21 ms·

Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders

323 points by rayuela 10y ago

kyrra 10y ago
TLDR: * People can apply to use/borrow a Waymo vehicle (RX450 or Pacifica) for some period of time. * "as part of this early trial, there will be a test driver in each vehicle monitoring the rides at all times." * Limited to Phoenix metro area for the time being. * You apply here: https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/ * Waymo will be adding 500 more of the Pacifica minivans for this program.
- sounds 10y ago
  Autoplaying video. Here's the full text so you don't have to endure that: ----------------------------- After almost a decade of research, Google's autonomous car project is close to becoming a real service. Now known as Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. self-driving car unit is letting residents of Phoenix sign up to use its vehicles, a major step toward commercializing a technology that could one day upend transportation. For the service, Waymo is adding 500 customized Chrysler Pacifica minivans to its fleet. Waymo has already tested these vehicles, plus other makes and models, on public roads, but only with its employees and contractors as testers. By opening the doors to the general public with a larger fleet, the company will get data on how people experience and use self-driving cars -- and clues on ways to generate revenue from the technology. "We're at the point when it's really important to find how real people, outside the Google environment, will use this technology," said John Krafcik, Waymo's chief executive officer. "Our goal is that they will use this for all their transportation needs." Waymo is letting people across parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area apply for the service as part of an "early rider program." Initial users will be able to book Waymo's minivans using an app, but won't have to pay. Dollars will flow eventually, Krafcik said, yet he declined to share details. The company is signing up hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and transportation needs. Google is a pioneer in autonomous cars, launching its research program in 2009. After mostly ignoring the project for several years, the auto industry has recently rushed to catch up, pumping billions of dollars into similar technology and engineering talent. A bevy of newcomers have joined too, including some founded by former Waymo engineers, making the field incredibly competitive before anyone has made money. Uber Technologies Inc. has emerged as a particularly bitter rival. Last year, autonomous vehicles run by the ride-hailing giant began picking up paying customers in Pittsburgh. Earlier this year, it started doing the same in Tempe, a town in the eastern part of the Phoenix metro area. (Waymo is currently suing Uber over the technology.) Yet Waymo insists its business model will be broader than Uber's. "Yes, self-driving technology makes sense for ride-sharing," said Krafcik, a former executive at Hyundai Motor Co.'s U.S. operations and Ford Motor Co. "It also makes sense for personal car ownership." Transportation to and from transit hubs and logistics also made his list. In Phoenix, Krafcik said participants will use the autonomous minivan fleet every day, at any time, to go anywhere within an area twice the size of San Francisco. Last year, Waymo inked a deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV for 100 Pacifica vans outfitted with Waymo's software and tailored hardware. Waymo added the fleet to the to 70 other cars it is testing in California, Texas, Washington and Arizona, which it entered in 2016. Since Google started its program, those vehicles have racked up nearly 3 million test miles on public roads, primarily to refine the autonomous software and ensure the system could handle rare but potentially dangerous edge cases. Waymo has faced criticism for not launching a commercial service sooner. This was especially true last yar when it lost several top engineers, and Uber launched its limited test service. Krafcik has often responded by pointing to safety concerns and technical obstacles to deploying fully driverless cars. The Phoenix service answers some of these concerns. It's a clear move beyond the research phase that focuses on passenger experience and business model development. Waymo's staff has worked on new displays and controls to get people comfortable being inside self-driving cars. The Phoenix passengers will be the first to see these tools in action. Waymo is still moving cautiously. Chosen users for the Phoenix service will sit in passenger seats, and Waymo will put contractor or employee testers in the driver seat -- although Krafcik said the goal is to remove them eventually. The company has quietly been testing the service with a handful of Phoenix residents for two months. From those trials, he noted one behavior trait when no one has to drive. "People have a better opportunity to bond and connect inside the vehicle," he said.
- differentView 10y ago
  >You apply here: https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/ I tried a bunch of zip codes in California, none are available. Phoenix, Arizona works though, I think they're still only testing there.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    GP writes: > * Limited to Phoenix metro area for the time being.
    - differentView 10y ago
      I am the type of person that would benefit from self-driving cars. I don't pay attention.
- Asooka 10y ago
  Interesting that they only let you borrow for now. Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? Will Waymo let you actually buy and own a car that isn't network connected and fully yours? Seeing how value extraction works in today's enterprise, i.e. via rent-seeking, I'm guessing we're headed to not owning cars any more.
  - nvr219 10y ago
    > Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? I hope so.
    - Neliquat 10y ago
      Serious question; Why would you hope this?
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Unfortunately, the concept of something being fully yours seems to be what's going away. So much of what we "buy" now is locked down by the manufacturer to the point where you cannot even hope to modify or repair it. Automobiles, in particular are getting less and less modifiable every generation. More and more electronic gadgets in the home are locked into only running manufacturer-selected software. Everything is network-tethered to the manufacturer, who ultimately controls whether/how their products operate. Sad times.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Yeah, it is working out great for farmers that use John Deere tractors.
  - Ajedi32 10y ago
    > Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? Probably. It seems way more convenient and efficient to be able to summon a car to any location on demand than to have just one car that you use for everything. No more parking, no more refueling, no more vehicle maintenance; just push a button and a car shows up within minutes (or in some cases, seconds) to pick you up, and step out of the vehicle when you reach your destination. Want a specific model or paint color? It's just a couple taps on your phone away. Car breaks down and needs a tow? Replacement gets summoned automatically, and the car company credits a couple bucks to your account for the inconvenience. If that kind of service becomes available at a reasonable price point, I suspect it won't be long before car ownership becomes much less common.
- blhack 10y ago
  Just want to say it feels pretty cool that Phoenix gets to be the testbed for this! Self driving waymo/uber cars around Tempe (the suburb where Arizona State University is) have become part of the landscape. Uber has also done a really good job of using their self-driving cars for marketing. My partner and I have taken quite a few uber trips that we wouldn't have otherwise, just because we've wanted to try and get a ride in one of the self-drivers. So far, no luck though.
