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Is anyone even talking about let alone demoing self-driving in a seemingly chaotic urban driving in India and elsewhere? My uneducated guess is we are decades a

Is anyone even talking about let alone demoing self-driving in a seemingly chaotic urban driving in India and elsewhere? My uneducated guess is we are decades away from being able to navigate anything real world like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLUm3Q-7iZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLUm3Q-7iZA If you zoom out, you'll see that there's a method to the madness but a lone driving car that's not a part of a fleet doesn't have such luxuries. I don't think the problem is solely image processing and machine learning. I just don't get self driving and how we're supposed to wow the logic. You have to be aggressive to drive in a city or people will constantly cut you off for hours. This means you will hold up traffic making the situation worse for everyone. However, you can't be too aggressive. Imagine the damage we will cause to the "optics" of self driving if we run over (at a slow 10 mph) stubborn people who cut us off. That will just look like murder.

avip 9y ago
The idea that a self-driving car would even make it to Turkey in the first place is laughable. Let's see how it goes in Italy or the Balkans first. But it's ok to dream...
- ggggtez 9y ago
  I don't think it can pump it's own gas lol.
  - xiphias 9y ago
    Tesla is working on self-charging, but a simpler option is to contract the gas stations and have the workers there fill up the tank
  - purple-again 9y ago
    I have one less coffee than I had at the start of your post but it seems my mechanical keyboard survived so still worth!
cornholio 9y ago
Considering the route takes you through Iran and Pakistan, and a few 100s Km from Afghanistan, Indian trafic is the least of your worries. I'm considering driving the same trip but it seems a detour through Caucasus is a much safer choice.
moosekaka 9y ago
haphazard traffic flow due to lack of traffic safety awareness and road discipline by pedestrians and drivers alike are not exclusive to just India. we have a large Indian population in Malaysia and Singapore... go to their Little India enclaves and you see the same free for all situation... perhaps just a little better then shown in the video.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
Having driven in similar "chaotic" traffic, it's not different that how we move on feet in a crowded area. This explains it better: https://highwayflocking.github.io/ https://highwayflocking.github.io/ A self driving car can have much better "perception" of the surrounding area and reaction times under 100ms, making it potentially very good at flocking safely.
majani 9y ago
there are many examples of countries that have been able to leapfrog certain steps in development. Case in point: most 3rd world countries skipped over desktop computing, straight into mobile. Maybe self driving cars will somehow take over the world exponentially like smartphones have, and developing countries skip over human policing of traffic into a majority self-drive reality.
kjksf 9y ago
Based on economics, self-driving cars are not necessarily attractive in India. Consider that in US the cheapest ZipCar is ~$8/hr. Adding even the cheapest human driver working at minimum wage is ~$15/hr. Adding a human driver in US makes the trip 3x more expensive. Or to put it another way: a self-driving trip can be 3x less expensive. Or to put it another way: a $30 trip from SF downtown to airport becomes $10 trip which is competitive with BART prices. I don't know what is the minimum wage in India, but per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India per capita income is $1670 / year which is probably less than $1 per hour. In other words: self-driving cars only make economic sense in countries where humans are expensive.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  > Or to put it another way: a $30 trip from SF downtown to airport becomes $10 trip which is competitive with BART prices. I looked up BART because of what you said and it looks pretty bad. https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-all.csv https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-a... 175 people make six figures in base pay. The total cost of employment is ridiculously high. I don't know anything about BART but they clearly need to lay off a lot of people. This is ridiculous.

avip 9y ago

The idea that a self-driving car would even make it to Turkey in the first place is laughable. Let's see how it goes in Italy or the Balkans first. But it's ok to dream...

ggggtez 9y ago
I don't think it can pump it's own gas lol.
- xiphias 9y ago
  Tesla is working on self-charging, but a simpler option is to contract the gas stations and have the workers there fill up the tank
- purple-again 9y ago
  I have one less coffee than I had at the start of your post but it seems my mechanical keyboard survived so still worth!

cornholio 9y ago

Considering the route takes you through Iran and Pakistan, and a few 100s Km from Afghanistan, Indian trafic is the least of your worries. I'm considering driving the same trip but it seems a detour through Caucasus is a much safer choice.

moosekaka 9y ago

haphazard traffic flow due to lack of traffic safety awareness and road discipline by pedestrians and drivers alike are not exclusive to just India. we have a large Indian population in Malaysia and Singapore... go to their Little India enclaves and you see the same free for all situation... perhaps just a little better then shown in the video.

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

Having driven in similar "chaotic" traffic, it's not different that how we move on feet in a crowded area. This explains it better: https://highwayflocking.github.io/ https://highwayflocking.github.io/ A self driving car can have much better "perception" of the surrounding area and reaction times under 100ms, making it potentially very good at flocking safely.

majani 9y ago

there are many examples of countries that have been able to leapfrog certain steps in development. Case in point: most 3rd world countries skipped over desktop computing, straight into mobile. Maybe self driving cars will somehow take over the world exponentially like smartphones have, and developing countries skip over human policing of traffic into a majority self-drive reality.

kjksf 9y ago

Based on economics, self-driving cars are not necessarily attractive in India. Consider that in US the cheapest ZipCar is ~$8/hr. Adding even the cheapest human driver working at minimum wage is ~$15/hr. Adding a human driver in US makes the trip 3x more expensive. Or to put it another way: a self-driving trip can be 3x less expensive. Or to put it another way: a $30 trip from SF downtown to airport becomes $10 trip which is competitive with BART prices. I don't know what is the minimum wage in India, but per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India per capita income is $1670 / year which is probably less than $1 per hour. In other words: self-driving cars only make economic sense in countries where humans are expensive.

thanksgiving 9y ago
> Or to put it another way: a $30 trip from SF downtown to airport becomes $10 trip which is competitive with BART prices. I looked up BART because of what you said and it looks pretty bad. https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-all.csv https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-a... 175 people make six figures in base pay. The total cost of employment is ridiculously high. I don't know anything about BART but they clearly need to lay off a lot of people. This is ridiculous.