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The Waymo World Model

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Re: The Waymo World Model

#491

Post by redox99 »

digbybk wrote: post #473
servo_sausage wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains need well behaved people, otherwise they are shit. I don't want to hear tiktok or full volume soap operas blasting at some deaf mouth breather. I don't want to be near loud chewing of smelly leftovers. I don't want to be begged for money, or interact with high or psychotic people. The current culture doesn't allow enforcement of social behaviour: so public transport will always be a miserable containment vesse…

> everyone with sense avoids the whole thing Or the majority of the residents of New York City on their daily commute? I like to think I have sense, and I happily use public transport most days. I prefer it to sitting in traffic, isolated in a car. At least I can read a book. If you work too hard to insulate yourself from the world, the spaces you'll feel comfortable in will get more and more narrow. I think that's a…

NYC people uses it because the alternatives are either slower or much more expensive. I'm sure they'd rather use a waymo if it was as fast and cheap as the subway.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#492

Post by bhadass »

mullingitover wrote: post #433
smallnix wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s kind of crazy that they have been slow to create real products and competitive large scale models from their research. I always thought they deliberately tried to contain the genie in the bottle as long as they could

Their unreleased LaMDA[1] famously caused one of their own engineers to have a public crashout in 2022, before ChatGPT dropped. Pre-ChatGPT they also showed it off in their research blog[2] and showed it doing very ChatGPT-like things and they alluded to 'risks,' but those were primarily around it using naughty language or spreading misinformation. I think they were worried that releasing a product like ChatGPT only…

I swear the Tay incident caused tech companies to be unnecessarily risk averse with chatbots for years.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#493

Post by IncreasePosts »

refulgentis wrote: post #309
hosh wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think the presence of Sergey Brin has been making a difference in this.

Ex-googler: I doubt it, but am curious for rationale (i know there was a round of PR re: him “coming back to help with AI.” but just between you and me, the word on him internally, over years and multiple projects, was having him around caused chaos b/c he was a tourist flitting between teams, just spitting out ideas, but now you have unclear direction and multiple teams hearing the same “you should” and doing it)

I'm in a similar position and generally agree with your take, but the plus side to his involvement is if he believed in your project or viewpoint he would act as the ultimate red tape cutter.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#494

Post by olalonde »

AlfredBarnes wrote: post #257
phkahler wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been doing more R&D and internal deployment of AI and less trying to sell it as a product. IMHO that difference in focus makes a huge difference. I used to think their early work on self-driving cars was primarily to support Street View in thier maps.

It has always felt to me that the LLM chatbots were a surprise to Google, not LLMs, or machine learning in general.

It was a surprise to OpenAI too. ChatGPT was essentially a demo app to showcase their API, it was not meant to be a mass consumer product. When you think about it, ChatGPT is a pretty awkward product name, but they had to stick with it.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#495

Post by sdf2erf »

rvnx wrote: post #483
belter wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because after the death of Epstein he suddenly had a lot of free time? https://www.wsj.com/finance/jeffrey-epstein-advised-sergey-b... https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2017428928814588323

If this is true, this is disappointing :/ On a similar topic, it is worth mentioning the entrepreneurs that are forced into sex (or let’s say, very pushed) by VCs. For those who feel safe or taking it as a joke, this affects women AND men. Some people are going to be disappointed about their heroes.

Dont mention the recent Eric Schmidt scandal.

Barely any of these jokers are clean. Makes MZ look seemingly normal in comparison.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#496

Post by refulgentis »

AYBABTME wrote: post #490
refulgentis wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex-googler: I doubt it, but am curious for rationale (i know there was a round of PR re: him “coming back to help with AI.” but just between you and me, the word on him internally, over years and multiple projects, was having him around caused chaos b/c he was a tourist flitting between teams, just spitting out ideas, but now you have unclear direction and multiple teams hearing the same “you should” and doing it)

the rebuke is that lack of chaos makes people feel more orderly and as if things are going better, but it doesn't increase your luck surface area, it just maximizes cozy vibes and self interested comfort.

My dynamic range of professional experience is high, dropout => waiter => found startup => acquirer => Google.

You're making an interesting point that I somewhat agree with from the perspective of someone was...clearly a little more feral than his surroundings in Google, and wildly succeeded and ultimately quietly failed because of it.

