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Uber starts self-driving car pickups in Pittsburgh
- murukesh_s 10y agoWonder how much of it will succeed in developing nations, where many roads are not well laid out and most importantly not well mannered.. On the flip side, the jobs of drivers are protected until the AI tech improves to cover complex scenarios or the infrastructure improves drastically, both of which can take decades IMO.
- rubber_duck 10y ago>Wonder how much of it will succeed in developing nations, where many roads are not well laid out and most importantly not well mannered Not to mention that the difference between cost of AI equipment (fixed) compared to driver salary (order of magnitude lower) is not even close to developed nations.
- jballanc 10y agoThere's a cost you're missing in your equation. Automobile accidents are a major cause of death, particularly for individuals in their prime productive years (unlike, say, cigarettes which still typically wait until you're toward the end of your career to kill you). If automated cars can achieve even a fraction of the reduction in automobile deaths that they're predicted too, any developing nation would be stupid not to heavily subsidize widespread deployment of this tech.
- rubber_duck 10y agoSorry but that's ridiculous, were talking about countries where a decent % of population in rural areas doesn't even have basic sanitary conditions and you are suggesting they should burn cash on AI cars ?
- et-al 10y agoGenerally, safety is prioritized less in developing nations. How many developing nations have building codes, workplace laws, environmental regulation comparable to America? And it's not just because we love litigation.
- sqeaky 10y agoI disagree, with your wording at least. Safety is generally prioritized everywhere as a key goal. It is just that if you live in rural India and are part of the 10% of the population that has no access to clean water Cholera is much more likely to kill you than an reckless driver. Focusing on securing water in these regions is prioritizing safety. People are smart to focus on things more likely to kill them.
- et-al 10y agoYeah, I agree my original wording could have been better. However, I think both of us are in agreement that if you were that person in a developing country, you'd chance drinking potentially infected water over dehydrating. Just as one would work for pennies at a sketchy job site instead of not working and not being able to buy food at the end of the day. And going back to the original discussion, automobile accidents are an abstraction, a probable cause of death, versus something more definite like starvation.
- jballanc 10y agoMost do. These days, most building codes are international and places like Turkey (where I lived up until very recently) now have earthquake codes on par with California due to recent experience with a devastating quake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_İzmit_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_İzmit_earthquake). Granted, enforcement may not be on par with the US, but that's more a question of corruption as a general problem, not limited or specific to safety. That said, Turkey has a stupidly high traffic accident death rate. So, yes, as the 19th biggest economy in the world, with 70+ million people, I think heavily subsidizing AI cars would definitely be in the country's best interest (and well within its means...Turkey already has at least one world-famous robotics laboratory). I'd wager economies number 20-50 are probably in similar situations. Yes, truly impoverished nations and regions of nations likely have more important things to worry about, but I'd still wager at least ⅕ the world's population falls into the "can't afford AI cars individually, but would benefit from gov't subsidization of such".
- ryuker16 10y agoLabor is so cheap in developing nations that automated anything is rare. It was not uncommon for venues to over staff by 50%-200% even on slow nights becuase labor is so cheap. Ever been to a club where security outnumbers customers 5 to 1 or waiters huddle in a corner on a slow night in big groups of 10? The complex senarios and infrastructure won't take decades. Google's driving car has performed insanely well so far for millions of miles safely.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoIn Brazil I took some buses out in the countryside where they had an additional employee to collect the fare from passengers entering, sitting just behind the driver who did nothing while the bus was stopped.
- et-al 10y agoSometimes it's just about keeping people employed, which gives a person a sense of purpose, and may prevent them from protesting.
- ryuker16 10y agoIt's moreso becuase it's 50 cents to $1 an hour or a flat rate fee. Usually the extras also do stuff like security or function as backups labor. Bartender cancels last minutes? At least one of these 10 muscle head security guys likely knows how to mix drinks.
- Symbiote 10y agoA "bus conductor" was very common decades ago in wealthy countries, before being replaced with random ticket inspections or tickets being sold by the driver. I've seen them in most developing countries I've visited. Even on ~15 seat minibuses, where as well as selling tickets the conductor can help with luggage, and keep a lookout for potential passengers.
