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Smart of Ford to partner with Google on this IMO. Besides Tesla who seem to know what they're doing, I find it pretty strange that most(?) other auto companies

Smart of Ford to partner with Google on this IMO. Besides Tesla who seem to know what they're doing, I find it pretty strange that most(?) other auto companies seem to be basically going it alone on autonomous driving with an (understandable) complete lack of know-how when it comes to software (think, e.g., Toyota with its 80K or however many global variables). I was listening to a radio program (KQED's Forum [1]) where they discussed the California DMV's new proposed regulations for self-driving cars, and from the point of view of someone who isn't insanely arrogant about humans' ability to safely operate cars, they seem quite draconian and luddite-ish. Google made a statement about these proposed regulations that echoed my feelings, but Audi was on the program defending the regulations and claiming anything approaching fully autonomous driving was a couple of decades away. This seems to indicate that they are at least a decade behind Google who claim they're already there or will be within ~5 years, so it sort of blows my mind that they wouldn't be trying hard to partner with them or another firm (perhaps Uber?) that actually understands software (and particularly AI). [1] http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201512180900 http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201512180900

HelloMcFly 11y ago
Audi may not think that autonomous vehicles are technologically decades away; rather, they may be trying to support that narrative so others do hold the belief, and subsequently sway legislators and the public into an over-cautious position.
- throwaway287391 11y ago
  Exactly -- it sounded to me like they think fully autonomous vehicles are decades away from being created at Audi, and hence would support legislation that prevents them from getting scooped by other companies with the tech chops to make it happen decades earlier.
  - HelloMcFly 11y ago
    What I'm saying is that even if they truly believe they can to those vehicles at roughly the same time (which I think they might), I don't think they would want to. Life's good for Audi, so any sea change (even if they are a part of it) carries more risk than reward.
cperciva 11y ago
complete lack of know-how when it comes to software (think, e.g., Toyota with its 80K or however many global variables). They might have more know-how than you realize. When you're writing safety-critical software, things like "dynamic memory allocation" and "local variables" become dangerous due to the risk of memory leaks and stack overflows.
- throwaway287391 11y ago
  You could be right, but somehow I'm skeptical that's really why they were using thousands of global variables. I'd certainly be interested in hearing any more educated takes on Toyota's use of global variables specifically or the auto industry's capabilities in software more generally; I have no first-hand knowledge and am making a lot of assumptions (hence the throwaway, downvote away ;) based on generalizations I've heard about non-software-focused companies that end up having to write some code for their physical products.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pacala 11y ago
  "Local variables" can be allocated to global addresses by the compiler/linker toolchain, barring recursive functions. Runtime code loading may require a bit of extra care, but I wonder if safety-critical software really needs DLLs.
visarga 11y ago
I don't think Google has a decade ahead of anyone in self driving cars. The AI technology and datasets are shared pretty liberally and as soon as someone makes a breakthrough, everyone can replicate it. It's much closer to fashion than rocket design in that sense. Google will be the first but I expect many to follow suit. Maybe if Google pulls another Android move and open-sources the driving tech, they could possibly gain 90% of the market share by making it less interesting to develop competing technologies. But look at other AI fields - speech recognition, image recognition, natural language processing - they are in the open and all improvements quickly circulate.
- throwaway287391 11y ago
  I definitely recognize the large amount of progress that's being made in ML and AI recently (I'm a computer vision researcher in grad school) and appreciate the amount of it that's being done in the open (at least through papers, but also commonly with open source code). However I haven't really seen what's happened in vision/NLP/speech happening with recent research in self-driving cars. Google in particular has been relatively secretive about their work and conservative in publishing any technical details, especially compared with their ML research. In fact, I don't think they've published any conference/journal papers or tech reports about autonomous driving at all (but would be happy to be corrected on this). As I understand it, they essentially bought Stanford's entire team working on the problem 5-10 years ago and have kept them working in stealth mode at Google X on it since then, sharing nothing beyond vague public statements with no technical details. Uber made a similar move, gutting CMU's robotics department a year or so ago, and I'd be kind of shocked to see them go in the opposite direction from Google on this re: publishing. I think, to a much greater extent than problems like computer vision or NLP, many of the breakthroughs and much of the difficulty in making self-driving cars work are all about painstaking engineering efforts to ensure that every base is covered than breakthroughs in AI, making it difficult for me to imagine how the knowledge could be shared short of, as you mentioned, an Android-like move where someone decides to open source essentially the entire project. Seems unlikely to me in this case, but you never know.
  - MrQuincle 11y ago
csours 11y ago
I read remarks by Sergio Marchionne (CEO FCA - Fiat Chrysler) where he said that drivers enjoy driving and have a spiritual connection with their car (as I recall, I can't find the article). Its quite odd to read that. A LOT of people drive cars they hate, in traffic they hate, and would much rather hand over control.
Animats 11y ago
The CA DMV is being reasonable about this. 11 companies have applied to test autonomous vehicles on California highways, and some of them may not work very well. After all, Tesla just shipped a beta version of automatic driving, and it wasn't very good. Tesla's system is just lane keeping plus automatic cruse control (NHTSA level 2) plus hype, minus a hands-on-wheel sensor. Read Road and Track's critique.[2] California does have experience in this area. Caltrans had automatic driving demos in 1997, when Yang and Brin were still students at Stanford.[1] As I've pointed out previously, NHTSA Level 2 systems are not good enough for hands-off driving, but, because they can handle simple situations like normal freeway driving, create the illusion that they are. This is the "deadly valley". Drivers are just not going to be paying close attention with the system engaged. It takes several seconds for a driver to detect trouble and take over, by which time it may be too late. NHTSA Level 3 systems (roughly what Google has driving around Mountain View) have real situational awareness and a good driving record. What Google has now should be viewed as a floor for automatic driving competence. Anything less than that, and the system has to make sure the driver's hands are on the wheel. On the liability front, Volvo's CEO says that the manufacturer must accept liability for accidents when driving automatically. That's probably the way this is going to go. Tesla would like to off-load that liability onto the driver, but that probably isn't the way this is going to go. The first self-driving cars will probably be leased on operating leases, so that insurance, maintenance, and vehicle cost are bundled together. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9G6JRUmg_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9G6JRUmg_A [2] http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27060/model-s-owner-already-has-close-call-while-using-tesla-autopilot/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27060/model-s-owner...
- jsolson 11y ago
  I'm actually pretty happy with the Tesla system, and it DOES ask you to hold the wheel in sharp turns, faded lane markings, etc. It complains loudly if you ignore it. It's miles from full autonomy, of course, but for what it does it works quite well in my experience driving between Seattle and Whistler, BC in snow, rain, and heavy wind twice in the last month (I only received the autopilot update a few weeks ago). It has clear limits and it's quite aware of them in general, protectively requiring drivers to take over before it runs up against them.

