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

NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 348 posts

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#91

Post by proc0 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #85
proc0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a term for this, or at least it's a known phenomena in the AI industry for a while. It's how AI becomes transparent after wide adoption. I'm still amazed at video filters that transform your face in real time, and that is now a common feature in so many apps that most people might not consider AI.

> It's how AI becomes transparent after wide adoption. I don't like this framing for video filters. Go back ten years and nobody thought of that kind of visual effect as AI. Then someone made an AI version, and people talked about that for a bit, then they went back to considering the actual effect. This is very different from situations where a task is inherently thought of as an AI task when people are anticipating…

Maybe not the best example, although I still remember filters became huge around the same time the AI versions started emerging. Video transcripts are another example, or even text translation at this point. These are widely used forms of AI but it's not what most people are talking about when they talk about AI.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#92

Post by ericksoa »

jwr wrote: post #5

As a programmer, I won't put myself into that thing. I'm also not happy to be an unwilling participant in this experiment. Given the state of technology and our capabilities to write bug-free software (Seriously, we can't even get things like buying airline tickets correct), I think it's way too early to approve those vehicles on city streets.

By this logic, we should go back to manual deploys since CD lets... aghast... computers deploy our most important software to prod

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#93

Post by ericksoa »

paul7986 wrote: post #35
nwiswell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's significantly more absurd to permit highly distractable, slow-reacting meatbags to operate the multi-ton high-velocity death barges in the close vicinity of pedestrians and other meatbags-cum-death-barge-pilots.

Sure yet a human driver is not a device that can be hacked and then used as a weapon or weapons.

Charlottesville might have thoughts on this

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#94

Post by abhayhegde »

jsnell wrote: post #89
abhayhegde wrote: post #57

> Though there’s no driver, each ride is supported by staff at a Waymo site that can be summoned if a car runs into trouble. Unless they have multiple rides looked after by a staff, what are they planning to save by not offering a driver? Also, is there any path to profitability given how many billions were poured into the technology? Not that I care so much though, Alphabet has enough profitable ventures to recoup o…

Of course there's not one on-duty staffer per car. You'd only need that many people if all rides required human support at exactly the same time. But in reality, most rides wouldn't require it at all. Even if there's likely to be some correlation between support requests, it'd be all cars on one street or block needing help at the same time, not all cars in the same city. > Also, is there any path to profitability gi…

> That works out to 16 hours / day $15 / hour * 365 days/year = $87600/year.*

True, but they also have to pay the staff who is monitoring the cars. Maybe 10 cars have one staff? For 250 cars, there should be a team of 25. Maybe they earn a year as much as one car saves? i.e. nearly 90k/year. So, that still works out profitable.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#95

Post by ericksoa »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

You know what is more controversial than letting robot cars drive around? Trying to make a new train line literally anywhere in the US.

You are better off buying a bunch of robot cars, tying them together with a rope, and starting a company to run hacker trains on city streets and charge money.

In fact, in SF, if the protestors were clever, they'd just get together tie a bunch of cars together and create their own train. What are they going to do, arrest you?

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#96

Post by TillE »

olyjohn wrote: post #88
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

A concept I look forward to is not just a driverless car, but driverless "various size vehicles" from a 1-person car to a 100-person bus. In this future we could get the advantages of public transport and car-free living into rural and suburban areas, while in the city these systems could adjust and use AI to find optimal routes that are a lot less slower than current buses (or even trains that require 2 or 3 connect…

Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? You can do all this now, you just need a driver. Why is that the part that needs to be eliminated before you can do all these things? All it is, is route planning based on demand. Uber, etc should be able to do all this now. Isn't that what Uber Pool was supposed to deliver? Nobody uses that shit for anything but a commute. Nobody wants to sit in a car with other random…

Imagine being a human driver who has to constantly change routes based on what the computer tells you, switch vehicles based on demand, and not make any mistakes. That sounds exhausting. You're also occupying a seat which could be used by a passenger.

