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I'd much rather they figure out snow conditions. Driving in a snowstorm is challenging even for experienced human drivers, and I'd feel far safer in a autonomou

by lhorie 9y ago

I'd much rather they figure out snow conditions. Driving in a snowstorm is challenging even for experienced human drivers, and I'd feel far safer in a autonomous car that has been shown to handle snow well than one that merely dogfoods with employees in sunny California.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
Why? If the cars never leave the Bay Area why would you feel safer knowing they have snow capabilities? I’d rather they get them working maximally safely in a confined environment than pretend to be universally safe when they’re obviously not.
- lhorie 9y ago
  Because snow conditions are inherently more dangerous and more likely to yield data for the cases we really care about, i.e. accidents and near accidents. Getting commute data in California is likely to just give you a ton of boring repeat data going to and from googleplex and a few locations. As far as I understand, the technology is already good enough to handle that sort of 80% reliability stuff. It's the last 20% - the hard stuff - that needs to be hammered on from now on.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    > snow conditions are ... likely to yield data for the cases we really care about That’s not intuitive to me. I don’t see why snow conditions would teach us about likely accidents in Pali Alto.
    - lhorie 9y ago
      Someone had a good example in this thread, for example, you're more likely going to run into issues with clogged sensors in detroit than you are in palo alto. Another thing that happens way more in snow is automatic torque rebalancing in 4WD systems. Rainy days aren't nearly as common in Palo Alto as snowy days are in Detroit but both share the property of poorer visibility and an increase in pedestrian distraction levels. Etc, etc. A lot of technology only exists because their original problem set was extreme in nature (e.g. things out of NASA or military research). I think a lot of "easier" problems in autonomous driving could benefit from a breakthrough solution that got discovered in the course of solving a harder problem.

by lhorie 9y ago

erikpukinskis 9y ago

Why? If the cars never leave the Bay Area why would you feel safer knowing they have snow capabilities? I’d rather they get them working maximally safely in a confined environment than pretend to be universally safe when they’re obviously not.

lhorie 9y ago
Because snow conditions are inherently more dangerous and more likely to yield data for the cases we really care about, i.e. accidents and near accidents. Getting commute data in California is likely to just give you a ton of boring repeat data going to and from googleplex and a few locations. As far as I understand, the technology is already good enough to handle that sort of 80% reliability stuff. It's the last 20% - the hard stuff - that needs to be hammered on from now on.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  > snow conditions are ... likely to yield data for the cases we really care about That’s not intuitive to me. I don’t see why snow conditions would teach us about likely accidents in Pali Alto.
  - lhorie 9y ago
    Someone had a good example in this thread, for example, you're more likely going to run into issues with clogged sensors in detroit than you are in palo alto. Another thing that happens way more in snow is automatic torque rebalancing in 4WD systems. Rainy days aren't nearly as common in Palo Alto as snowy days are in Detroit but both share the property of poorer visibility and an increase in pedestrian distraction levels. Etc, etc. A lot of technology only exists because their original problem set was extreme in nature (e.g. things out of NASA or military research). I think a lot of "easier" problems in autonomous driving could benefit from a breakthrough solution that got discovered in the course of solving a harder problem.