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Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#251

Post by mrguyorama »

chaostheory wrote: post #176
SilverBirch wrote: post #2

This is fascinating, obviously it makes a tonne of sense for uber as a platform to offer waymo's autonomous vehicles. The first question I had though was "who extracts value here". Does Waymo get to demand human-driver level prices and therefore capture loads of value or does Uber actually capture the value because they're where the customers are. But then I realised... it doesn't matter. Waymo is part of Alphabet, a…

For me the question is who is liable in an accident

This is America. When a "self driving" car kills someone, we blame the someone for daring to not pay due respect to the magic machine. They shouldn't have crossed the road in the dark! They should have been more visible! They should have been in their own big self driving box!

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#252

Post by [deleted] »

SilverBirch wrote: post #2

This is fascinating, obviously it makes a tonne of sense for uber as a platform to offer waymo's autonomous vehicles. The first question I had though was "who extracts value here". Does Waymo get to demand human-driver level prices and therefore capture loads of value or does Uber actually capture the value because they're where the customers are. But then I realised... it doesn't matter. Waymo is part of Alphabet, a…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#253

Post by mrguyorama »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #133
sofixa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that, unlike with LLMs where a human always can and should fact check/reword before using, there is no such option with self driving. People's lives are literally directly at stake if things go wrong. For limited scenarios such as geofenced to a city with good weather, it seems that self driving cars (at least Waymo's tech) is good enough, baring some small lapses which are more funny than dangerous. A…

Cheap taxis could lead to people abandoning car ownership and this a huge reconfiguration of American cities. (if they end up cheaper than self owned cars)

People in America mostly view cars as a status symbol and a part of their identity, which is why everyone buys giant trucks and SUVs. Why would a better taxi change that? Only "the poors" use taxis

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#254

Post by VanillaCafe »

riskable wrote: post #131
bartwr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spinning up the Uber App is most likely trivial. Spinning up the legal structure, figuring out all the local regulations and getting permits (it's not 2010 anymore! Many countries and cities regulate ride sharing pretty heavily) in a sane timeline is close to impossible. And it might be not something that an Alphabet company wants to do risk/ reputation-wise. Better to offload bad press (both related to ride sharing…

> Spinning up the legal structure, figuring out all the local regulations and getting permits (it's not 2010 anymore! Many countries and cities regulate ride sharing pretty heavily) in a sane timeline is close to impossible. This is nonsense. Google has more than enough legal resources to handle this. So much so that it would be nothing more than a regular 3-6 month project that would be assigned a small team of lawy…

Evidence suggests that none of this is true. Just look at how Google Fiber wasn't able to navigate the myriad regional regulatory roadblocks thrown up by local governments when lobbied by incumbent ISPs. It's reasonable to expect exactly the same scenario to play out if Google tries to make a competitive ride sharing service from scratch.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#255

Post by polygamous_bat »

Tepix wrote: post #195
krebby wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one steps up to challenge Waymo in this space in a reasonable timeframe, Waymo wins. If they do, Uber wins. Uber's play is as a platform. They win if there are several SDC providers (with working autonomy). As an analogy, they're Android; they want to own the network and have multiple operators plug into the Uber app, while the hardware makers don't want to do the work to spin up an expensive 2-way marketplace.…

If another company solves self driving after Waymo, they can still enter the market. I would usually give new, cheaper competitors a try. Who wouldn't? Uber is kind of an exception, i don't use their services because i consider them scum.

> I would usually give new, cheaper competitors a try. Who wouldn't?

Just want to point out that the failure case of self driving (if this product fails I crash into another car while going 80 mph) makes the race to the bottom slightly less plausible.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#256

Post by hospitalJail »

willio58 wrote: post #248
riskable wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spinning up the legal structure, figuring out all the local regulations and getting permits (it's not 2010 anymore! Many countries and cities regulate ride sharing pretty heavily) in a sane timeline is close to impossible. This is nonsense. Google has more than enough legal resources to handle this. So much so that it would be nothing more than a regular 3-6 month project that would be assigned a small team of lawy…

Google has enough resources to in theory thrive in any business they attempt. Yet, they fail in so many businesses they attempt to get into. https://killedbygoogle.com/

To be fair, most companies don't even bother trying.

At least we got FOSS chromium + FOSS android.

That said, things like Google Play Music -> Youtube Music was poorly handled and has permanently shook me. Have been leaving Google since.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#257

Post by ghaff »

bhelkey wrote: post #155
boh wrote: post #134

One thing that hasn't been addressed, given the limited test markets, is whether autonomous taxis actually will actually be popular and preferable among consumers. Theoretically having a car that drives itself seems like a great product/service, in practice it's more clunky and awkward than you would hope. From the experiences I've had, a human driver is undoubtedly the better option. Many things happen on the road w…

I imagine autonomous taxis will be significantly cheaper than driver taxis. From a quick search it looks like in general Uber drivers earn somewhere around $9 for a 30 minute ride [1]. [1] https://blog.completepayroll.com/fares-driver-pay-and-the-fi... .

And out of that $9, the driver has to pay for their gas (or electricity) and upkeep of the car. Uber apparently earns about $3-4 for their service. If Uber is now covering the costs of an expensive for now autonomous vehicle, it's not clear to me the fare drops at all.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#258

Post by mrguyorama »

TOMDM wrote: post #107
nerdchum wrote: post #91

Why is autonomous driving being pursued but not remote driving? Why can I have a seat at my house with controls and drive my Uber/18 wheeler from my house?

I have literally never used an Internet connection that I feel is reliable enough to consider driving a real car over it

At this point even multiplayer driving games haven't figured out how to not kill half the field every time there is a single late packet. You cannot drive in a concrete jungle and get stable, reliable, verifiably usable internet.

Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

#260

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #147
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive EE here, I could not disagree with you more on the state and expectations of self-driving vehicles. I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather and it’s a problem “to be solved later”. It’s all a joke. If we actually wanted this, it would be long haul A to B routes. Turning semi trucks into rail. Self-driving was already slowing down before the era of free money. So I expect…

But have they solved the Trolley Problem?

Mercedes got flack for it, but ultimately they had the right answer.

When a sort of pitch was made to an exec where the car has to crash into a tree or a cyclist, he said the bike. Because you aren’t going to pay $80,000 for your car to choose your death.

If you look at car ownership as owning a weapon, it does only make sense that you’ll have to prioritize for the owner.

But really, we aren’t even remotely to trolley problem. The systems BARELY detect and react properly to single issues, let alone detecting multiple and selecting between them.

I honestly think it’s a scam that was popular in the era of Free Money, and I’m so glad that is temporarily on pause.

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