- koolba 10y agoIt'd be cool if they have more than one "AI driving personality" and users can rate them.
- whamlastxmas 10y agoOr celebrity personalities. I want Jennifer Lawrence to drive me around and tell me how much she likes eating junk food.
- koolba 10y agoI meant different patterns for acceleration/braking. More aggressive v.s. less aggressive. If it's all within the realm of a safe ride, they could eventually optimize the AI driver better to the passenger. In my case, I like having a more aggressive driver as long as they keep things safe. Others prefer "10 and 2 while keeping it exactly at 55 mph".
- leogiertz 10y agoEven if it's safe (measured by say accidents) aggressive driving still causes problems for pedestrians and other drivers.
- koolba 10y agoI would guess there's a range of accelerations and relative to posted speeds that would be equally safe. Optimizing for passenger preference within that range is what I am referring to.
- leogiertz 10y agoAnd I'm saying that there are people not inside your car that cares about how you're driving. Most of Uber's rides are in densely populated areas with plenty of other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
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- thevdude 10y agoI live just a bit outside of pittsburgh, but I'm not in town often enough to need an uber. I'm still probably going to head down and try to get picked up by one, though.
- jastanton 10y agoI do think it's cool that they are letting anybody ride in these. It will help make the transition easier for rolling out this feature if people have already ridden in the cars.
- danvoell 10y agoI agree. I think Google should follow suit on this. I think it will lead to quicker acceptance. That's not the lawyer in me talking though.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- narrowrail 10y agoFrom what I've read, it is actually invite-only, loyal Uber customers for now. When Uber makes the transition in 30 years to fully autonomous vehicles, I think people will be feeling swindled that they've had to hear about it for so long while still having a driver the whole time.
- jessaustin 10y agoIf it takes that long, there's no way Uber will still be around. They're planning on much sooner.
- emodendroket 10y agoI don't see why you'd feel cheated.
- mdorazio 10y agoA few things of interest here. 1) They're basically duplicating the early Google cars with mostly the same sensor suite bolted on top and integrated in the side panels. This is good because it means that unlike Tesla, they're planning for fully autonomous. 2) Since the human driver is still responsible for switching lanes, it looks like this is very early stage testing and data collection. 3) I think it's great that they're taking the approach of giving customers a view of what the car is doing via the back seat tablet, and even encouraging them to share. This is a great way to get people comfortable with the tech. 4) It still saddens me that everyone is keeping their autonomous data proprietary. How much faster could development go if Google let anyone have access to their million+ miles of driving sensor data instead of needing to collect it all from scratch?
- free2rhyme214 10y agoNumber 3 I totally agree. I don't agree with number 4 though. I think if you spend millions of dollars, time and energy to amass data then you shouldn't share it with your competition. You'd just make everyone's job easier.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dclowd9901 10y agoWhat if there was a middle ground where you could run your self-driving software in a Google simulation data set pulled from real world situations, so Google could essentially hide their data behind a testing black box? (Think codingame, etc). They could charge companies for the privilege of testing their software against that data.
- alanwatts 10y ago>You'd just make everyone's job easier. How is that a bad thing? 1,300,000 people die each year in car wrecks and another 20,000,000 - 50,000,000 more are injured and/or disabled. Google's motto is "Don't be evil" after all. Is valuing short term profits over millions of lives not "evil"? >Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. -Larry Page
- douche 10y agoI saw a report on the news this morning that Uber was going to be rolling out similar service in Boston "within the next 3-4 months". I hope the Farmer's Almanac is wrong, or else we will get an interesting test of how self-driving cars perform in severe ice and snow conditions.
- emodendroket 10y agoI'll let other people ride those first.
- maxerickson 10y agoWho knows about visibility problems but new vehicles in the US are already required to hand control of traction to a computer, because the computer is better at it than at least the majority of humans.
