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The Waymo World Model

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Re: The Waymo World Model

#451

Post by refulgentis »

vinkelhake wrote: post #345
hungryhobbit wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, Google was terrible about using the tech the had long before Sundar, back when Brin was in charge. Google Reader is a simple example: Googl had by far the most popular RSS reader, and they just threw it away. A single intern could have kept the whole thing running, and Google has literal billions, but they couldn't see the value in it. I mean, it's not like being able to see what a good portion of America is…

Is there an equivalent to Godwin's law wrt threads about Google and Google Reader? See also: any programming thread and Rust.

Lol, it seems obvious in retrospect, there really, really, needs to be.

Therefore we now have “Vinkel’s Law”

Re: The Waymo World Model

#452

Post by ianburrell »

rootusrootus wrote: post #419
ianburrell wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated taxis would still be stuck in traffic. Automation gets couple times in capacity, but the induced demand and extra cars looking for rides and parking will mean traffic. Automation makes public transit better. There will be automated minibuses that are more flexible and frequent than today's buses. Automation also means that buses get a virtual bus lane. Taxis solve the last mile problem, by taking taxi to th…

> There will be automated minibuses that are more flexible and frequent than today's buses. In my sleepy metro area that has at least mid-tier respectable public transit (by US standards only), otherwise known as Portland, I think a lot of the routes would be better served by minibuses than full size. I wonder how the economics work out on that. Maybe dominated by labor? Tri-met drivers have a reputation of being pai…

I'm also in Portland. In the US, bus costs are dominated by labor. It makes sense to use full size buses if paying for driver. For main routes, more automated buses would be best option. But there are cross town routes that should be served with minibuses. Especially ones feeding MAX stops.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#453

Post by ok_dad »

JBorrow wrote: post #261
ok_dad wrote: post #244

I'd like to see Waymo have a few of their Drivers do some sim racing training and then compete in some live events. It wouldn't matter much to me if they were fast at all, I'd like to see them go into the rookie classes in various games and see how they avoid crashes from inexperienced players. I believe that it would be the ultimate "shitty drivers vs. AI" test.

Racing and street driving are completely different. Racing involves detailed knowledge of vehicle dynamics and grip. Street driving is mainly obstacle recognition and avoidance. No waymo ever operates anywhere close to the limit of grip, which is where you are all the time when racing.

Sure but accident avoidance in sim racing is basically the ultimate test for any driver.

I also said it wouldn’t matter if they’re fast, I don’t care about driving at the limit of grip here, just avoiding accidents.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#454

Post by _alternator_ »

bagels wrote: post #443
raphlinus wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. I interacted with Meena[1] while I was there, and the publication was almost three years before the release of ChatGPT. It was an unsettling experience, felt very science fiction. [1]: https://research.google/blog/towards-a-conversational-agent-...

ChatGPT really innovated on making the chat not say racist things that the press could report on. Other efforts before this failed for that reason.

Right. The problem was that people under appreciated ‘alignment’ even before the models were big. And as they get bigger and smarter it becomes more of an issue.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#455

Post by coolfox »

flutas wrote: post #203
joshuamerrill wrote: post #200

It’s impressive to see simulation training for floods, tornadoes, and wildfires. But it’s also kind of baffling that a city full of Waymos all seemed to fail simultaneously in San Francisco when the power went out on Dec 22. A power outage feels like a baseline scenario—orders of magnitude more common than the disasters in this demo. If the system can’t degrade gracefully when traffic lights go dark, what exactly is…

They've also been seen driving directly into flood waters, with one driving through the middle of a flooded parking lot. https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1pem9ep/hm...

curious what your take away from that is given the announcement.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#456

Post by QuantumFunnel »

mattlondon wrote: post #89

Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense. I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts. Google/Alphabet are so vertically integrated for AI when you think about it. Compare what they're doing - their own power generation , their own silicon, their own data centers, search Gmail YouTube Gemini wor…

Also known as a monopoly. This should terrify us all.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#458

Post by takethebus »

scoofy wrote: post #312
caycep wrote: post #265

All this work is impressive, but I'd rather have better trains

As someone who lives in the Bay Area we already have trains, and they're literally past the point of bankruptcy because they (1) don't actually charge enough maintain the variable cost of operations, (2) don't actually make people pay at all, and (3) don't actually enforce any quality of life concerns short of breaking up literal fights. All of this creates negative synergies that pushes a huge, mostly silent segment…

Very few transit agencies have fares that cover services. I know others said this, but I wanted to add my take as well

Re: The Waymo World Model

#459

Post by martinald »

scoofy wrote: post #448
martinald wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely right on (2) and (3). I've used many transit systems across the world (including TransMilenio in Bogota and other latam countries "renowned" for crime) and I have never felt as unsafe as I have using transit in the SFBA. Even standing at bus stops draws a lot of attention from people suffering with serious addiction/mental health problems. 1) is a bit simplistic though. I don't know of any European…

>The better way to look at it imo is looking at the economic loss as well of congestion/abandoned commutes. To do a ridiculous hypothetical, London would collapse entirely if it didn't have transit. You're making my argument for me. Again, my concern isn't the day-to-day conveniences of funding, my point is that building a fragile system (a system where the funding is unrelated to the usability of the service) is a s…

But my point is that noone has a robust system according to you in Europe at least - the bar is so high to cover all operating costs with fares (or is that your point - if so I'm lost - I definitely would not recommend replacing European transit networks with nothing?).

And National Rail isn't replaceable at all with bus/cars/planes. You really underestimate the number of people which commute >1hr into London (100km+). There is just no way to do that journey by car or bus. It would turn a ~1hr commute into a 3hr _each way_ and that's not even considering the complete lack of parking OR the fact suddenly the roads would be at (even more) gridlock with many multiples of commuters.

That's not even getting into what you consider fixed vs variable costs. Are the trains themselves a fixed cost (they should last 30-40 years)? Is track maintenance a fixed cost (this has to be done more often than the trains themselves), etc etc. The 2nd point is very important - a lot of rail operators in the UK can be made profitable or not on your metric by how much the government subsidises track maintenance vs the operators paying for it in track access charges.

Equally, are signalling upgrades (for example) fixed costs? But really they are only required to run more frequent services. So you could argue they are a variable cost?

Re: The Waymo World Model

#460

Post by takethebus »

scoofy wrote: post #450
joshuamorton wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that, at least for bart, the reason that it is facing bankruptcy is precisely because it was mostly rider supported and profitable, and not government supported. When ridership plummeted by >50% during the pandemic, fixed costs stayed the same, but income dropped. Last time I checked, if Bart ridership returned to 2019 levels, with no other changes, it would be profitable again.

You can't say that BART "is facing bankruptcy is precisely because it was mostly rider supported and profitable, and not government supported" when it is very obvious that BART would be in a much worse situation if it had had more government support... because all those governments are facing massive budget deficits right now. BART has already been bailed out by the state, twice . It has already failed, twice. It ver…

The government facing a budget deficit doesn't mean BART would be worse off with more subsidies.
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