A centrally-directed autonomous fleet of vehicles would be genuinely revolutionary for public transit, replacing everything from taxis to buses with a beautifully efficient system. I can't imagine not being excited by that.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#97

Post by mint2 »

_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

As an SF resident, I’m not at all excited about riding in them as they seem to drive annoyingly, especially right turns. They are slow and position weirdly for turns.

I have contemplated that if a person from 1995 woke up from a coma and saw one they would freak out and then think they are living in sci fi future.

But nope, the cars are mundane and boring. It’s just as google intended in order to be unthreatening. But it also makes them boring so that was a double edged sword

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#98

Post by fnordpiglet »

austinl wrote: post #67
Waterluvian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took just two moon landings for people to get bored. I don’t think you need a technology to be fully functional for people to tire of it. It just has to be in the news for enough years.

Reminds me that SpaceX has now landed rocket boosters successfully over 200 times. Landing just a single rocket was huge news a few years ago. The US is launching things into space about 20 times as frequently compared to 10 years ago [1]. Now, most rocket launches don't make mainstream news—I only keep up with things by subscribing to a niche newsletter [2]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-ob…

Every time I watch a booster landing I get goosebumps. And robo taxis still amaze me.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#99

Post by quickthrower2 »

olyjohn wrote: post #88
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

A concept I look forward to is not just a driverless car, but driverless "various size vehicles" from a 1-person car to a 100-person bus. In this future we could get the advantages of public transport and car-free living into rural and suburban areas, while in the city these systems could adjust and use AI to find optimal routes that are a lot less slower than current buses (or even trains that require 2 or 3 connect…

Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? You can do all this now, you just need a driver. Why is that the part that needs to be eliminated before you can do all these things? All it is, is route planning based on demand. Uber, etc should be able to do all this now. Isn't that what Uber Pool was supposed to deliver? Nobody uses that shit for anything but a commute. Nobody wants to sit in a car with other random…

> Why does having no driver suddenly enable this?

No-driver will make it more economical eventually because:

1. There is no hourly wage to pay a driver.

2. The car can be utilized 24/7 (or most likely 16/7 based on demand, but much better than 8/5 of a typical shift driver).

> What is it about having no driver that suddenly makes cars green, free up space on the road, etc?

A confluence of things: electric cars, the cheaper rides, the critical mass of users so that algorithms can find ways for people to share.

Remember if I am using a bus now, and this is offering me a 30 minute journey but (oof!) sharing with other people instead of 1 hour on a bus, this is a good switch.

> Why would someone who owns a car now, want to wait around for a driverless taxi to pick them up?

The reason is posted to you several times each year: "Car service" "Registration Fee" "Compulsory Check" "Your Toll Invoice" "Third Party Insurance" "Comprehensive Insurance" "Speeding Ticket" "Parking Ticket" and so on. And that assumes you don't crash (on in my case, hit/run done on your parked car) and have to deal with that hell.

Selling your car, getting $X,000 and being free of all that is a relief.

> If you can work for an hour while your car drives you to the office, and you don't have to stress or worry about the traffic, why would you even bother with anything else?

Depends. Replace car with helicopter and the same applies. Not everyone wants to pay for a helicopter. Not everyone will want to pay for their own car when you can get it on demand. Say it costs $25 a day to own your own car and be taken, $10 a day for your own uber-like and $5 a day if you share. A lot of people will go for the savings. Even more so if cities add single-person taxes on cars to ease congestion.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#100

Post by quickthrower2 »

ttul wrote: post #80
fastball wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want a driverless RV that will drive me between all the National Parks in the US while I work remotely from the back via a Starlink dish mounted to the roof.

The solution to homelessness too! No need to find a parking spot. Just drive all night. Could it drive very slowly and charge the batteries using solar? Hmmm

This is the solution to NIMBYness. A homelessness solution would let you stay in one place :-)
Post reply on HN