- akgerber 10y agoPittsburgh's weather isn't exactly mild. And its roadways are profoundly complex, both due to very steep topography and due to being a city trying to keep up extensive infrastructure after losing half its population. Examples: https://goo.gl/maps/gkJNuHFntgv https://goo.gl/maps/gkJNuHFntgv https://goo.gl/maps/F5eTFCnDgV92 https://goo.gl/maps/F5eTFCnDgV92
- MicroBerto 10y agoYeah, I'll sit on the sidelines while they figure the whole snow thing out. But in the summer and warm weather climates, this will come faster than anyone imagines. Things tend to move fast when billions of dollars in profits are at stake.
- therobot24 10y agoSince Uber is in very early stages of autonomy i'm assuming this is to prop up their IPO
- jonknee 10y agoYou typically don't go with an expensive ambitious money losing project to prop up an IPO.
- therobot24 10y agoclearly they have a larger strategy, however rolling out a fleet of (half working) autonomous vehicles is good press
- mastax 10y agoWorked for Musk! All you need is hype.
- Fricken 10y agoI can't find good info on their ridiculous sensor suite. I read in the spring their lone early prototype had 22 'coffee cup sized' cameras on the vehicle. By my count there are six 8 or 16 channel Lidar pucks positioned around the car not counting the big 64 channel spinning velodyne on top. There are at least 2 radar units, and likely also ultrasonic proximity sensors. Who knows what else, or what kind of compute they're packing in the trunk to manage all that data. Sensor overkill!
- chillingeffect 10y agolooking at the pictures of the cars, I'm starting to realize (fear) these images will be used for data collection as well! The cars are roving 360-degree cameras! Not that I'm paranoid personally, but these will give the owners a lot of information about peoples' movement patterns, a competitive advantage, an asset. For example, they could tell how many people wait at bus stops and sell that info to municipalities... They could look for trends in fashion on the sidewalks and sell it to clothing companies... Even if they don't achieve autonomy, just putting cameras any vehicle and re-selling the footage data-miners could be profitable.
- seanp2k2 10y agoI'm not looking forward to more business models built on the "let's collect data and sell it to people who hope to profit, probably through advertising" thing.
- jellicle 10y ago> self-driving car > two drivers in every car I want to buy dictionaries for every reporter who writes about these issues.
- KKKKkkkk1 10y agoI don't understand. Switching lanes is something that even AutoPilot can do. Is Uber deploying a lane-keeping system and calling it an autonomous vehicle?
- nojvek 10y agoThat's step 1. Once people get confortable then you move onto the next step. Even lane following is not an easy problem.
- mikey_p 10y agoI explained this above, it sounds like this is only an issue when the available lanes are blocked and they have to drive into oncoming traffic lanes, i.e. to get around an unloading truck or a taxi dropping someone off.
- fspacef 10y agoAs a college student in Pittsburgh I'd love to try this, anyone know a sure shot way to call one of the self driving ones vs. a standard uber?
- rhololkeolke 10y agoI know someone who worked at the ATC over the summer, so I asked him. He said there is no sure fire way to get a self driving one. You basically have to get lucky with the time of day and your start and end points being within the zone they are testing. I'm pretty sure the zone is the downtown area and areas near it. But I don't have exact details.
- ChrisBland 10y agoFrom what I heard on NPR this morning, they selected a few thousand users to be in the pilot program and only those users are able to get the self driving. Im guessing they looked at their past route data and user rating to find users to include.
- patrickread 10y agoToo bad. Being in Columbus, 3 hours from Pittsburgh, I'd love to road trip there just to try a self-driving Uber. But not sure I would if you have no way of dependably hailing one.
- dominotw 10y agoWhat It's Like To Ride In A (Nearly) Self-Driving Uber http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493823483/self-driving-cars-take-to-the-streets-of-pittsburgh-courtesy-of-uber http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493...
- sturmeh 10y agoIf this requires human intervention in case of malfunction that means it needs a sober passenger in control at all times. I feel like a large amount of users use Uber to avoid driving when they've consumed Alcohol and should not be driving. I wonder if this is just an interim stage.
