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Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#291

Post by Guthur »

craftinator wrote: post #248
nemothekid wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note that you are asking this question at the tail end of pandemic where a significant portion of the country decided it was preferable to "just let some old people die" than to lockdown or even wear masks. Those people will twist themselves into giving you a PC answer but the truth is they're willing to crack a few eggs in order get FSD today. They'll tell you no one else is even trying and in the long run FS…

> in the long run FSD will save more lives and Musk should be praised for having the gumption to get the ball rolling. In the long run, for the historical perspective, this is a very plausible outcome. It's happened before (any major construction projects prior to the 1950's, anything involving Thomas Edison, most large damming projects), where a historical event is tied to a bunch of dead innocents, but history book…

Where the difference in both this and the grand parent post is about choice.

If you fear the pandemic and what to lock yourself up in isolation we should as much as possible allow that. And if you want to work on very dangerous projects for better rewards you spud be able to.

With autonomous cars the choice of risk may not be so easy.

Arguing about what real choice you have is overly pedantic and we should rather concentrate on the principles for the right out come.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#292

Post by cromwellian »

kart23 wrote: post #271
cromwellian wrote: post #194

Watching this video of regular folk (not tech journalists or other "reviewers", or paid PR) riding in FSD Waymo has done a lot to reduce my "but it'll never happen" feeling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZ6tJSj9T4 It may very well be that future FSD modes will require highly detailed maps, manual curation, limited areas where things can work, but even that would be valuable. e.g. if self driving trucks only work…

I like that Waymo is confident enough in their system to put it out there for people to use. But honestly, I think that their reasoning for releasing it is exactly to reduce worries in people, that 'it'll never happen feeling'. I think they needed to put something (before it was even 99% ready) out, otherwise people would lose hope and investors balk at the progress. I really do think that it'll never happen, at leas…

But people also shouldn't waste so much time of their life stuff in traffic driving vehicles either. I mean, the ideal city would probably be self-driving trains, people movers, and free scooters, segways, or wheelchairs everywhere. No AI vision systems needed.

If you live in urban Japan, do you ever need a car?

To replace all 273 million vehicles in the US with self-driving EVs would cost around $10 trillion @ $50k per car. You could built a national network of self-driving lanes for a fraction of that. You could build rail lines and subways in every major metro area.

The major upside of a car vs train though is privacy. You may not mind taking the train in Japan, but in SF, it can be disgusting, and so private vehicles and American culture may be inseparable.

But that still leaves many other solutions, like we have bike lanes, and HOV lanes, we could build AV-only lanes, and prohibit AVs from working (requiring manual takeover) when you depart them.

On long drives to work, you'd just stay in the AV lane and chill, and when you got close to an exit, you'd have to take over. It would still be a win if on a 1hr commute you only did 15 minutes of actual driving.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#293

Post by robgibbons »

kart23 wrote: post #271
cromwellian wrote: post #194

Watching this video of regular folk (not tech journalists or other "reviewers", or paid PR) riding in FSD Waymo has done a lot to reduce my "but it'll never happen" feeling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZ6tJSj9T4 It may very well be that future FSD modes will require highly detailed maps, manual curation, limited areas where things can work, but even that would be valuable. e.g. if self driving trucks only work…

I like that Waymo is confident enough in their system to put it out there for people to use. But honestly, I think that their reasoning for releasing it is exactly to reduce worries in people, that 'it'll never happen feeling'. I think they needed to put something (before it was even 99% ready) out, otherwise people would lose hope and investors balk at the progress. I really do think that it'll never happen, at leas…

Human senses may be fairly consistent day to day, but variability across humans is quite significant. Even a single person's faculties (vision, cognition, focus) change drastically over longer periods of time, or when they're tired, sick, or worse (drunk). Machines at least have standardized hardware with self-test protocols and onboard diagnostics. There are innumerable scenarios in which machines have no good solution yet, but I suspect over time the heuristics will reach a threshold of "good enough for public use."

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#294

Post by seebetter »

The arguments against Elon are so daft. I remember a Drive.AI exec saying in 2018 how Tesla’s auto pilot was like driving drunk. Drive.AI then collapsed with Apple acquiring it.

