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The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

bloomberg.com

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Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#41

Post by RealGeek »

jpfr wrote: post #37

Prototypical case of the 80/20 rule. He has implemented the happy case. But that system is nothing people realistically would want to drive their cars. What he did is impressive. But the results are not that outlandish for a talented person. 1) Hook up a computer to the CAN-Bus network of the car [1] and attach a bunch of sensor peripherals. 2) Drive around for some time and record everything to disk. 3) Implement so…

He built an impressive prototype, considering he hacked it together in a month.

This is just the start, not the end.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#42

Post by timdorr »

hias wrote: post #21

Sorry, but how can this be legal? With his homemade solution, he is not only endangering himself but all the other people in the cars around him. Usually before you are allowed to use something like this on a public road your stuff has to be tested and approved by the state. At least this is how it is in Europe, does this not matter in the states?

If Elon is seriously interested in what he can do, why doesn't he let him use the Tesla test track? That's a safe space for him to try out his solution and affords a control scenario to compare against MobileEye/Tesla.

And I think you missed the part where he wants to drive for Uber, so he's also endangering the passengers in his car. (!)

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#43

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jpfr wrote: post #37

Prototypical case of the 80/20 rule. He has implemented the happy case. But that system is nothing people realistically would want to drive their cars. What he did is impressive. But the results are not that outlandish for a talented person. 1) Hook up a computer to the CAN-Bus network of the car [1] and attach a bunch of sensor peripherals. 2) Drive around for some time and record everything to disk. 3) Implement so…

I'm not confident we can argue Google or anyone else has done much better. You might notice Google has never announced testing their cars where snow occurs, for example.

I think it's likely that much more of self-driving car development is smoke and mirrors than people realize. Best case scenarios are promoted as examples of how innovative a company is. Great PR, not necessarily a practical result.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#44

Post by jaybosamiya »

> The last people with jobs will be AI programmers

Geohotz makes a decent point. The way the industrial revolution reduced manual labour, and made thinkers and tinkerers much more valuable, the advent of AI (true AI, mind you, not the tiny stuff that we currently assume) might actually make us obsolete. It is a peaceful and yet terrifying thought.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#45

Post by Glyptodon »

dvh wrote: post #3

I always thought default Ubuntu WM is only used by the people who don't know how to change it.

Or those of us who don't care about it enough to change it. There are a lot of things that in the right context are not worth bothering about.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#46

Post by bcohn91 »

jpfr wrote: post #37

Prototypical case of the 80/20 rule. He has implemented the happy case. But that system is nothing people realistically would want to drive their cars. What he did is impressive. But the results are not that outlandish for a talented person. 1) Hook up a computer to the CAN-Bus network of the car [1] and attach a bunch of sensor peripherals. 2) Drive around for some time and record everything to disk. 3) Implement so…

Why is the first comment on HN minimizing this truly impressive project? Of course it's not perfect, he's ONE person.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#47

Post by Phlarp »

hias wrote: post #26
bosdev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's sitting behind the wheel ready to take over, it's not quite the same as making a cup of tea while the car drives itself.

Yes, but what if his system suddenly decides to turn hard right for no reason while driving fast and he runs into another car, human, tree, whatever and he has no chance to react quickly enough? This is different to a PS3 crashing because he made some error.

Yes, what if, of the thousands of people that will die today [1](and tomorrow and the next day and the next...) in traffic accidents, one single sprained ankle or whiplashed neck was caused by, gasp, a computer.

Your faux ethical hacking outrage is thinly veiled and entirely misdirected.

[1]http://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safet...

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#48

Post by Aleman360 »

bcohn91 wrote: post #46
jpfr wrote: post #37

Prototypical case of the 80/20 rule. He has implemented the happy case. But that system is nothing people realistically would want to drive their cars. What he did is impressive. But the results are not that outlandish for a talented person. 1) Hook up a computer to the CAN-Bus network of the car [1] and attach a bunch of sensor peripherals. 2) Drive around for some time and record everything to disk. 3) Implement so…

Why is the first comment on HN minimizing this truly impressive project? Of course it's not perfect, he's ONE person.

Because this article reinforces our bizarre cultural notion that one person deserves all the credit for some innovation.

Nevermind the ridiculous amount of engineering that was required to build all the tools he's using and the order of magnitude more engineering required to make this a safe, mass producible product.

But nah, let's just praise the founder, allow him to get rich while we all do the dirty work.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#49

Post by analyst74 »

ragnarok451 wrote: post #19
iblaine wrote: post #7

>The smartest people I knew were in high school, and I was so let down by the people in college. He seems like a good person to get into business with. He's so non-judgmental. Reminds me of myself and all the stupid things I said to VCs in my 20s.

Aren't judgmental people the best kind of people to get into business with? At least as long as they can judge people/situations accurately. Because that implies that they will make better decisions for your company w.r.t hiring initial people and choosing strategies

Being able to assess people is completely different from being judgmental.

The former is a result of experience and social intelligence; the latter is mix of bad attitude and superiority complex.

Re: The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car

#50

Post by sah2ed »

roymurdock wrote: post #27
rhema wrote: post #5

> Amazed, I ask Hotz what it felt like the first time he got the car to work. >“Dude,” he says, “the first time it worked was this morning.” I can't tell if this is a joke or unbridled hubris. Either way, self driving cars seem like a new hacker space.

Most of the article reads as a stylized joke, written to make Hotz seem like a Tony Stark sort of figure. I'm sure he has a good handle on the tech running the car, he's at least looked at licensing it to test on the freeway (learning from the backlash on the Jeep Hack), and he had tested the car extensively before inviting a reporter with children to test it at 70mph on the freeway. If you include these details and…

> Bloomberg goes for sexy.

I think it is more about the reporter's writing style. The reporter -- Ashlee Vance -- is also the author of a recent book on Elon Musk.

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