- Diederich 10y agoI saw a car in San Francisco on Monday that had an Uber label on it. It was an SUV looking thing with sensors and devices all over the outside of it. As others have said, it looked like the early Google self driving cars.
- tomschlick 10y agoWhile that may not be using autonomous cars outside of Pittsburgh yet I wouldn't be surprised if they are driving some cars around other cities to digitally map them in preparation.
- Diederich 10y agoDefinitely. It seemed like the driver was holding the wheel at the moment I was looking, but that doesn't mean too much. Interesting times, no doubt!
- steveklabnik 10y agoI was expecting to hear at least something about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left , which is something that I'd find very interesting about autonomous cars.
- rhodin 10y agoThere's a mention of it in the WSJ article today [1], apparently they allow other cars to do the left, but not their own. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-ubers-new-self-driving-cars-in-pittsburgh-1473847202 http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-ubers-new-self-driving-ca...
- steveklabnik 10y agoNice, thanks for the link. That seems like a sensible start.
- blondiedondie 10y agoWell, this is amazing. Didn't think we'd see self-driving pickups any time soon. Guess when it finally does go completely automatic. I do wonder, however, if a crash ends up happening, how will the blame-game go?
- neom 10y agoWhat happens to the uber drivers over time?
- andresgottlieb 10y agoThey get another job
- vibrato 10y agoThe removal of driving jobs from the economy could be the catalyst for adopting basic income.
- asnyder 10y agoEither it's the catalyst for basic income, or the catalyst for the demise of capitalism and the beginning of the erosion of the fundamental premise of skilled human time being a valuable and scare commodity eventually leading to many very negative scenarios and suffering around the world. Let's hope it's for basic income...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoOr for further quarantining high- and low-income populations.
- kakabanga 10y agoThis is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future. Its business model was sacrificing someone's income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone. Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.
- goshx 10y agoWithout hurting anyone? The goal is to don't need drivers.
- gorkemyurt 10y agoDrivers don't care! No one thinks they are going to be an Uber driver forever most think its a temporary thing. I am pretty confident self driving cars are going to create more jobs than they destroy. Whole new businesses will be economically viable once the transportation costs are super low, traffic is less of a problem and when you don't need parking. On demand economy 2.0.
- slig 10y agoThe Uber drivers probably not, but I bet the truck drivers really care, and they're 3.5 million on the USA, which is more than 1% of the population.
- kctess5 10y agoThe introduction of self-driving cars would definitely displace a large number of jobs - especially truck drivers - but this is not exactly a new trend. Technological unemployment has been affecting the job distribution for hundreds of years, with inventions like the wheel, plow, tractor, weaving machine, etc having a huge impact. In the 1900s, 41% of the workforce was in agriculture, by the 30s it was nearly half that at 21.5%, and in 2000 it was 1.9% [1]. I'm definitely interested to see how this iteration plays out over the next few decades. [1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment
- euroclydon 10y agoWhy can't Uber purchase a fleet of vehicles and let humans drive them? They can still have some auto-pilot functionality. Let's say at time T=0, a few million Uber cars are parked or on the road. Users enter their travel plans into the app, and also indicate whether they are will to make an extra stop or more, whether they can drive a leg, or whether they desire a solo/express route. Then they either walk out to the parking lot and start driving, or wait to be picked up. So now, everyone in the Uber cars exists on this spectrum: Express Passenger -> Driver for my leg -> Driver plus a little extra -> Driver plus a lot extra -> Full time Uber driver. Let the market and scheduling algorithms work out getting people and cars to the right places are the right time. Now I don't need to own a car and we don't need to have highly functional self-driving vehicles.
- vertex-four 10y agoIn practice, people who don't own a car, but can afford to rent one on a semi-regular basis, also don't really want to drive much.