drcross 10y ago
That the author even uses Uber as a rival to Weymo demonstrates their lack of awareness in the industry.
- Kiro 10y ago
  How so?
  - ozpri 10y ago
    Because Uber is ride sharing that is getting into self-driving vehicles, their money comes from the rides we take. Alphabet (Google) Is literally just testing and developing their own self-driving car technology. As far as we know they have no business model, yet.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Uber is spending VC bucks on their development. They also spend VC bucks funding operations (so their huge losses aren't just because of investments in technology, they are a direct result of operating at a loss).
    - Retric 10y ago
      They are not as separate as you are implying. Alphabet could easily block Uber from using their self driving cars by preventing remote control and then set up their own competing service. Uber could sell their self driving tech to anyone. However, the reality is Uber is only looking into self driving cars because otherwise it's going to destroy their business long term and they don't want their stock to tank today.
    - bhhaskin 10y ago
      Uber is also getting their pants sued off by Google for selling self driving car trade secrets. A suit that Uber is more than likely going to lose.
      - QuercusMax 10y ago
Kiro 10y ago
How will self-driving cars affect society? Trying to wrap my head around the bigger picture.
- AndrewDucker 10y ago
  http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second-order-consequences http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second...
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    I didn't read the entire piece... People think the autonomous car is going to solve a lot of the current problems; Accidents, Parking, Congestion. It kind of makes me giggle a bit, as I ponder what may happen. That is, the conclusions drawn from "self-driving" vehicles are possibly way over cooked. The certification process for these cars are going to be very, very expensive. Think about the software involved for the operation of aircraft and the review / testing process then apply it for the road. That is level of scrutiny that will be placed on "self-driving" vehicles. Hacking, equipment failures, environmental surprises and more will be sure to keep a healthy portion of the public skeptical and possibly downright hostile to the idea for at least a decade, post certification, in my opinion. "Self-driving" will be contained and tightly regulated. What people on the coasts forget about is, really, the rest of the country. The people that actually enjoy driving, where parking isn't a problem, and congestion takes place in the morning and after work, but only lasts about 5 minutes. Metro areas of > 2 million people don't have much problems with traffic in flyover country... at least not when compared to the coasts. The counter arguments to the piece are plentiful for the foreseeable future.
    - gizmo385 10y ago
      > What people on the coasts forget about is, really, the rest of the country. The people that actually enjoy driving, where parking isn't a problem Doesn't something like 80% of the US live in urban areas? And hasn't that number been continuously increasing for decades. People in the cities enjoy driving too, hell I love driving when their isn't any traffic. But I'd give it up in a heartbeat if it meant less needless traffic deaths and a far more streamlined lifestyle.
jamesroseman 10y ago
Self-driving cars have been in the development phase for so long, I'm really excited to see them start rolling out in these beta tests. I'm curious what sort of unconsidered edge cases they'll find out in the real world. I'm sure test passengers are much more "disciplined" than real world ones.
KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
Is there really a race to build self-driving cars? It seems that Waymo is eons ahead of everyone else.
- pythonaut_16 10y ago
  I have a lot of respect for Waymo's approach to this. While Tesla and Uber have both just recklessly (imo) jumped in and started setting loose self driving cars and making bold claims, Google/Waymo has really taken a slow and measured approach and given great care to making sure their cars are actually safe.
  - josefresco 10y ago
    Google's approach is cautious, however has Tesla been reckless?
    - csours 10y ago
      By describing and marketing driver assistance technology as self-driving technology.
      - TheAnimus 10y ago
        Which is kind of funny, because every pilot knows the limitation of each kind of autopilot. I think a lot of it is public expectation of that kind of name.
        csours 10y ago
        Right, and if drivers read ALL of the fine print of Tesla Autopilot, they would have been informed of the limitations of that system as well. The problem comes when the Large Print promises things that the system does not do. Another problem came from the implementation of the system where Tesla did not verify that the driver maintains hands on the wheel.
trapperkeeper79 10y ago
Wish they deployed this in Mountain View. I see like 20 of these a day going around aimlessly. I'd sign up as a customer!
- scarmig 10y ago
  Too easy for a competitor to hop on and get casual intel, maybe?
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Competitors that don't know where Phoenix, AZ is, I suppose.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    Lot more regulation.
  - samhoggnz 10y ago
    GM, Apple, and Uber are all testing in the Phoenix metro area, so I don't think that's valid - more likely good wide roads, weather, and regulatory environment.
bigato 10y ago
I dream with the day that humans riding vehicles will be forbidden by law unless the driver would prove the need for human driving. So many deaths would be avoided.
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  have you thought the consequences of that? No I'm very serious: we are unable to protect smart TVs. Networked smart cars (because let's be real - Google and co. would want to monetize this with Uber-like services, Ads in cars etc.) are a magnitude more likely to be hacked by both the state actors and rogue individuals (altho I don't see why we make this distinction...both are criminal acts). The worst that can happen if your smart tv is hacked, is that they can listen and maybe watch you in your living room. If your car is hacked, they can probably kill you and hurt others while they are at it. If this happens on a large scale, it's extremely dangerous. So while I have no problems with self driving in itself (or with Google for that matter of fact), I have a problem with banning human driving cars on the road without a viable (non-intrusive) alternative.
  - lodi 10y ago
    We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. But, as evidenced by terrorism paranoia, people do care about their personal safety--perhaps excessively and irrationally so. Security in a networked self-driving car won't be treated as an afterthought, if nothing else because of the massive legal liability.
    - pkolaczk 10y ago
      I seriously doubt this. People do care if their car gets stolen. Unfortunately most (if not all) built-in electronic systems for protecting modern cars from being stolen are crap and thieves somehow get around them. Many of these systems (e.g. Keeloq) used "roll your own" insecure cryptography based on security by obscurity, despite availability of much stronger algorithms at that time.
    - 10y ago
monkmartinez 10y ago
