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Personally, I feel we are approaching the self driving situation backwards. We are so heavily invested in current technology that we are trying to shoehorn exi

Personally, I feel we are approaching the self driving situation backwards. We are so heavily invested in current technology that we are trying to shoehorn existing tech into doin something it was not designed to be autonomous in the first place. Imagine how much easier it would be, for example, if roads had embedded markers (like magnets or RFID chips) that designated lanes, speed limits, and other road rules and weather conditions. AI vehicles would simply need to read this information and adjust accordingly. But, unfortunately, this would be almost unfeasible in today's world vecause a) it depends on every car following the same rules and that's impossible if you have human drivers and b) it would require massive investment and national-level cooperation to change the infrastructure.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Imagine how much easier it would be, for example, if roads had embedded markers (like magnets or RFID chips) that designated lanes, speed limits, and other road rules and weather conditions. AI vehicles would simply need to read this information and adjust accordingly. Speed limits can be defined as metadata on existing mapping data. Existing vehicles, such as Tesla's with their autopilot system and GPS receivers, can "define" existing lanes by refining existing mapping data using their drivers as expert system trainers [1]. You don't need national-level cooperation to change infrastructure; you just need a massively automated system for collecting data and training based on it. Google and Tesla are doing both, just in different ways. [1] http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-building-maps-autopilot-drivers/ http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-building-maps-autopilot-drive...
VLM 11y ago
It wouldn't help very much. We need visual processing and heuristic logic to handle a kid on the side of the road chasing a ball unlikely to intersect and catch it before he enters traffic. Given that mandatory ability, reading a speed limit sign is pretty trivial. Given that its very unusual for an oncoming car to swerve into your lane, and a giant pothole in the oncoming lane, and the car sees three cars swerve into your lane taking turns, what are the odds of the next car hitting you head on? Compared to this puzzler, interpreting a stop sign is pretty easy. Also the human drivers presumably will not understand the weird behavior of an enhanced self driving car, unless the human infrastructure matched the automatic infrastructure. Of course you could analyze the human data visually to predict the human behavior, but then why bother with the automatic hardware sensors? I guess a bad automobile analogy is if you must design this pickup truck to safely haul a 8000 pound trailer, then a 300 pound trailer will not overtax it.
Gratsby 11y ago
Let's say for instance we wanted an RFID indicator for each lane every 200 feet. You're talking about 13 million RFID chips that would need to be installed on 164,000 miles of roadway - just to get the interstate highways covered. Now think about the fact that these chips are going to need to sit static and not be replaced for more than 15 years at a time. So you have to come up with a way to house them such that they will not be affected by > 150 degree heat or by < -50 degree (F) cold. And then think about the fact that it takes ~6 months for the government wheels to spin in the right direction for a pothole to be filled in. The project to put RFID, or any new technology on the roadways in the US will have to involve federal cooperation as well as the governments of 50 states and countless local governments. It will be 100 times more expensive than any other venture using the same technology. Look at the Big Dig project in Boston. It took 25 years, $24 billion and several acts of congress to get it to a state where they could start working out the kinks like "why do the guardrails keep killing people". The scale of solving this problem "the right way" is incredible. I don't disagree with you entirely. But I think any change like that is a solid 100 years out into the future.
- mirkules 11y ago
  Of course, you and I are pretty much on the same page. The complexity and cost would be staggering to redesign the whole thing. But maybe there are smarter, incremental ways to go about it. Perhaps mandate a special paint for lane markers to include magnetic paint or some kind of nanotech. We already do repairs on roads, repaint, replace "cat's eyes markers" etc, so modifying the materials used should be easier. I fully agree it's going to take a long while for everyone to adopt this, and one of the keys will be proving the AI tech - which then becomes a chicken and egg problem. Maybe Google/Tesla are laying the groundwork for that, and on second thought maybe I'm wrong about us thinking about this the backwards. Perhaps this "over-engineered" solution (for the lack of a beter word) is exactly what we need to then later optimize for "the right way".
  - Gratsby 11y ago
    I think about the half-measures like new paint for lane markers and I'm equally skeptical, but that's probably just me being pessimistic. All we really need is an idea that we can't fathom today. Google has a library of images of just about every street in the states. If they could run that same project and in the process lay out markers of some sort that would be helpful for the next generation of autonomous vehicles, then from that point forward incremental change is simply a matter of re-tooling an autonomous vehicle. Cooperation from local governments could be pushed through in a similar way that the 55 MPH speed limit happened. Of all the "billion dollar ideas" floating around silicon valley, the person/investment group who's willing to take on an idea like this to a nationwide scale is going to be the winner. The first round doesn't even need to be high tech. They could have a paint ball gun hanging out the side of a car spraying out a biodegradable path that a series of other cars can follow. Those cars could then train other cars. ... Yeah, I'm flip flopping. I'm actually an idealist deep down inside. Sometimes I forget that for a little while.
agumonkey 11y ago
I feel the same but refactoring the whole driving infrastructure will only happen if people see SDV as that much valuable and not overnight. If SDV get critical mass, what you say will happen.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> Imagine how much easier it would be, for example, if roads had embedded markers (like magnets or RFID chips) that designated lanes, speed limits, and other road rules and weather conditions. AI vehicles would simply need to read this information and adjust accordingly. Speed limits can be defined as metadata on existing mapping data. Existing vehicles, such as Tesla's with their autopilot system and GPS receivers, can "define" existing lanes by refining existing mapping data using their drivers as expert system trainers [1]. You don't need national-level cooperation to change infrastructure; you just need a massively automated system for collecting data and training based on it. Google and Tesla are doing both, just in different ways. [1] http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-building-maps-autopilot-drivers/ http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-building-maps-autopilot-drive...

