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The part that I can't figure out is why everyone seems to act like driverless cars will be some kind of all-at-once phase change transition instead of being inc

by CPLX 8y ago

The part that I can't figure out is why everyone seems to act like driverless cars will be some kind of all-at-once phase change transition instead of being incremental. It seems almost a certainty that we will gradually ease into the concept. Some cars will be able to do some things autonomously, a little, for some people, some of the time. Eventually the cost/benefit levels will improve, more features will roll out, and sure over a long time scale things might look revolutionary. In other words this big complicated category of tech will grow like most other technology has. This isn't an individual app like Instagram or WhatsApp it's a whole category of technology, like the concept of automated factories, or container based shipping, or the internet itself. It could be decades, or longer. Or not. But as a casual observer it's pretty easy to look around and notice that there really aren't any practical applications of autonomy with mass adoption, and conclude that it's going to be a minute, and that we'll definitely have ample time to notice as we slowly get closer.

chubot 8y ago
Yup, I cited a few knowledgeable people saying the same thing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16353541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16353541 Here's my negative scenario: self-driving is "AI-complete"; you can't really hit all the edge cases without solving AI in general, which is more than 30 years away (Kurzweil is the wild optimist and predicts 2045). edit: Although since writing that I have become aware that Kurzweil thinks the Turing test will be passed in 2029; the "singularity" is the 2045 date. https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045/ https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-wi... In any case, I think it's realistic that level 4 self-driving cars won't be widely deployed for end-to-end trips until 2029-2045. This doesn't seem to be what many people think right now. They think it's going to be an "instant roll-out" like the iPhone -- either it works or it doesn't.
StavrosK 8y ago
This is how everything happens, and it's why we're living in the future even though we never realized it. We have a small square in our pockets that can do real-time translation, you talk into it and it'll say the same thing in another language. I remember reading about this exact thing in the 90s and thinking that it was completely incredible, but I didn't even notice it when it happened. We first got computers that could sort-of translate, but not impressively so, then computers that could sort-of speak, but not impressively so, then computers that could sort-of listen, but not impressively so. All these technologies improved, little by little, until they got to a point where they are pretty impressive, but we're used to them. Cars are already going the same way, my 5-year-old car can already follow/match speed with the car in front of it and warn me about signs on the road. Little by little, it'll do more things on its own, until I won't be needed any more.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  Your car has approached the point of difficulty for incremental improvement, which is when human attention is needed, but only very rarely. The way for an incremental approach to get beyond this is to have clearly-defined and well separated domains, one being where automation works safely without a human overseer, and the other being where advanced automation is not used. Furthermore, it must be obvious to drivers when they are one and when they are in the other; a distinction based on features of how the technology works does not cut it unless it also leads to an obvious distinction for the non-technical driver. Limiting the use to highways appears to meet this criterion, but it does not yet do so, on account of problems, like stationary-obstacle detection and adverse weather, that are relevant to highway driving.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Limited access highway driving, a la an iteration or two on what GM is doing with Cadillac today, seems a pretty logical use case. Many people do a lot of it, it's boring, it's easy to get over-tired. It doesn't fire up the people who want robo-Ubers but it would have a lot of benefits, including safety, and seems like a much more boundable problem. I could actually imagine something like this being approved for consumer use decades before the more general case.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> This is how everything happens, and it's why we're living in the future even though we never realized it. We have a small square in our pockets that can do real-time translation, you talk into it and it'll say the same thing in another language. For arbitrary language pairs, it doesn't. Try translating between Greek and Chinese or Japanese at a level sufficient to get around town and do everyday, tourist-y things. Machine translation works well between pairs of languages that are very similar and for which there are many parallel texts. It's all downhill from there (e.g. you have to go via an intermediary language, typically English, to get to the target language etc, which starts to seriously degrade performance). Auto-cars are not different. In ideal (i.e. laboratory) conditions they may work sufficiently well. Diverge from those conditions and you're gambling with the passengers' lives. This has been the case for a very long time. I learned something recently that surprised me. To phrase it as a quiz: when do you think was the first coast-to-coast (completely) driverless journey? Answer below. ______________ When are we going to get the first car, hands off the steering wheel, feet off the pedals, drive coast to coast in the US? Yeah, well, it actually happened in 1995 with the Navlab Project from Carnegie Mellon University. Courtesy of Rodney Brooks: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2nd-Part-RB-for-Ars-Transcript-2.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2nd-P...
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Yes, and it's already happening. Automakers have already agreed to implement automatic collision avoidance in all their cars by 2022, IIRC, so there's one example.
darkerside 8y ago
Phase change is a great metaphor. Once conditions are right, network effects between particles coordinate to rapidly produce a reaction in the entire substance. The catalyzing particles here are people. Once people see that autonomous driving is "here", the incentives will be too powerful to ignore, for businesses, politicians, and others who live by exploiting opportunities. So yes, I think once change comes, it will be rapid and fairly complete. Possibly at cost of human life.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The part that I can't figure out is why everyone seems to act like driverless cars will be some kind of all-at-once phase change transition instead of being incremental. Because there is a significant difference in kind between human driving with driver assistance and self-driving, because having both on the road creates problems that's neither alone faces, and because once self-driving becomes viable for general use, regulatory and insurance factors will probably drive a rapid transition to a state where it's the only thing most people can do on most publicly accessible roads. > or container based shipping Intermodal container-based shipping was a fairly rapid global phase change, going quickly from introduction to international standards to global dominance of shipping. So it's kind of an odd example to use to counter the idea of a rapid phase change.

