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Uber has the ability to learn from it's mistakes, I hope.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Doesn’t seem it. Read any article about Uber. The LAST thing they seem to be concerned with is ride sharing. While everyone else is trying to be the Uber of X... Uber doesn’t even want to be Uber. Their latest thing is taking funding from the US Military for some project iirc. This “technology” company has no idea what it really is.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Their core business is losing money hand over fist, and it's not clear the economics will ever work out. I think they were floundering -- until the new CEO took over. Their approach appears to now be building an Expedia for local travel which includes ridesharing, JUMP bikes and Getaround. These side projects (self-driving, logistics, etc) I believe are the holdovers of the earlier era before they knew what they were doing. They always struck me as more of as a way of distracting everyone else until they did.
- Itaxpica 8y ago
  It makes sense from a business perspective; their current core competency is mainly "blazing through VC money at an astounding rate". Uber's only shot at approaching any kind of profitability is from self-driving technology advancing to a point where they can cut out their biggest costs, namely, people.
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mindfulplay 8y ago
A "mistake" might have been "we fucked up the concept of a self-driving car completely, sorry about that, we will pull our fleet off completely before we kill anyone". This is not a mistake. This is straight up manslaughter.
Symmetry 8y ago
As far as I'm aware there aren't any states that are allowing Uber to test their self driving cars on their roads. And after reading this report I see no reason that they should. So to me it looks like Uber's self-driving efforts are essentially over.
stefan_ 8y ago
Mistake? Turning off emergency braking because it happened too often then continuing to drive on public streets isn't a mistake. That calls for a custodial sentence.
- smm2000 8y ago
  Vast majority of cars on the road and majority of new cars sold in US has no emergency braking assist. Who should we sentence every time somebody dies because of lack of EBA?
  - makomk 8y ago
    The vast majority of cars are being driven by humans who we expect to carry out an emergency stop if necessary. Replacing the human with a computer driver which is intentionally incapable of any kind of emergency stop and trying to justify this by relying on a human supervisor who's required to take their eyes off the road for much of the trip to stop the car is basically murder. (Besides, relying solely on an unassisted human driver - even an attentive one - is dangerous enough that the industry wants to make automatic emergency braking systems mandatory on all new cars as soon as it's practical.)
- masklinn 8y ago
  Also "we've got a safety driver and a copilot monitoring and classifying systems feedback, the co-pilot isn't involved in anything safety-critical so we can just remove them and give both tasks to the safety driver (thereby requiring them to spend half the time looking at and interacting with the monitors on the center console rather than watching the road)"
jacksmith21006 8y ago
Make a lot more sense for Uber to just work with Waymo.

Doesn’t seem it. Read any article about Uber. The LAST thing they seem to be concerned with is ride sharing. While everyone else is trying to be the Uber of X... Uber doesn’t even want to be Uber. Their latest thing is taking funding from the US Military for some project iirc. This “technology” company has no idea what it really is.

arcticbull 8y ago
Their core business is losing money hand over fist, and it's not clear the economics will ever work out. I think they were floundering -- until the new CEO took over. Their approach appears to now be building an Expedia for local travel which includes ridesharing, JUMP bikes and Getaround. These side projects (self-driving, logistics, etc) I believe are the holdovers of the earlier era before they knew what they were doing. They always struck me as more of as a way of distracting everyone else until they did.
Itaxpica 8y ago
It makes sense from a business perspective; their current core competency is mainly "blazing through VC money at an astounding rate". Uber's only shot at approaching any kind of profitability is from self-driving technology advancing to a point where they can cut out their biggest costs, namely, people.

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mindfulplay 8y ago

A "mistake" might have been "we fucked up the concept of a self-driving car completely, sorry about that, we will pull our fleet off completely before we kill anyone". This is not a mistake. This is straight up manslaughter.

Symmetry 8y ago

As far as I'm aware there aren't any states that are allowing Uber to test their self driving cars on their roads. And after reading this report I see no reason that they should. So to me it looks like Uber's self-driving efforts are essentially over.

stefan_ 8y ago

Mistake? Turning off emergency braking because it happened too often then continuing to drive on public streets isn't a mistake. That calls for a custodial sentence.

smm2000 8y ago
Vast majority of cars on the road and majority of new cars sold in US has no emergency braking assist. Who should we sentence every time somebody dies because of lack of EBA?
- makomk 8y ago
  The vast majority of cars are being driven by humans who we expect to carry out an emergency stop if necessary. Replacing the human with a computer driver which is intentionally incapable of any kind of emergency stop and trying to justify this by relying on a human supervisor who's required to take their eyes off the road for much of the trip to stop the car is basically murder. (Besides, relying solely on an unassisted human driver - even an attentive one - is dangerous enough that the industry wants to make automatic emergency braking systems mandatory on all new cars as soon as it's practical.)
masklinn 8y ago
Also "we've got a safety driver and a copilot monitoring and classifying systems feedback, the co-pilot isn't involved in anything safety-critical so we can just remove them and give both tasks to the safety driver (thereby requiring them to spend half the time looking at and interacting with the monitors on the center console rather than watching the road)"

jacksmith21006 8y ago

Make a lot more sense for Uber to just work with Waymo.