> Imagine if everyone could get around easily and safely, without tired, drunk or distracted driving.
I don't really think we should place drunk driving at the same level as tired or distracted driving.
Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
611–620 of 769 posts
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#612What I don't understand is if trains aren't completely automated, planes aren't completely automated, subways aren't completely automated, ships aren't completely automated, How are CARS supposed to be automated??
> trains aren't completely automated
> subways aren't completely automated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...
> planes aren't completely automated
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I've seen this sentiment so many times now that I have to ask a serious question to anyone who echoes this sentiment: Do you own a personal car right now? If so, why? All of this... excitement over the transformations that self-driving vehicl…
I have to agree with you skepticism. Let's e.g. replace "car" with "apartment". Imagine an apartment where you pay a premium to have all the cooking, cleaning and maintenance done for you. This obviously exists today, yet >99% of people don't use it. I believe people like owning things, and using them to do stuff. This is a basic fact of being human. Probably goes right back to the stone age. I doubt autonomous cars…
> I believe people like owning things... This is a basic fact of being human
There are some objects we enjoy forming a relationship with. Your favorite kitchen knife. Your bed. Your sports car you take out on the weekend.
There are other objects we just want to work. Your running shoes. Your daily commuting vehicle. Your dish rack.
Of course it varies from person to person which items fall in which category.
There will always be a market for people who want to own and fetishize a car. The same way there is a market for people who want to own and fetishize their record collection.
But it is usually a smaller market than the market for people who just want convenient access to the thing. I.e. Spotify.
Which will be bigger, Spotify for mobility, or your neighborhood hipster automobile dealer?
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen what happens when humans have control of cars. It's not pretty.
This is the point that I see everyone discounting. Whether autonomous cars turn out to be feasible or not, we know for a fact that humans are bad drivers. Don't we owe it to ourselves to try something different?
There's a nice analogy with fighter jets taking off from aircraft carriers. They have handlebars in the top of the cabin that the pilots are required to grab during take off. Experience had shown that, when they took off with their hands in the steering stick, the acceleration was so high that they'd react by pushing the stick, plunging the plane into the ocean.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
This assumes autonomous vehicles exist, which they don't.
Wait five years. It'll almost certainly happen. The technology is solvable and lots of very big companies are spending billions to make it happen.
I'll be a believer the first time they actually put a fully unmanned vehicle on a public road with no "safety" driver on board. That'll be big news indeed and indicate that the technology is far enough along to be taken seriously on a massive scale.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only needs to be a better driver than you for you to be safer, and its that already. I can guarantee you that on a one to one driving skills shootout between you and the software you will loose 98% of the time.
Yes, a computer drives better than me. But that's not it's competition. Does it drive better than me driving while being supervised continuously by a computer? I still make the important decisions, and my mistakes are pointed out by the computer. The competition for self driving cars are not humans, but humans being adviced by driver assistance programmes
No sure why you make that distinction, or what the benefit of that will be. I want to read HN on the back seat on the way to work, not "supervise" the driving appliance.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of these problems can be solved by simply making them fly. ... that's right, now you know what the driving force behind all those flying cars in sci-fi was. It's simply a way to separate the autonomous and old-style vehicles.
This seems to have been said in jest but the main thing keeping flying cars in sci-fi and out of the real world is the human element. Most people have a hard enough time driving in two dimensions. Adding a third would be chaos without the aid of our robot overlords.
> This seems to have been said in jest but the main thing keeping flying cars in sci-fi and out of the real world is the human element.
I thought it was that winged flight makes for crappy cars and wingless, vectored thrust flight is horribly fuel hungry. (Sci-fi versions are usually wingless and either have magic drive systems or just ignore the fuel issue.)
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#618I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…
> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time. Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will…
> In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening.
Good question. How the system deals with congestion. Two things:
1) Taxis make variable pricing possible, which gives markets an incentive to spread out demand. "Would you like a $15, 45 minute ride to San Francisco by 9:15, or $4, 25 minute ride arriving at 10:30?"
2) In big cities we'll start to see quick transfers to- and from- mass transit.
You'll push a button on your phone. The phone will say "Ride begins in 8 minutes to minimize transfer time". You finish your email, put on your coat and walk outside. A car picks you up, drives you to the transit center. You get out, walk across the platform, get onto a train. Train stops, you walk back across the platform into another car. It takes you to your destination.
Why? It will save you time in traffic if you care about, and it'll be cheaper if you care about that. Of course during off peak times, you can just take the cab the whole way for the shortest trip.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
That may well be the case, but it does not follow that a 98%-complete self-driving car would actually be a viable product. It's not good enough that the robot can beat a human in a head-to-head skills test; the robot also has to be as versatile as a human, across an unpredictably wide range of circumstances. That's hard.
If a autonomous car can pass a standard driving test it should be allowed to drive. They always do, every time.
Depending on where you live, "can pass a standard driving test" isn't necessarily saying very much.
In any case, I'm not talking about whether it "should be allowed to drive", I'm talking about the level of capability an autonomous car would have to reach in order to become a viable product.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Put another way, no blind person is going to sit behind the wheel of a Tesla and tell the car to take him/her to the supermarket. That's exactly what Tesla is marketing and working on with their new self-driving features, and you can buy cars that will allegedly be capable of this today . "All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don’t say anything, the car will look at your calendar…
I'm looking forward to seeing calendar spam invites bring people to unexpected locations. https://plus.google.com/+RonnieBincer/posts/ec3aZmhNMwg
I would assume it wouldn't take me to any meetings I had not accepted.