California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment • Hacker News Board

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#721

Post by smelendez » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:32 AM UTC

fhub wrote: post #401

fhub wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective, as a relatively early adopter of Waymo (60+ rides). I have zero gripes with the driving itself. In fact I've seen Waymos do things that no human would be able to do*. Drop-offs and pickups I'd like to see improvements made like getting a bit closer to the curb. Occasionally the route selections make no sense at all. * Waymo made a right turn up a steep hill. Two lanes each way. It then pulled a b…

Since it seems people are interested. I had one situation which this sort of thing made me a bit uneasy (So one gripe actually). I was sitting back right seat. Waymo was waiting to make an unprotected left turn over two lanes. There was a vehicle waiting to also make an unprotected left in the other direction. Behind it was a truck. Waymo made that turn where I wouldn't have. I thought it through after and it had at…

To be fair, a human cab driver will usually know the dimensions of their vehicle and what they can get away with better than a random driver.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#722

Post by Narkov » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:32 AM UTC

IMHO,

Accidents...manageable.

Hitting a pedestrian...still manageable.

Deliberately withholding evidence....burn them at the stake and regulate them to an inch of their corporate lives.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#723

Post by robertlagrant » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:35 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #377

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If humans aren't the baseline then what is?

Public transit. We like to sensationalize every small problem on American buses and trains but they're also a lot safer than cars. Many countries have implemented transit systems around the world and while the US has been designed around the car shortsightedly for decades, transit is a well-understood mode with well-understood safety considerations.

Cities have been designed around cars (or their precursor - horses/horse and carts) for much longer than decades. Individual transport is universally useful; transit is an optimisation for certain situations.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#724

Post by 05 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:39 AM UTC

fhub wrote: post #550

fhub wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective, as a relatively early adopter of Waymo (60+ rides). I have zero gripes with the driving itself. In fact I've seen Waymos do things that no human would be able to do*. Drop-offs and pickups I'd like to see improvements made like getting a bit closer to the curb. Occasionally the route selections make no sense at all. * Waymo made a right turn up a steep hill. Two lanes each way. It then pulled a b…

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

> When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once

Pretty sure that's just lidars messing with Jaguar's rain sensors.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#725

Post by endtime » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:40 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #687

endtime wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the industry, though I did briefly work on a self-driving car in grad school back in 2009. One simple and obvious reason for this standard is that it optimizes for human safety.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you are in the industry. I meant they've normalized it to a large degree.

I'm not who you were originally replying to so I definitely didn't think you were implying thing about me (I also didn't think you were implying anything about the person you were replying to). I was just qualifying my opinion on the safer-than-a-human standard as a non-industry one.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#726

Post by xnx » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:42 AM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #554

mike_d wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is amazing, knowing some of the stuff they do behind the scenes to ensure safety - I would feel safer riding in a Waymo than driving myself. My biggest fear has always been that Cruise or Tesla would shit the bed so bad we don't get any self-driving, either because of regulatory constraints or ruining the public perception of them.

> knowing some of the stuff they do behind the scenes to ensure safety Any info on this? I would love to learn more about what they're doing.

https://waymo.com/safety/ is probably your best resource. You can follow the links from there to learn about all the things they're doing with simulation, etc.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#727

Post by AustinDev » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:43 AM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #717

mike_d wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is amazing, knowing some of the stuff they do behind the scenes to ensure safety - I would feel safer riding in a Waymo than driving myself. My biggest fear has always been that Cruise or Tesla would shit the bed so bad we don't get any self-driving, either because of regulatory constraints or ruining the public perception of them.

Can any engineers in the field comment on whether the [very cool!] Waymo vs Cruise performance anecdotes being discussed here would have been the result of Google's millimeter-level scanning of SF? Or is it just better algos only? Or both?

Cruise vehicles have sufficient sensor payloads to produce a 'milimeter-level scanning of SF' with many fewer hours than they've been on the road there. I doubt that provides the biggest difference. It's all down the software at this point. Especially because they're not trying to do anything crazy like vision only.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#728

Post by harambae » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:46 AM UTC

alooPotato wrote: post #433

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bus had dynamic routing, so it could show up where I am when I’m ready, and take me where I want to go, I’d be a huge fan. I don’t mean this ironically! I think dynamically dispatched, self-driving buses and vans will eventually save public transit. They’ll enable a much higher quality of service than current bus systems. Which drive around mostly-empty stopping every few blocks so it takes forever to get anyw…

we've had uber pool for a while. if that's your definition of public transit then sure, self driving pooled cars would obviously be good.

Oddly enough they got rid of both Uber Pool and Lyft Shared in most cities. Definitely Boston, but also half a dozen other cities I've visited. It may still exist somewhere.

I wish they hadn't, because my commuter card works with the shared rides. So even if a shared ride was the same price as a normal Uber/Lyft (or even more) I'd do it just to be able to use the commuter card.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#729

Post by xnx » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:46 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #694

__loam wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have multiple radars, lidars, and cameras. They're far more capable of detecting obstacles than people are.

They have different capabilities, but it doesn't follow that such technology is better than the built-in tech in homo sapiens.

One under appreciated benefit they have is the "eyes" on a Waymo car are mounted at the corners and high above the roof, giving it a much better vantage point that just sitting in the driver seat.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#730

Post by HALtheWise » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 12:48 AM UTC

Thanks for digging in and providing sources. The Vice article seems to have been updated to include that Cruise is contesting the narrative where they withheld the full video. It seems like this story is still playing out.

> In a statement, Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow disputed that Cruise failed to provide the full video during the first meeting with the DMV. “I can confirm that Cruise showed the full video to the DMV on October 3rd, and played it multiple times,” Lindow told Motherboard in a statement.