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Self-driving cars feel like they are still in the early Alpha stage, while self-driving robots are already in production in Amazon's warehouses. Why are compan

Self-driving cars feel like they are still in the early Alpha stage, while self-driving robots are already in production in Amazon's warehouses. Why are companies going through the great expense of constructing full-size mock-ups if the domain problems haven't been solved on smaller mock-ups? Is there a fundamental difference between a 400 lb self-driving robot and a 2-ton self-driving robot - beyond the advertising novelty of being inside the car? Edit: If both robots are outside on a driving track, not in the Amazon warehouse. And if "snow-vision" and other problems have been solved with smaller robots, or in other domains, why do news articles like this treat the topic as though it's entirely foreign and to be feared, instead of helping readers associate these concepts with existing concepts to drive acceptance?

gervase 9y ago
I think there are two separate issues that you raise that are essentially independent: 1. What evaluation metrics should we use to measure the advancement of self-driving technology? 2. How can we measure the public's level of acceptance for these technologies, and what impact does media coverage (positive or negative) have in that respect? For example, I would not personally gauge that SDCs are in early alpha. However, I live in a suburb of Phoenix, where Uber, Waymo, and Cruise [0] are all conducting extensive testing; I usually observe between 15 and 30 distinct SDCs during my 20-minute commute. I expect this familiarity has (by design, I'm sure) made me more comfortable with SDCs than most. I also assume that the environment is somewhat simpler than other metro areas, as we have very little precipitation and a mostly grid-like street layout. My judgement of these cars is that they approximate the behavior of an extremely stodgy, overly conservative, but ultimately very alert driver. For example, they respond well to being cut off, dealing with late light changes, or unpredictable pedestrian behavior, while dealing poorly with things which require decision-making, such as making a right on red, or preemptively changing lanes to avoid the frequent stops of a bus. In other words, they've been optimizing for safety, and not trip efficiency; I think that this is probably the right order of priorities at this stage of development. Given this, I would be comfortable taking driverless trips around town, on surface streets; I would therefore classify the current state of development as early beta more so than early alpha. However, this is a subjective assessment, not based on any objective metric. At the same time, I read the news too, and I think we are observing the clash of two competing agendas. On one hand, you have the tech companies painting an overly-rosy picture of development, probably to soften up the market to increase (eventual) penetration. On the other hand, you have overly-pessimistic outlets preaching various types of doom (job loss, trolley problem, etc) in order to drive clicks through fear, or (cynically) to poison the market and buy time for later technical entries to catch up to the leaders. Both of these tactics will have varying levels of receptivity with different groups, roughly corresponding (I expect) to the Rogers adoption curve [1]. Therefore, I expect we'll continue to see both optimistic and pessimistic coverage for quite some time. [0]: In this order of development progress, in my opinion [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
- stephengillie 9y ago
  I forget that truckers and delivery drivers see these not as angels coming to save them from the tyranny of driving, but rather see them as devils, coming to steal their jobs away. And so media outlets have to "wear kid gloves" when reporting these articles.
  - taneq 9y ago
    Same with the 'stock checking' bots at Walmart. They didn't develop that platform to check stock levels, they developed it to be a shop assistant. But they have to field test it and they can't afford to do so openly while a strike could still shut them down. Hence, "stock taking".
Shivetya 9y ago
well that indoor robot has the advantage of fully mapped environment to operate within, low speeds, and people who know how to work around them. going to be fun watching them deal with snow. though their approach has tended towards detail mapping. someone is going to figure out a break through in marking roads or perhaps they will get sensible and start with limited access highways first.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Snow is increased visual noise. How do humans deal with it? We disregard it. How difficult is it to program computer vision to do the same? Self-driving cars are at the intersection of numerous solved domains, yet integrating these remains strangely difficult for the largest companies in the world.
  - recursive 9y ago
    It's a small matter of engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      I don't think it's that. It's a fundamental misreading of the problem snow causes. The part where a few snowflakes go past the camera is relatively simple to deal with. But it's not why snowy conditions are difficult.
  - rwill128 9y ago