I find it smart that Waymo waited until the snowbirds left to start this. It will be comical when the blue hairs come back next winter and smoke a few of these self-driving cars.... or vice versa. Obviously I don't want anyone to get hurt, but... it is going to happen.
- jonknee 10y ago
  Considering Waymo's vehicles drive much like stereotypical blue hairs (slooooow and cautious) I think everything will work out fine.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    I work on a busy fire engine in the same-ish zipcode. I can tell you that blue hairs cause a lot of accidents when they are in town. Slowwww and clueless... to be fair, there are several demographics that we suspect get into far more accidents than most others. No data however.
    - pkolaczk 10y ago
      I don't know how it is USA, but in Poland the police and insurance companies actually do have real data on who causes the most accidents / the most severe accidents. And the facts are brutal: young inexperienced drivers < 25 years old are responsible for higher number of severe accidents than blue hairs, and this phenomenon is reflected in the insurance price they have to pay.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        That's exactly how it is in the US. A number of major car rental companies won't even rent to drivers who are younger than 25 years old.
- sctb 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14193687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14193687 and marked it off-topic. Please don't violate the guidelines by calling names like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Pigo 10y ago
After seeing the movie Logan, I was curious if the movie was taking a jab at the autonomous vehicle trend by portraying them as a danger to ma & pa drivers on the highway. It showed a crowded highway full of shipping containers pushing a truck hauling horses off the road. It seems the message was not that the technology can't be courteous, but that once it's accepted, corporations will abuse the roads to help their bottom line. It makes me wonder if that is a valid concern.
- hart_russell 10y ago
  By all accounts, autonomous vehicles will be much safer than human drivers. Companies will be sued up the ass if they program their vehicles to take risks and end up killing people.
  - swiley 10y ago
    Only if it can be proven. That's why vehicle firmware should be open source, so the public can know exactly what kind of risks they take.
    - joshuamorton 10y ago
      I'm curious, under this train of thought, vehicle hardware should also be open source, right?
      - swiley 9y ago
        It's a lot harder to hide weirdness in mechanical things. Because of that I don't think hardware needs to be open source.
    - hart_russell 10y ago
      You can request to view source code as part of a lawsuit.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Define "taking a risk." Every time we get in a car, we're taking calculated risks based on our evaluation of the physical environment, how we expect other drivers to behave, and expected behaviors of pedestrians/bikes/etc. At least up to the point where you create a traffic hazard, there's always the option to take things slower and more conservatively.
tyingq 10y ago
Is Waymo clear about what the end goal is? I can't tell if they plan to launch an Uber like service, or a direct-to-consumer lease type service, or just to be suppliers (whole vehicles, components like lidar, software) to companies like Uber. Or maybe they are leaving all of that undecided for now? I'm not sure this rider trial thing strongly signals any of them. You would want real world end-customer experiences regardless, I would think.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I wonder this about autonomous cars in general from any company. They're cool tech and in Europe, they can really help solve several last leg problems and cut down on car ownership (I really don't think people should be able to own self driving cars. They really need airplane style maintenance for sensors and companies need to work together so all fleets have the latest safety and security updates). However I don't really like hearing about tax money going into these projects. At least in America, self driving cars won't solve gridlock. It will be 15 ~ 30 years before we can have autonomous car only highways, and even then, self driving cars don't even touch the capacity of a real train based mass transit network. Singapore has had self driving trains for years (it's a much easier problem) and London is automating more of their lines. Self driving cars are cool tech, but they're not going to solve grid lock or many of the major transport problems we face today: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
  - evanpw 10y ago
    > I don't really like hearing about tax money going into these projects It might be better to think of it as an investment in public health rather than public transportation. Preventing the huge number of deaths caused by human drivers is more important than speeding up traffic.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      There are lots of simpler ways to reduce traffic deaths that we could be funding.
Fifer82 10y ago
I would like to see little leased pod cars which trundle around at the local speed within a certain range, and have the ability to go to a Bus Lane (I presume the bus is dead), and join a Magnetic Track of sort where they go 200 miles an hour. That would be pretty amazing. Why they are sticking shit all over 2 ton vehicles? If they are solving Fuel and Emissions and Driver, can't they just take the final step of a revolution? I am pretty sure governments would be throwing notes at it.
- nickparker 10y ago
  Hyperloop One is working on this. Small self driving cubicles drive around the city and pop into larger pods that go 700 mph in the Hyperloop between cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fze5spdN3nU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fze5spdN3nU
  - nmeofthestate 10y ago
    Seems a bit gimmicky (it's the hyperloop after all). If the self-driving car is the vehicular equivalent of a hot desk, why not just exit it and walk into the hyperloop pod, instead of transporting tonnes of weight of interchangeable self-driving car? Then just hop into a different one that's waiting at the other end.
    - nickparker 10y ago
      Disclaimer: I'm starting a job at Hyperloop soon, but haven't actually been told anything about the hardware yet (I'm joining as a software dev), so this is all not-NDA-violating speculation: I believe the cars are also pressure vessels and life support systems. My student team looked into this side of the problem last year, and making the entire ~40 ft long Hyperloop pod a pressure vessel is really tricky. The two competing forces are the obvious premium on extra mass, and the need for a large opening to load cargo into the pods. Dealing with all the "human compatibility" problems at the scale of the cars lets you use much smaller pressure vessels (lighter), and makes loading unpressurized cargo drop dead easy. The other big benefit is that loading the Hyperloop pods is really difficult. You'd ideally like to be launching a pod into the tube every 30 seconds or less, to get the best return on your infrastructure investment. Achieving that by walking people right up to the 40 ft vehicles and having them all file in like a commercial flight is just about impossible. With mobile sub-pods you can have a far smaller station, and just load sub-pods as they arrive into the next departing pod.
chrismealy 10y ago
Google's car clearly isn't going to work in the real world (can it follow detour signs? Get out of the way of emergency vehicles? Understand a cop directing traffic?). Why is Google pretending otherwise? Why are they doing this?
- teach 10y ago
