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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 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.
        luca_ing 9y ago
        > We can move the goalposts all we want I wasn't aware I did that. > but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters without steering wheels? Dear God I hope not. I use driving assistants in my car, but I'm painfully aware of their limitations. These days we absolutely still need a steering wheel. In my car for mundane situations, in Elon's miracle machines maybe only to park in an utterly unmarked field at a festival or whatever.
        mentat 9y ago
        It has already happened as I've said repeatedly. I'll stop bleeding karma pointing out reality.
nol13 9y ago
Visibility issues with the sensors aside, I'd probably trust a computer in the snow vs. most humans. Less prone to be overconfident in their stopping/steering abilities.
- luca_ing 9y ago
  > Visibility issues with the sensors aside, You got what I was aiming for, yes. That plus difficulty in understanding streets obscured by a cover of snow, etc. > Less prone to be overconfident in their stopping/steering abilities. Very true. Computers have weaknesses, but vanity is not one of them :-) > I'd probably trust a computer in the snow vs. most humans. I have a car (2016 model) with several fancy assistants. The lane-following assistant (which only works in very limited, benign conditions anyway) is regularly confused by shadows on pleasant days. Or by puddles on less pleasant days. The car-following cruise control has missed a 40t semitrailer and would have merrily accelerated right into it. The car-following cruise control regularly panics because it suddenly interprets guardrails or street signs as cars. On an empty road. This is not nice, because it has braking authority. The computer in my car, at least, can absolutely not be trusted.
  - andegre 9y ago
    What kind of car do you have?
    - luca_ing 9y ago
      BMW 225xe Active Tourer (yeah it's a mouthful :-) ).
joshuamorton 9y ago
>I wasn't replying to the person, I was replying to /you/. And my point still stands. How do you define a "fully autonomous vehicle" is an important question. Consider the following three possibilities: - Drives better than the median human driver in average weather conditions on half of the roads in the US (alternatively, for harder goals, replace with US+Europe or World) - Drives better than 95% of people in 95% of weather conditions on 95% of roads in the US - Drives better than any human in any weather conditions on any road in the US I'd argue we're almost certainly past the first milestone, and probably at or approaching the second, and the third will never be reached, but that doesn't matter. >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. Fwiw, I'm fairly confident that waymo's vehicles can handle flagmen and have more experience driving in the snow than I do. And I'm sure they can handle aggressive or undisciplined drivers. Conversely, there are situations that AVs will handle much much better than humans already (a neighborhood with a lot of kids running around and shrubs occluding them for example). For context, we know that the first goal (better than average driver in half of road conditions) is now achievable by teams of 1-3 people on a tight budget in O(months) (and really, maybe weeks), since people have done that and posted it on the internet.
- luca_ing 9y ago
  > - Drives better than the median human driver in average weather conditions on half of the roads in the US (alternatively, for harder goals, replace with US+Europe or World) - Drives better than 95% of people in 95% of weather conditions on 95% of roads in the US - Drives better than any human in any weather conditions on any road in the US > I'd argue we're almost certainly past the first milestone, and probably at or approaching the second, and the third will never be reached, but that doesn't matter. I agree on the first and third milestones. Or kinda -- perhaps the first milestone is only reached for California, or for US highways yet. I think you underestimate how difficult the second milestone is. The variation is tremendous, even merely within the US, to say nothing about the rest of the world. > Fwiw, I'm fairly confident that waymo's vehicles can handle flagmen and I'm sceptical. I think there will be so much ambiguity, both through road situation and through human interaction which we interpret with comparable ease, that the car may be stumped. And we set the high hurdle of forgoing steering wheels, so we need some other, yet to be devised way to give the car hints safely and efficiently. > have more experience driving in the snow than I do. I wasn't thinking about handling the car (I can easily believe that a computer does a better job of that), but rather about decreased visibility, no visible road markings, etc. > And I'm sure they can handle aggressive or Fairly easy I guess. Just be defensive, put a bit of distance between you and them. > undisciplined drivers. Much harder. Not from a safety perspective (again, just be defensive), but from a I'd-like-to-arrive-at-some-point perspective. Because then again it becomes about human interaction (being assertive without being an asshole, muddling your way through this blocked intersection through essentially non-verbal communication with the drivers around you), and computers will (inherently, perhaps) be worse at that than humans. > Conversely, there are situations that AVs will handle much much better than humans already (a neighborhood with a lot of kids running around and shrubs occluding them for example). Except, again, that humans will be able to judge body language or the rules of a game the children are playing, and anticipate instead of being confined to reacting (which the computer will indeed be better at, I agree). Perhaps my pessimism also stems from the fact that the oh-so-smart driving assistants in my car are so shitty (read my other posts if you're interested) :-) EDIT: Thanks for the interesting discussion so far.

