NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF • Hacker News Board

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#51

Post by comex » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:22 AM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #20

It's like this paragraph is obligatory: > Waymo has had fewer headline-worthy troubles. In May, one of its cars struck and killed a small dog. A few years ago, a driverless Waymo car with a human safety driver operating the wheel hit a pedestrian who needed to be taken to the hospital. After reading that reporters were explicitly instructed to go after tech[0], I just can't not see stuff like this. [0]: https://news.…

Of course it’s obligatory in such an article to mention the ongoing controversies surrounding self-driving cars. They’re relevant context. But if anything, that paragraph makes Waymo look good, given that it comes after a paragraph listing a series of more-significant incidents involving Cruise, and explicitly says Waymo has had “fewer troubles”.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#52

Post by mjmahone17 » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:23 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #12

nwiswell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's significantly more absurd to permit highly distractable, slow-reacting meatbags to operate the multi-ton high-velocity death barges in the close vicinity of pedestrians and other meatbags-cum-death-barge-pilots.

Why? We have what, like 50+ years of certainty as to how dangerous people are as drivers? They’re a known quantity and we know we can keep making cars safer to reduce the danger to drivers and passengers. Instead we’re going to YOLO a half-baked tech-bro fantasy onto the roads and hope for the best? Also “meatbags” has the same tone as “sportsball” imo.

Right, we have 50+ years where motor vehicle involved deaths are like 15-20% of all deaths for people under 50, not to mention how many more people are permanently injured due to motorists.

The status quo is really bad and we are doing a terrible job of making them safer for anyone besides the occupants of the vehicle causing a collision. So yeah, we should really focus on pushing technology that can reduce the danger of distractable drivers. That mostly should mean investing in public transit, walkability and speed-limited small vehicles like bikes or golf carts. But the bar for driverless cars is basically: do they speed? Do they drive on sidewalks? Do they kill a few people a day? No? Then they’re better than the status quo, because the status quo is awful.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#53

Post by hibikir » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:23 AM UTC

barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

More and better trains are great... when they are connecting very dense areas that have a lot of traffic. Madrid's subway is great, and so is rail to nearby towns, and high speed rail to Seville, Valencia and the like. But the value of rail drops precipitously as density decreases.

In the US, we are basically allergic to the density required to make trains good. I look at, say, St Louis to KC: a route of ideal length for high speed rail. But on both sides of the train, the density just isn't there, so people would drive themselves to the station, and rent a car on the other side, and suddenly you might as well have driven yourself across.

But sure, rebuild dense enough as to make subways, trains and walking the best modes of transportation, and the world would be pretty nice. it'll just cost, say, a few trillion to rebuild US cities that way. And the people that live far from the city center, and whose land values would probably drop massively wouldn't be all that happy.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#54

Post by fnord77 » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:23 AM UTC

_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

I was super thrilled the first time I rode in a waymo.

The second trip seemed humdrum.

I've taken over 100 trips now and it is no more exciting than riding the bus

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#55

Post by jojobas » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #5

As a programmer, I won't put myself into that thing. I'm also not happy to be an unwilling participant in this experiment. Given the state of technology and our capabilities to write bug-free software (Seriously, we can't even get things like buying airline tickets correct), I think it's way too early to approve those vehicles on city streets.

Are you happy to put yourself in a human-driven cab? Human drivers are not bug-free either.

It's plausible that this robot, albeit not bug-free, would drive safer than an average human driver.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#56

Post by zzzzzzzza » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #48

ChatGTP wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a ride in a car, it's boring, even if it's driven by GPS and Lidar.

It's a kind of Rube Goldberg contraption for getting around town..... The most complex gizmo possible for the most mundane of tasks.

humans in a nutshell

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#57

Post by abhayhegde » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

> Though there’s no driver, each ride is supported by staff at a Waymo site that can be summoned if a car runs into trouble.

Unless they have multiple rides looked after by a staff, what are they planning to save by not offering a driver? Also, is there any path to profitability given how many billions were poured into the technology? Not that I care so much though, Alphabet has enough profitable ventures to recoup otherwise.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#58

Post by labster » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:28 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #40

_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

Driverless cars have never been even remotely as unsafe as early commercial passenger aviation.

The alternative to early aviation was taking 2-20 times longer to reaching your destination, with the vast majority of the risk borne by the passengers. The alternative to self-driving is paying a guy less than minimum wage to take you in the same amount of time. And the risks are mostly on pedestrians and first responders.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#59

Post by emceestork » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #12

nwiswell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's significantly more absurd to permit highly distractable, slow-reacting meatbags to operate the multi-ton high-velocity death barges in the close vicinity of pedestrians and other meatbags-cum-death-barge-pilots.

Why? We have what, like 50+ years of certainty as to how dangerous people are as drivers? They’re a known quantity and we know we can keep making cars safer to reduce the danger to drivers and passengers. Instead we’re going to YOLO a half-baked tech-bro fantasy onto the roads and hope for the best? Also “meatbags” has the same tone as “sportsball” imo.

I don't agree with your characterization of what's happening as "YOLO" and "half-baked". It's taken many many people many years to get to where we are now. It's pretty easy to do a miles driven and accidents caused comparison. Self driving cars appear to be wildly safer thus far.

What would make you happy with a self-driving safety record? Why not be excited about the future?

I understand when some folks think that the focus would be better spent on public transportation, but you just seem like a hater.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#60

Post by syntheweave » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 2:31 AM UTC

barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

As scaling kicks in, it'll be the cheapest transit that can be added at margin within car-centric environments. Still centrally administered, professionally operated and maintained just like a bus fleet. The modality is something that can be tinkered with to take bigger or smaller loads and correspondingly save space and fuel per trip. The incentives are basically aligned to stay cost-competitive. These are things that were never the case with taxis and privately owned cars.