  Google's car can already read the hand signals from bicyclists[0]. They have logged literally millions of miles of safe driving. They really aren't "pretending". However, there are different classifications[1] of autonomous vehicles. Google's car is currently somewhere around level 3. It's true nobody has a level 4 car yet. [0] https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/google-autonomous-cars-cyclist-friendly/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/google-autonomous-cars-c... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classification
andrewmcwatters 10y ago
Glad to see Phoenix getting some love.
jonmc12 10y ago
Am I the only one feeling the press + big tech narrative of "driverless vehicles = safety" is way ahead of itself? OK, "driver error is blamed for 94% of crashes", but what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? In 2016, Philip Koopman of CMU discusses that there are non-trivial engineering challenges of achieving safety in NHTSA Level 4 vehicle automation: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman16_sae_autonomous_validation.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman16_sae_autono... If we are building the safest transportation system, what role do driverless vehicles play? Wouldn't that be the narrative that actually saves the most lives?
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  No you are not! HN seems to think the same way, and it is one of the worst cases of rose colored glasses I have ever witnessed. What about the cost? Who is going to be able to afford this? Also, what about people that rely on a vehicle for work? Retrofit $75K work trucks with another $75K in self driving gizmos? Find me a practical plumber, carpenter, A/C, lock smith, self-employed guy/gal that will sign up for that! Edit to add... Have the crazy expensive and downright hostile self-driving John Deere tractors eliminated farming deaths?
  - mattpavelle 10y ago
    I'm curious - where did you come up with your $75k cost for retrofitting existing vehicles?
    - monkmartinez 10y ago
      Out of thin air. Why would it be cheaper? If you made the product, would you try to maximize profit or do it for SAFETY and the good of society?
      - narrowrail 10y ago
        You seem to be arguing against technological progress in order to protect people. Most of us 'self-driving car' skeptics are just pointing out that the timelines presented in much of the press are wildly optimistic.
saosebastiao 10y ago
This is an important step for testing, and I'm surprised that this is being spun as a move towards commercialization. As of right now, waymo has only been doing what could metaphorically be called unit testing. That is, they test the cars behavior in very controlled but unrealistic environments, looking for very specific responses. The accident rate that they've incurred is likely ridiculously skewed: they've been driving in good weather, on meaningless routes (not chosen by destination, but by route features), at relatively safe times of day, at slow speeds, and they've been doing it extremely cautiously with engineers ready to take over in a moments notice. This is exactly what they should have been doing, but politically it is misleading. Most human drivers, given those same constraints, would also do extremely well and way better than average. They've done well, but we have little basis for comparison with the average driver. This is the first step towards integration testing. They get to see how the cars behavior integrates together across various scenarios that are much closer to real life. They are driving on actual routes that real people travel on...routes that aren't chosen in order to test a specific behavior. Accident rates are going to go up. That's a good thing...its a move towards the things humans find more difficult too. We should, however, expect slowing progress to level 4 autonomy. This is typical of system capability growth; exponential in the beginning, asymptotic near the end. People that are rushing this are out of line; akin to immediate commercializations of lab rat successes. Give them time.
- teach 10y ago
  > they test the cars in very controlled but unrealistic environments Are you sure about this? Google has had self-driving cars in Austin for years and I'm pretty sure there's never a good time to be driving here.
  - saosebastiao 10y ago
    Pretty damn sure. Even if an engineer drives his normal car to work, hops in a waymo car, and drives 9-5, and then drives a normal car back home, they've already constructed a scenario that is heavily time-weighted towards lighter than human-representative traffic experiences. Even small biases that you don't even think are meaningful can have a big impact on outcomes. But it doesn't stop there. Google hasn't tested snow at all. I'd be surprised if their testing locations represented rainy weather that is representative for more than 10% of the US. They don't test freeways, and by extension, do not test onramps and offramps. In California, they don't even go over 25 mph. Under those conditions they have been ostensibly pretty good at not causing accidents, but how good are they at avoiding accidents that are not their fault? This means accidents caused by other drivers and acts of god. Safety is far more than just causality. But more importantly, their miles traveled very easily exclude small snippets of time where an engineer takes over, but still counts the rest of the journey where the computer did fine. How representative is that? How good are humans when we let jesus take the wheel the moment driving gets slightly complicated? If a human overrides the computer only 1% of the time, that could still be anywhere from 1% to 100% of trips with at least one human override. It's very easy to catastrophically mislead yourself when working with averages [0]. Statisticians and Economists go through absolutely absurd lengths to make comparisons robust. Even if we had access to 100% of the data on Waymo's self driving cars, I don't know a single statistician that would be comfortable making a comparison to extremely coarsely aggregated data on human driving. Only through extensive testing in situations that are representative of how humans (and not just test engineers) drive will we be able to conclude that one is safer than the other. And that's why Phoenix is important to Waymo. [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=the+problem+with+averages&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=the...
z3t4 10y ago
I had nightmares about self driving cars as a child. Am I the only one who thinks self driving cars are scary!?
smpetrey 10y ago
When your opponents do not play by the rules, you win. Glad to see Google is making some strides.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
So now what do we tell our kids? "Don't get into a van even when nobody is driving it." ? :-) I think it is great that they are getting additional exposure to nominally real world users here. However, I'm not exactly sure what they are learning in user behaviors. Is it "Can we make a less expensive livery service?" or is it "How freaked out do people get in self driving cars?" or is it something else? I went to a conference last week where there were several talks that were pretty critical of self driving 'hype' given the HLS[1] issues and the ability to inexpensively 'spoof' the AI[2] to see something that isn't actually there (road signs being particularly vulnerable). It left me thinking I might be more optimistic about the technology than I should be. [1] "Health, Life, Safety" the general basket of things that are super critical to minimizing injury and death. [2] https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507542/facial-recognition-glasses-trick-impersonate-fool https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507542/facial-recogniti... -- on Facial Recognition but sign recognition has the same problem.

