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That's twisting what they said. Google (and everyone else working on self-driving) is still targeting a 2020 timeframe for autonomous vehicles to be ready for

That's twisting what they said. Google (and everyone else working on self-driving) is still targeting a 2020 timeframe for autonomous vehicles to be ready for the public [1]. However, the first cars that hit the road will likely be somewhat limited to certain geographies and weather conditions until all the corner cases are figured out and the sensor tech gets a bit better. I think it's more likely that BD's robotics plans just don't mesh with Google's goals since BD is mostly focused on military tech, and Google is not. It just doesn't fit in well with the kinds of things X and the other Alphabet hardware teams are working on. [1] http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will-be-ready-2020-1784150 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-inc-says-self-driving-car-will...

azakai 11y ago
That older link looks outdated based on this newer information. Google admitted now that it will take 5-30 years to achieve the full goals here. Also, that this technology will show up in pieces - cars will become more and more autonomous. And that makes sense, we already have cars from multiple manufacturers that can drive autonomously on highways, for example. The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  > The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive. The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Google thinks. There are six billion people on the planet, and it only takes one governor or president to decide that some local company's autonomous cars are "good enough" to serve as driverless cabs and they decide they want to reap the economic benefit of being a first mover and all of the sudden it's a geopolitical arms race. We're already past the point where autonomous cars can drive many routes more safely than a typical human. That's just a fact of the universe. You can speculate that the entire world's political forces will form a perfect coalition to prevent the removal of steering wheels from those cars for 30 years, but I don't think that's how politics works.
  - rmah 11y ago
    What economic benefits? Seriously, I don't see any. I mean, I see some for the producers of said cars, but not for a city that mandates only self-driving taxis.
    - erikpukinskis 11y ago
      Fewer workers dying. Death is reverse immigration. Also getting two additional hours of productivity for commuters.
WalterSear 11y ago
A former google AI researcher speculated on my facebook feed that google might want to use their Deepmind tech across all their AI ventures, and that Boston Dynamics, having taken a very different path, might not be in an easy position to switch over.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  I always assumed practical non-trundling robotics would have a "Don't fall over" layer, a "walk this way" layer, and a "Let's see what's over there" layer - much like the layers in a human brain. Deepmind would be good for strategy and goal setting, but maybe not so great at the millisecond-to-millisecond control needed to not fall over - which is the layer BD seem to have solved. So I would have expected a natural synergy.
  - Animats 11y ago
    That's about right. Getting through the next few seconds in life is mostly about not falling over and not bumping into stuff. Once you have that, you can back-seat drive it with goal oriented systems. On the other hand, using machine learning to tune your lower level control loops is extremely useful. (I used to think this was a path to AI, and went on a long detour through adaptive feedforward control and system identification. But in the end, machine learning did more for control theory than control theory did for machine learning.)

azakai 11y ago

That older link looks outdated based on this newer information. Google admitted now that it will take 5-30 years to achieve the full goals here. Also, that this technology will show up in pieces - cars will become more and more autonomous. And that makes sense, we already have cars from multiple manufacturers that can drive autonomously on highways, for example. The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive.

erikpukinskis 11y ago
> The new information Google provided is that the full "no gas pedal, no brake pedal, can drive anywhere" dream of a fully autonomous car will take up to 30 years to arrive. The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Google thinks. There are six billion people on the planet, and it only takes one governor or president to decide that some local company's autonomous cars are "good enough" to serve as driverless cabs and they decide they want to reap the economic benefit of being a first mover and all of the sudden it's a geopolitical arms race. We're already past the point where autonomous cars can drive many routes more safely than a typical human. That's just a fact of the universe. You can speculate that the entire world's political forces will form a perfect coalition to prevent the removal of steering wheels from those cars for 30 years, but I don't think that's how politics works.
- rmah 11y ago
  What economic benefits? Seriously, I don't see any. I mean, I see some for the producers of said cars, but not for a city that mandates only self-driving taxis.
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    Fewer workers dying. Death is reverse immigration. Also getting two additional hours of productivity for commuters.

WalterSear 11y ago

A former google AI researcher speculated on my facebook feed that google might want to use their Deepmind tech across all their AI ventures, and that Boston Dynamics, having taken a very different path, might not be in an easy position to switch over.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
I always assumed practical non-trundling robotics would have a "Don't fall over" layer, a "walk this way" layer, and a "Let's see what's over there" layer - much like the layers in a human brain. Deepmind would be good for strategy and goal setting, but maybe not so great at the millisecond-to-millisecond control needed to not fall over - which is the layer BD seem to have solved. So I would have expected a natural synergy.
- Animats 11y ago
  That's about right. Getting through the next few seconds in life is mostly about not falling over and not bumping into stuff. Once you have that, you can back-seat drive it with goal oriented systems. On the other hand, using machine learning to tune your lower level control loops is extremely useful. (I used to think this was a path to AI, and went on a long detour through adaptive feedforward control and system identification. But in the end, machine learning did more for control theory than control theory did for machine learning.)