7 ms·

Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is wh

Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. IMHO, to do less would be reckless showboating that could do unimaginable damage to the AV industry, as well as end up endangering lives. In the tech industry, we don't like to wait, we like moving fast, taking risks, shipping MVPs, learning by shipping, etc. And for the next great Camera filter app, perhaps that makes sense, but not for cars, planes, or medical equipment.

rsync 8y ago
"Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice." A whole year! Truly sage-like wisdom from the MoveFastBreakThings generation of technical development. It is simultaneously comical, exasperating and sad to watch this tragedy unfold. We will slowly build our own, modern Deuteronomy - instead of forbidding the consumption of shellfish or stipulating gifts for former slaves, ours will talk about agency and skin-in-the-game and aligned incentives ... Meanwhile, there will be a multi year (decade ?) period of experimentation where we will all be terrified as we drive at highway speeds and another vehicle approaches that road at a right-angle. Currently, I know what that vehicle will do, because all other choices lead to death-of-driver. But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything.
- sanarothe 8y ago
  Having recently trusted that intuition and nearly being T boned, human drivers can currently do anything...
- njarboe 8y ago
  I'm not sure where you live but in my country (USA, where these companies you are mocking operate) when a vehicle approaches the road and I am going highway speed, I get a bit nervous, cover the brake, and feel a nice sense of relaxing stress when I pass by. That other vehicle could do anything. 40,000 deaths a year and over a million world wide.
  - huebnerob 8y ago
    What you describe is called defensive driving, and it should be front-of-mind for everyone who gets behind the wheel. My family always said about all the assholes on the road, you might be in the right, but you'll be dead right.
- jacobmoe 8y ago
  You have it exactly backwards. You will _know_ what the vehicle will do because it will be programmed to do it. Meanwhile, that other vehicle could do anything because the driver might be texting, might have fallen asleep, might be in a fit of rage. Driving is an absurdly dangerous thing to do. We don't tolerate that level of risk in almost anything else in life. It just so happens that getting around at 60mph is so useful that we accept the risk. As soon as we have an alternative to human drivers, it will seem insane to keep risking as many lives as currently do on the highways.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    I'm damned if I can say what my own models will do. Can't really tell what the other guy's stuff will. But to be honest, I'm so excited by this.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    > You will _know_ what the vehicle will do because it will be programmed to do it. I don't share either the OP's confidence in the attentiveness of human drivers or yours in the existence of bug-free complex software The biggest differences between the two is that (i) software bugs can be potentially be systematic across all vehicle types and sudden, whereas human failure modes are discrete (ii) we have pretty good data on human failure modes which set the mileage interval for catastrophic failure surprisingly high, even higher if excluding human failures linked to behaviours society has decided not to tolerate, such as DUI and road racing.
    - jacobmoe 8y ago
      I don't have confidence in bug-free software, just in software that is bug-free enough to be better than the status quo. Systematic bugs can be fixed systematically. Humans will never not be too easily distracted, easily angered, easily bored. We're never going to fix ancient human characteristics so that driving stops being an unacceptable risk to life.
- s3r3nity 8y ago
  >But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything. It's not like we don't have this problem today: the other vehicle could be drunk driver, tired, on the phone, texting, fixing their GPS, tending the baby in the back, etc. As a newer motorcycle rider in the past few years, I am even more ready for automated systems to augment human ability when it comes to driving to address problems of distraction, poor reflexes, among other things - and honestly would feel safer driving next to a self-driving Tesla than next to someone coming home from work on the highway, with only 4 hours of sleep, powered by their 5th cup of coffee, etc. etc.
- bgentry 8y ago
  That’s funny, a month ago my car was totaled by a guy who fell asleep and blew through a red light. That happened at a right angle but only at 30mph. Since then I’ve been concerned at every intersection about what the other cars will do. I’m not sure how much of it can be blamed on cell phone use, but I swear that human drivers have been getting substantially worse over the last few years (at least in the Bay Area). It seems like every single week I avoid a major accident from somebody doing something stupid or not paying attention. And I don’t even drive that much! So while Waymo continues improving, it appears that the bar for them to be better than human drivers also keeps getting lowered.
  - Quarrelsome 8y ago
    While that OP didn't put it eloquently we are still creating a system where it would be technically possible to centralise the control of almost every single car at once. We're going to do it but as with so many things we might want to ask ourselves if its wise to automate so very much while we still haven't aced security.
  - cpcarey 8y ago