323 points by rayuela 10y ago

kyrra 10y ago

TLDR: * People can apply to use/borrow a Waymo vehicle (RX450 or Pacifica) for some period of time. * "as part of this early trial, there will be a test driver in each vehicle monitoring the rides at all times." * Limited to Phoenix metro area for the time being. * You apply here: https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/ * Waymo will be adding 500 more of the Pacifica minivans for this program.

sounds 10y ago
Autoplaying video. Here's the full text so you don't have to endure that: ----------------------------- After almost a decade of research, Google's autonomous car project is close to becoming a real service. Now known as Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. self-driving car unit is letting residents of Phoenix sign up to use its vehicles, a major step toward commercializing a technology that could one day upend transportation. For the service, Waymo is adding 500 customized Chrysler Pacifica minivans to its fleet. Waymo has already tested these vehicles, plus other makes and models, on public roads, but only with its employees and contractors as testers. By opening the doors to the general public with a larger fleet, the company will get data on how people experience and use self-driving cars -- and clues on ways to generate revenue from the technology. "We're at the point when it's really important to find how real people, outside the Google environment, will use this technology," said John Krafcik, Waymo's chief executive officer. "Our goal is that they will use this for all their transportation needs." Waymo is letting people across parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area apply for the service as part of an "early rider program." Initial users will be able to book Waymo's minivans using an app, but won't have to pay. Dollars will flow eventually, Krafcik said, yet he declined to share details. The company is signing up hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and transportation needs. Google is a pioneer in autonomous cars, launching its research program in 2009. After mostly ignoring the project for several years, the auto industry has recently rushed to catch up, pumping billions of dollars into similar technology and engineering talent. A bevy of newcomers have joined too, including some founded by former Waymo engineers, making the field incredibly competitive before anyone has made money. Uber Technologies Inc. has emerged as a particularly bitter rival. Last year, autonomous vehicles run by the ride-hailing giant began picking up paying customers in Pittsburgh. Earlier this year, it started doing the same in Tempe, a town in the eastern part of the Phoenix metro area. (Waymo is currently suing Uber over the technology.) Yet Waymo insists its business model will be broader than Uber's. "Yes, self-driving technology makes sense for ride-sharing," said Krafcik, a former executive at Hyundai Motor Co.'s U.S. operations and Ford Motor Co. "It also makes sense for personal car ownership." Transportation to and from transit hubs and logistics also made his list. In Phoenix, Krafcik said participants will use the autonomous minivan fleet every day, at any time, to go anywhere within an area twice the size of San Francisco. Last year, Waymo inked a deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV for 100 Pacifica vans outfitted with Waymo's software and tailored hardware. Waymo added the fleet to the to 70 other cars it is testing in California, Texas, Washington and Arizona, which it entered in 2016. Since Google started its program, those vehicles have racked up nearly 3 million test miles on public roads, primarily to refine the autonomous software and ensure the system could handle rare but potentially dangerous edge cases. Waymo has faced criticism for not launching a commercial service sooner. This was especially true last yar when it lost several top engineers, and Uber launched its limited test service. Krafcik has often responded by pointing to safety concerns and technical obstacles to deploying fully driverless cars. The Phoenix service answers some of these concerns. It's a clear move beyond the research phase that focuses on passenger experience and business model development. Waymo's staff has worked on new displays and controls to get people comfortable being inside self-driving cars. The Phoenix passengers will be the first to see these tools in action. Waymo is still moving cautiously. Chosen users for the Phoenix service will sit in passenger seats, and Waymo will put contractor or employee testers in the driver seat -- although Krafcik said the goal is to remove them eventually. The company has quietly been testing the service with a handful of Phoenix residents for two months. From those trials, he noted one behavior trait when no one has to drive. "People have a better opportunity to bond and connect inside the vehicle," he said.
differentView 10y ago
>You apply here: https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/ I tried a bunch of zip codes in California, none are available. Phoenix, Arizona works though, I think they're still only testing there.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  GP writes: > * Limited to Phoenix metro area for the time being.
  - differentView 10y ago
    I am the type of person that would benefit from self-driving cars. I don't pay attention.
Asooka 10y ago
Interesting that they only let you borrow for now. Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? Will Waymo let you actually buy and own a car that isn't network connected and fully yours? Seeing how value extraction works in today's enterprise, i.e. via rent-seeking, I'm guessing we're headed to not owning cars any more.
- nvr219 10y ago
  > Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? I hope so.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    Serious question; Why would you hope this?
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Unfortunately, the concept of something being fully yours seems to be what's going away. So much of what we "buy" now is locked down by the manufacturer to the point where you cannot even hope to modify or repair it. Automobiles, in particular are getting less and less modifiable every generation. More and more electronic gadgets in the home are locked into only running manufacturer-selected software. Everything is network-tethered to the manufacturer, who ultimately controls whether/how their products operate. Sad times.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Yeah, it is working out great for farmers that use John Deere tractors.
- Ajedi32 10y ago
  > Will car ownership be killed with self-driving cars? Probably. It seems way more convenient and efficient to be able to summon a car to any location on demand than to have just one car that you use for everything. No more parking, no more refueling, no more vehicle maintenance; just push a button and a car shows up within minutes (or in some cases, seconds) to pick you up, and step out of the vehicle when you reach your destination. Want a specific model or paint color? It's just a couple taps on your phone away. Car breaks down and needs a tow? Replacement gets summoned automatically, and the car company credits a couple bucks to your account for the inconvenience. If that kind of service becomes available at a reasonable price point, I suspect it won't be long before car ownership becomes much less common.
blhack 10y ago
Just want to say it feels pretty cool that Phoenix gets to be the testbed for this! Self driving waymo/uber cars around Tempe (the suburb where Arizona State University is) have become part of the landscape. Uber has also done a really good job of using their self-driving cars for marketing. My partner and I have taken quite a few uber trips that we wouldn't have otherwise, just because we've wanted to try and get a ride in one of the self-drivers. So far, no luck though.

drcross 10y ago

That the author even uses Uber as a rival to Weymo demonstrates their lack of awareness in the industry.

