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At the risk of sounding pedantic this is not a Level 4 demo. It is a Level 2 demo where the driver didn't have to intervene during the demonstrated route. What
by abalone 10y ago
At the risk of sounding pedantic this is not a Level 4 demo. It is a Level 2 demo where the driver didn't have to intervene during the demonstrated route.
What's the difference? Apart from the legal requirement to have a diver ready to take over in test vehicles (which necessarily makes it Level 2), the fundamental difference is that you'd have to show a lot more than one demo to establish that you've achieved Level 4. Level 4s are supposed to be able to operate without human intervention at all within prescribed domains (e.g. downtown cities). That doesn't mean operate one trip or one day or one month without a disengagement -- that's still Level 2.
I'm super impressed by the demo but Cruise will have to show more data to back up a Level 4 claim.
- will_pseudonym 10y agoThank you! This is not pedantry at all. You are correcting incorrect misleading safety claims.
- tigershark 10y agoI agree completely. And the video although not new is quite impressive. But if the claim of the author that San Francisco is a tough city in which to drive is true, than I fear that some parts of Italy (and probably A LOT of cities in the world) won't have self driving cars for a very long time. When I saw the video the first time I was very impressed, but I would have never imagined that for someone that was a VERY challenging urban scenario. From the article: when we see the streets of San Fransisco conquered, then we know that self-driving is ready to come of age. Seriously? And if you conquer the street of Naples what will come of age?
- CoolGuySteve 10y agoThis is moreso true for China and India. If you've ever been to those countries, the first thing you notice as a westerner is that the streets are chaos, traffic rules are barely obeyed, and aggressiveness is required to get anywhere. Meanwhile, Beijing and Dehli have extreme pollution problems partially caused by cars. If any place was in need of point to point autonomous ride sharing, it's Asia. The reduction in cars would reduce congestion from the outset. But in the future, protocol guided right of way negotiation could reduce congestion even further.
- fsckin 10y agoI tried to flag a taxi in downtown Shanghai for 45 minutes and finally gave into the broken English speaking motorcycle taxi who had been circling the block every five minutes. Riding bitch through Hangpu to Pudong with a laptop in one arm while lane splitting with aggressive (and otherwise bad drivers) all around was a rather exciting experience. Even with a skilled pilot, the adrenaline rush was similar to my first time tandem skydiving.
- sgustard 10y agoI could imagine the robot car having an easier time in a place with minimal expectation to obey traffic rules. It simply becomes an entirely self-serving entity solving a constraint maximization problem. Namely, get from A to B, don't hit anything, don't get hit.
- hamilyon2 10y agoThere is quite complex social interaction going on road. Rules and commands are communicated to participants and there are only seconds to understand them and obey
- f_allwein 10y agoI like this video of traffic in Hyderabad, India. Whole different kind of logic applies there: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjG_S8XJM4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjG_S8XJM4
- tormeh 10y agoThere's also the issue of technical problems with for example traffic lights. I remember an occasion in Berlin where the traffic lights broke down on a major intersection with long queues. The right of way ended up being solved in a contest between the status quo competed with the impatience of those who were waiting. The only way as a pedestrian to get across was to step out into the street so cars would stop, which was a bit uncomfortable. Worked out alright, if not terribly efficient. Fixed pretty fast, I think, but an AI would still have to handle, uh, dynamic traffic in western countries. Ideally, the AI should be able to figure out how the dynamics of such a situation work and not create a jam or something.
- icebraining 10y agoArguably, the city should dispatch a traffic guard to deal with the situation.
- Ar-Curunir 10y agoIn California if the traffic light breaks down then you're supposed to stop as if there was a stop sign; all the same rules apply.
- halomru 10y agoIn Germany a completely black traffic light has no meaning, rules are as if it wasn't there. Most traffic lights have the usual signs for priority roads for this situation. But a broken traffic light is a situation that is unfamiliar to drivers, and at peak hours the crossing is guaranteed to be either difficult to navigate or to have suboptimal traffic patterns (otherwise there would be no traffic light in the first place). And of course pedestrians have to improvise (and Germany has a lot of pedestrians compared to the US)
- BurningFrog 10y agoWhy would a North American self driving car have to handle Indian traffic?
- IshKebab 10y agoNaples is a bit extreme. Driving there is insane, but even other more normal European cities like London and Paris are a lot harder than any American cities. I still haven't seen a driverless car handle a single-lane road (e.g. with parked cars on the side). Something like this: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4606316,-2.5562767,3a,75y,71.31h,72.95t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLZLorAuTk5Oa_r4x7fS4GA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4606316,-2.5562767,3a,75y,...
- dehugger 10y agoI was very impressed at the number of fringe cases it handled. A car forcing a merge right in front of it, an armored car taking a lane and a half where it had to wait to go around (there were numerous instances of similar lane blockages that it navigated around), a pedestrian jay walking in front of it, a bus picking up passengers, a bike cutting in front of it, and car pulling out in front of it in heavy traffic. I had no idea they could handle that many scenarios already.
- riffraff 10y agoHow is "downtown city" even defined? Driving in SF seems vastly different from driving in Rome, Istanbul or Ho Chi Min City.
- stannol 10y agoI wondered that too. Pretty ridiculous that they claim "Self-Driving on the Streets of San Francisco Is Really Hard". City driving in the US is pretty much as easy as it gets. These guys are up for a real challenge when they try to make it work in Delhi, Bangkok et al.