    How can you so blindly oversimplify a problem and then act like the rest of the world is incompetent for not solving it already? Snow is not just increased visual noise. Just off the top of my head, with no experience in self-driving cars and limited experience in computer vision: Snow (on the ground and street and curbs) is a vastly lower-contrast visual environment where numerous traditionally distinct features of the landscape are covered by a blanket of white. Snow is a more dangerous and difficult-to-stop-in environment, with totally different physical dynamics. Recognizing pedestrians (and their intentions), road blocks, debris, etc. is probably already a challenging problem, and with snow it's not only more difficult, it needs to be done from a much farther distance to give adequate stopping time. Along with snow there are issues with recognizing icy patches and other especially low traction sections on the road and adjusting control inputs accordingly. I can't tell if you've never driven in snow or never even attempted a basic computer vision or robotics task in your life, or both.
gph 9y ago
>Is there a fundamental difference between a 400 lb self-driving robot and a 2-ton self-driving robot There's a difference in environment. How can you seriously think "Well if they have self-driving robots in controlled warehouse scenarios, what's the novelty of self-driving robots in unpredictable and often treacherous real-world public road scenarios?"
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Beyond environment, is there another fundamental difference?
  - 05 9y ago
    Liability
  - recursive 9y ago
    There may or may not be, but that one difference seems sufficient.
contrahax 9y ago
Does an Amazon warehouse have thousands of pedestrians and high speed moving objects whizzing around them constantly, unknown regulations on their movement only visible via signs, and constantly evolving route types/conditions? Do Amazon robots need to figure all of these things out while moving at 80mph? Software for a robot to carry packages around a warehouse that was constructed for that purpose isn't even comparable to self driving cars.
deelowe 9y ago
The self driving robots have to have facilities specifically constructed and/or configured with the constraints of the robotic system in mind. No one makes a go anywhere, do anything self navigating robot. The application of robotics in industry is still very much more akin to industrial automation than it is true autonomy. There's a ton you have to take into account to design a system that works well. In practice, this means that traditional automation is typically still the better solution than full autonomy.
maxvu 9y ago
IIRC, Amazon's KIVA have a central schedule that they use to stay out of each others' way, not sensors. I don't think that that comparison works out. I also don't get that tone from the article, either.
dontreact 9y ago
I’m confused. What kind of smaller mock-up are you imagining? I bet that Waymo considers lots of cases of driving solved (controlled environment parking lot) and we are seeing just another step up in terms of the scale of the problem.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  If you're just working on computer vision and world mapping, why do you need something bigger than an RC car? I started with a sonar sensor and an arduino on an RC car in 2012, and had a working prototype, but never secured funding (and eventually became homeless).
  - nieksand 9y ago
    In the case of a real car, you aren't just reacting to the environment. The actors in the environment (cars, pedestrians, traffic light sensors) are reacting to you as well.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Because an RC car with a sonar sensor and an arduino relates to a self driving car roughly the way a bicycle lock compares to a bank vault. Orders of magnitude in complexity difference and a much more hostile environment to survive in. I am not really comfortable writing this but seriously, if you have to ask this question I am actually happy you did not receive funding (but I am obviously not happy that you ended up homeless), that was not a prototype, it was not even a proof of concept. It was maybe a small step up from a toy. Sonar as a sensor may give you a little bit of input data but your arduino does not have the processing power to extract meaningful information about its environment from that data nor does that sensor give you sufficient information that you would use to pilot a couple of tons of steel through an environment inhabited by fragile humans.
    - gph 9y ago
      OP sounds like that semi-autistic guy who asked Elon Musk if they could work together at the shareholder meeting. In his mind he's exaggerating his work/abilities while dragging down what Waymo and self-driving researchers are doing. It's sort of sad to see.
caconym_ 9y ago
I'm not sure I totally understand your point but a) a robot scooting around a flat concrete floor in a controlled environment is completely different from a car driving on real roads, and b) if they're ready to start full-size tests in these adverse conditions then they must think they're pretty darn close to having a viable product, given the possible consequences of failure. It's not like they haven't already done a massive amount of R&D to get to this point.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  So these "beta tests" are just ads.
  - recursive 9y ago
    They're not "just" ads. They're also tests.
  - caconym_ 9y ago
    Again, I don't see your point. Before selling a self-driving car product intended to work reliably in X conditions, you have to test prototypes and eventually the production model "release candidate" in X conditions. I feel like you're trying too hard to find a cynical angle on this.

gervase 9y ago

I think there are two separate issues that you raise that are essentially independent: 1. What evaluation metrics should we use to measure the advancement of self-driving technology? 2. How can we measure the public's level of acceptance for these technologies, and what impact does media coverage (positive or negative) have in that respect? For example, I would not personally gauge that SDCs are in early alpha. However, I live in a suburb of Phoenix, where Uber, Waymo, and Cruise [0] are all conducting extensive testing; I usually observe between 15 and 30 distinct SDCs during my 20-minute commute. I expect this familiarity has (by design, I'm sure) made me more comfortable with SDCs than most. I also assume that the environment is somewhat simpler than other metro areas, as we have very little precipitation and a mostly grid-like street layout. My judgement of these cars is that they approximate the behavior of an extremely stodgy, overly conservative, but ultimately very alert driver. For example, they respond well to being cut off, dealing with late light changes, or unpredictable pedestrian behavior, while dealing poorly with things which require decision-making, such as making a right on red, or preemptively changing lanes to avoid the frequent stops of a bus. In other words, they've been optimizing for safety, and not trip efficiency; I think that this is probably the right order of priorities at this stage of development. Given this, I would be comfortable taking driverless trips around town, on surface streets; I would therefore classify the current state of development as early beta more so than early alpha. However, this is a subjective assessment, not based on any objective metric. At the same time, I read the news too, and I think we are observing the clash of two competing agendas. On one hand, you have the tech companies painting an overly-rosy picture of development, probably to soften up the market to increase (eventual) penetration. On the other hand, you have overly-pessimistic outlets preaching various types of doom (job loss, trolley problem, etc) in order to drive clicks through fear, or (cynically) to poison the market and buy time for later technical entries to catch up to the leaders. Both of these tactics will have varying levels of receptivity with different groups, roughly corresponding (I expect) to the Rogers adoption curve [1]. Therefore, I expect we'll continue to see both optimistic and pessimistic coverage for quite some time. [0]: In this order of development progress, in my opinion [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

stephengillie 9y ago
I forget that truckers and delivery drivers see these not as angels coming to save them from the tyranny of driving, but rather see them as devils, coming to steal their jobs away. And so media outlets have to "wear kid gloves" when reporting these articles.
- taneq 9y ago
  Same with the 'stock checking' bots at Walmart. They didn't develop that platform to check stock levels, they developed it to be a shop assistant. But they have to field test it and they can't afford to do so openly while a strike could still shut them down. Hence, "stock taking".

Shivetya 9y ago

well that indoor robot has the advantage of fully mapped environment to operate within, low speeds, and people who know how to work around them. going to be fun watching them deal with snow. though their approach has tended towards detail mapping. someone is going to figure out a break through in marking roads or perhaps they will get sensible and start with limited access highways first.

stephengillie 9y ago
Snow is increased visual noise. How do humans deal with it? We disregard it. How difficult is it to program computer vision to do the same? Self-driving cars are at the intersection of numerous solved domains, yet integrating these remains strangely difficult for the largest companies in the world.
- recursive 9y ago
  It's a small matter of engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    I don't think it's that. It's a fundamental misreading of the problem snow causes. The part where a few snowflakes go past the camera is relatively simple to deal with. But it's not why snowy conditions are difficult.
- rwill128 9y ago
  How can you so blindly oversimplify a problem and then act like the rest of the world is incompetent for not solving it already? Snow is not just increased visual noise. Just off the top of my head, with no experience in self-driving cars and limited experience in computer vision: Snow (on the ground and street and curbs) is a vastly lower-contrast visual environment where numerous traditionally distinct features of the landscape are covered by a blanket of white. Snow is a more dangerous and difficult-to-stop-in environment, with totally different physical dynamics. Recognizing pedestrians (and their intentions), road blocks, debris, etc. is probably already a challenging problem, and with snow it's not only more difficult, it needs to be done from a much farther distance to give adequate stopping time. Along with snow there are issues with recognizing icy patches and other especially low traction sections on the road and adjusting control inputs accordingly. I can't tell if you've never driven in snow or never even attempted a basic computer vision or robotics task in your life, or both.

