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GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

nytimes.com

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Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#71

Post by haltist »

ra7 wrote: post #65
haltist wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are 100% certain that remote operators can not take over the car?

Based on what I know, yes. Why would they want to do it with the latencies involved? It’s not a reliable solution, so it’s not used in any safety critical path.

> In addition to allowing emergency crews to access and move vehicles, Cruise says that it is also providing its own remote "assistance advisors" the ability to conditionally route its Chevrolet Bolts. This means that if law enforcement directs Cruise to route its vehicles away from an emergency scene, those advisors will maneuver the cars in a way that satisfies the request. The AV provider also says that it has enhanced the ability of these remote operators to clear a scene, should an issue arise.[1]

1: https://www.thedrive.com/news/cruises-solution-to-robotaxis-...

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#72

Post by cheeselip420 »

kvogt wrote: post #60

Cruise CEO here. Some relevant context follows. Cruise AVs are being remotely assisted (RA) 2-4% of the time on average, in complex urban environments. This is low enough already that there isn’t a huge cost benefit to optimizing much further, especially given how useful it is to have humans review things in certain situations. The stat quoted by nyt is how frequently the AVs initiate an RA session. Of those, many ar…

remote operation of vehicles often makes a lot of sense economically, since you can effectively decouple drivers from vehicles/riders. As you pointed out, this means you can shift to deal with peak loads and all of that - great.

Given everything you know now, was it wise to push for expansion over improvements to safety and reliability of the vehicles? On one hand, there is certainly value in expanding a bit to uncover edge-cases sooner. On the other hand, I'm not convinced it was worth expanding before getting the business sorted out.

My guess is that given the relatively large fixed costs involve in operating an AV fleet, that it makes some sense to expand at least up to that sort of 'break even' point. Do we know what that point is? Put differently, is there some natural "stopping point" of expansion where Cruise could hit break-even on its fixed costs and then shift focus towards reliability?

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#73

Post by sroussey »

kvogt wrote: post #60

Cruise CEO here. Some relevant context follows. Cruise AVs are being remotely assisted (RA) 2-4% of the time on average, in complex urban environments. This is low enough already that there isn’t a huge cost benefit to optimizing much further, especially given how useful it is to have humans review things in certain situations. The stat quoted by nyt is how frequently the AVs initiate an RA session. Of those, many ar…

The relevant staffing section:

> Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle. The workers intervened to assist the company’s vehicles every 2.5 to five miles

The NYT is definitely implying 1.5 workers per vehicle intervene to assist driving at first read. Only after reading the above comment do I notice that they shoved the statements together using different meanings for “workers” as they didn’t have the actual statistic on hand.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#74

Post by evbogue »

cheeselip420 wrote: post #32
evbogue wrote: post #21

This is the same whacky theory I've been spreading about Tesla self-driving for a year or so. "Imagine Tesla self-driving is like some dude driving your car via videogame on the other side of the world." Most people are pretty sure my theory is wrong. I have absolutely no evidence this is true, it's just some crazy idea that popped into my head one day.

Like some sort of fucked up Ender's Game situation.

Yah, exactly. Even if it isn't real, the sci-fi stories you can think of are endless.

Like imagine there's some industrial block in Da Nang where there are thousands of guys and gals who think they're RL for some AI model somewhere. X takes a bathroom break and forgets to turn over the controls to another specialist and when he gets back he discovers the model has crashed.

Next he reads on the news that there's been a fiery Tesla crash somewhere near Oakland, and he realizes that something is horribly wrong in his world.

We could use multiple predictive language models to determine what direction the story line takes next, but I imagine he quits his job right then and there and is determined to find out the truth behind the program.

What will happen next?

Better yet, base the story off-world so that we aren't so close to the horrible reality of it -- if this is true and it's probably not.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#75

Post by dreamcompiler »

Here we go again with a CEO who proclaims "autonomous cars are safer than human-driven cars." And their definition of "safer" conveniently ignores that autonomous cars create new failure modes which do not exist in manually-driven cars.

