A lot of negativity here. Hey maybe Apple has figured out autonomous car and no longer needs that 200 employees!
As usual. The truth is that Apple hasn't promised anything and delivered nothing. Google on the other side, has promised everything and delivered nothing. And they promissed it "in five years" in 2012...
Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
301–310 of 391 posts
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#302Maybe Apple doesn't want to pursue a dream which, as far as we know, can only have a limited outcome? They don't really like such compromises in products. Check this: https://medium.com/s/story/self-driving-cars-will-always-be-... > Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” au…
I'd like to point out that what he says here about autonomous vehicles and the limits of their sensors applies to humans too. It is just socially acceptable to drive in averse conditions with limited visibility, and if you hit another car, person or something else, you just blame it on the weather. It's not socially acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to just wing it in bad conditions. I find it curious that we are…
When your engineers say the problem is "too hard to solve" you need to hire better engineers, because those engineers are lying to you. Just because everyone is racing towards a technology and some teams are doing it poorly doesn't mean the problems are insurmountable.
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#303Maybe Apple doesn't want to pursue a dream which, as far as we know, can only have a limited outcome? They don't really like such compromises in products. Check this: https://medium.com/s/story/self-driving-cars-will-always-be-... > Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” au…
I'd like to point out that what he says here about autonomous vehicles and the limits of their sensors applies to humans too. It is just socially acceptable to drive in averse conditions with limited visibility, and if you hit another car, person or something else, you just blame it on the weather. It's not socially acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to just wing it in bad conditions. I find it curious that we are…
Basically when people say the term self-driving car, they mean a human brain like entity driving the car. Humans don't exactly panic and expect a person sitting next to them control a car in case they can't handle it. Sure in those situation a human would get into accidents too. But in case of a machine, such an accident is already programmed to happen. Its like fixed. Which is a very different thing. In fact its even wrong to call it an accident if you know a panic will happen. Its more like programmed manslaughter.
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Medium-article you posted: > In short, sensors on autonomous vehicles don’t work well in snow or rain—and that may never change. With that attitude, you are stuck in the past and don't want to make progress with technology.
> With that attitude, you are stuck in the past and don't want to make progress with technology. The statement you quoted is qualified, not an assertion of impossibility. Your claim is silly; the alternative to breathless hype isn't Luddism, it's getting educated about a field and proceeding, if possible, in an informed way. Claiming delusional enthusiasm (with a side of hucksterism and a strong odor of financial inc…
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#305Maybe Apple doesn't want to pursue a dream which, as far as we know, can only have a limited outcome? They don't really like such compromises in products. Check this: https://medium.com/s/story/self-driving-cars-will-always-be-... > Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” au…
I'd like to point out that what he says here about autonomous vehicles and the limits of their sensors applies to humans too. It is just socially acceptable to drive in averse conditions with limited visibility, and if you hit another car, person or something else, you just blame it on the weather. It's not socially acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to just wing it in bad conditions. I find it curious that we are…
This is all US-centric obviously, but my 2c: We can blame individuals for bad behavior, it's harder for us to reason about complex systems breaking and that scares us.
When an accident happens currently, we immediately rush to judgement: You're a bad driver, you were going too fast, there's order in the universe and you made a conscious choice to disrupt that. We'll really reach sometimes too (I've heard this in real life): You had a stroke and lost control of your car? The crash is still your fault, you should've lived a healthier lifestyle. Or it's your spouse's fault, they should've noticed you were acting funny and not let you drive the car.
When people screw up, it's almost always someone's fault even if we have to really reach for it. We rarely consider the system that led to the failure and absolve the individual. When computers screw up, it's unclear who to blame and it's much scarier as a result, so we hold computers to a much higher standard.
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to point out that what he says here about autonomous vehicles and the limits of their sensors applies to humans too. It is just socially acceptable to drive in averse conditions with limited visibility, and if you hit another car, person or something else, you just blame it on the weather. It's not socially acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to just wing it in bad conditions. I find it curious that we are…
A self driving car won't have a steering wheel, break and accelerator. Because it really doesn't make sense to expect user take control instantly while the algorithm panics. Basically when people say the term self-driving car, they mean a human brain like entity driving the car. Humans don't exactly panic and expect a person sitting next to them control a car in case they can't handle it. Sure in those situation a hu…
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reliability? They can't make a laptop keyboard that survives an encounter with a crumb and if you open your laptop too many times the video cable gets severed: https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/
Wow! You really believe that a crumb can break a MBP keyboard? God have mercy on your soul. Really, is that the best that Apple competitors can do!? You are all ridiculous, there are MILLIONS of MBPs out there, must all those millions live in a enclosed dome where no dust can get in. Seriously, nobody has time for your anti-Apple nonsense, I don't know why I even replied.
You probably shouldn't have :)
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I read Apple are taking a different approach? Google/Amazon are harvesting massive amounts of data and training against it and Apple are taking a privacy first approach saying you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI. Currently the harvesting data for models look to be working better for Google / Amazon with current technology. The question is how will Apple progress long term and given…
>you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI That shows they don't understand how AI work. That literally like code for traditional programming. It's literally impossible based on how modern ML works.
Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit
#309Maybe Apple doesn't want to pursue a dream which, as far as we know, can only have a limited outcome? They don't really like such compromises in products. Check this: https://medium.com/s/story/self-driving-cars-will-always-be-... > Waymo’s CEO, John Krafcik, has admitted that a self-driving car that can drive in any condition, on any road, without ever needing a human to take control—usually called a “level five” au…
I'd like to point out that what he says here about autonomous vehicles and the limits of their sensors applies to humans too. It is just socially acceptable to drive in averse conditions with limited visibility, and if you hit another car, person or something else, you just blame it on the weather. It's not socially acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to just wing it in bad conditions. I find it curious that we are…
This is why level five autonomous cars will never exist. It's not a technical problem; it's a political one.
Its easy for someone on hackernews to say "maybe you shouldn't be driving if the car can't"; try saying that to a single mother working as a third-shift nurse, just trying to make ends meet, who's patients will suffer if she doesn't get to work. Try saying that to a technician who needs to get to a downed electric line in the middle of a torrential downpour to restore power to 20,000 people sitting comfortably in their homes. Try saying that to a Marine deployed in Nangarhar, under fire from enemy combatants.
Level Five autonomy could exist, but what we'd end up discovering is that humans let Jesus take the wheel far more often than the engineers in sunny Silicon Valley think. Level Five might mean seeing five feet in front of you and horrible traction, operating on your knowledge of the road, and just driving forward. Until an organization is willing to program a car to still drive forward in those conditions, level five won't happen. Uber practically shut down their entire program after one person died; over 100 people die every day in traditional vehicle accidents.