by CPLX 8y ago

chubot 8y ago

Yup, I cited a few knowledgeable people saying the same thing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16353541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16353541 Here's my negative scenario: self-driving is "AI-complete"; you can't really hit all the edge cases without solving AI in general, which is more than 30 years away (Kurzweil is the wild optimist and predicts 2045). edit: Although since writing that I have become aware that Kurzweil thinks the Turing test will be passed in 2029; the "singularity" is the 2045 date. https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045/ https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-wi... In any case, I think it's realistic that level 4 self-driving cars won't be widely deployed for end-to-end trips until 2029-2045. This doesn't seem to be what many people think right now. They think it's going to be an "instant roll-out" like the iPhone -- either it works or it doesn't.

StavrosK 8y ago

This is how everything happens, and it's why we're living in the future even though we never realized it. We have a small square in our pockets that can do real-time translation, you talk into it and it'll say the same thing in another language. I remember reading about this exact thing in the 90s and thinking that it was completely incredible, but I didn't even notice it when it happened. We first got computers that could sort-of translate, but not impressively so, then computers that could sort-of speak, but not impressively so, then computers that could sort-of listen, but not impressively so. All these technologies improved, little by little, until they got to a point where they are pretty impressive, but we're used to them. Cars are already going the same way, my 5-year-old car can already follow/match speed with the car in front of it and warn me about signs on the road. Little by little, it'll do more things on its own, until I won't be needed any more.

mannykannot 8y ago
Your car has approached the point of difficulty for incremental improvement, which is when human attention is needed, but only very rarely. The way for an incremental approach to get beyond this is to have clearly-defined and well separated domains, one being where automation works safely without a human overseer, and the other being where advanced automation is not used. Furthermore, it must be obvious to drivers when they are one and when they are in the other; a distinction based on features of how the technology works does not cut it unless it also leads to an obvious distinction for the non-technical driver. Limiting the use to highways appears to meet this criterion, but it does not yet do so, on account of problems, like stationary-obstacle detection and adverse weather, that are relevant to highway driving.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Limited access highway driving, a la an iteration or two on what GM is doing with Cadillac today, seems a pretty logical use case. Many people do a lot of it, it's boring, it's easy to get over-tired. It doesn't fire up the people who want robo-Ubers but it would have a lot of benefits, including safety, and seems like a much more boundable problem. I could actually imagine something like this being approved for consumer use decades before the more general case.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> This is how everything happens, and it's why we're living in the future even though we never realized it. We have a small square in our pockets that can do real-time translation, you talk into it and it'll say the same thing in another language. For arbitrary language pairs, it doesn't. Try translating between Greek and Chinese or Japanese at a level sufficient to get around town and do everyday, tourist-y things. Machine translation works well between pairs of languages that are very similar and for which there are many parallel texts. It's all downhill from there (e.g. you have to go via an intermediary language, typically English, to get to the target language etc, which starts to seriously degrade performance). Auto-cars are not different. In ideal (i.e. laboratory) conditions they may work sufficiently well. Diverge from those conditions and you're gambling with the passengers' lives. This has been the case for a very long time. I learned something recently that surprised me. To phrase it as a quiz: when do you think was the first coast-to-coast (completely) driverless journey? Answer below. ______________ When are we going to get the first car, hands off the steering wheel, feet off the pedals, drive coast to coast in the US? Yeah, well, it actually happened in 1995 with the Navlab Project from Carnegie Mellon University. Courtesy of Rodney Brooks: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2nd-Part-RB-for-Ars-Transcript-2.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2nd-P...

TulliusCicero 8y ago

Yes, and it's already happening. Automakers have already agreed to implement automatic collision avoidance in all their cars by 2022, IIRC, so there's one example.

darkerside 8y ago

Phase change is a great metaphor. Once conditions are right, network effects between particles coordinate to rapidly produce a reaction in the entire substance. The catalyzing particles here are people. Once people see that autonomous driving is "here", the incentives will be too powerful to ignore, for businesses, politicians, and others who live by exploiting opportunities. So yes, I think once change comes, it will be rapid and fairly complete. Possibly at cost of human life.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The part that I can't figure out is why everyone seems to act like driverless cars will be some kind of all-at-once phase change transition instead of being incremental. Because there is a significant difference in kind between human driving with driver assistance and self-driving, because having both on the road creates problems that's neither alone faces, and because once self-driving becomes viable for general use, regulatory and insurance factors will probably drive a rapid transition to a state where it's the only thing most people can do on most publicly accessible roads. > or container based shipping Intermodal container-based shipping was a fairly rapid global phase change, going quickly from introduction to international standards to global dominance of shipping. So it's kind of an odd example to use to counter the idea of a rapid phase change.