The important bit is "great man" theory doesn't solve lack of dynamism. It usually makes things worse. The people you read about in newspapers are pretty much as smart as you, for better or worse.

I actually disagreed with the Sergey thing along the same lines, it was being used as a parable for why it was okay to do ~nothing in year 3 and continue avoiding what we were supposed to ship in year 1, because only VPs outside my org and the design section in my org would care.

Not sure if all that rhymes or will make any sense to you at all. But I deeply respect the point you are communicating, and also mean to communicate that there's another just as strong lesson: one person isn't bright enough to pull that off, and the important bit there isn't "oh, he isn't special", it's that it makes you even more careful building organizations that maintain dynamism and creativity.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#497

Post by Mawr »

spaceywilly wrote: post #204
jrm4 wrote: post #163

1. Still hard not to think that this is a huge waste of time as opposed to something that's a little more like a public transport train-ish thing, i.e. integrate with established infrastructure. 2. No seriously, is the filipino driver thing confirmed? It really feels like they're trying to bury that.

My view on Waymo and autonomous taxis in general is they will eventually make public transit obsolete. Once there is a robotaxi available to pick up and drop off every passenger directly from a to b, the whole system could be made to be super efficient. It will take time to get there though. But eventually I think we will get there. Human drivers will be banned, the roads will be exclusively used by autonomous vehicl…

> Once there is a robotaxi available to pick up and drop off every passenger directly from a to b, the whole system could be made to be super efficient.

Fundamentally impossible. You're moving some 2 tons of mass in a 2x5m box on polluting rubber tires to move a single 100kg human.

I can always take whatever efficiency gain you've thought up and simply make the vehicle bigger, decreasing the cost and space used per passenger, and maybe even put it on rails, making it less polluting, and more energy efficient.

You can't engineer your way out of the laws of physics.

And don't even get me started on e-bikes.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#498

Post by tempest_ »

mullingitover wrote: post #433
smallnix wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s kind of crazy that they have been slow to create real products and competitive large scale models from their research. I always thought they deliberately tried to contain the genie in the bottle as long as they could

Their unreleased LaMDA[1] famously caused one of their own engineers to have a public crashout in 2022, before ChatGPT dropped. Pre-ChatGPT they also showed it off in their research blog[2] and showed it doing very ChatGPT-like things and they alluded to 'risks,' but those were primarily around it using naughty language or spreading misinformation. I think they were worried that releasing a product like ChatGPT only…

The front runner is not always the winner. If they were able to keep pace with openai while letting them take all the hits and miss steps, it could pay off.

Time will tell if LLM training becomes a race to the bottom or the release of the "open source" ones proves to be a spoiler. From the outside looking while ChatGPT has brand recognition for the average person who could not tell the difference between any two LLMs google offering Gemini in android phones could perhaps supplant them.

Re: The Waymo World Model

#499

Post by refulgentis »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #493
refulgentis wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex-googler: I doubt it, but am curious for rationale (i know there was a round of PR re: him “coming back to help with AI.” but just between you and me, the word on him internally, over years and multiple projects, was having him around caused chaos b/c he was a tourist flitting between teams, just spitting out ideas, but now you have unclear direction and multiple teams hearing the same “you should” and doing it)

I'm in a similar position and generally agree with your take, but the plus side to his involvement is if he believed in your project or viewpoint he would act as the ultimate red tape cutter.

And there is absolutely nothing more valuable at G (no snark)

(cheers, don't read too much signal into my thoughts, it's more negative than I'd intend. Just was aware it was someone going off PR, and doing hero worship that I myself used to do, and was disabused over 7 years there, and would like other people outside to disabuse themselves of. It's a place, not the place)

Re: The Waymo World Model

#500

Post by ChadNauseam »

anigbrowl wrote: post #301
ChadNauseam wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever something like this comes out, it's a good moment to find people with no critical thinking skills who can safely be ignored. Driving a waymo like an RC car from the philippines? you can barely talk over zoom with someone in the philippines without bitrate and lag issues.

Except that's not what the original posters said, rather 'operators making major decisions.' Don't strawman here, it wastes everyone's time.

I didn't mean to insult the original poster. But I have seen people who think that waymos are being driven remotely by filipinos
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