Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 130 posts

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#71

Post by wnevets »

ThomPete wrote: post #4
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

There is so much talk in the current rhetoric about the US losing its dominance in science and technology. But it is a tad myopic to not be excited about a country of a billion people pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It is not a zero sum game and we will all benefit.

How? How do the uneducated in the rust belt benefit? And perhaps more importantly when? I agree that technology for society in general make us better of over time, but society consists of individuals who don't necessarily benefit from this. In fact 12 million jobs are in danger of being lost to automated cars. How are they going to benefit from that?

Sounds like it's time to leave the rust belt then.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#72

Post by muddyrivers »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

There is so much talk in the current rhetoric about the US losing its dominance in science and technology. But it is a tad myopic to not be excited about a country of a billion people pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It is not a zero sum game and we will all benefit.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their…

The US, for the most part, doesn't have these problems (lots of roads, parking, and fairly well behaved drivers)...self driving cars are seen as more of a convenience than a necessity.

The same problems exist in metropolitan areas in US as well, like Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, etc. although to a less degree than those in China. In Bay Area, people are so exhausted by long-commute driving. Check how jammed the traffic is in 101, 880, 580, 237, etc. Bart and CalTrain's coverages are pretty limited. With self driving cars, I bet plenty of people will quit driving by themselves for the commute. Imagine one can read, relax, read a book, or even work in the car, instead of sitting behind the wheel for 2 hours a day.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#73

Post by grecy »

hx87 wrote: post #61
imh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the DMV to only license drivers when they are safe, alert, and driving defensively, so I want the DMV to only license autonomous systems when they can meet or exceed the bar of safe, alert, and defensive drivers. We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed, but we can enforce it with autonomous systems. We are already happy regulating driving, and we shouldn't lower the licensing bar to…

> We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed Wait, isn't that what traffic police are for? Sometimes I wish speed limits were universally removed so that police will be forced to enforce the other 99.99% of traffic laws more strictly.

> Wait, isn't that what traffic police are for?

They just punish after the fact. I'm still able to make a poor driving choice that results in the injury or death of a bunch of people.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#74

Post by [deleted] »

hx87 wrote: post #61
imh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the DMV to only license drivers when they are safe, alert, and driving defensively, so I want the DMV to only license autonomous systems when they can meet or exceed the bar of safe, alert, and defensive drivers. We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed, but we can enforce it with autonomous systems. We are already happy regulating driving, and we shouldn't lower the licensing bar to…

> We can't enforce that humans drive that way after they're licensed Wait, isn't that what traffic police are for? Sometimes I wish speed limits were universally removed so that police will be forced to enforce the other 99.99% of traffic laws more strictly.

[deleted]

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#75

Post by alexbeloi »

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #12
ThomPete wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? How do the uneducated in the rust belt benefit? And perhaps more importantly when? I agree that technology for society in general make us better of over time, but society consists of individuals who don't necessarily benefit from this. In fact 12 million jobs are in danger of being lost to automated cars. How are they going to benefit from that?

> In fact 12 million jobs are in danger of being lost to automated cars. How are they going to benefit from that? Jobs are going to be lost anyways, whether from cars or from a different technology. Are you arguing the problem is that people aren't able to continue to do trivial things which technology can easily replace them at? Or that they will not have a relevant skill / source of income? If the former than we sh…

I'm pro self-driving cars.

But you have to admit, there's going to be riots in the streets when it's no longer economical to pay a human to drive a trunk/taxi.

Look at the protest people have over Uber, and they're not even destroying jobs, they're just moving them from one place to another. And already you can see that non-trivial parts of society can't handle that.

There's going to be protests, poverty and chaos, and eventually the market will redistribute the workforce but short of a major welfare program like 'basic income' I don't think we can have any illusion of this being a soft transition.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#76

Post by seanmcdirmid »

muddyrivers wrote: post #72
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their…

The US, for the most part, doesn't have these problems (lots of roads, parking, and fairly well behaved drivers)...self driving cars are seen as more of a convenience than a necessity. The same problems exist in metropolitan areas in US as well, like Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, etc. although to a less degree than those in China. In Bay Area, people are so exhausted by long-commute driving. Check how jammed the traffic is…

Well, in china I just take a taxi. It wasn't a problem for me. But even though I had the convenience, capacity is an issue. I just moved to LA from Beijing, and I'm so impressed how nice the traffic is and how convenient parking is.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#77

Post by istorical »

muddyrivers wrote: post #72
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their…

The US, for the most part, doesn't have these problems (lots of roads, parking, and fairly well behaved drivers)...self driving cars are seen as more of a convenience than a necessity. The same problems exist in metropolitan areas in US as well, like Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, etc. although to a less degree than those in China. In Bay Area, people are so exhausted by long-commute driving. Check how jammed the traffic is…

You don't see 11 day, 75 mile long traffic jams in the US though.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/chinas-traffic-jam-lasts...

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#78

Post by seanmcdirmid »

istorical wrote: post #77
muddyrivers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US, for the most part, doesn't have these problems (lots of roads, parking, and fairly well behaved drivers)...self driving cars are seen as more of a convenience than a necessity. The same problems exist in metropolitan areas in US as well, like Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, etc. although to a less degree than those in China. In Bay Area, people are so exhausted by long-commute driving. Check how jammed the traffic is…

You don't see 11 day, 75 mile long traffic jams in the US though. http://abcnews.go.com/International/chinas-traffic-jam-lasts...

To be fair, that was mostly inter city truck drivers who didn't want to pay tolls while they were reconstructing the only non toll alternative.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#79

Post by Jyaif »

EGreg wrote: post #42

How come no one has figured out that these self driving cars can be tested with light soft and fuzzy tops which only look like real cars, so if they crash into something, even at high speed, they wouldn't hurt anyone and couldn't be sued for a lot? They could then skip to testing much more daring maneuvers on higher speed than they would otherwise.

That's a... great idea. Self driving cars without passengers, where the hard components are close to the ground, and with soft padding everywhere else.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#80

Post by forgotpwtomain »

alexbeloi wrote: post #75
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact 12 million jobs are in danger of being lost to automated cars. How are they going to benefit from that? Jobs are going to be lost anyways, whether from cars or from a different technology. Are you arguing the problem is that people aren't able to continue to do trivial things which technology can easily replace them at? Or that they will not have a relevant skill / source of income? If the former than we sh…

I'm pro self-driving cars. But you have to admit, there's going to be riots in the streets when it's no longer economical to pay a human to drive a trunk/taxi. Look at the protest people have over Uber, and they're not even destroying jobs, they're just moving them from one place to another. And already you can see that non-trivial parts of society can't handle that. There's going to be protests, poverty and chaos, a…

> But you have to admit, there's going to be riots in the streets when it's no longer economical to pay a human to drive a trunk/taxi.

Why would there be riots in the streets for self-driving cars in particular? Like when there were riots for the assembly-line or the tractor? There will be riots for education, healthcare and opportunity - and probably there should be. Technological progress of civilization should be something more meaningful than the rich getting richer.

Post reply on HN