Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–456 of 456 posts

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#451

Post by saghm »

cheschire wrote: post #271
proee wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it might come down to how many "9s" you're comfortable with. The experience is really good 99.999% of the time until it's not, and that "not" could be catastrophic. I suppose the data engineers are quite confident in the 9s.

Lyft is 99.99999% with 1.02 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled[0]. Waymo is 100% with zero fatalities. But then again, the Concorde was the safest airplane ever built for nearly 30 years, until its first crash and then it was the most dangerous passenger jet ever with 12.5 fatal events per million flights.[1] Lies, damned lies, and statistics.[2] 0: https://assets.ctfassets.net/vz6nkkbc6q75/3yrO0aP4mPf…

It feels like it would be useful to also know how many fatalities would be expected from Lyft in the number of miles Waymo has traveled based on their calculated rate (which should be fairly straightforward to calculate with only the rate you gave and the number of miles Waymo has traveled, although I'm not sure if it's known) and the probability that Lyft would also see zero fatalities with that number of miles traveled (which I think would require more detailed knowledge like variance, although I admit I haven't spent enough time to convince myself with complete confidence that this is correct).

I imagine it also goes without saying that not every mile of road is equally risky, and I have to imagine that Waymo's miles traveled probably on far less risky roads on average given the way they've been rolled out (which isn't a bad thing, but it does make extrapolations from the data about relative safety a bit more dubious).

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#452

Post by cheschire »

saghm wrote: post #451
cheschire wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft is 99.99999% with 1.02 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled[0]. Waymo is 100% with zero fatalities. But then again, the Concorde was the safest airplane ever built for nearly 30 years, until its first crash and then it was the most dangerous passenger jet ever with 12.5 fatal events per million flights.[1] Lies, damned lies, and statistics.[2] 0: https://assets.ctfassets.net/vz6nkkbc6q75/3yrO0aP4mPf…

It feels like it would be useful to also know how many fatalities would be expected from Lyft in the number of miles Waymo has traveled based on their calculated rate (which should be fairly straightforward to calculate with only the rate you gave and the number of miles Waymo has traveled, although I'm not sure if it's known) and the probability that Lyft would also see zero fatalities with that number of miles trav…

I think you’re spot on.

Unfortunately stats can be spun in whatever way you need them to in order to support or hinder an effort.

To use your example, risk per mile is a sliding scale, not necessarily a Boolean value. So then someone could conceivably draw the line on that scale wherever most benefited the company they were trying to support.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#453

Post by saghm »

netsharc wrote: post #324
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I won the lottery whenever I have an aggressive driver that knows the city well. It makes me wonder if breaking the law will be the main value proposition of human drivers at some point.

That is dumb. Go to a developing country and see what happens when everyone is aggressive. Everyone cuts off everyone else and drivers brake a lot (none of this waiting for a gap before entering from a side street, for example, the understanding is they'll brake for you). The end result is much more slower traffic.

I think that's kind of their point; if no one else is being aggressive, than being in the one car driven aggressively might be viewed as an advantage. A more civic mindset might prefer a driver doesn't try to take advantage of this because of how it might affect others and a pragmatist might be concerned with the potential to influence others to do the same and ruin the status quo, but I think empirically there are a sizeable number of people who would view it as an opportunity rather than something to avoid .

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#454

Post by sbuttgereit »

mikestew wrote: post #300
SoftTalker wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule in Indiana is that on a multilane highway you must move to the right to allow overtaking traffic to pass. You are not there to enforce the speed limit; the fact that another car that is passing you might be speeding does not give you the right or duty to block them. "a person who knows, or should reasonably know, that another vehicle is overtaking from the rear the vehicle that the person is operating may no…

The rule in Indiana is that on a multilane highway you must move to the right to allow overtaking traffic to pass. That's a rule just about everywhere, but that's not what's being discussed. I'm in the right lane doing the speed limit, and OP claims that's "technically" illegal due to contradictory laws. (Where there is no real contradiction, because the Chesterton's Fence is that we don't want Farmer Jones driving h…

What does happen in that situation sometimes is that if you're speeding along with everyone else, that sometimes gets allowed as a defense against a speeding ticket; basically the argument is that if driving the speed limit when all surrounding traffic is driving over the speed limit, that the relative speed difference can matter. At least that was true when I learned to drive (many, many years ago).

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#455

Post by TulliusCicero »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #380
TulliusCicero wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ignore the previous eighteen wildly off predictions; this time we got it for sure!" Note, in July of this year, Musk predicted robotaxi service for half the country by the end of 2025. It's November now and they haven't even removed the safety monitors, in any city!

> how dare they beta test this on public > they haven't even removed safety drivers, loooosers! Can't win either of you guys.

I didn't say either of those things, but I understand that engaging with what I said instead of just strawmanning my position would be rather inconvenient for you.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#456

Post by [deleted] »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #358
dqh wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a programmer is more efficient with AI then you need fewer programmers, assuming a fixed amount of work is needed. So in that sense AI would be replacing programmers.

I've never worked at a company that would choose to have less programmers instead of choosing to do more work. I guess such companies exist though.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN