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This is what I expect for the first set of automated for freight. There will be designated on/off ramps for automated trucks. Some human will drive them there a

This is what I expect for the first set of automated for freight. There will be designated on/off ramps for automated trucks. Some human will drive them there and park them. The trucks will drive across interstates and get off at another designated on/off ramp and a human will drive them to the warehouse. This removes a lot of the risks associated with automation and reduces the biggest expense of having long haul driver teams.

michaelt 7y ago
Not sure I buy the remote-controlled-by-humans idea personally. I mean, to remotely drive a car at 30mph, you either need to emergency-stop any time the control signal drops out (in which case you'll constantly get rear-ended) or you need a control system so good it can keep going even through signal drop-outs (in which case why do you have the remote control anyway) or you need an immortal data connection that never suffers drop-outs or so much as 100ms of latency (i.e. orders of magnitude better than what we have today). I mean, you could do "Human remotely controls the vehicle at walking pace" easily enough, as you could stop all you liked without people hitting you. But we'd need lots of changes to the roads to support a mass of vehicles going that slowly.
- snarf21 7y ago
  Sorry, I was not saying remote controlled. I was saying fully autonomous but only from interstate to interstate with specially designed and designated on/off ramps. They would drive highway speeds (except in traffic).
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  How does the air force manage with remote controlled drones piloted a half a globe away? I guess flying is a bit different as it is much easier to automate than driving, but still.
  - black6 7y ago
    Airspace is much less crowded, much more controlled, and military drones don’t need microsecond response—their missions are largely ISR with the occasional extrajudicial bombing with a lag-time > a few seconds anyway.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    The Big Sky Theory [1] means (unless you're in the Blue Angels) a plane can almost always keep going straight forward for 20 seconds with no worries. No risks of a child running out or a vehicle 2 seconds in front suddenly braking. This doesn't apply to a vehicle driving a city street. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory
    - marcosdumay 7y ago
      The current expected result of children running into a road in front of a truck is for they to die. Roads are a much more controlled environment than city streets.
      - emj 7y ago
        I would say that is something truckdrivers spend a lot of time avoiding, by exprience and professionalism. The same can not be said about driverless tech companies, everyone really want to be first, that makes children and other soft targets losers.
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        > I would say that is something truckdrivers spend a lot of time avoiding, by exprience and professionalism. Then they are doing a bad job about it. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/large-trucks#Trends https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/large... > The same can not be said about driverless tech companies, everyone really want to be first, that makes children and other soft targets losers. I would guess that it would be pretty hard to do worse than we are already doing.
        emj 7y ago
        There are technological solutions that help truck drivers to drive safely but they are actively fought by truck producers. No one is a saint, but I promise you that truck drivers spend alot of their time worrying about you and me. My argument is a variant of "better the devil you know".
- pjc50 7y ago
  The car only needs to emergency stop if the "self-driving" has a sudden disengage feature which relies on transferring control to a human in miliseconds. If it's actually "self-driving" and can handle uncertainty in a more reasonable way it's not so much a problem.

michaelt 7y ago

Not sure I buy the remote-controlled-by-humans idea personally. I mean, to remotely drive a car at 30mph, you either need to emergency-stop any time the control signal drops out (in which case you'll constantly get rear-ended) or you need a control system so good it can keep going even through signal drop-outs (in which case why do you have the remote control anyway) or you need an immortal data connection that never suffers drop-outs or so much as 100ms of latency (i.e. orders of magnitude better than what we have today). I mean, you could do "Human remotely controls the vehicle at walking pace" easily enough, as you could stop all you liked without people hitting you. But we'd need lots of changes to the roads to support a mass of vehicles going that slowly.

snarf21 7y ago
Sorry, I was not saying remote controlled. I was saying fully autonomous but only from interstate to interstate with specially designed and designated on/off ramps. They would drive highway speeds (except in traffic).
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
How does the air force manage with remote controlled drones piloted a half a globe away? I guess flying is a bit different as it is much easier to automate than driving, but still.
- black6 7y ago
  Airspace is much less crowded, much more controlled, and military drones don’t need microsecond response—their missions are largely ISR with the occasional extrajudicial bombing with a lag-time > a few seconds anyway.
- michaelt 7y ago
  The Big Sky Theory [1] means (unless you're in the Blue Angels) a plane can almost always keep going straight forward for 20 seconds with no worries. No risks of a child running out or a vehicle 2 seconds in front suddenly braking. This doesn't apply to a vehicle driving a city street. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    The current expected result of children running into a road in front of a truck is for they to die. Roads are a much more controlled environment than city streets.
    - emj 7y ago
      I would say that is something truckdrivers spend a lot of time avoiding, by exprience and professionalism. The same can not be said about driverless tech companies, everyone really want to be first, that makes children and other soft targets losers.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        > I would say that is something truckdrivers spend a lot of time avoiding, by exprience and professionalism. Then they are doing a bad job about it. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/large-trucks#Trends https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/large... > The same can not be said about driverless tech companies, everyone really want to be first, that makes children and other soft targets losers. I would guess that it would be pretty hard to do worse than we are already doing.
        emj 7y ago
        There are technological solutions that help truck drivers to drive safely but they are actively fought by truck producers. No one is a saint, but I promise you that truck drivers spend alot of their time worrying about you and me. My argument is a variant of "better the devil you know".
pjc50 7y ago
The car only needs to emergency stop if the "self-driving" has a sudden disengage feature which relies on transferring control to a human in miliseconds. If it's actually "self-driving" and can handle uncertainty in a more reasonable way it's not so much a problem.