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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

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Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#941

Post by bumby »

Zetobal wrote: post #897
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a Waymo come to a screeching halt in a split second as a... less than intelligent individual... skateboarded in front of a bus, into the extremely busy road . If it was a human that person would have been dead, no question. Sometimes I'm riding in a Waymo (which I do every single day, 4x) and it does something, and I double take. Then a second later I see whatever it was it reacted to, and I'm like "dang, why d…

You are on a technology forum you should know better than call it magic, it's talent and sweat.

Yes, but.

Attributing every great outcome to "talent and sweat" is dangerous in safety critical domains. Often it's (at least partly) luck, and missing that distinction (combined with a lot of human biases) can make a team confuse "being lucky" with "being good". The problem with luck is it tends to eventually run out.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#942

Post by Lonestar1440 »

screye wrote: post #930
Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

> driving extremely conservatively one-third of all road vehicle deaths resulted from speeding [2]. > traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd Because that is how most people in SF pedestrians are killed: in an unobstructed left against traffic. More than 300 people are injured by left-turning drivers every year in San Francisco. In 2019, 40% of traffic deaths occurred when drivers making left turns hit p…

Yes, the annoying things Cruise do are intended to prevent Unsafe things. But remember the context here: the DMV just yanked the permit because they don't believe these cars are safe. In their eyes, the new dangers introduced outweigh the things cruise might do better.

And as we agree; there are clearly better technologies ( waymo) out there that let us have it both ways.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#943

Post by Zigurd »

coryrc wrote: post #801
Symbiote wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am staring aghast with European eyes at a city of 4 million people where the commuter rail doesn't run outside peak hours. How do you get home if you go out for a couple of drinks with colleagues, or stay late for a call? You shouldn't be asking for a couple of trains between 8pm and midnight. They should be every half hour, or more! Midnight until 6am on Saturday and Sunday could be every hour or two. (I live in C…

We taxpayers already spend >$30 per person-trip for the Sounder. It currently doesn't connect well to transit on either end (most users drive to it), and half the city is fighting to make sure it doesn't connect directly with the new "light rail" station. Also our light rail is longer end-to-end than the Paris metro and half the stations are on the freeway with massive parking garage and no pedestrian amenities. Ridi…

We sabotage our transit. The Rail Runner doesn't go all the way to terminals at ABQ. That's insane! Were the Santa Fe airport people against it? What gives?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#944

Post by unshavedyak »

bhelkey wrote: post #731
unshavedyak wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait till those are generally available. I'd go out more if i could have a nice night and not have to deal with coming home later. Hell i live about 1.5h from Seattle and i never go because it's just awful (to me) dealing with cars there. If i could get a cab all the way there and back? Oh man, amazing. Or even park and ride would be nice. Cities seem so much more approachable to me if i don't need to drive t…

Does Uber not fill this need today?

No, at least not for me. As my other comment[1] mentions, there's enough friction with ubers that it's not an enjoyable experience. I'll use them in a pinch, but i avoid them if possible.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38012649

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#945

Post by vel0city »

bluGill wrote: post #533
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…

You don't want dynamic routing. You want frequent predictable routing. Dynamic means you call and 1-15 minutes later a bus comes. Then it takes you to your destination, but you have no idea when you will get there because sometimes it takes long detours for someone else. Frequent predictable routing means when you feel like leaving you just walk out the door confident that the bus will be there soon (even if you see…

But the bus is already stopped, its in my garage waiting for me. And I don't need to figure out what bus lines I need to change to or understand their schedules, the route for this bus happens to be exactly where I want to go.

I'm generally pro-transit and continue to vote for it, but in many places and routes a car is often more convenient if one can afford it.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#947

Post by screye »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #939
screye wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google... Phenomenal engineering, and horrible customer service How can a company with THAT MUCH MONEY be THAT plagued with an issue that everyone has been shouting about for more than a decade ?? I wonder if there is a business model in contracting in Google's customer care. I'm sure someone could do a lot better with Google's customer budget. Google can start off with a few departments, and then have performance…

Because Google doesn't exists for you, it exists for shareholders. They calculated that not having customer support is more profitable, end of story.

Being a losing member of the cloud race after inventing every modern systems paradigm is profitable ? Missing the entire LLM/Diffusion cycle despite having laid the groundwork for it is profitable ?

Their peer tech companies - MSFT, AAPL, AMZN all managed to become industry leaders into a completely different sector while maintaining their moat in their original revenue sources.

Google is still only makes money on ads. Google has created a monster products in B2C search, ads and software platforms. But, their B2C services are lagging far behind, and customer service really helps here.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#948

Post by kirubakaran »

jiveturkey42 wrote: post #462
paxys wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, let the people who voted to be guinea pigs be guinea pigs and leave the rest of us alone.

Innovation is seldom compatible with risk aversion. Some folks enjoy the risk

Ah yes, that's why California has very little innovation compared to other "business friendly" states /s

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#949

Post by bumby »

tim333 wrote: post #703
gerdesj wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief, two skateboarders lives saved by a Waymo in two consecutive comments. A couple of weeks ago I came across a biker partially lying in the road, trapped by his bike. I parked my van at an angle, so if it was hit from behind it should roll past him. I jumped out and performed an assessment (I'm a qualified, OK: certificated first aider). I diagnosed "pissed" and ascertained he was unharmed. We got his bike i…

Though Waymo et al aren't really competing with unusually good drivers, more with average drivers and they are probably safer there, on the roads they have been trained for. (one study - 100% reduction in the frequency of bodily injury claims and a 76% decrease in property damage - https://www.ktvu.com/news/waymo-says-its-driverless-cars-saf... )

I think this ignores the way society is governed. It's easy for an engineer-mindset to think the bar to be cleared is "better than the average driver". But these systems must operate in a society that is often employing something other than an engineering mindset.

I doubt the public and their political representatives (absent regulatory capture) would turn over control to a mere average robot. Do you think, for example, most people would be okay in a drone airliner that is equivalent to the average pilot? I suspect most people would balk at the idea. A large part of the public policy piece is about trust; humans have evolved to understand and predict the behavior of other humans which leads to mental models about who can be trusted and who can't. We don't have those same evolved intuitions about robuts and, when combined, with our natural risk aversion biases, it's going to take a lot more than "average performance" to get society as a whole to fully trust robotic safety critical operations.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#950

Post by josefresco »

screye wrote: post #930
Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

> driving extremely conservatively one-third of all road vehicle deaths resulted from speeding [2]. > traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd Because that is how most people in SF pedestrians are killed: in an unobstructed left against traffic. More than 300 people are injured by left-turning drivers every year in San Francisco. In 2019, 40% of traffic deaths occurred when drivers making left turns hit p…

> The average person crashes their car 3-4 times over a lifetime

Can you share your source? I didn't see it in the two links provided.

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