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Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

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Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#61

Post by MarkMc »

ballenf wrote: post #56
MarkMc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4) Software tends to be a winner-take-most industry. That's true of software generally, but not will not be true of automated driving software. Windows, iOS, Facebook and YouTube have strong network effects. Google search and Microsoft Office offer a familiar user interface and superior features. Self driving software will have none of these benefits - there is no network effect, no significant user interface, and…

Agree for the most part, but question the lack of network effects here: Is there not a potential interoperability / safety gain if all the cars on the road know how all the others will react? In a game of chicken they know they should each veer right to avoid an accident, so to speak. I guess the answer depends to some degree on just how much inter-car communication is part of the future and whether those will be ful…

That's a good point - I didn't think about network effects of having autonomous cars communicate with each other. No doubt it will boost safety, but I strongly suspect that such technology will be heavily regulated and standardised. If Boeing and Airbus each developed a mid-air collision avoidance system, wouldn't regulators force them to interoperate?

Of course there will still be an autonomous car company with a superior safety record and perhaps better navigation routing, but these are not strong advantages. Consider that budget airlines can compete effectively with established airlines even when they have a worse safety record and fewer direct routes.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#63

Post by MarkMc »

adrianN wrote: post #60
MarkMc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4) Software tends to be a winner-take-most industry. That's true of software generally, but not will not be true of automated driving software. Windows, iOS, Facebook and YouTube have strong network effects. Google search and Microsoft Office offer a familiar user interface and superior features. Self driving software will have none of these benefits - there is no network effect, no significant user interface, and…

That is, if somebody figures out how to make good autocars without absolutely massive amounts of training data. For now it looks like whoever gets their software out in world first will have a huge advantage just because they get much more telemetry than the competition.

I agree you need massive amounts of training data. But the marginal value of that data diminishes rapidly after a certain point.

Let's say Waymo spends $2 billion to get the training data necessary to produce a fully automated car. A few years later Uber has also spent $2 billion and has a the necessary training data. By that time Waymo has 10 times as much telemetry data, so its cars might be somewhat safer. But as long as Uber cars are safe enough to get regulatory approval they can compete effectively with Waymo. Beyond a certain point people generally care more about cost than safety - look at the airline industry.

Also consider that Tesla seems to be getting telemetry data for much less than Waymo or Uber - they have thousands of drivers who are willing to pay for sensors and test automated driving software for free.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#64

Post by adrianN »

MarkMc wrote: post #63
adrianN wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is, if somebody figures out how to make good autocars without absolutely massive amounts of training data. For now it looks like whoever gets their software out in world first will have a huge advantage just because they get much more telemetry than the competition.

I agree you need massive amounts of training data. But the marginal value of that data diminishes rapidly after a certain point. Let's say Waymo spends $2 billion to get the training data necessary to produce a fully automated car. A few years later Uber has also spent $2 billion and has a the necessary training data. By that time Waymo has 10 times as much telemetry data, so its cars might be somewhat safer. But as…

People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars. Being able to cover more exotic driving conditions ("Our cars also work during a severe hurricane") could be a very effective marketing strategy.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#65

Post by kastnerkyle »

throwa321 wrote: post #44
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent example is a 2014 article in Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/... Consider that at the time, an engineer told him that the car was dependent on a level of mapping detail that was impractical at a nationwide level, that the car would run a red light if it wasn't on the car's map. The article also cites that the cars would have issues in bright sunlight, particularly deter…

Yes, but computer vision has moved forward by leaps and bounds since 2014, and so have GPUs. AD pipelines uses object-detection for traffic-sign detection. RCNN was state of the art for this back then and ran at what 0.2 fps and ~40 mAP ? SSD came out in 2016 and ran at 60+ fps at ~80 mAP. Google's mobilenets implementation probably runs atleast twice as fast and apparently has no noticeable loss in accuracy.

I don't think mAP on VOC is indicative of real-world performance - especially given COCO mAP is just now cracking the 40s with similar architectures. But the gains in proposal based detection/instance segmentation from 2014 to now have been staggering for sure.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#66

Post by robotresearcher »

visarga wrote: post #52
robotresearcher wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot if it doesn't pay off eventually.

The same tech that is being used in self driving cars could be repurposed for autonomous robots, and end up with a market much bigger than that of transportation. SDCs are just the easiest form of autonomous robots.

> SDCs are just the easiest form of autonomous robots.

That's a claim I have never heard before and I don't agree with. You have some kind of argument to support that drive-by claim? Since there are no fully autonomous SDCs yet you'd have to explain away any existing autonomous robots.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#67

Post by nojk88 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #7

I think by most accounts - 1) Google / Waymo is by far the furthest ahead in self-driving tech. 2) Self-driving is possible in at least certain circumstances in the next decade or two (already is to an extent today). 3) Transportation / automobiles is an absolutely massive industry. Even companies like Dana, Inc (maker of axles) have $4bil valuations. It's easy to see how a self-driving tech maker would be worth far…

pfft...self driving cars aren't like smartphones. If you think of our road and traffic networks across the world the places this stuff is going to work is going to be very very low, i.e. there are upper limits on scalability. It's going to be costly and in the hands of a few for a long time to come.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#68

Post by icebraining »

MarkMc wrote: post #61
ballenf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree for the most part, but question the lack of network effects here: Is there not a potential interoperability / safety gain if all the cars on the road know how all the others will react? In a game of chicken they know they should each veer right to avoid an accident, so to speak. I guess the answer depends to some degree on just how much inter-car communication is part of the future and whether those will be ful…

That's a good point - I didn't think about network effects of having autonomous cars communicate with each other. No doubt it will boost safety, but I strongly suspect that such technology will be heavily regulated and standardised. If Boeing and Airbus each developed a mid-air collision avoidance system, wouldn't regulators force them to interoperate? Of course there will still be an autonomous car company with a su…

Nitpick: as far as I know budget airlines, at least in Europe/US, don't have a worse safety record than others.

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#69

Post by cmarschner »

The top German car suppliers and car makers have accrued 10x the patents on autonomous driving Google has [0]. Bosch alone has 3x the number of patents. Yet hardly anybody talks about Bosch and Continental and Mercedes/Audi/BMW etc.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.in/Whos-in-the-lead-in-developing...

Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech

#70

Post by secfirstmd »

icebraining wrote: post #68
MarkMc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point - I didn't think about network effects of having autonomous cars communicate with each other. No doubt it will boost safety, but I strongly suspect that such technology will be heavily regulated and standardised. If Boeing and Airbus each developed a mid-air collision avoidance system, wouldn't regulators force them to interoperate? Of course there will still be an autonomous car company with a su…

Nitpick: as far as I know budget airlines, at least in Europe/US, don't have a worse safety record than others.

True. And Ryanair have the youngest fleet.
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