VLM 11y ago

It wouldn't help very much. We need visual processing and heuristic logic to handle a kid on the side of the road chasing a ball unlikely to intersect and catch it before he enters traffic. Given that mandatory ability, reading a speed limit sign is pretty trivial. Given that its very unusual for an oncoming car to swerve into your lane, and a giant pothole in the oncoming lane, and the car sees three cars swerve into your lane taking turns, what are the odds of the next car hitting you head on? Compared to this puzzler, interpreting a stop sign is pretty easy. Also the human drivers presumably will not understand the weird behavior of an enhanced self driving car, unless the human infrastructure matched the automatic infrastructure. Of course you could analyze the human data visually to predict the human behavior, but then why bother with the automatic hardware sensors? I guess a bad automobile analogy is if you must design this pickup truck to safely haul a 8000 pound trailer, then a 300 pound trailer will not overtax it.

Gratsby 11y ago

Let's say for instance we wanted an RFID indicator for each lane every 200 feet. You're talking about 13 million RFID chips that would need to be installed on 164,000 miles of roadway - just to get the interstate highways covered. Now think about the fact that these chips are going to need to sit static and not be replaced for more than 15 years at a time. So you have to come up with a way to house them such that they will not be affected by > 150 degree heat or by < -50 degree (F) cold. And then think about the fact that it takes ~6 months for the government wheels to spin in the right direction for a pothole to be filled in. The project to put RFID, or any new technology on the roadways in the US will have to involve federal cooperation as well as the governments of 50 states and countless local governments. It will be 100 times more expensive than any other venture using the same technology. Look at the Big Dig project in Boston. It took 25 years, $24 billion and several acts of congress to get it to a state where they could start working out the kinks like "why do the guardrails keep killing people". The scale of solving this problem "the right way" is incredible. I don't disagree with you entirely. But I think any change like that is a solid 100 years out into the future.

mirkules 11y ago
Of course, you and I are pretty much on the same page. The complexity and cost would be staggering to redesign the whole thing. But maybe there are smarter, incremental ways to go about it. Perhaps mandate a special paint for lane markers to include magnetic paint or some kind of nanotech. We already do repairs on roads, repaint, replace "cat's eyes markers" etc, so modifying the materials used should be easier. I fully agree it's going to take a long while for everyone to adopt this, and one of the keys will be proving the AI tech - which then becomes a chicken and egg problem. Maybe Google/Tesla are laying the groundwork for that, and on second thought maybe I'm wrong about us thinking about this the backwards. Perhaps this "over-engineered" solution (for the lack of a beter word) is exactly what we need to then later optimize for "the right way".
- Gratsby 11y ago
  I think about the half-measures like new paint for lane markers and I'm equally skeptical, but that's probably just me being pessimistic. All we really need is an idea that we can't fathom today. Google has a library of images of just about every street in the states. If they could run that same project and in the process lay out markers of some sort that would be helpful for the next generation of autonomous vehicles, then from that point forward incremental change is simply a matter of re-tooling an autonomous vehicle. Cooperation from local governments could be pushed through in a similar way that the 55 MPH speed limit happened. Of all the "billion dollar ideas" floating around silicon valley, the person/investment group who's willing to take on an idea like this to a nationwide scale is going to be the winner. The first round doesn't even need to be high tech. They could have a paint ball gun hanging out the side of a car spraying out a biodegradable path that a series of other cars can follow. Those cars could then train other cars. ... Yeah, I'm flip flopping. I'm actually an idealist deep down inside. Sometimes I forget that for a little while.

agumonkey 11y ago

I feel the same but refactoring the whole driving infrastructure will only happen if people see SDV as that much valuable and not overnight. If SDV get critical mass, what you say will happen.