gph 9y ago

>Is there a fundamental difference between a 400 lb self-driving robot and a 2-ton self-driving robot There's a difference in environment. How can you seriously think "Well if they have self-driving robots in controlled warehouse scenarios, what's the novelty of self-driving robots in unpredictable and often treacherous real-world public road scenarios?"

stephengillie 9y ago
Beyond environment, is there another fundamental difference?
- 05 9y ago
  Liability
- recursive 9y ago
  There may or may not be, but that one difference seems sufficient.

contrahax 9y ago

Does an Amazon warehouse have thousands of pedestrians and high speed moving objects whizzing around them constantly, unknown regulations on their movement only visible via signs, and constantly evolving route types/conditions? Do Amazon robots need to figure all of these things out while moving at 80mph? Software for a robot to carry packages around a warehouse that was constructed for that purpose isn't even comparable to self driving cars.

deelowe 9y ago

The self driving robots have to have facilities specifically constructed and/or configured with the constraints of the robotic system in mind. No one makes a go anywhere, do anything self navigating robot. The application of robotics in industry is still very much more akin to industrial automation than it is true autonomy. There's a ton you have to take into account to design a system that works well. In practice, this means that traditional automation is typically still the better solution than full autonomy.

maxvu 9y ago

IIRC, Amazon's KIVA have a central schedule that they use to stay out of each others' way, not sensors. I don't think that that comparison works out. I also don't get that tone from the article, either.

dontreact 9y ago

I’m confused. What kind of smaller mock-up are you imagining? I bet that Waymo considers lots of cases of driving solved (controlled environment parking lot) and we are seeing just another step up in terms of the scale of the problem.

stephengillie 9y ago
If you're just working on computer vision and world mapping, why do you need something bigger than an RC car? I started with a sonar sensor and an arduino on an RC car in 2012, and had a working prototype, but never secured funding (and eventually became homeless).
- nieksand 9y ago
  In the case of a real car, you aren't just reacting to the environment. The actors in the environment (cars, pedestrians, traffic light sensors) are reacting to you as well.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Because an RC car with a sonar sensor and an arduino relates to a self driving car roughly the way a bicycle lock compares to a bank vault. Orders of magnitude in complexity difference and a much more hostile environment to survive in. I am not really comfortable writing this but seriously, if you have to ask this question I am actually happy you did not receive funding (but I am obviously not happy that you ended up homeless), that was not a prototype, it was not even a proof of concept. It was maybe a small step up from a toy. Sonar as a sensor may give you a little bit of input data but your arduino does not have the processing power to extract meaningful information about its environment from that data nor does that sensor give you sufficient information that you would use to pilot a couple of tons of steel through an environment inhabited by fragile humans.
  - gph 9y ago
    OP sounds like that semi-autistic guy who asked Elon Musk if they could work together at the shareholder meeting. In his mind he's exaggerating his work/abilities while dragging down what Waymo and self-driving researchers are doing. It's sort of sad to see.

caconym_ 9y ago

I'm not sure I totally understand your point but a) a robot scooting around a flat concrete floor in a controlled environment is completely different from a car driving on real roads, and b) if they're ready to start full-size tests in these adverse conditions then they must think they're pretty darn close to having a viable product, given the possible consequences of failure. It's not like they haven't already done a massive amount of R&D to get to this point.

stephengillie 9y ago
So these "beta tests" are just ads.
- recursive 9y ago
  They're not "just" ads. They're also tests.
- caconym_ 9y ago
  Again, I don't see your point. Before selling a self-driving car product intended to work reliably in X conditions, you have to test prototypes and eventually the production model "release candidate" in X conditions. I feel like you're trying too hard to find a cynical angle on this.