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Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

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Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#301

Post by greeneggs »

plywoodtrees wrote: post #165
anigbrowl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that computers are better at driving now . One interesting (albeit expensive) way to test this out would be to put some computer controlled cars into demolition derby races and see how they fare in artificially hostile driving environments where the human participants are extremely risk-tolerant. I'm very glad that California has legislation in place to allow this already, and…

They're citing >>300,000 miles under automatic controls with zero accidents. That's probably better than the human average. (Small sample, I know, but still.)

It looks like Americans average about 200,000 miles between accidents. I am not sure what the variance here is, e.g., depending on driver experience.

Still, the numbers are completely incomparable. Google's cars have always had a driver at the wheel, and we have no idea how many times a manual intervention has prevented an accident. Google's cars have also been driving in very limited conditions: they have not tried to drive in very bad weather, and they do not handle highway merges or difficult surface streets.

Finally, it isn't clear that "zero accidents" is completely correct. Google has said that their cars have been in accidents, but only while under manual control or while stopped at stoplights. But what does this really mean? Perhaps there was an accident caused by the self-driving car, where the human driver took control at the last minute. Or perhaps the car saw a yellow light up ahead, slammed on the brakes to stop, and was rear-ended by another car expecting them to go through. (Technically, the other car would be at fault in this situation, but it is still unsafe driving on Google's part.) There is no public information that lets us know the safety record of Google's self-driving cars.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#302

Post by soperj »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #300
soperj wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that San Fran should be for people who work in San Fran. If you work in Mountain View, go live in Mountain View. Rent is high enough in San Fran without people who commute out of the city for work.

Yes, I realize that, and live in Mountain View. I've also lived on the east coast, where it's common to live in north Jersey and commute to NYC. People live where they want, and attacking a supply and demand issue by starting with the demand seems like the wrong approach. I'm not prepared for this debate, just pointing out why I can't understand the position.

It's not my debate. I was just giving my opinion on what the argument was.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#304

Post by mikeloeb »

newaccountfool wrote: post #139
jfoutz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underestimating the amount of pollution/resources that go into making a car. Reducing the overall number of cars produced would offset a huge number of those extra trips.

I think people forget about this point, especially tyres. They take a ton of effort to make and you cant really resuse them for much afterwords.

I keep hearing the "there would be fewer cars" claim, but my counter-claim is that the mileage would be the same, so wear and tear would be the same. Look at how quickly taxis decay to see this.

Furthermore, I looked up reuses for tires. There is already a large, multi-stage chain of reuses and recycling for them, for all kinds of applications, from burning for cement kilns to civil engineering and agricultural products.[0] [1] [2] As one article put it "Those same characteristics, which make waste tires such a problem, also make them one of the most re-used waste materials"

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_recycling

[1] http://www.designrulz.com/product-design/2012/12/20-ideas-of...

[2] http://www.earth911.com/living/travel-living/recycling-myste...

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#305

Post by ams6110 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #294
danielweber wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stoll was one of the first to hop on the Internet bandwagon, and he thought he could get lucky twice by hopping off the fad before it became passe. As for the crazy from the other side, read anything by Nicholas Negroponte at the same time. A lot of young people, especially young hackers, think like authors of science fiction novels, where there is some grand society that they have designed, and how everything is hap…

As someone who has ridden those buses, I spent a long time trying to figure out why the left was giving them so much grief as you astutely point out. I can't see it. I put myself in their shoes, read the rants, and the platform just doesn't make any sense to me. Which is too bad, really, I have a feeling there is an important issue there that I should see.

it's mostly envy.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#306

Post by ams6110 »

hyperbovine wrote: post #278
gambiting wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that if my opinions are unlike yours, then I should not be visiting HN, or even voice my opinions? Not everyone on HN is from the US - US has a massive car problem, because Americans had a very strong car culture for 7 decades now - so for them, not having a car is "new". I come from a country where 25 years ago pretty much no one had a car, because you had to have a permission from the government to o…

You are blowing the post you are responding to far out of proportion. (Who said anything about self-driving cars becoming mandatory?) Your whole comment seems to be spoiling for a fight where none was sought, which is much more disagreeable to me as an HN reader than any of the other behaviors you mention.

