Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 296 posts

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#201

Post by three_seagrass »

tschwimmer wrote: post #3
thoraway1010 wrote: post #2

"doubling down on our engineering work and engineering talent,” Cruise spokesperson Milin Mehta told Reuters. Do these folks even try to hide their lies? Doubling down = 2x the engineering staff. This is as they lay off in their lidar team. Can companies be sued for these types of basically false claims or are we just stuck commenting on what lies they seem come up with. Can you imagine if your day to day life involv…

The first amendment protects this type of speech.

First amendment only protects from government censorship, and SCOTUS has said that if the expression of the speech causes harm then first amendment doesn't apply.

Also there are plenty of individuals and private organizations who can sue if they can prove damages.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#202

Post by three_seagrass »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #43
AsyncAwait wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any data to back this up besides Musk saying his approach's the best?

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/07/elon-musk-calls-lidar-a... https://youtu.be/fNgEG5rCav4 > Anthony Levandowski, former Google/Waymo engineer, now backtracks on lidar and says, ”Elon is right.”

A quote from someone who stole trade secrets backtracking on the importance of said trade secrets is not exactly trustworthy.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#203

Post by TulliusCicero »

djsumdog wrote: post #86

It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…

> I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars.

Lane miles in the US are in the many millions. Each mile of track costs a million+ dollars. You're talking many trillions of dollars to railify every road in the country.

So no, there's basically no way that's cheaper than figuring out self-driving.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#204

Post by three_seagrass »

gpm wrote: post #57
AsyncAwait wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any data to back this up besides Musk saying his approach's the best?

I mean, when musk says this he gives data to back it up - that humans manage just fine with visual systems, and that lidar is really expensive.

I feel like the unbreakable window is somehow relevant here.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#205

Post by joe_the_user »

gopalv wrote: post #110
djsumdog wrote: post #86

It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…

> I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. ... > I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. Take out "cars" from that phrase and I think there might be a different answer to it, sooner or later. Specifically I liked Otto's original proposals and it sounded almost viable. The idea of having a Sacramento -> Chicago or Houston to Dallas routes for trucking with autonomous vehi…

The idea of having a Sacramento -> Chicago or Houston to Dallas routes for trucking with autonomous vehicles, with the last mile routes covered by normal container trucks sounded like it would work in the near term.

Sure, we have that ... right now. Called trains. Train even carry trucks. Trains are vastly more fuel efficient than trucks.

The advantage trucks have over trains is their flexibility, their any point to any other point ability. Take that out and it can be automated but that automation isn't to be more efficient than ... 19th century technology. Ha.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#206

Post by BurningFrog »

ashtonkem wrote: post #190
jedberg wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cost benefit calculation. Sure we can make everyone go 25mph, but how much does that slow down commerce? It's a tradeoff people aren't willing to make. They'd rather sacrifice a few lives than take three hours to get 75 miles. But the self driving tech allows us to get much safer while still going at normal speeds. Or maybe allows us to be equally safe at higher speeds. Either way it's a win.

First, we only need to slow down cars to 25mph where pedestrians are present. It’s not like cities with low pedestrian fatalities are stuck in the Middle Ages. Places where pedestrians are separated from cars can and should go faster. Secondly I find it disturbing that discussions around acceptable traffic fatalities focus on unnamed and unspecified people as the apparently acceptable fatalities in pursuit of shorter…

> I think this let’s a lot of people push off that moral calculus as something that happens to other, lesser, people

The main person I put at risk when driving fast is me. Others too, sure, but mostly me.

So it's not at all bout killing "other lesser people". People mostly just think some risks are worth the reward.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#207

Post by bob33212 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #203
djsumdog wrote: post #86

It's still keeping the self-driving unit thought, even though there's a good chance it won't ever be successful. I don't think self-driving cars are realistic at all. I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. I feel in the minority in thinking self driving tech will ever be viable. I've work…

> I bet if you did a study and ran the numbers, it would be cheaper to put down rail on existing roads and make them rail-car only, automate those and subsidize rail cars. Lane miles in the US are in the many millions. Each mile of track costs a million+ dollars. You're talking many trillions of dollars to railify every road in the country. So no, there's basically no way that's cheaper than figuring out self-driving…

It is so strange that people don't see what is happening at Tesla. They are driving billions of miles under AI control.

It is totally fine to dislike Musk or to think that autopilot is unsafe today, but how can you look at billions of miles and say that it isn't going to work within the next few years.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#208

Post by salty_biscuits »

ashtonkem wrote: post #111
mattlondon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be a large market/human-lives-saved benefit from the tech though, even if we never reach 100% self-driving autonomy E.g. it is pretty standard now that pretty much every car on sale has automatic emergency braking that tries to avoid running over pedestrians even if the driver does not see them, many (but not all I admit) cars have lane-keeping assist that automatically keep the car in the lane, and will a…

I’ve always been extremely dubious about the “self driving to save lives” angle for one very specific reason: we already know how to save lives. Slow. The. Cars. Down. Oslo managed to get their car deaths down to 1 in 2019. 1, in a city of 600,000. Los Angeles killed 240 that year, or 36x more per capita. And yet, we don’t actually apply any known techniques to reduce fatalities. If we really cared about saving lives…

I think it is especially relevant in the time of coronavirus to also consider the idea that maybe you just don't need to go into work all the time (or even at regular times) for a large percentage of workers. Just have less cars on the road by running society a little differently.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#209

Post by anonytrary »

zelly wrote: post #39

Remember (approx. 6 months ago) when we were seriously, unironically worried that all menial labor jobs would be taken by AI? Now we're worried about all the AI jobs disappearing.

These are completely unrelated. The former worry was that eventually AI would take over menial labor jobs. As you know, many AI divisions are basically in R&D right now with no tangible replacement for menial labor jobs. When a crisis hits, the jobs that are non-essential are the first to go.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#210

Post by [deleted] »

anyfoo wrote: post #182
MiroF wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused what this comment is saying - are you just trying to say that someone getting killed by a car is really really bad? If so, I agree. I've never heard of "expectancy value" in my life - it's definitely not a standard probability term.

I just translated the German term Erwartungswert wrong. The English term seems to be “expected value”, and it’s basic enough that you learn it in high school.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN