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Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

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Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#511

Post by walrus1066 »

trome wrote: post #465
walrus1066 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think you're right. We'd need to update a lot of our infrastructure to make it friendlier for these cars. I should also add: - very fast mobile data, with no blackspots, so a remote driver can take over a car that's confused by a situation - a replacement for GPS, it's not reliable enough, the signal is far too weak - digital signal beacons embedded in lane markings, and edges of the road, and on traffic cones…

Why should local municipalities foot the bill for adding beacons to stop lights, etc? I get trying to make infrastructure friendly towards self driving cars, but the general public should not be footing the bill for someone's life choice to buy such a vehicle.

Because if we do resolve these issues, our roads will be much, much safer with autonomous cars. 2k people die on the roads each year in the UK, multiples more sustain life long injuries. I was in an accident, which could have been prevented were it not for the 1 second it takes for a human to react to a situation.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#512

Post by OJFord »

1_2__3 wrote: post #262
arijun wrote: post #116

I still don't understand why every company doing self driving cars is focusing on consumer cars while no major player is doing interstate trucking. Interstate trucking could pretty much be done now, and has several advantages. Driving on interstate freeways is orders of magnitude easier than driving in a city with pedestrians, bikes, cars parked in the road, etc. And there is a great monetization scheme--no driver me…

Because it's all marketing bullshit. In fact that's a good indication that it's marketing bullshit - the fiction that the tip of the self-driving car spear will be consumer vehicles.

Is it though? Tesla is selling them.

Admittedly pre-orders are essentially marketing, but marketing of an actual product with intent to deliver, I'm not convinced it's "marketing bullshit".

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#513

Post by OJFord »

MorePowerToYou wrote: post #499
1_2__3 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's all marketing bullshit. In fact that's a good indication that it's marketing bullshit - the fiction that the tip of the self-driving car spear will be consumer vehicles.

+1 Forget about trucks. What about trains? That's an even easier problem to solve than trucks.

Trains don't even need AI. It's the lack of good incentive (the required capital investment vs. potential for future savings) and angry drivers' unions that are stopping innovation there, I'm sure.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#514

Post by ZeroFries »

ssalazar wrote: post #435
ZeroFries wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_autonomous_cars

A link to a 15 page wikipedia article is not a rebuttal.

Seems to directly contradict what the parent comment is claiming, does it not?

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#516

Post by exit »

ghaff wrote: post #398
JCzynski wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving taxis are in principle way cheaper to operate than human-driven taxis. They never have to stop, they can operate at all hours, there's no cost to pay drivers, and if they do stop they can do it somewhere very cheap. And when self-driving cars are a viable option, insurance will strongly encourage it. And by strongly encourage it I probably mean "absurdly high fees for driving your own car", because peopl…

I can buy cars with better safety systems being cheaper to insure, whether you're talking assistive driving systems or something more. But why would the existence of cars with better systems make driving vehicles like most people own today more expensive than currently?

letting humans drive cars is insane. i'm not paying into your insurance pool.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#517

Post by saryant »

amelius wrote: post #449
thaw13579 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's safe to assume folks at these companies are aware of these issues. But if I'm going to risk my life by using one of these systems, I'd want to have good answers to how they have solved them. Until then, I think it's fair to keep asking to avoid unrealistic hype.

Well, one way to solve the problem is to simply bring the car to a halt, then wait until the problem is solved by itself (or by the user).

And if you're going 70 down a busy interstate?

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#518

Post by lazaroclapp »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #473
LinuxBender wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of this. I would also add; that I will stay consider these vehicles to be unsafe until the manufacturers can prove to be beyond a shadow of doubt that I or the local computer are the ones piloting the vehicle. When a random person can remotely take control of a vehicle; whether it be the windshield wipers, or full control of the vehicle, then it is not safe to contain a power source in the vehicle ne…

I'd consider autonomous cars to be more safe than a car I drive when statistically I'm less likely to get hurt or die. If there was some chance my car could get hacked, or other weird vulnerabilities that robocars had that traditional cars did not, I would still want to be in a robocar if my chance of dying was cut in half.

Sure. But you are assuming a good way to estimate that chance. Say you base it on previous performance: in the last 5 years, twice as many people have died driving non-self-driving cars compared to those riding self-driving cars. Then, the very next day, a massive hack / cyberattack happens that causes 10 million fatal accidents...

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#519

Post by brazzledazzle »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #473
LinuxBender wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of this. I would also add; that I will stay consider these vehicles to be unsafe until the manufacturers can prove to be beyond a shadow of doubt that I or the local computer are the ones piloting the vehicle. When a random person can remotely take control of a vehicle; whether it be the windshield wipers, or full control of the vehicle, then it is not safe to contain a power source in the vehicle ne…

I'd consider autonomous cars to be more safe than a car I drive when statistically I'm less likely to get hurt or die. If there was some chance my car could get hacked, or other weird vulnerabilities that robocars had that traditional cars did not, I would still want to be in a robocar if my chance of dying was cut in half.

This is going to be one of those things where a lot of people have trouble quantifying the actual risk because the fear when things are out of your control is so powerful. Like flying.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#520

Post by mnglkhn2 »

brosky117 wrote: post #392
walrus1066 wrote: post #339

It feels there's a mountain of hype around autonomous vehicles. I think the core challenges to a fully autonomous vehicle (with no human backup), are still far from solved. They need to reliably deal with an almost infinite number of edge and corner cases, each quite different from the last. For example: - communication with other human drivers. In London, this is required all the time, like when parked cars block th…

The page about technology says, "Our sensors observe that the cyclist has extended their left arm. Detecting the cyclist's hand signal, our software predicts that the cyclist will move to the left side of the lane." This suggests to me that they're trying to deal with situations like the ones you've brought up.

So far the focus was primarily on what it would take to produce an autonomous car, which is primarily a technological challenge. But what I see as a harder problem to solve is the one imposed on all humans participating in traffic: we will have to strictly adhere and be very self-disciplined in traffic, in order to make sure that the non-humans get the correct message.

Imagine I am a cyclist and I don't signal but I swiftly swerve to the right. Unless the self-driving car is already at a slow speed, it would impose an undue risk. Or, it is hard to expect that humans will rigorously adhere to this traffic discipline.

This is why these cars will drive slow for the foreseeable future and will frustrate a good chunk of the drivers.

Unless it gets dedicated lanes, the way bicycles do.

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