Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#71

Post by blattimwind » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 10:28 AM UTC

lolc wrote: post #67

soared wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is having recorded video of actual roads not valuable data? You're assuming the only option is training self driving cars on it. They might be training something totally separate to recognize signs, or see damaged roads, how quickly pedestrians react at different times of day, etc. Very narrow view point for you to take.

I agree that having detailed maps is an advantage. But they only make you a better driver in the places where they are correct. As such you can't rely on them to learn to drive, because you must be able to adapt to changes. Driving is not about the best case, but about the worst case. Using uncalibrated and random positioned phone cameras to learn about driving a car that has better sensory equipment seems backwards…

To reiterate, you cannot, ever drive based on any map, regardless of how many smartphones collected that map's data. You might use a map for navigation, but even then you'll have to deal with closed roads or changed traffic flow that isn't yet on the map. You cannot use maps for driving.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#72

Post by blattimwind » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

maged wrote: post #58

avelis wrote: post #57

If I were Lyft I would be looking for an automaker acquisition. Specifically one with an EV program or willing to start one. I say this because once any automaker figures out self driving on an ev, the fleet rideshare aspect would be a negligible effort to add. Once that does happen Lyft would basically no longer need to exist. Maybe this move is what they are trying to do which is be acquired by Ford. Either I appla…

Lyft is a 15B+ company. Neither Ford, nor any other auto company, has the cash to acquire them.

Toyota has some 150 bn USD in cash reserves.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#73

Post by bewo001 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

You are right. There is no good reason for them to develop and build autonomous cars, just like there is no good reason for them to develop and build conventional cars. When autonomous cars take off, Lyft and Uber can still use their current model. The only difference would be that the car owner doesn't have to drive.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#74

Post by agumonkey » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 11:23 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #39

lolc wrote: post #30

> In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall. Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. Humans can drive cars safely after only fi…

> Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. More data is better. The fact that humans have better algorithms that need less data does absolutely nothing to negate this.

More data is not always better, it can be for sure, you need to have the analytical capabilities to turn it into useful information. Otherwise it's just hoarding.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#75

Post by alehul » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #41

edshiro wrote: post #28

> The first car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Lyft’s use of a Ford Fusion apparently isn’t associated with the partnership the two announced last year. Other AV companies have used the Ford Fusion as a platform for integrating self-driving technologies Why are we still talking about Level 5 autonomous driving when we can't even get Level 4 working properly? I believe this…

>Why are we still talking about Level 5 autonomous driving when we can't even get Level 4 working properly? I believe this is sending the wrong message. i think it is capability gap between tech companies and car companies. Car companies can't even get cameras around all the body to avoid accidental scratches during parking. Where is tech companies, while could easily do a lot of car tech, have no business case doing…

Uber and Tesla are dead last in self-driving tech, beaten by everyone from Hyundai to Baidu-BAIC. I don't know where you get the idea that "car companies can't even get cameras all around the body to avoid accidental scratches." The leaders of the industry are Daimler-Bosch, GM, Waymo, Volkswagen, Ford, Aptiv, and BMW-Intel-FCA. Mostly car companies.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#76

Post by lolc » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

blattimwind wrote: post #71

lolc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that having detailed maps is an advantage. But they only make you a better driver in the places where they are correct. As such you can't rely on them to learn to drive, because you must be able to adapt to changes. Driving is not about the best case, but about the worst case. Using uncalibrated and random positioned phone cameras to learn about driving a car that has better sensory equipment seems backwards…

To reiterate, you cannot , ever drive based on any map, regardless of how many smartphones collected that map's data. You might use a map for navigation, but even then you'll have to deal with closed roads or changed traffic flow that isn't yet on the map. You cannot use maps for driving.

Well that's my sentiment too. But the article is wishy washy on the use of the collected data. Having local knowledge can make you a better driver after all.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#77

Post by bunderbunder » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #48

bunderbunder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber and Lyft have very little moat to protect them if someone else develops self-driving cars first. They haven't succeeded in their initial goal of exterminating the existing cab companies, and that leaves them in a situation where developing self-driving technology could be a matter of life and death for them. The incumbent cab companies are much better positioned to profit from self-driving cars. They've already…

Waymo has Avis handling their fleet management. The rental car companies are in a good position to take on Uber/Lyft if they get self driving. They're already renting cars; this is just shorter term rentals.

I can also see big automakers helping their dealerships convert into a network of fleet managers.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#78

Post by darawk » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #69

darawk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depends on whether it’s the right data, or meaningful data. Street level mapping data isn't relevant or meaningful? Basically every company working on this problem seems to pretty strongly disagree with you. > But to your point, the assumption that this is even a problem of “not enough data” is questionable at this point. How to turn that data into results is something no one has come close to figuring out yet. Thi…

>> This is trivially false. Given infinite data, all possible situations would be represented in the data, and the solutions applied in those situations could be copied exactly, something that existing algorithms are completely capable of doing. In principle. In practice, you'd need infinite time and infinite storage. Btw, do you have to add stuff like "This is trivially false" to your comments? It doesn't make your…

> In principle. In practice, you'd need infinite time and infinite storage.

That is irrelevant.

> Btw, do you have to add stuff like "This is trivially false" to your comments? It doesn't make your comments sound more right, only less well considered.

Trivial in the mathematical sense. As in, there is a trivial counter-example to your point. Citing infinity is a 'trivial' case. I'm using 'trivial' to describe my counter-example, not his error.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#79

Post by darawk » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #74

darawk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. More data is better. The fact that humans have better algorithms that need less data does absolutely nothing to negate this.

More data is not always better, it can be for sure, you need to have the analytical capabilities to turn it into useful information. Otherwise it's just hoarding.

They have those capabilities.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#80

Post by darawk » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #68

darawk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. More data is better. The fact that humans have better algorithms that need less data does absolutely nothing to negate this.

More data is necessary with current technoloogy , in the sense that modern statistical machine learning algorithms are very bad at generalising to unseen data, and the only way to overcome this is to give them more examples. There are machine learning techniques that generalise well from few data, but they are not very well known in the industry. Also, though more speculatively, I think the idea of "lots of data" is…

> More data is necessary with current technoloogy, in the sense that modern statistical machine learning algorithms are very bad at generalising to unseen data, and the only way to overcome this is to give them more examples.

Precisely.

> There are machine learning techniques that generalise well from few data, but they are not very well known in the industry.

Sure, and we'd all love to be using those. But even if you generalize well from small datasets, you still generalize better from larger ones.

> Also, though more speculatively, I think the idea of "lots of data" is attractive to marketing departments. There's something about algorithms that need huge amounts of data and compute, that only a select few companies can use. I guess it gives bragging rights, of a sort: "we got the biggest data around. Buy our stuff!".

It may be attractive to marketing departments, but it is also essential to data science projects like this.