    To add another anecdote, I thought I was the only one who thought drivers have gotten worse in the Bay Area over the past few years. The frequency of some driver not paying attention or not following the rules of the road and blowing through stop signs and red lights or abruptly turning into my path without a signal has been increasing, as a driver, cyclist, and pedestrian. Stay safe out there, especially during the winter months.
  - rconti 8y ago
    I think so much of it is just a scale issue. I grew up in a mid-sized suburb in the Northwest just a couple decades ago. Most road were only 2, or maximum 4 lanes. The idea of driving around without your headlights on in the dark would be unfathomable. And if you did, you'd get honked at, flashed, and presumably at some point within 5 or 10 minutes, a police officer would see you and stop you. That area's gotten bigger, and I moved to the Bay Area, which is bigger still. 2 decades on, It's not even worth COUNTING the number of vehicles without headlights on in the dark or rain. I never thought I'd be one to complain about too few police, but I see at least 10-20x as many vehicles with no headlights as I see cops (for example). Much of my commuting is on the freeway, and CHP are few and far between but also police aren't so common on surface streets either. And when they are there, they don't bother pulling anyone over for "small potatoes" stuff like this. I don't know if they're waiting for the next violent crime, or what, but it would be nice if they did a little "broken windows" policing. Why don't they bother? I don't know. Probably because everyone's busy, everyone has a sob story, their stupid new car with its light-up instruments on 24x7 makes it LOOK like the headlights are on, the daytime running lights make you THINK the headlights are on, are you really going to give a ticket to someone just trying to pick up their kid from school? I wish the answer was YES, but it just feels like everyone's stopped knowing or caring. When you don't own the same vehicle for 15 years, you have no idea how the controls on this week's lease work, there are too many cars on the road, the problem has gotten too big, tech has taken over too much of it.. everything just feels out of control.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. I'm sorry but where does this "one year" expectation come from? What says that Waymo needs a year (or two years, or ten, or three months, etc) to start "scaling back the drivers"? From what I can tell, the only way to judge the competence of their driverless systems is to compare where they are today with were they were 10 years ago when they started out. However, this is next to impossible- that data is not public. So, where does that "one year" optimism come from? Autonomous driving won't magickally become easier in a year from now.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  No, the only way to know how well it's doing is for it to get enough "interesting" miles, and then compare the success rate of those miles to similar human-driven miles. Right now Waymo is past 8 million miles driven. Miles driven is a better and normalized metric, with comparable real world statistics, unlike time.
  - anonymousCar 8y ago
    Waymo is past 8 million miles total, how many miles on the latest version of the software? Certainly there are new features that are there in the last half than the first half? I think miles count is a bad metric and if it wasn't, Tesla would be the front runner.
    - jboy55 8y ago
      And how many of those miles are up and down 101 after midnight on weekdays?
    - tigershark 8y ago
      It’s past 10 million miles and it’s driving more than 500k mi per month. If the last version of the software was in August that it’s more than 2 million miles by now. The miles per month figure will only increase.
CPLX 8y ago
My favorite way to tell if a car is a self-driving car is to look and see if it has a driver in it.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  What if it's self-driving, but a passenger is riding in the front?
- trhway 8y ago
  Or if the driver is drunk and sleeping like that Los Altos city official in his Tesla doing 70mph on 101 last weekend. https://www.foxnews.com/auto/tesla-apparently-on-autopilot-pulled-over-with-drunk-sleeping-driver-behind-the-wheel-police-say https://www.foxnews.com/auto/tesla-apparently-on-autopilot-p... "After following the sedan for about seven miles trying to get him to respond to lights and sirens, the officers guessed that the Tesla’s semi-autonomous Autopilot driver assist system was engaged, so they pulled in front of it and started to slow down, according to a police report. The sedan did the same, and the two vehicles safely came to a complete stop in the middle of the highway. With some difficulty, police roused the driver, who was identified as Los Altos Planning Commission chair ..."
zjaffee 8y ago
The real question about self driving cars though and safety isn't about how much practice these vehicles have, but when they get in an accident, are people inside them still safe. If the computer gets screwed up in an accident, could it end up accelerating randomly all over the place, pull itself to the side of the road and do a safety check of the people inside. It's also very possible that there is a safer design for a car than having people sit right in front of huge glass panels.
- URSpider94 8y ago
  Problems like these are easy to optimize out. For instance, you can put in fuses that disconnect the traction power or ignition in the event of a collision. If you’re worried about the computer getting scrambled, put in two CPU’s and compare the output - if they are different by a significant amount, then stop driving. Most of the prototypes I’ve seen also have a manual e-stop in the cabin. As for getting rid of glass: safety glass is actually pretty darned safe. It pulverizes into shards in a collision. And, there are a lot of people, myself included, who will not be able to ride down the highway without a view out the front - otherwise, it will be barf-bag city.

