Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#611

Post by x3n0ph3n3 » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:03 AM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #528

paxys wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people vastly overestimate the challenges of weather conditions for self driving. With modern car tech (traction monitoring, ability to redirect torque to a specific tire, ABS, radar) an automated car is going to have an easier time navigating snow/ice/rain than a human driver. The real challenges when navigating city streets are the human ones – delivery vehicles blocking lanes, municipal worker fixing a man…

> With modern car tech (traction monitoring, ability to redirect torque to a specific tire, ABS, radar) an automated car is going to have an easier time navigating snow/ice/rain than a human driver. Huh, what? Human drivers can already take advantage of all of those, and they still find snowstorms and torrential rain challenging. The challenge is understanding what you see (and hear), and dealing with very noisy and…

Usually because they are driving far too fast for the road conditions.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#612

Post by fnord77 » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:27 AM UTC

afavour wrote: post #125

pbreit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the commercial value is achieved at Level 4. I'm curious what all the folks who claimed this was decades away are thinking?

> I'm curious what all the folks who claimed this was decades away are thinking? What is the "this" you're talking about here? I don't think there were many skeptics out there saying that it'll be decades before a taxi service will be able to launch a small, manned trial in a single municipality. Given that it's manned it still isn't quite at Level 4. The cynicism (and I'd consider myself a mild cynic I guess) was an…

flimflam man Musk stated in 2015 that their robotaxis would be up and running by the end of 2015...

and he made similar claims each year after that.

You can thank him for the hype and cynicism

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#613

Post by fnord77 » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

bobsomers wrote: post #230

marcellus23 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay... let me know when their market is the contiguous United States.

Surely this is just moving the goal posts. If they can launch in Chandler and in San Francisco then a huge amount of the contiguous United States is on the table.

many places have fairly strong summer storms.

SF does not. Also it looks like it almost never rains in Chandler.

we won't have all-weather reliable level 4/5 until an onboard computer has the equivalent power of a human brain

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#614

Post by bowl » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:31 AM UTC

defaulty wrote: post #591

The entire entire leadership team just quit and then they announce this? That makes me worried this was rushed

What do you mean? It was just 1 person, albeit the CEO, who left

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#615

Post by valine » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:35 AM UTC

oakfr wrote: post #394

panick21 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most commercial value is at Level 2 for quite a while.

Level 2 is becoming a commodity. Its commercial value will fall to zero very quickly.

Level 2 varies dramatically by car maker. On the low end you have companies like Ford and Honda doing lane keep cruise control, and on the high end you have Tesla which does automatic lane changes, takes on/off ramps, and stops for traffic lights. Tesla also charges a high premium for their software making it basically the opposite of a commodity.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

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Post by Auracle » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

safanycom wrote: post #559

mike00632 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And finding lane markers is one of the easiest tasks in self driving It's not a matter of "finding" lane markers. There are no lane markers visible after it snows.

Lane markings are a fraction of the triangulation. We ourselves identify and confirm other urban waymarks via captcha which feeds the nav data -- bridges, signs, hills, hydrants, chimneys, lights. There is mass live verification from android auto in vehicles. There are many yearly layers of street view images and scans.

Right, and what about rural waymarks? A highway in the middle of nowhere at night during a snowstorm?

I don't think we'll see a system that can handle that in my lifetime.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#617

Post by mbesto » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #206

ra7 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being level 5 Because they are not even trying to be level 5. They've made it very clear that will only ever be a level 4 company and level 5 is not feasible.

Anyone who says L5 is bullshitting honestly. L4 is enough to be viable and safe, and is all that is needed. In fact this level crap is bullshit. It's the speak of MBAs at Bain and McKinsey at who think they understand tech, not engineers. Real engineers don't stare at their debugging screens going "check out this data, is it L3 or L4?" Instead engineers look at things like safety-critical interventions per kilometer,…

> In fact this level crap is bullshit. It's the speak of MBAs at Bain and McKinsey at who think they understand tech, not engineers.

So how do you explain, succinctly, the difference between a car that can hold 55 mph (but do nothing else automatically) without driver intervention and one that can change from 25 mph to 55 mph and change lanes without driver intervention.

The differences between levels are drastic in terms of implications on overall utility of the technology. There's a reason the terms are used.

> L4 is enough to be viable and safe, and is all that is needed.

Needed for what exactly? Each level has its own benefits. That's exactly the reason the levels were established. I want to be able to get into a car, put in an address and fall asleep for the whole trip. When do I get that? L4? L5? If I can't do other tasks while the car is driving, then the point of full autonomous is essentially pointless.

> not engineers.

Precisely. The levels have nothing to do with engineers. It's about understand the benefits for the population. For example - can I fall asleep in the back of the Tesla autonomous car? No, because it's not L5. That's the point.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#618

Post by valine » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:44 AM UTC

notshift wrote: post #65

gfodor wrote: post #27

Kind of interesting to consider how this adjusts priors on these outcomes: - Self driving is not possible - Self driving is not possible anytime soon - Self driving is possible, but requires LIDAR - Self driving is possible, and can be done with normal cameras I've engaged with a lot of people who presume self-driving reduces onto AGI, therefore it will not be achieved anytime soon if ever. I wonder which of their as…

Waymo already "self-drives" today, it just is extremely slow at making turns when the road is busy, and if there is any kind of unusual obstacle on the road (such as construction cones that require you to drive partially in another lane) it just stops completely and has the rider wait for twenty minutes for a manual operator to come and take over. Those two obstacles won't be overcome until AGI. At best their frequen…

Why would faster turns require AGI? Assuming the position/velocity of the all nearby cars is known it's not a hard problem.

Also even Tesla handles the obstacle in the road situation well. Their FSD beta will happily enter the left lane to go around obstacles.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#619

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:46 AM UTC

morei wrote: post #567

CarelessExpert wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people vastly overestimate the challenges of weather conditions for self driving. This remark makes me wonder if you've ever lived in an area that actually experiences winter. Around here, dead of winter, there are no lines visible on the streets. Heck, after a good snow storm the lanes are basically a function of group consensus.

This is a situation where automation has the advantage. With detailed position information and detailed maps, the fact that the lines on the street can't be seen is irrelevant. The car didn't need them anyway. (noting that Waymo requires full detail maps to be able to drive an area, including all signage).

[deleted]

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#620

Post by valine » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 3:50 AM UTC

Mangalor wrote: post #240

TillE wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's been really odd to see the take that self-driving must require strong AI. It needs to be done carefully, but it's clearly a manageable engineering problem if you have good sensors.

If there's a person at an intersection directing traffic, it will be very hard to have the car itself communicate with them as easily as a human can. Edge cases like that is where AGI would be needed it seems.

So in this hypothetical is the person directing traffic completely oblivious to the existence of self driving cars? Pretty sure we can assume traffic cops in the future will be trained to deal with self driving cars and use only use gestures from a predefined list.