- LrnByTeach 10y agoYou got pretty good point, wait a year from today, couple of those 5 Driver profiles you mentioned above will be available from Uber . I will take this to next step, By JUNE 2018 when you have 200 miles(battery) Electric cars are on roads (from Nissan, Tesla), Uber offer above all the 5 Driver profiles . At the end of the day Cars will be parked in your drive way ( if you signup ) and you take care of charging overnight( after 11 PM to get electricity at 1/4 cost) in return Uber will give you UBER Milage credits which you can use whenever you /family rides. These Uber milage credits are especially attractive to many casual drivers ( non Full time) and also good for UBER as they give only Credits(keeping 100% of fare cash) and it also put pressure on FULL time Drivers cut which is 80% today as more CASUAL driver pool is available in this new scheme . Parking cars on People garage is economical compared on centralized location As it takes extra time to get cars back to neighborhoods where people need morning rides and also Uber saves on Real estate cost . UBER may have some centralized locations for Cars maintenance/repairs etc.. When 100% self-driving is ready by 2020/2021 ( both from Govt. regulation and technology side), All you have is Electric Self-driving Software Powered Cars (ESS Cars) parked all over in your neighborhood people Parking LOTS ( People get Mileage Credit for allowing their parking LOTS) and unlock and drive TO YOU from your mobile Phone . [Ford says 100% self-driving in 5 years](http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/technology/ford-self-driving-cars-five-years/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/technology/ford-self-driving...)
- dougmany 10y agoPutting together this story and the story about the self-driving car engineer nano degree from Udacity, I am envisioning a future where every self driving car has an accompanying engineer. Much as Steam engines needed an engineer to operate, self driving cars will need Engineers to be monitored.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- joesmo 10y agoPretty much defeats the whole purpose for developing the self driving car, no? Why not just have the guy drive then, if you still have to pay him? And now that he needs a degree, he'll probably cost more than a driver. Not to mention, there's likely nothing for him to do once cars are autonomous.
- Animats 10y agoWell, they certainly didn't under-sensor the thing. The big model Velodyne LIDAR, a small LIDAR looking upward, stereo cameras in all directions, and probably some radars. The big rotating Velodyne thing has got to go. But so far, nobody who claims to have a suitable solid-state 3D LIDAR is actually shipping. Quanergy claimed a solid-state LIDAR suitable for automotive use [1][2] and showed it at CES, but never shipped. Their web site hasn't been updated since 2015. They were aiming at a price point around $100. Advanced Scientific Concepts has a suitable LIDAR that costs far too much. Space-X uses an ASC unit on the Dragon capsule for docking. ASC announced they were getting into automotive in 2012 but never shipped.[3] Somebody is going to do this soon. The technology works. It's a cost problem. Once the cost comes down, cars can have multiple LIDARs (at least fore and aft) near the top of the windshield and rear window. This gets rid of all that topside gear. [1] http://www.quanergy.com/products/ http://www.quanergy.com/products/ [2] http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726-louay-eldada-quanergy-systems.pdf http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726... [3] http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/automotive.htm http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/autom...
- spade 10y agoSince self-driving cars are still a new experience for most people, all of that visible topside gear might give riders a sense of security.
- Animats 10y agoIt looks more like a way to simplify manufacturing. Put all the sensors in one factory-built topside unit, then bolt that to the car. Less labor intensive than hanging stuff all over the car, cheaper in small volumes than integration with the car body, and you can align everything during manufacturing. This sort of add-on thing is temporary. Another generation and cars will have an equally good sensor suite, but it will barely show.
- bhollan 10y agoI was thinking the exact same thing. It's not a beauty contest as long as Uber is owning the prototype fleet. Plus, I think it will clue in other drivers to: "Dude, that was one of those 'driverless ubers' right?"
- kcherukuri23 10y agoI'm wondering what the potential will be for increased crime/theft of the automated cars. I'm sure there will be a security fallthrough to track cars that have somehow been overridden off of autopilot.
- brainfog 10y ago> guy > he > he'll > him
- vxNsr 10y agoAlso you've missed a "him"
- falsestprophet 10y agoThe pronouns he and him have been prescribed for use to describe a person of unknown gender for centuries. You have to willfully ignore the English language to find a misogynistic conspiracy in pronouns.
- joesmo 10y agoCould you write something less meaningful?
- 0xfff 10y agoMuh pronouns. I'm such a victim.
- sctb 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498644 and marked it off-topic.