Kiro 10y ago
How so?
- ozpri 10y ago
  Because Uber is ride sharing that is getting into self-driving vehicles, their money comes from the rides we take. Alphabet (Google) Is literally just testing and developing their own self-driving car technology. As far as we know they have no business model, yet.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Uber is spending VC bucks on their development. They also spend VC bucks funding operations (so their huge losses aren't just because of investments in technology, they are a direct result of operating at a loss).
  - Retric 10y ago
    They are not as separate as you are implying. Alphabet could easily block Uber from using their self driving cars by preventing remote control and then set up their own competing service. Uber could sell their self driving tech to anyone. However, the reality is Uber is only looking into self driving cars because otherwise it's going to destroy their business long term and they don't want their stock to tank today.
  - bhhaskin 10y ago
    Uber is also getting their pants sued off by Google for selling self driving car trade secrets. A suit that Uber is more than likely going to lose.
    - QuercusMax 10y ago

Kiro 10y ago

How will self-driving cars affect society? Trying to wrap my head around the bigger picture.

AndrewDucker 10y ago
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second-order-consequences http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second...
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  I didn't read the entire piece... People think the autonomous car is going to solve a lot of the current problems; Accidents, Parking, Congestion. It kind of makes me giggle a bit, as I ponder what may happen. That is, the conclusions drawn from "self-driving" vehicles are possibly way over cooked. The certification process for these cars are going to be very, very expensive. Think about the software involved for the operation of aircraft and the review / testing process then apply it for the road. That is level of scrutiny that will be placed on "self-driving" vehicles. Hacking, equipment failures, environmental surprises and more will be sure to keep a healthy portion of the public skeptical and possibly downright hostile to the idea for at least a decade, post certification, in my opinion. "Self-driving" will be contained and tightly regulated. What people on the coasts forget about is, really, the rest of the country. The people that actually enjoy driving, where parking isn't a problem, and congestion takes place in the morning and after work, but only lasts about 5 minutes. Metro areas of > 2 million people don't have much problems with traffic in flyover country... at least not when compared to the coasts. The counter arguments to the piece are plentiful for the foreseeable future.
  - gizmo385 10y ago
    > What people on the coasts forget about is, really, the rest of the country. The people that actually enjoy driving, where parking isn't a problem Doesn't something like 80% of the US live in urban areas? And hasn't that number been continuously increasing for decades. People in the cities enjoy driving too, hell I love driving when their isn't any traffic. But I'd give it up in a heartbeat if it meant less needless traffic deaths and a far more streamlined lifestyle.

jamesroseman 10y ago

Self-driving cars have been in the development phase for so long, I'm really excited to see them start rolling out in these beta tests. I'm curious what sort of unconsidered edge cases they'll find out in the real world. I'm sure test passengers are much more "disciplined" than real world ones.

KKKKkkkk1 10y ago

Is there really a race to build self-driving cars? It seems that Waymo is eons ahead of everyone else.

pythonaut_16 10y ago
I have a lot of respect for Waymo's approach to this. While Tesla and Uber have both just recklessly (imo) jumped in and started setting loose self driving cars and making bold claims, Google/Waymo has really taken a slow and measured approach and given great care to making sure their cars are actually safe.
- josefresco 10y ago
  Google's approach is cautious, however has Tesla been reckless?
  - csours 10y ago
    By describing and marketing driver assistance technology as self-driving technology.
    - TheAnimus 10y ago
      Which is kind of funny, because every pilot knows the limitation of each kind of autopilot. I think a lot of it is public expectation of that kind of name.
      - csours 10y ago
        Right, and if drivers read ALL of the fine print of Tesla Autopilot, they would have been informed of the limitations of that system as well. The problem comes when the Large Print promises things that the system does not do. Another problem came from the implementation of the system where Tesla did not verify that the driver maintains hands on the wheel.

trapperkeeper79 10y ago

Wish they deployed this in Mountain View. I see like 20 of these a day going around aimlessly. I'd sign up as a customer!

scarmig 10y ago
Too easy for a competitor to hop on and get casual intel, maybe?
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Competitors that don't know where Phoenix, AZ is, I suppose.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  Lot more regulation.
- samhoggnz 10y ago
  GM, Apple, and Uber are all testing in the Phoenix metro area, so I don't think that's valid - more likely good wide roads, weather, and regulatory environment.

bigato 10y ago

I dream with the day that humans riding vehicles will be forbidden by law unless the driver would prove the need for human driving. So many deaths would be avoided.

ohstopitu 10y ago
have you thought the consequences of that? No I'm very serious: we are unable to protect smart TVs. Networked smart cars (because let's be real - Google and co. would want to monetize this with Uber-like services, Ads in cars etc.) are a magnitude more likely to be hacked by both the state actors and rogue individuals (altho I don't see why we make this distinction...both are criminal acts). The worst that can happen if your smart tv is hacked, is that they can listen and maybe watch you in your living room. If your car is hacked, they can probably kill you and hurt others while they are at it. If this happens on a large scale, it's extremely dangerous. So while I have no problems with self driving in itself (or with Google for that matter of fact), I have a problem with banning human driving cars on the road without a viable (non-intrusive) alternative.
- lodi 10y ago
  We are not "unable" to protect smart TVs. If anyone gave a shit those things would be locked down tighter than a bank vault, but we don't, so they aren't. But, as evidenced by terrorism paranoia, people do care about their personal safety--perhaps excessively and irrationally so. Security in a networked self-driving car won't be treated as an afterthought, if nothing else because of the massive legal liability.
  - pkolaczk 10y ago
    I seriously doubt this. People do care if their car gets stolen. Unfortunately most (if not all) built-in electronic systems for protecting modern cars from being stolen are crap and thieves somehow get around them. Many of these systems (e.g. Keeloq) used "roll your own" insecure cryptography based on security by obscurity, despite availability of much stronger algorithms at that time.
  - 10y ago

monkmartinez 10y ago

I find it smart that Waymo waited until the snowbirds left to start this. It will be comical when the blue hairs come back next winter and smoke a few of these self-driving cars.... or vice versa. Obviously I don't want anyone to get hurt, but... it is going to happen.