You can bet that as soon as they solve all the technical problems, Google will be lobbying to make them mandatory.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#307

Post by ams6110 »

usaphp wrote: post #207
revelation wrote: post #192

The comments here are rather disappointing. It doesn't have manual controls? Well thats the point! I want to leave my crap in it and paint it some ugly color? Get with the times, young people already opt to not own cars. I can't double park in the city? Why are you imposing your steel box on people living in cities, many of which do not own cars and want walkable streets? I mean, this is the news website for a startu…

> young people already opt to not own cars. Really? Any study on this matter?

I believe this is skewed to young people in urban areas, but I think this has always been the case. I lived in Chicago when I was a "young person" 25 years ago and I did own a car because I moved there with it. I soon wanted to get rid of it and had I stayed there longer I would have. In that setting it just wasn't worth the hassle and expense.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#308

Post by ams6110 »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #18
rquantz wrote: post #15

It seems like a mistake to remove manual controls entirely, not necessarily because of safety concerns, but because there are a fair number of times when you need the car to go somewhere without having a route. I'm thinking of things like: Moving your car ten feet so somebody else can get out of the driveway; handling double parking during alternate side parking hours; moving the car because you were waiting to pick…

I think the eventual goal will be that most cars will be self-driving and that will negate most of those problems. I imagine that the vision of the future is a giant car-sharing program made up of self-driving cars all coordinated by Google. Think about it - you fire up an app to request a car, one appears at your door within a couple of minutes, takes you to work, then disappears. After work, a different car picks y…

Google will be unable to centrally coordinate the transportation needs of everybody in any way approaching the ability of individuals to autonomously manage their own needs. What would actually happen in this scenario is persistent shortages of cars in times of high demand and long waits.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#309

Post by ams6110 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #35
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the eventual goal will be that most cars will be self-driving and that will negate most of those problems. I imagine that the vision of the future is a giant car-sharing program made up of self-driving cars all coordinated by Google. Think about it - you fire up an app to request a car, one appears at your door within a couple of minutes, takes you to work, then disappears. After work, a different car picks y…

Correct. That's one reason I think that Chicago's decision to privatize parking was an inspired one. The city got a great deal of criticism for giving a decades-long revenue concession to a private operator for a relatively low up-front cost, but all the critics assume a constant or increasing demand for parking based on historical usage patterns. I think usage patterns are going to change radically and that we'll se…

It was a desperation move, not an inspired one. Chicago and the entire state of Illinois are in terrible financial condition.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#310

Post by learc83 »

krapp wrote: post #293
mentat wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's provably possible to make a car that drives better than the average human. It's not about guarantees, it's about improvement.

It's not provably possible yet - the average human is quite capable of not killing themselves or others in any number of hazardous and random driving conditions which autonomous cars can't even manage. I should probably mention since I typically bleed karma in these threads, that i'm not at all against autonomous vehicles in principle. I can see a lot of ways in which they could make driving safer, and transportation…

>What I am against is the premise that people are so dangerous and terrible at something they've been, mostly, able to do safely for about a century that their freedoms need to be taken away.

People are dangerous and terrible drivers. There are 30k vehicle accident deaths each year in the US (1.3 million world wide), and it used to be much higher (especially per mile driven). Number of deaths per mile driven has been going down drastically in large part because technology has limited a driver's direct control of the vehicle.

> Autonomous cars are fine - trying to take for granted that personal freedom is dangerous and stupid and that people need to be controlled like herd animals is not necessarily a good thing.

ABS/traction control/drive-by-wire takes direct control away from the driver and gives it to a computer. Self driving cars are just the next layer of abstraction above this. You're still in control of the car, it's just that the interface is a touchscreen with a map instead of a steering wheel.

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