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.
      - luca_ing 9y ago
        > We can move the goalposts all we want I wasn't aware I did that. > but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters without steering wheels? Dear God I hope not. I use driving assistants in my car, but I'm painfully aware of their limitations. These days we absolutely still need a steering wheel. In my car for mundane situations, in Elon's miracle machines maybe only to park in an utterly unmarked field at a festival or whatever.
        mentat 9y ago
        It has already happened as I've said repeatedly. I'll stop bleeding karma pointing out reality.

nol13 9y ago

Visibility issues with the sensors aside, I'd probably trust a computer in the snow vs. most humans. Less prone to be overconfident in their stopping/steering abilities.

luca_ing 9y ago
> Visibility issues with the sensors aside, You got what I was aiming for, yes. That plus difficulty in understanding streets obscured by a cover of snow, etc. > Less prone to be overconfident in their stopping/steering abilities. Very true. Computers have weaknesses, but vanity is not one of them :-) > I'd probably trust a computer in the snow vs. most humans. I have a car (2016 model) with several fancy assistants. The lane-following assistant (which only works in very limited, benign conditions anyway) is regularly confused by shadows on pleasant days. Or by puddles on less pleasant days. The car-following cruise control has missed a 40t semitrailer and would have merrily accelerated right into it. The car-following cruise control regularly panics because it suddenly interprets guardrails or street signs as cars. On an empty road. This is not nice, because it has braking authority. The computer in my car, at least, can absolutely not be trusted.
- andegre 9y ago
  What kind of car do you have?
  - luca_ing 9y ago
    BMW 225xe Active Tourer (yeah it's a mouthful :-) ).

joshuamorton 9y ago

>I wasn't replying to the person, I was replying to /you/. And my point still stands. How do you define a "fully autonomous vehicle" is an important question. Consider the following three possibilities: - Drives better than the median human driver in average weather conditions on half of the roads in the US (alternatively, for harder goals, replace with US+Europe or World) - Drives better than 95% of people in 95% of weather conditions on 95% of roads in the US - Drives better than any human in any weather conditions on any road in the US I'd argue we're almost certainly past the first milestone, and probably at or approaching the second, and the third will never be reached, but that doesn't matter. >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. Fwiw, I'm fairly confident that waymo's vehicles can handle flagmen and have more experience driving in the snow than I do. And I'm sure they can handle aggressive or undisciplined drivers. Conversely, there are situations that AVs will handle much much better than humans already (a neighborhood with a lot of kids running around and shrubs occluding them for example). For context, we know that the first goal (better than average driver in half of road conditions) is now achievable by teams of 1-3 people on a tight budget in O(months) (and really, maybe weeks), since people have done that and posted it on the internet.

luca_ing 9y ago
> - Drives better than the median human driver in average weather conditions on half of the roads in the US (alternatively, for harder goals, replace with US+Europe or World) - Drives better than 95% of people in 95% of weather conditions on 95% of roads in the US - Drives better than any human in any weather conditions on any road in the US > I'd argue we're almost certainly past the first milestone, and probably at or approaching the second, and the third will never be reached, but that doesn't matter. I agree on the first and third milestones. Or kinda -- perhaps the first milestone is only reached for California, or for US highways yet. I think you underestimate how difficult the second milestone is. The variation is tremendous, even merely within the US, to say nothing about the rest of the world. > Fwiw, I'm fairly confident that waymo's vehicles can handle flagmen and I'm sceptical. I think there will be so much ambiguity, both through road situation and through human interaction which we interpret with comparable ease, that the car may be stumped. And we set the high hurdle of forgoing steering wheels, so we need some other, yet to be devised way to give the car hints safely and efficiently. > have more experience driving in the snow than I do. I wasn't thinking about handling the car (I can easily believe that a computer does a better job of that), but rather about decreased visibility, no visible road markings, etc. > And I'm sure they can handle aggressive or Fairly easy I guess. Just be defensive, put a bit of distance between you and them. > undisciplined drivers. Much harder. Not from a safety perspective (again, just be defensive), but from a I'd-like-to-arrive-at-some-point perspective. Because then again it becomes about human interaction (being assertive without being an asshole, muddling your way through this blocked intersection through essentially non-verbal communication with the drivers around you), and computers will (inherently, perhaps) be worse at that than humans. > Conversely, there are situations that AVs will handle much much better than humans already (a neighborhood with a lot of kids running around and shrubs occluding them for example). Except, again, that humans will be able to judge body language or the rules of a game the children are playing, and anticipate instead of being confined to reacting (which the computer will indeed be better at, I agree). Perhaps my pessimism also stems from the fact that the oh-so-smart driving assistants in my car are so shitty (read my other posts if you're interested) :-) EDIT: Thanks for the interesting discussion so far.