5 ms·

How often does it snow in Mountain View?

joshuamorton 9y ago
Why is that relevant? The person stated that they expected autonomous vehicles to take 20-50 years to have no steering wheels. My point is, such vehicles already drive on the roads in some places. The limits are already often more regulatory than technological.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  What do those do when an intersection light is out and a crew is directing traffic?
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Ask the human to confirm when it is safe to proceed.
    - luca_ing 9y ago
      ...and have some kind of UI to explain to the car whether to pass the work crew on the left or on the right. I dunno, maybe some kind of wheel in front of the human, which they could turn left or right to command the car to change direction ;-P
      - erikpukinskis 9y ago
        No, just ask.
- luca_ing 9y ago
  I wasn't replying to the person, I was replying to /you/. The impression I got from your statement was that you consider fully autonomous vehicles not far off. I disagree. The point I was making was that the vehicles you see driving around are literally fair-weather vehicles. A vehicle which can navigate autonomously 95% of the time might not be that far off (I still call it a decade though), but those last 5% (thus, no steering wheel at all) are going to be way harder. To give but a few examples: humans are taxed by navigating roads in snowy weather at night, but they usually pull it off. Or intersections controlled by traffic police. Or intersections with undisciplined drivers pushing in. I'll be interested to see an autonomous system deal with such situations gracefully. I agree that there are difficult regulatory issues to figure out, but don't underestimate the technical hurdles.
  - mentat 9y ago
    There are fully autonomous vehicles driving around Mountain View all the time. They are not 10 years off, it is now.
    - tomp 9y ago
      "fully autonomous around Mountain View" is not equivalent to "fully autonomous". In particular, Uber can't just take the former and deploy it everywhere.
      - erikpukinskis 9y ago
        They don't need to deploy it everywhere. Even if it can only navigate between SFO and Mountain View, that's ready to deploy as a commercial venture. There will be an adoption ramp anyway. It will just follow the driving difficulty gradient. In practical terms, it's ready now. Driving people home from the ski area in a blizzard will be the final task, but it doesn't need to be solved to put both Uber and GM out of business.
        luca_ing 9y ago
        There is a bit of a misunderstanding in this thread I think. I (and others, I believe) were arguing when a car we would want to buy could forgo a steering wheel. You're right that e.g. Uber could have a steering-wheel-less fleet that they simply retire in adverse conditions, sooner than that.
        erikpukinskis 9y ago
        Automonous cars that you buy won't be an important product historically, except as a data collection strategy for Tesla etc. Autonomous carshare will be at least half of the mobility market, eventually eating all but the very wealthiest customers, plus driving enthusiasts.
        mentat 9y ago
        "want to buy" is a pretty nebulous and person thing. It doesn't seem meaningful to talk about without fully qualifying much less say "it's not possible". We can move the goalposts all we want but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters. If you want to say you won't feel comfortable for another 10 years, great, but that doesn't mean the event hasn't happened. It's a tremendous accomplishment. I've seen the fully autonomous cars making lefts on El Camino that I just would not do, ever, and they do it perfectly.

Why is that relevant? The person stated that they expected autonomous vehicles to take 20-50 years to have no steering wheels. My point is, such vehicles already drive on the roads in some places. The limits are already often more regulatory than technological.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago
What do those do when an intersection light is out and a crew is directing traffic?
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Ask the human to confirm when it is safe to proceed.
  - luca_ing 9y ago
    ...and have some kind of UI to explain to the car whether to pass the work crew on the left or on the right. I dunno, maybe some kind of wheel in front of the human, which they could turn left or right to command the car to change direction ;-P
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      No, just ask.
luca_ing 9y ago
I wasn't replying to the person, I was replying to /you/. The impression I got from your statement was that you consider fully autonomous vehicles not far off. I disagree. The point I was making was that the vehicles you see driving around are literally fair-weather vehicles. A vehicle which can navigate autonomously 95% of the time might not be that far off (I still call it a decade though), but those last 5% (thus, no steering wheel at all) are going to be way harder. To give but a few examples: humans are taxed by navigating roads in snowy weather at night, but they usually pull it off. Or intersections controlled by traffic police. Or intersections with undisciplined drivers pushing in. I'll be interested to see an autonomous system deal with such situations gracefully. I agree that there are difficult regulatory issues to figure out, but don't underestimate the technical hurdles.
- mentat 9y ago
  There are fully autonomous vehicles driving around Mountain View all the time. They are not 10 years off, it is now.
  - tomp 9y ago
    "fully autonomous around Mountain View" is not equivalent to "fully autonomous". In particular, Uber can't just take the former and deploy it everywhere.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      They don't need to deploy it everywhere. Even if it can only navigate between SFO and Mountain View, that's ready to deploy as a commercial venture. There will be an adoption ramp anyway. It will just follow the driving difficulty gradient. In practical terms, it's ready now. Driving people home from the ski area in a blizzard will be the final task, but it doesn't need to be solved to put both Uber and GM out of business.
      - luca_ing 9y ago
        There is a bit of a misunderstanding in this thread I think. I (and others, I believe) were arguing when a car we would want to buy could forgo a steering wheel. You're right that e.g. Uber could have a steering-wheel-less fleet that they simply retire in adverse conditions, sooner than that.
        erikpukinskis 9y ago
        Automonous cars that you buy won't be an important product historically, except as a data collection strategy for Tesla etc. Autonomous carshare will be at least half of the mobility market, eventually eating all but the very wealthiest customers, plus driving enthusiasts.
        mentat 9y ago
        "want to buy" is a pretty nebulous and person thing. It doesn't seem meaningful to talk about without fully qualifying much less say "it's not possible". We can move the goalposts all we want but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters. If you want to say you won't feel comfortable for another 10 years, great, but that doesn't mean the event hasn't happened. It's a tremendous accomplishment. I've seen the fully autonomous cars making lefts on El Camino that I just would not do, ever, and they do it perfectly.