HelloMcFly 11y ago

Audi may not think that autonomous vehicles are technologically decades away; rather, they may be trying to support that narrative so others do hold the belief, and subsequently sway legislators and the public into an over-cautious position.

throwaway287391 11y ago
Exactly -- it sounded to me like they think fully autonomous vehicles are decades away from being created at Audi, and hence would support legislation that prevents them from getting scooped by other companies with the tech chops to make it happen decades earlier.
- HelloMcFly 11y ago
  What I'm saying is that even if they truly believe they can to those vehicles at roughly the same time (which I think they might), I don't think they would want to. Life's good for Audi, so any sea change (even if they are a part of it) carries more risk than reward.

cperciva 11y ago

complete lack of know-how when it comes to software (think, e.g., Toyota with its 80K or however many global variables). They might have more know-how than you realize. When you're writing safety-critical software, things like "dynamic memory allocation" and "local variables" become dangerous due to the risk of memory leaks and stack overflows.

throwaway287391 11y ago
You could be right, but somehow I'm skeptical that's really why they were using thousands of global variables. I'd certainly be interested in hearing any more educated takes on Toyota's use of global variables specifically or the auto industry's capabilities in software more generally; I have no first-hand knowledge and am making a lot of assumptions (hence the throwaway, downvote away ;) based on generalizations I've heard about non-software-focused companies that end up having to write some code for their physical products.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pacala 11y ago
"Local variables" can be allocated to global addresses by the compiler/linker toolchain, barring recursive functions. Runtime code loading may require a bit of extra care, but I wonder if safety-critical software really needs DLLs.

