrifying). People definitely make illogical decisions. Being afraid while driving isn't even necessarily a logical decision. It's just an emotion we feel. But I know I feel it and a lot of others do too.