- ctz 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45 This is a promotional video produced by Uber. It clearly shows the vehicle illegally entering a crosswalk containing pedestrians. That's not a great start, and not particularly good advertising.
- gthtjtkt 10y agoI could be wrong, but I don't think that's illegal as long as there's a safe distance between them. Otherwise, it would be practically impossible to make turns in a city...
- alanh 10y agoSmiling at the underpinning argument that a law cannot exist if it would be impractical to actually enforce.
- gthtjtkt 10y agoI believe "irrational" is the word you're looking for. If the intersection is wide enough that you can turn while maintaining a safe distance, then what purpose would such a law serve? Why increase congestion for little or no benefit?
- alanh 10y agoOnce, at 2:30 AM in Arizona, I executed a legal right-on-red via a rolling stop. The streets were empty, and I endangered no one. This is not a contested fact. But an officer, unidentifiable in the dark some hundred feet behind me, cited me for "not stopping at a red light" due to the fact my vehicle did not come to a complete stop. Arizona has a state law, named after an unfortunate little girl killed by an asshole who blew through a red light, which makes any "red light violation" an automatic 3 points on your license and applies some certain minimum fine. (8 points triggers a suspension.) Now despite the fact that there is an entire world of difference between (A) running a red light into cross traffic and (B) performing a California stop at an empty intersection, when I showed up to contest the ticket, the judge mocked me for my suggestion that, as I had endangered no one and not been reckless, I had not violated the spirit of the law and that the ticket should be dismissed. I had to pay the fine and accept the points. State law. "Irrational" may well be the word I should have used, but it changes nothing. What purpose, indeed, was served by such a strict interpretation of the law?
- rwhitman 10y agoUsing Pittsburgh as a proving ground is a smart move - not just because that happens to be where CMU is located but if you can train a self-driving car to navigate Pittsburgh, you've pretty much trained it to navigate anywhere. In Pittsburgh you have a haphazard street grid with unconventional and often poorly maintained road conditions, hills with poor visibility, narrow streets, weird unpredictable driver behavior like making left turns in front of oncoming traffic as a light turns green (my friends call this the "pittsburgh left"), every sort of weather condition imaginable including heavy rain snow and ice, etc etc. A self driving car that can navigate Pittsburgh without ever needing driver input is truly autonomous
- what_ever 10y agoI think it had more to with the first reason than the second - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/uber-would-like-to-buy-your-robotics-department.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/uber-would-like-t... https://www.fastcompany.com/3046902/fast-feed/carnegie-mellon-in-a-crisis-after-uber-poached-40-of-its-researchers https://www.fastcompany.com/3046902/fast-feed/carnegie-mello...
- knodi 10y agoDepending on how this turns out Uber could be worth more than any of the car companies currently.
- basicplus2 10y agoIs there anything to stop someone stealing a phone then stealing one of these cars?
- jedberg 10y ago1) Morality 2) GPS -- they know where the car is it all times 3) There is still a human in it. Once the human is removed, I suspect the car will only work if it has a continuous connection to HQ, and that will give it a constant GPS signal.
- jfoster 10y agoSomething tells me the people who live in places where Uber operates and possess the necessary skills to steal an autonomous car generally are not interested in stealing cars.
- 205guy 10y ago2 issues I have not seen addressed by this article or others: 1/ interference. Having one lidar-beaming car going down the road works. What happens when there are many? I suppose it just means more illumination, but could there be an interference or "blinding" situation? What about pedestrian/pet eye safety? I sincerely hope that all are being considered now that this self-driving race is on. 2/ if Uber skirts around taxi regulations by being "just" an app that connects independent drivers with riders, how do they justify researching, producing, and deploying these cars with uber employees aboard?
- dcposch 10y ago1. is a solved problem, at least at Project Chauffeur (Google's autonomous driving effort). I live in Mountain View and see self driving cars every day, often driving next to or past each other. 2. Long term, it's not clear to me that taxi laws would apply to cars that drive themselves. Short term, re this pilot project w Uber employees in the driver seat: taxi laws are local. Maybe they got permission from the city.