visarga 11y ago

I don't think Google has a decade ahead of anyone in self driving cars. The AI technology and datasets are shared pretty liberally and as soon as someone makes a breakthrough, everyone can replicate it. It's much closer to fashion than rocket design in that sense. Google will be the first but I expect many to follow suit. Maybe if Google pulls another Android move and open-sources the driving tech, they could possibly gain 90% of the market share by making it less interesting to develop competing technologies. But look at other AI fields - speech recognition, image recognition, natural language processing - they are in the open and all improvements quickly circulate.

throwaway287391 11y ago
I definitely recognize the large amount of progress that's being made in ML and AI recently (I'm a computer vision researcher in grad school) and appreciate the amount of it that's being done in the open (at least through papers, but also commonly with open source code). However I haven't really seen what's happened in vision/NLP/speech happening with recent research in self-driving cars. Google in particular has been relatively secretive about their work and conservative in publishing any technical details, especially compared with their ML research. In fact, I don't think they've published any conference/journal papers or tech reports about autonomous driving at all (but would be happy to be corrected on this). As I understand it, they essentially bought Stanford's entire team working on the problem 5-10 years ago and have kept them working in stealth mode at Google X on it since then, sharing nothing beyond vague public statements with no technical details. Uber made a similar move, gutting CMU's robotics department a year or so ago, and I'd be kind of shocked to see them go in the opposite direction from Google on this re: publishing. I think, to a much greater extent than problems like computer vision or NLP, many of the breakthroughs and much of the difficulty in making self-driving cars work are all about painstaking engineering efforts to ensure that every base is covered than breakthroughs in AI, making it difficult for me to imagine how the knowledge could be shared short of, as you mentioned, an Android-like move where someone decides to open source essentially the entire project. Seems unlikely to me in this case, but you never know.
- MrQuincle 11y ago

csours 11y ago

I read remarks by Sergio Marchionne (CEO FCA - Fiat Chrysler) where he said that drivers enjoy driving and have a spiritual connection with their car (as I recall, I can't find the article). Its quite odd to read that. A LOT of people drive cars they hate, in traffic they hate, and would much rather hand over control.

Animats 11y ago

The CA DMV is being reasonable about this. 11 companies have applied to test autonomous vehicles on California highways, and some of them may not work very well. After all, Tesla just shipped a beta version of automatic driving, and it wasn't very good. Tesla's system is just lane keeping plus automatic cruse control (NHTSA level 2) plus hype, minus a hands-on-wheel sensor. Read Road and Track's critique.[2] California does have experience in this area. Caltrans had automatic driving demos in 1997, when Yang and Brin were still students at Stanford.[1] As I've pointed out previously, NHTSA Level 2 systems are not good enough for hands-off driving, but, because they can handle simple situations like normal freeway driving, create the illusion that they are. This is the "deadly valley". Drivers are just not going to be paying close attention with the system engaged. It takes several seconds for a driver to detect trouble and take over, by which time it may be too late. NHTSA Level 3 systems (roughly what Google has driving around Mountain View) have real situational awareness and a good driving record. What Google has now should be viewed as a floor for automatic driving competence. Anything less than that, and the system has to make sure the driver's hands are on the wheel. On the liability front, Volvo's CEO says that the manufacturer must accept liability for accidents when driving automatically. That's probably the way this is going to go. Tesla would like to off-load that liability onto the driver, but that probably isn't the way this is going to go. The first self-driving cars will probably be leased on operating leases, so that insurance, maintenance, and vehicle cost are bundled together. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9G6JRUmg_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9G6JRUmg_A [2] http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27060/model-s-owner-already-has-close-call-while-using-tesla-autopilot/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27060/model-s-owner...

jsolson 11y ago
I'm actually pretty happy with the Tesla system, and it DOES ask you to hold the wheel in sharp turns, faded lane markings, etc. It complains loudly if you ignore it. It's miles from full autonomy, of course, but for what it does it works quite well in my experience driving between Seattle and Whistler, BC in snow, rain, and heavy wind twice in the last month (I only received the autopilot update a few weeks ago). It has clear limits and it's quite aware of them in general, protectively requiring drivers to take over before it runs up against them.