rsync 8y ago

"Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice." A whole year! Truly sage-like wisdom from the MoveFastBreakThings generation of technical development. It is simultaneously comical, exasperating and sad to watch this tragedy unfold. We will slowly build our own, modern Deuteronomy - instead of forbidding the consumption of shellfish or stipulating gifts for former slaves, ours will talk about agency and skin-in-the-game and aligned incentives ... Meanwhile, there will be a multi year (decade ?) period of experimentation where we will all be terrified as we drive at highway speeds and another vehicle approaches that road at a right-angle. Currently, I know what that vehicle will do, because all other choices lead to death-of-driver. But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything.

sanarothe 8y ago
Having recently trusted that intuition and nearly being T boned, human drivers can currently do anything...
njarboe 8y ago
I'm not sure where you live but in my country (USA, where these companies you are mocking operate) when a vehicle approaches the road and I am going highway speed, I get a bit nervous, cover the brake, and feel a nice sense of relaxing stress when I pass by. That other vehicle could do anything. 40,000 deaths a year and over a million world wide.
- huebnerob 8y ago
  What you describe is called defensive driving, and it should be front-of-mind for everyone who gets behind the wheel. My family always said about all the assholes on the road, you might be in the right, but you'll be dead right.
jacobmoe 8y ago
You have it exactly backwards. You will _know_ what the vehicle will do because it will be programmed to do it. Meanwhile, that other vehicle could do anything because the driver might be texting, might have fallen asleep, might be in a fit of rage. Driving is an absurdly dangerous thing to do. We don't tolerate that level of risk in almost anything else in life. It just so happens that getting around at 60mph is so useful that we accept the risk. As soon as we have an alternative to human drivers, it will seem insane to keep risking as many lives as currently do on the highways.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  I'm damned if I can say what my own models will do. Can't really tell what the other guy's stuff will. But to be honest, I'm so excited by this.
- notahacker 8y ago
  > You will _know_ what the vehicle will do because it will be programmed to do it. I don't share either the OP's confidence in the attentiveness of human drivers or yours in the existence of bug-free complex software The biggest differences between the two is that (i) software bugs can be potentially be systematic across all vehicle types and sudden, whereas human failure modes are discrete (ii) we have pretty good data on human failure modes which set the mileage interval for catastrophic failure surprisingly high, even higher if excluding human failures linked to behaviours society has decided not to tolerate, such as DUI and road racing.
  - jacobmoe 8y ago
    I don't have confidence in bug-free software, just in software that is bug-free enough to be better than the status quo. Systematic bugs can be fixed systematically. Humans will never not be too easily distracted, easily angered, easily bored. We're never going to fix ancient human characteristics so that driving stops being an unacceptable risk to life.
s3r3nity 8y ago
>But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything. It's not like we don't have this problem today: the other vehicle could be drunk driver, tired, on the phone, texting, fixing their GPS, tending the baby in the back, etc. As a newer motorcycle rider in the past few years, I am even more ready for automated systems to augment human ability when it comes to driving to address problems of distraction, poor reflexes, among other things - and honestly would feel safer driving next to a self-driving Tesla than next to someone coming home from work on the highway, with only 4 hours of sleep, powered by their 5th cup of coffee, etc. etc.
bgentry 8y ago
That’s funny, a month ago my car was totaled by a guy who fell asleep and blew through a red light. That happened at a right angle but only at 30mph. Since then I’ve been concerned at every intersection about what the other cars will do. I’m not sure how much of it can be blamed on cell phone use, but I swear that human drivers have been getting substantially worse over the last few years (at least in the Bay Area). It seems like every single week I avoid a major accident from somebody doing something stupid or not paying attention. And I don’t even drive that much! So while Waymo continues improving, it appears that the bar for them to be better than human drivers also keeps getting lowered.
- Quarrelsome 8y ago
  While that OP didn't put it eloquently we are still creating a system where it would be technically possible to centralise the control of almost every single car at once. We're going to do it but as with so many things we might want to ask ourselves if its wise to automate so very much while we still haven't aced security.
- cpcarey 8y ago
  To add another anecdote, I thought I was the only one who thought drivers have gotten worse in the Bay Area over the past few years. The frequency of some driver not paying attention or not following the rules of the road and blowing through stop signs and red lights or abruptly turning into my path without a signal has been increasing, as a driver, cyclist, and pedestrian. Stay safe out there, especially during the winter months.
- rconti 8y ago
  I think so much of it is just a scale issue. I grew up in a mid-sized suburb in the Northwest just a couple decades ago. Most road were only 2, or maximum 4 lanes. The idea of driving around without your headlights on in the dark would be unfathomable. And if you did, you'd get honked at, flashed, and presumably at some point within 5 or 10 minutes, a police officer would see you and stop you. That area's gotten bigger, and I moved to the Bay Area, which is bigger still. 2 decades on, It's not even worth COUNTING the number of vehicles without headlights on in the dark or rain. I never thought I'd be one to complain about too few police, but I see at least 10-20x as many vehicles with no headlights as I see cops (for example). Much of my commuting is on the freeway, and CHP are few and far between but also police aren't so common on surface streets either. And when they are there, they don't bother pulling anyone over for "small potatoes" stuff like this. I don't know if they're waiting for the next violent crime, or what, but it would be nice if they did a little "broken windows" policing. Why don't they bother? I don't know. Probably because everyone's busy, everyone has a sob story, their stupid new car with its light-up instruments on 24x7 makes it LOOK like the headlights are on, the daytime running lights make you THINK the headlights are on, are you really going to give a ticket to someone just trying to pick up their kid from school? I wish the answer was YES, but it just feels like everyone's stopped knowing or caring. When you don't own the same vehicle for 15 years, you have no idea how the controls on this week's lease work, there are too many cars on the road, the problem has gotten too big, tech has taken over too much of it.. everything just feels out of control.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

>> Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. I'm sorry but where does this "one year" expectation come from? What says that Waymo needs a year (or two years, or ten, or three months, etc) to start "scaling back the drivers"? From what I can tell, the only way to judge the competence of their driverless systems is to compare where they are today with were they were 10 years ago when they started out. However, this is next to impossible- that data is not public. So, where does that "one year" optimism come from? Autonomous driving won't magickally become easier in a year from now.

ehsankia 8y ago
No, the only way to know how well it's doing is for it to get enough "interesting" miles, and then compare the success rate of those miles to similar human-driven miles. Right now Waymo is past 8 million miles driven. Miles driven is a better and normalized metric, with comparable real world statistics, unlike time.
- anonymousCar 8y ago
  Waymo is past 8 million miles total, how many miles on the latest version of the software? Certainly there are new features that are there in the last half than the first half? I think miles count is a bad metric and if it wasn't, Tesla would be the front runner.
  - jboy55 8y ago
    And how many of those miles are up and down 101 after midnight on weekdays?
  - tigershark 8y ago
    It’s past 10 million miles and it’s driving more than 500k mi per month. If the last version of the software was in August that it’s more than 2 million miles by now. The miles per month figure will only increase.

CPLX 8y ago

My favorite way to tell if a car is a self-driving car is to look and see if it has a driver in it.

whatshisface 8y ago
What if it's self-driving, but a passenger is riding in the front?
trhway 8y ago
Or if the driver is drunk and sleeping like that Los Altos city official in his Tesla doing 70mph on 101 last weekend. https://www.foxnews.com/auto/tesla-apparently-on-autopilot-pulled-over-with-drunk-sleeping-driver-behind-the-wheel-police-say https://www.foxnews.com/auto/tesla-apparently-on-autopilot-p... "After following the sedan for about seven miles trying to get him to respond to lights and sirens, the officers guessed that the Tesla’s semi-autonomous Autopilot driver assist system was engaged, so they pulled in front of it and started to slow down, according to a police report. The sedan did the same, and the two vehicles safely came to a complete stop in the middle of the highway. With some difficulty, police roused the driver, who was identified as Los Altos Planning Commission chair ..."

zjaffee 8y ago

The real question about self driving cars though and safety isn't about how much practice these vehicles have, but when they get in an accident, are people inside them still safe. If the computer gets screwed up in an accident, could it end up accelerating randomly all over the place, pull itself to the side of the road and do a safety check of the people inside. It's also very possible that there is a safer design for a car than having people sit right in front of huge glass panels.

URSpider94 8y ago
Problems like these are easy to optimize out. For instance, you can put in fuses that disconnect the traction power or ignition in the event of a collision. If you’re worried about the computer getting scrambled, put in two CPU’s and compare the output - if they are different by a significant amount, then stop driving. Most of the prototypes I’ve seen also have a manual e-stop in the cabin. As for getting rid of glass: safety glass is actually pretty darned safe. It pulverizes into shards in a collision. And, there are a lot of people, myself included, who will not be able to ride down the highway without a view out the front - otherwise, it will be barf-bag city.