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Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

thelastdriverlicenseholder.com

211–220 of 514 posts

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#211
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And are you expecting me to carry bags of groceries on the train? How's that work? What exactly do you think people without cars do, or people who live in London? Or New York City? It works perfectly fine. Or you get can groceries delivered pretty easily and cheaply.

Sure. I mean, you can. I live in San Francisco and as often as not, walk to the grocery store. But it's a pain carrying bags around. Not everyone in the world is going to be ok with that when they are used to just packing a bunch of bags in a car. It's ridiculously unrealistic to think that everyone... including the elderly, etc ... will be happy to just use a train that might be a many block walk on each end. Yes yo…

If going to get groceries only takes you a couple minutes each way then it becomes much more reasonable to carry a backpack full of fresh groceries rather than a car full of food that will become stale.

Density enables rapid transport as well as many more shops in a given area.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#212
post #156
post #96

With all of the talk, usually around Teslas but I suppose it applies to all EVs, that I've seen over the years akin to, "Just imagine how safe driving will be when every vehicle is FSD and can talk to one another," I have to ask... shouldn't we anticipate seeing similar issues to this in that scenario? I mean yeah, there will be different manufacturers so it's not like every car in a city could come to a standstill.…

I feel like a lot of people have kind of wisened up about this hypothetical future anyway, now that we're seeing FSD in practice. Sure, some problems would be eliminated by all cars being self driving, and the roads being tailored to that use case. But then, at the same time, trains literally run on tracks and they still have conductors.

Regarding trains anyway, a) there have been autonomous trains for decades and the numbers are increasing. b) there are 100x as many professional drivers as train conductors in the US - so it's easy to see why the focus on driving. That's where the money is.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#213
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminded me of good ol happy hopeful days of youtube before it was bought by google.

I sometimes wish for an anonymous video service. No channels, no personalities. Just the videos are the focus.

would you be willing to sacrifice quality or latency, or pay a small fee? if so, that seems easy using current distributed tech.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious on the statistics related to new under-developed FSD software vs a new teenage driver. The only way for either of these things to get better is through real-world experience.

I wouldn't get in the car with a new teenage driver, nor will I enable self-driving on my cars for a long, long time. And I work in robotics.

Yet every day you get in the road with new teenager drivers (and drunk people, and idiots of all sorts). Doesn't that scare you?

Driving is terrifying.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#215
post #123
post #96

With all of the talk, usually around Teslas but I suppose it applies to all EVs, that I've seen over the years akin to, "Just imagine how safe driving will be when every vehicle is FSD and can talk to one another," I have to ask... shouldn't we anticipate seeing similar issues to this in that scenario? I mean yeah, there will be different manufacturers so it's not like every car in a city could come to a standstill.…

Given the list of things that could go horribly wrong with self driving vehicles, incidents like these are only a minor, harmless inconvenience. The more immediate concern is self driving vehicles that are clearly not ready to be on public roads being allowed to test (or not being pulled off the roads).

> incidents like these are only a minor, harmless inconvenience.

Until there is a emergency vehicle thats unable to get through.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#217
If you thought drivers on the road are bad now, this is is a sneak peek of the dystopian future where other drivers on the road drive like they are a support ticket for Facebook or Google. If your situation isn’t covered by the preprogrammed logic, you’re out of luck with nobody to talk to. Self driving vehicles belong on rails.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#218
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the list of things that could go horribly wrong with self driving vehicles, incidents like these are only a minor, harmless inconvenience. The more immediate concern is self driving vehicles that are clearly not ready to be on public roads being allowed to test (or not being pulled off the roads).

I'd be curious on the statistics related to new under-developed FSD software vs a new teenage driver. The only way for either of these things to get better is through real-world experience.

Actually, autonomous driving stacks can get better doing millions of miles in simulation. The teen, not so much.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#219
post #156
post #96

With all of the talk, usually around Teslas but I suppose it applies to all EVs, that I've seen over the years akin to, "Just imagine how safe driving will be when every vehicle is FSD and can talk to one another," I have to ask... shouldn't we anticipate seeing similar issues to this in that scenario? I mean yeah, there will be different manufacturers so it's not like every car in a city could come to a standstill.…

I feel like a lot of people have kind of wisened up about this hypothetical future anyway, now that we're seeing FSD in practice. Sure, some problems would be eliminated by all cars being self driving, and the roads being tailored to that use case. But then, at the same time, trains literally run on tracks and they still have conductors.

I hope we continue to wise up

If a core goal is really to make thoroughfares safer and reduce traveler injuries/fatalities, we seem to be ignoring or discounting some pretty obvious options, like minimizing car traffic

This vision where we all get around in low-passenger-count autonomous robot cages on existing roadways is just one possible future but we seem to fixate on it. At the end of the day the car is a tool but we've allowed it to burrow into the collective psyche

What about making cities walkable, bikeable, segway-able, wheelchair-able, scooter-able, whatever, with proven public transportation options like trains or buses running fixed routes for longer commutes? Much more energy efficient, way easier than autonomous cars, and conducive to much more livable urban areas imo

It will take some effort to change habits and expectations and revamp infrastructure but surely that's as worthwhile as all the time and money going into FSD?

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#220
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of people have kind of wisened up about this hypothetical future anyway, now that we're seeing FSD in practice. Sure, some problems would be eliminated by all cars being self driving, and the roads being tailored to that use case. But then, at the same time, trains literally run on tracks and they still have conductors.

Regarding trains anyway, a) there have been autonomous trains for decades and the numbers are increasing. b) there are 100x as many professional drivers as train conductors in the US - so it's easy to see why the focus on driving. That's where the money is.

> That's where the money is.

This is part of the problem imo

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