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I wonder if truly autonomous vehicles turn out to be another "so near but so far" experiences like nuclear fusion - when I was a kid, electricity courtesy of nu

I wonder if truly autonomous vehicles turn out to be another "so near but so far" experiences like nuclear fusion - when I was a kid, electricity courtesy of nuclear fusion reactors would be "too cheap to meter". Seems like ever since the industry keeps saying "We're nearly there - we just need to build a bigger one". I truly wonder if self-driving cars might turn out to be the same kind of thing.

paxys 8y ago
The difference is that nuclear fusion is "all or nothing", while self driving technology has a lot of real world benefits even if we never get to fully autonomous vehicles.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Yes, "uncanny valley" aside. But one of those benefits is not having a driverless taxi. It's assistive driving technology that can make driving your car easier and safer.
  - Judgmentality 8y ago
    The people working on fully autonomous driving are unlikely to be of much help for standard driver assistance packages, as they use completely different technology stacks. The approach Tesla is taking, which is definitely driver assist despite their baseless claims to the contrary, is wildly different from the approach Waymo is taking. You can get the sensor suite for a driver assist system for hundreds of dollars. The sensor and compute package for a truly driverless vehicle (of course, a truly driverless vehicle doesn't yet exist and prices will come down with time and scale) cost more than a luxury car itself. For instance, everybody seems to agree that lidar is the most important sensor for a truly driverless vehicle. And everybody agrees it's too expensive to sell to consumers. They're orthogonal approaches to similar problems with surprisingly little overlap. It's like comparing game development for a 2D sidescroller on the Nintendo Switch with a 3D first person shooter for a gaming PC. They're completely different technologically, even though at the end they're both making games.
  - W-Stool 8y ago
    I think you are right. Rented a new vehicle recently on a trip and it had blind spot detectors - it would tell you when a vehicle was in one of the traditional blind spots. I thought this was great, easy to understand and thus trust.
    - tyingq 8y ago
      Have these on my car, and they are great. So it's not "all or nothing" for society. Probably still "all or nothing" for Uber though, at least from a P&L perspective.
    - RandomBacon 8y ago
      It is actually possible to completely remove the blind spot in the lane next to you. http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm People don't like to do this because then they can't see the side of their own car in the mirror. Perhaps that should be added to driving tests. You shouldn't get a license if you don't know how to make the car safe to drive in.
      - RandomBacon 8y ago
        Someone downvoted me, and I'm not sure why. Am I incorrect by saying it's possible to completely remove the blindspot? It has been in ever car I've owned, rented, or borrowed. Am I wrong in stating it's because people want to see the side of their car? It was for me when I first started driving and for everyone else I've asked. Is it because of my belief that people should only be licensed to drive if they can do so safely? If I'm wrong, please give me the opportunity to learn what you believe is right. I'm open to improving myself, and recognize that I am not, nor ever will be 100% right in everything.
        zazen 8y ago
        I didn't downvote you, but I can guess why you might have been downvoted. Your comment is a) off-topic in a thread about automation, and b) presumptuous to the point of arrogance in assuming that your preferred way of aligning the mirrors is the one true safe way. Many people might reasonably believe that the traditional alignment we were taught, with the look-over-the-shoulder to check the blind spot that we were also traditionally taught, is safe. It comes across as aggressive when you suggest no-one should be allowed a license without converting to your new method.
justincormack 8y ago
"too cheap to meter" was originally said about fission power.
- cma 8y ago
  Instead we applied too cheap to meter to nuclear waste generation and disposal, and nuclear incident liability isn't metered past $1 billion.

paxys 8y ago

The difference is that nuclear fusion is "all or nothing", while self driving technology has a lot of real world benefits even if we never get to fully autonomous vehicles.

ghaff 8y ago
Yes, "uncanny valley" aside. But one of those benefits is not having a driverless taxi. It's assistive driving technology that can make driving your car easier and safer.
- Judgmentality 8y ago
  The people working on fully autonomous driving are unlikely to be of much help for standard driver assistance packages, as they use completely different technology stacks. The approach Tesla is taking, which is definitely driver assist despite their baseless claims to the contrary, is wildly different from the approach Waymo is taking. You can get the sensor suite for a driver assist system for hundreds of dollars. The sensor and compute package for a truly driverless vehicle (of course, a truly driverless vehicle doesn't yet exist and prices will come down with time and scale) cost more than a luxury car itself. For instance, everybody seems to agree that lidar is the most important sensor for a truly driverless vehicle. And everybody agrees it's too expensive to sell to consumers. They're orthogonal approaches to similar problems with surprisingly little overlap. It's like comparing game development for a 2D sidescroller on the Nintendo Switch with a 3D first person shooter for a gaming PC. They're completely different technologically, even though at the end they're both making games.
- W-Stool 8y ago
  I think you are right. Rented a new vehicle recently on a trip and it had blind spot detectors - it would tell you when a vehicle was in one of the traditional blind spots. I thought this was great, easy to understand and thus trust.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    Have these on my car, and they are great. So it's not "all or nothing" for society. Probably still "all or nothing" for Uber though, at least from a P&L perspective.
  - RandomBacon 8y ago
    It is actually possible to completely remove the blind spot in the lane next to you. http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm People don't like to do this because then they can't see the side of their own car in the mirror. Perhaps that should be added to driving tests. You shouldn't get a license if you don't know how to make the car safe to drive in.
    - RandomBacon 8y ago
      Someone downvoted me, and I'm not sure why. Am I incorrect by saying it's possible to completely remove the blindspot? It has been in ever car I've owned, rented, or borrowed. Am I wrong in stating it's because people want to see the side of their car? It was for me when I first started driving and for everyone else I've asked. Is it because of my belief that people should only be licensed to drive if they can do so safely? If I'm wrong, please give me the opportunity to learn what you believe is right. I'm open to improving myself, and recognize that I am not, nor ever will be 100% right in everything.
      - zazen 8y ago
        I didn't downvote you, but I can guess why you might have been downvoted. Your comment is a) off-topic in a thread about automation, and b) presumptuous to the point of arrogance in assuming that your preferred way of aligning the mirrors is the one true safe way. Many people might reasonably believe that the traditional alignment we were taught, with the look-over-the-shoulder to check the blind spot that we were also traditionally taught, is safe. It comes across as aggressive when you suggest no-one should be allowed a license without converting to your new method.

justincormack 8y ago

"too cheap to meter" was originally said about fission power.

cma 8y ago
Instead we applied too cheap to meter to nuclear waste generation and disposal, and nuclear incident liability isn't metered past $1 billion.