jonknee 10y ago
Considering Waymo's vehicles drive much like stereotypical blue hairs (slooooow and cautious) I think everything will work out fine.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  I work on a busy fire engine in the same-ish zipcode. I can tell you that blue hairs cause a lot of accidents when they are in town. Slowwww and clueless... to be fair, there are several demographics that we suspect get into far more accidents than most others. No data however.
  - pkolaczk 10y ago
    I don't know how it is USA, but in Poland the police and insurance companies actually do have real data on who causes the most accidents / the most severe accidents. And the facts are brutal: young inexperienced drivers < 25 years old are responsible for higher number of severe accidents than blue hairs, and this phenomenon is reflected in the insurance price they have to pay.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      That's exactly how it is in the US. A number of major car rental companies won't even rent to drivers who are younger than 25 years old.
sctb 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14193687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14193687 and marked it off-topic. Please don't violate the guidelines by calling names like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Pigo 10y ago

After seeing the movie Logan, I was curious if the movie was taking a jab at the autonomous vehicle trend by portraying them as a danger to ma & pa drivers on the highway. It showed a crowded highway full of shipping containers pushing a truck hauling horses off the road. It seems the message was not that the technology can't be courteous, but that once it's accepted, corporations will abuse the roads to help their bottom line. It makes me wonder if that is a valid concern.

hart_russell 10y ago
By all accounts, autonomous vehicles will be much safer than human drivers. Companies will be sued up the ass if they program their vehicles to take risks and end up killing people.
- swiley 10y ago
  Only if it can be proven. That's why vehicle firmware should be open source, so the public can know exactly what kind of risks they take.
  - joshuamorton 10y ago
    I'm curious, under this train of thought, vehicle hardware should also be open source, right?
    - swiley 9y ago
      It's a lot harder to hide weirdness in mechanical things. Because of that I don't think hardware needs to be open source.
  - hart_russell 10y ago
    You can request to view source code as part of a lawsuit.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Define "taking a risk." Every time we get in a car, we're taking calculated risks based on our evaluation of the physical environment, how we expect other drivers to behave, and expected behaviors of pedestrians/bikes/etc. At least up to the point where you create a traffic hazard, there's always the option to take things slower and more conservatively.

tyingq 10y ago

Is Waymo clear about what the end goal is? I can't tell if they plan to launch an Uber like service, or a direct-to-consumer lease type service, or just to be suppliers (whole vehicles, components like lidar, software) to companies like Uber. Or maybe they are leaving all of that undecided for now? I'm not sure this rider trial thing strongly signals any of them. You would want real world end-customer experiences regardless, I would think.

djsumdog 10y ago
I wonder this about autonomous cars in general from any company. They're cool tech and in Europe, they can really help solve several last leg problems and cut down on car ownership (I really don't think people should be able to own self driving cars. They really need airplane style maintenance for sensors and companies need to work together so all fleets have the latest safety and security updates). However I don't really like hearing about tax money going into these projects. At least in America, self driving cars won't solve gridlock. It will be 15 ~ 30 years before we can have autonomous car only highways, and even then, self driving cars don't even touch the capacity of a real train based mass transit network. Singapore has had self driving trains for years (it's a much easier problem) and London is automating more of their lines. Self driving cars are cool tech, but they're not going to solve grid lock or many of the major transport problems we face today: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
- evanpw 10y ago
  > I don't really like hearing about tax money going into these projects It might be better to think of it as an investment in public health rather than public transportation. Preventing the huge number of deaths caused by human drivers is more important than speeding up traffic.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    There are lots of simpler ways to reduce traffic deaths that we could be funding.

Fifer82 10y ago

I would like to see little leased pod cars which trundle around at the local speed within a certain range, and have the ability to go to a Bus Lane (I presume the bus is dead), and join a Magnetic Track of sort where they go 200 miles an hour. That would be pretty amazing. Why they are sticking shit all over 2 ton vehicles? If they are solving Fuel and Emissions and Driver, can't they just take the final step of a revolution? I am pretty sure governments would be throwing notes at it.

nickparker 10y ago
Hyperloop One is working on this. Small self driving cubicles drive around the city and pop into larger pods that go 700 mph in the Hyperloop between cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fze5spdN3nU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fze5spdN3nU
- nmeofthestate 10y ago
  Seems a bit gimmicky (it's the hyperloop after all). If the self-driving car is the vehicular equivalent of a hot desk, why not just exit it and walk into the hyperloop pod, instead of transporting tonnes of weight of interchangeable self-driving car? Then just hop into a different one that's waiting at the other end.
  - nickparker 10y ago
    Disclaimer: I'm starting a job at Hyperloop soon, but haven't actually been told anything about the hardware yet (I'm joining as a software dev), so this is all not-NDA-violating speculation: I believe the cars are also pressure vessels and life support systems. My student team looked into this side of the problem last year, and making the entire ~40 ft long Hyperloop pod a pressure vessel is really tricky. The two competing forces are the obvious premium on extra mass, and the need for a large opening to load cargo into the pods. Dealing with all the "human compatibility" problems at the scale of the cars lets you use much smaller pressure vessels (lighter), and makes loading unpressurized cargo drop dead easy. The other big benefit is that loading the Hyperloop pods is really difficult. You'd ideally like to be launching a pod into the tube every 30 seconds or less, to get the best return on your infrastructure investment. Achieving that by walking people right up to the 40 ft vehicles and having them all file in like a commercial flight is just about impossible. With mobile sub-pods you can have a far smaller station, and just load sub-pods as they arrive into the next departing pod.

chrismealy 10y ago

Google's car clearly isn't going to work in the real world (can it follow detour signs? Get out of the way of emergency vehicles? Understand a cop directing traffic?). Why is Google pretending otherwise? Why are they doing this?

