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The bet on maps is interesting. I'm of the personal opinion that in the long run only machine learning can solve autonomous driving, but both MobilEye and now t

The bet on maps is interesting. I'm of the personal opinion that in the long run only machine learning can solve autonomous driving, but both MobilEye and now this company both have invested heavily into maps. MobilEye makes sense, they have vested financial reasons that dictate what they do, so they can't turn their back on maps which they've been using for such a long time. On the other hand, starting a company in maps for self driving cars, especially by what appears to be industry veterans, is far more interesting.

davidlee1435 10y ago
Fleet management will become a true need, so maybe that will turn out to be their main value prop.
andreyk 10y ago
Cruise (now part of GM) also relies heavily on maps, based on a talk I saw their lead CV guy make. It does make a good deal of sense - maps (at least street-maps) are mostly static and they make the problem way easier, so why not use them. In fact, most people these days are implicitly using maps - how often do people drive to new places without GPS navigation? Of course, vision and likely ML are still a necessary part of the equation.
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  By maps I mean high resolution 3D maps with lidar and stuff as this startup seems to be doing. I don't doubt that 2d maps would be needed like how humans drive with a GPS.
- potatolicious 10y ago
  > "In fact, most people these days are implicitly using maps - how often do people drive to new places without GPS navigation?" I'd argue also they're using maps in an even more fundamental way - most driving occurs in places where the driver has already been, and relying on a wetware-stored map is a critical part of safe and effective driving. Local knowledge - traffic patterns, weird traffic signal setups, difficult lane changes, etc, is pretty critical to driving well.
  - yeukhon 10y ago
    If I have been to the destination multiple of times, I usually don't open map, I leave my phone off, or I let Pokemon Go running. But sometimes I do use map to seek for alternate faster route if I am in a hurry even if I am familiar with some alternate routes just to be sure. Since I don't use Waze (horrible experience), Google Map won't tell me there's a camera ahead, or police is ahead.
    - potatolicious 10y ago
      Right - I may have phrased my point badly. The idea is that all effective driving relies on pre-mapping, either via digital means (your phone) or human means (your brain). The expectation that self-driving can be perfected without any kind of pre-mapping and the system can behave at high reliably in-situ seems unreasonable. Even humans can't do that.
      - cfreeman 10y ago
        Humans and computers have different strengths though. Just because humans can't do something good doesn't mean computers can't, and vice-versa.
  - p1esk 10y ago
    A map in your head is closer to machine learning than to using GPS.
yeukhon 10y ago
The betting is not only interesting, but actually an excellent bet, in fact, very strategic. Learning to drive is only part of the formulas. As I stated this probably 10th time on HN, we need real data about road condition in order to make self-driving really successful. DeepMap is only part that solution, but we still need real data in real time. We need a real network communication in the transportation space. Take flight control, instead of having a person coordinating, we can make computer programs to do that coordination; now apply that to driving. This is not only a data challenge (because there is very little authentic data to collect from to begin with), but also a huge challenge in network communication.
- Retric 10y ago
  The problem with your idea is it's well outside a MVP for self driving cars, and we don't actually have self driving cars yet.
  - yeukhon 10y ago
    What's MVP? Of course we don't have self drivinv car otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.
    - dagss 10y ago
      Minimum Viable Product. He means that until self driving cars are not even as good as human drivers, it is pointless to discuss features that make them even better than human drivers. I.e. "one step at the time".
      - yeukhon 10y ago
        Well it probably is, but it would be too late if we don't start investing into the data collection. Convincing government to build infrastructure and services what I am suggesting is going to be a long investment. I know some states are working on toward that goal, and IBM's SmartCity project is one such example experimenting how to use technology to allow services to subscribe to data. We have a MVP. Google has a MVP, Telsa is a MVP already. I feel we focus too much on building sensors.

davidlee1435 10y ago

Fleet management will become a true need, so maybe that will turn out to be their main value prop.

andreyk 10y ago

Cruise (now part of GM) also relies heavily on maps, based on a talk I saw their lead CV guy make. It does make a good deal of sense - maps (at least street-maps) are mostly static and they make the problem way easier, so why not use them. In fact, most people these days are implicitly using maps - how often do people drive to new places without GPS navigation? Of course, vision and likely ML are still a necessary part of the equation.

deepnotderp 10y ago
By maps I mean high resolution 3D maps with lidar and stuff as this startup seems to be doing. I don't doubt that 2d maps would be needed like how humans drive with a GPS.
potatolicious 10y ago
> "In fact, most people these days are implicitly using maps - how often do people drive to new places without GPS navigation?" I'd argue also they're using maps in an even more fundamental way - most driving occurs in places where the driver has already been, and relying on a wetware-stored map is a critical part of safe and effective driving. Local knowledge - traffic patterns, weird traffic signal setups, difficult lane changes, etc, is pretty critical to driving well.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  If I have been to the destination multiple of times, I usually don't open map, I leave my phone off, or I let Pokemon Go running. But sometimes I do use map to seek for alternate faster route if I am in a hurry even if I am familiar with some alternate routes just to be sure. Since I don't use Waze (horrible experience), Google Map won't tell me there's a camera ahead, or police is ahead.
  - potatolicious 10y ago
    Right - I may have phrased my point badly. The idea is that all effective driving relies on pre-mapping, either via digital means (your phone) or human means (your brain). The expectation that self-driving can be perfected without any kind of pre-mapping and the system can behave at high reliably in-situ seems unreasonable. Even humans can't do that.
    - cfreeman 10y ago
      Humans and computers have different strengths though. Just because humans can't do something good doesn't mean computers can't, and vice-versa.
- p1esk 10y ago
  A map in your head is closer to machine learning than to using GPS.

yeukhon 10y ago

The betting is not only interesting, but actually an excellent bet, in fact, very strategic. Learning to drive is only part of the formulas. As I stated this probably 10th time on HN, we need real data about road condition in order to make self-driving really successful. DeepMap is only part that solution, but we still need real data in real time. We need a real network communication in the transportation space. Take flight control, instead of having a person coordinating, we can make computer programs to do that coordination; now apply that to driving. This is not only a data challenge (because there is very little authentic data to collect from to begin with), but also a huge challenge in network communication.

Retric 10y ago
The problem with your idea is it's well outside a MVP for self driving cars, and we don't actually have self driving cars yet.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  What's MVP? Of course we don't have self drivinv car otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.
  - dagss 10y ago
    Minimum Viable Product. He means that until self driving cars are not even as good as human drivers, it is pointless to discuss features that make them even better than human drivers. I.e. "one step at the time".
    - yeukhon 10y ago
      Well it probably is, but it would be too late if we don't start investing into the data collection. Convincing government to build infrastructure and services what I am suggesting is going to be a long investment. I know some states are working on toward that goal, and IBM's SmartCity project is one such example experimenting how to use technology to allow services to subscribe to data. We have a MVP. Google has a MVP, Telsa is a MVP already. I feel we focus too much on building sensors.