It may be true that statistically fewer fatalities per mile happen with autonomous cars than with human-driven cars. But that's irrelevant. If the car kills one person because it did something utterly stupid like driving under a semi crossing the highway or dragging a pedestrian along the ground, the public will not accept it.

This is another example of the uncanny valley problem: Most "smart" devices are merely dumb in new ways. If your "smart" gizmo is only smart in how it collects private information from people (e.g. smart TVs), or it's merely smarter than a toggle switch, that's not what the public considers smart. It has to be smarter than a reasonably competent human along almost all dimensions; otherwise you're just using "smart" as a euphemism for "idiot savant." Self-driving cars are a particularly difficult "smart" problem because lives are at stake, and the number of edge cases is astronomical.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#76

Post by Retric »

cheeselip420 wrote: post #58
Retric wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says they can’t recover the full cost? Cars don’t last forever, bake the cost in upfront or charge a monthly fee.

I'm not saying they can't - I'm saying they are running out of time to do so, and with the DMV shutting them down they've been hamstrung further. They are burning 100s of millions every quarter. They needed to show either growth/expansion or some sort of positive cash flow. They now have neither.

Ahh ok that fair.

I don’t think Cruse is doing very well. I’m more thinking that the first nationwide level 5 system may have a human in the loop.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#77

Post by ra7 »

haltist wrote: post #71
ra7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what I know, yes. Why would they want to do it with the latencies involved? It’s not a reliable solution, so it’s not used in any safety critical path.

> In addition to allowing emergency crews to access and move vehicles, Cruise says that it is also providing its own remote "assistance advisors" the ability to conditionally route its Chevrolet Bolts. This means that if law enforcement directs Cruise to route its vehicles away from an emergency scene, those advisors will maneuver the cars in a way that satisfies the request. The AV provider also says that it has enh…

Can you explain how this supports your assertions? Because this doesn’t say they can take over control of the vehicle or prevent an emergency in the first place. They clear the cars by plotting a new path.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#78

Post by haltist »

ra7 wrote: post #77
haltist wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In addition to allowing emergency crews to access and move vehicles, Cruise says that it is also providing its own remote "assistance advisors" the ability to conditionally route its Chevrolet Bolts. This means that if law enforcement directs Cruise to route its vehicles away from an emergency scene, those advisors will maneuver the cars in a way that satisfies the request. The AV provider also says that it has enh…

Can you explain how this supports your assertions? Because this doesn’t say they can take over control of the vehicle or prevent an emergency in the first place. They clear the cars by plotting a new path.

You seemed very certain that I was completely incorrect. My point is that you should consider that you might not have all the details and if you haven't actually worked at an AV company then you do not know what capabilities are granted to remote operators in emergency and non-emergency situations.

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#79

Post by pests »

wolverine876 wrote: post #20

> Two months ago, Kyle Vogt, the chief executive of Cruise, choked up as he recounted how a driver had killed a 4-year-old girl in a stroller at a San Francisco intersection. “It barely made the news,” he said, pausing to collect himself. “Sorry. I get emotional.” ... > Cruise’s board has hired the law firm Quinn Emanuel to investigate the company’s response to the incident, including its interactions with regulators…

> performative charade

How is it performative?

Is it not sad that a 4-year-old girl in a stroller got killed by a car? That it barely made the news?

Or is that just not sad and is normal these days?

Re: GM's Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve "autonomous" driving

#80

Post by ra7 »

haltist wrote: post #78
ra7 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how this supports your assertions? Because this doesn’t say they can take over control of the vehicle or prevent an emergency in the first place. They clear the cars by plotting a new path.

You seemed very certain that I was completely incorrect. My point is that you should consider that you might not have all the details and if you haven't actually worked at an AV company then you do not know what capabilities are granted to remote operators in emergency and non-emergency situations.

You are still incorrect and unable to prove anything you claimed. The burden of proof is on you when you confidently say they can "take over controls".
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