teach 10y ago
Google's car can already read the hand signals from bicyclists[0]. They have logged literally millions of miles of safe driving. They really aren't "pretending". However, there are different classifications[1] of autonomous vehicles. Google's car is currently somewhere around level 3. It's true nobody has a level 4 car yet. [0] https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/google-autonomous-cars-cyclist-friendly/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/google-autonomous-cars-c... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classification

andrewmcwatters 10y ago

Glad to see Phoenix getting some love.

jonmc12 10y ago

Am I the only one feeling the press + big tech narrative of "driverless vehicles = safety" is way ahead of itself? OK, "driver error is blamed for 94% of crashes", but what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? In 2016, Philip Koopman of CMU discusses that there are non-trivial engineering challenges of achieving safety in NHTSA Level 4 vehicle automation: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman16_sae_autonomous_validation.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman16_sae_autono... If we are building the safest transportation system, what role do driverless vehicles play? Wouldn't that be the narrative that actually saves the most lives?

monkmartinez 10y ago
No you are not! HN seems to think the same way, and it is one of the worst cases of rose colored glasses I have ever witnessed. What about the cost? Who is going to be able to afford this? Also, what about people that rely on a vehicle for work? Retrofit $75K work trucks with another $75K in self driving gizmos? Find me a practical plumber, carpenter, A/C, lock smith, self-employed guy/gal that will sign up for that! Edit to add... Have the crazy expensive and downright hostile self-driving John Deere tractors eliminated farming deaths?
- mattpavelle 10y ago
  I'm curious - where did you come up with your $75k cost for retrofitting existing vehicles?
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Out of thin air. Why would it be cheaper? If you made the product, would you try to maximize profit or do it for SAFETY and the good of society?
    - narrowrail 10y ago
      You seem to be arguing against technological progress in order to protect people. Most of us 'self-driving car' skeptics are just pointing out that the timelines presented in much of the press are wildly optimistic.

saosebastiao 10y ago

This is an important step for testing, and I'm surprised that this is being spun as a move towards commercialization. As of right now, waymo has only been doing what could metaphorically be called unit testing. That is, they test the cars behavior in very controlled but unrealistic environments, looking for very specific responses. The accident rate that they've incurred is likely ridiculously skewed: they've been driving in good weather, on meaningless routes (not chosen by destination, but by route features), at relatively safe times of day, at slow speeds, and they've been doing it extremely cautiously with engineers ready to take over in a moments notice. This is exactly what they should have been doing, but politically it is misleading. Most human drivers, given those same constraints, would also do extremely well and way better than average. They've done well, but we have little basis for comparison with the average driver. This is the first step towards integration testing. They get to see how the cars behavior integrates together across various scenarios that are much closer to real life. They are driving on actual routes that real people travel on...routes that aren't chosen in order to test a specific behavior. Accident rates are going to go up. That's a good thing...its a move towards the things humans find more difficult too. We should, however, expect slowing progress to level 4 autonomy. This is typical of system capability growth; exponential in the beginning, asymptotic near the end. People that are rushing this are out of line; akin to immediate commercializations of lab rat successes. Give them time.

teach 10y ago
> they test the cars in very controlled but unrealistic environments Are you sure about this? Google has had self-driving cars in Austin for years and I'm pretty sure there's never a good time to be driving here.
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  Pretty damn sure. Even if an engineer drives his normal car to work, hops in a waymo car, and drives 9-5, and then drives a normal car back home, they've already constructed a scenario that is heavily time-weighted towards lighter than human-representative traffic experiences. Even small biases that you don't even think are meaningful can have a big impact on outcomes. But it doesn't stop there. Google hasn't tested snow at all. I'd be surprised if their testing locations represented rainy weather that is representative for more than 10% of the US. They don't test freeways, and by extension, do not test onramps and offramps. In California, they don't even go over 25 mph. Under those conditions they have been ostensibly pretty good at not causing accidents, but how good are they at avoiding accidents that are not their fault? This means accidents caused by other drivers and acts of god. Safety is far more than just causality. But more importantly, their miles traveled very easily exclude small snippets of time where an engineer takes over, but still counts the rest of the journey where the computer did fine. How representative is that? How good are humans when we let jesus take the wheel the moment driving gets slightly complicated? If a human overrides the computer only 1% of the time, that could still be anywhere from 1% to 100% of trips with at least one human override. It's very easy to catastrophically mislead yourself when working with averages [0]. Statisticians and Economists go through absolutely absurd lengths to make comparisons robust. Even if we had access to 100% of the data on Waymo's self driving cars, I don't know a single statistician that would be comfortable making a comparison to extremely coarsely aggregated data on human driving. Only through extensive testing in situations that are representative of how humans (and not just test engineers) drive will we be able to conclude that one is safer than the other. And that's why Phoenix is important to Waymo. [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=the+problem+with+averages&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=the...

z3t4 10y ago

I had nightmares about self driving cars as a child. Am I the only one who thinks self driving cars are scary!?

smpetrey 10y ago

When your opponents do not play by the rules, you win. Glad to see Google is making some strides.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

So now what do we tell our kids? "Don't get into a van even when nobody is driving it." ? :-) I think it is great that they are getting additional exposure to nominally real world users here. However, I'm not exactly sure what they are learning in user behaviors. Is it "Can we make a less expensive livery service?" or is it "How freaked out do people get in self driving cars?" or is it something else? I went to a conference last week where there were several talks that were pretty critical of self driving 'hype' given the HLS[1] issues and the ability to inexpensively 'spoof' the AI[2] to see something that isn't actually there (road signs being particularly vulnerable). It left me thinking I might be more optimistic about the technology than I should be. [1] "Health, Life, Safety" the general basket of things that are super critical to minimizing injury and death. [2] https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507542/facial-recognition-glasses-trick-impersonate-fool https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507542/facial-recogniti... -- on Facial Recognition but sign recognition has the same problem.