Sorry hard to respect a company called “Waymo” (sounds satirical) and a CEO who just wantonly dismisses Tesla “we don’t see them as a competitor.” It’s like delusional SV mindsets.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#295

Post by kevingadd »

sorenjan wrote: post #182
ra7 wrote: post #26

I think the FSD beta rollout is completely irresponsible from Tesla. Rolling out a clearly half-baked safety critical technology to its customers (yes, I know it's only a few beta testers) who are untrained is nothing but a tactic to generate hype and get more customers to buy that $10k FSD package. This is on top of Tesla being the least transparent company out there in reporting safety data or their testing methodo…

I don't understand why it's legal. How can it be allowed to send out uncertified software to cars on public roads? Aren't there safety standards that need to be met? I thought that safety critical products where better regulated than this.

It's heavily regulated, just ask geohot [1]. Most of the players in this space do their self-driving vehicle testing carefully under controlled circumstances with some approval from local agencies. Tesla seems to be cheating by punting all the responsibility onto their customers, because instead of testing Self-Driving Cars they're just shipping software to customers and letting people run that on their cars.

1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-selfdriving-safety/comma-...

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#296

Post by watwut »

craftinator wrote: post #248
nemothekid wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note that you are asking this question at the tail end of pandemic where a significant portion of the country decided it was preferable to "just let some old people die" than to lockdown or even wear masks. Those people will twist themselves into giving you a PC answer but the truth is they're willing to crack a few eggs in order get FSD today. They'll tell you no one else is even trying and in the long run FS…

> in the long run FSD will save more lives and Musk should be praised for having the gumption to get the ball rolling. In the long run, for the historical perspective, this is a very plausible outcome. It's happened before (any major construction projects prior to the 1950's, anything involving Thomas Edison, most large damming projects), where a historical event is tied to a bunch of dead innocents, but history book…

That reflects of values and focus of those who wrote those pop tech/business history books/articles.

I have seen history books that do reflect "but he also killed some people" or are critical. They are however less popular in some circles.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#297

Post by jfoster »

jayd16 wrote: post #283
onion2k wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla (and Comma.ai ?) seem to be the only groups that find Lidar unnecessary for L5 self-driving. There is another group who find Lidar unnecessary for driving: humans.

Yep. It's clear that lidar isn't literally needed. That said, I think the argument just shifts to "the cameras on a Tesla aren't good enough either." That's also just a shot from the hip, weasely sort of argument but it's harder to dismiss outright.

It's fairly easy to dismiss that argument; the cameras would not be difficult to replace if they are the limiting factor. Cameras are cheap.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#298

Post by danielscrubs »

Barrin92 wrote: post #94
dilap wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I don't get that feeling. What makes you think that? I don't know much about Elon, but I listened to one of his interviews with Rogan, and he struck me as extremely optimistic, but also grounded and not arrogant. (I do agree partial-self-driving just seems like a terrible idea. I guess crash stats can reveal if this is true or not, but are perhaps not available.)

his covid comments last year were beyond the pale. The low point for me was when Shannon Woodward, who played a scientist on TV and to my knowledge isn't one, had to explain to him that tests are indeed not a big pharma conspiracy https://twitter.com/shannonwoodward/status/13275176940992757...

There is a lesson in sales and trust hidden in there. No matter how good your device is, an inexperienced (and worse when famous) person can sow distrust in it instantly. Wouldn’t surprise me if next machine is just 4 machines glued together to make it Elon Musk proof.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#299

Post by chillfox »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #284
chillfox wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, software that controls a car is a new thing. So I would imagine that it hasn't really been regulated yet in most jurisdictions. For some reason we have a tendency to write laws so that they are specific to individual things rather than general and future prof laws.

I don’t get why it’s not covered under existing laws, clearly every vehicle has to be operated by a driver with a valid license correct? You would think letting a vehicle drive without a licensed operator at the wheel would be negligence.

I agree, but when it came to bullying the anti bullying laws apparently didn't cover online bullying which didn't really make sense to me.

So I assume that this is a case of the person in the drivers seat must have a drivers license, but there is no law saying how much of the driving they must do.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#300

Post by deegles »

Can someone please describe a scenario where an alert driver in a FSD Tesla would be allowed to blame the vehicle for the accident? Every Tesla + Autopilot accident I’ve read about has been blamed on driver error. This “heads I win, tails you lose” approach is disingenuous at best.
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