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Andrew ng was a board member at Drive.ai and also posted some very promising videos like driving in rain etc. Not sure what lead to this lukewarm exit.

ramraj07 7y ago
Because every automotive company already has a self driving division and they have realized it's not a realistic dream to work on for at least a decade?
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  How is it "not realistic to work on"? Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market, and a quick youtube research will show you that it blows the competition right off, they are better by an order of a magnitude. Now, it is nowhere near full (level 5 or whatever) self-driving, but noone says that it has to be. The point is that you bring up all other car manufacturers, and they all have obviously inferior products compared to Tesla's (if we are looking at commercially available general personal vechicles). The self-driving as it is right now (even though not level 5) is obviously very useful to many people, it is a good product, the market is right there. And yet these Every Automotive Companies have failed to produce something that Tesla already has on the market. So the problem is not that it is not an "unrealistic dream",(if it exists already), the problem is that other automotive companies are basically behind on this. My guess is that they are not software companies, they have never had to develop really complicated software, and while having expertise on the mechanical side of things, they are ways behind on the software.
  - Jasper_ 7y ago
    It killed five people, Erlich.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    > Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market It’s semi-autonomous, requiring constant attention from the driver and operating in an extremely limited set of conditions. Truly autonomous cars are decades away.
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      Which is exactly what I wrote if you read the complete message. The point is, how does a new company produce this good product (which many people find very useful, even if it sounds like you don't) - when all the other major manufacturers with their experience and budgets are failing in this regard?
      - ummonk 7y ago
        You called it self driving, which it most definitely is not. Unless you’re going to argue that old school cruise control also constituted self driving tech. And Tesla’s assisted driving tech isn’t that much better than other manufacturers.
      - dmitriid 7y ago
        Other manufacturers are not failing, you’re just blinded by Tesla’s flashy marketing. For example, Volvo’s current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. However, their approach is “no person killed by Volvo by 2020”, so their tech is rightly called assisted driving. Other manufacturers have similar tech and approaches. A few years back European truck manufacturers even had a competition that involved autonomous driving on general roads across multiple state borders in Europe. However, Tesla’s marketing keeps insisting that their tech is full autonomous driving, and their lawyers correctly insist that its not. Now, back to the “not realistic to work on”. Because it’s not realistic. Real autonomous driving is decades away. And “state-of-the-art” is barely semi-autonomous (requires driver’s attention at all times), barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), can barely handle a very restricted set of road and weather conditions etc. etc.
        Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
        > For example, Volvo’s current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. Have you actually tried it or did you just read it off some anti-tesla rant on the Internet? I desperately want to believe that statement because Teslas are very overpriced for the amount of comfort they provide, but every time I test any other car, the "lane assist" and similar things are nowhere near what Tesla offers. They are all "just as good" on paper, and then you activate lane assist and smallest problem like one small segment of the road line being off makes a Volvo or something else scream in panic and force you to take the wheel while Tesla gracefully doesn't even notices at as a problem and keeps driving. Just because the other manufacturers say on paper "we also have lane assist" does not mean it's the same function. Look at this latest Audi e-tron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM When you say that other manufacturers are not doing as much marketing for this, you are right. But you got it the other way around: it's not that they are behind on the marketing, and that's why they are failing. They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in great quality on the mass-market, - and that's why they don't have the audacity to market those features, because they know that if they forced people to actually take their "lane assist" seriously, they would be scrutinized by the market even more and all those flaws would be brought to light. Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive, and then go actually test a Volvo, VW, BMW, etc lane assist -and then come back and review your statement. Your mind will be changed. > barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), Watch more of videos on that channel. Many rain situations are fine, and barely some visible road markings is all that is needed. Yes level 5 might be a decade away, but even as it is - that's like 80% of driving time covered. What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?
- bluGill 7y ago
  If you are an automotive company you need a self driving plan (not always a division) as risk control. If your competitor comes out with a self driving car that is statically safer than humans you might find your manual driven cars banned from the road. Having some IP in self driving cars is thus a good way to ensure that should that happen you can get good license terms for their tech (play nice with us, or we will sue your for patent violation). Note that good license terms can be millions of dollars. A plan means either you have a division, or you have an agreement that you can use someone else's if it works out. Either works. As car makers discover self driving cars are hard they worry less about the risk and put less into development.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
justapassenger 7y ago
There's a huge amount of work to be done, between releasing promising videos and having customer ready self driving product. For video, you don't need any 9s of reliability. For a product, you need to have a lot of 9s, and each nine is getting exponentially harder.
- bluGill 7y ago
  How many 9s do you need? I have long said you just need more than humans: one is probably enough for that... Getting to 1 9 is pretty hard though.
  - supertiger 7y ago
    Humans have higher expectations for technology. Better than humans is not enough.
    - dougmany 7y ago
      >Better than humans is not enough. By that logic, perfection is not enough because perfect is better than humans.
      - ummonk 7y ago
        Saying “x condition is not sufficient” does not mean “x is always insufficient”.
  - justapassenger 7y ago
    I used to think that getting just to human level of 9s is enough, but I've changed my mind recently. I think we can get to human level, by pure fact that we computers don't get distracted (they only crash ;-) ) and can also pickup signals, we cannot, due to 360° sensors. But computers are still bad at dealing with cases that are obvious to humans, due to lack of context and awareness. I don't think that public will accept technology like that. I think there'll be a lot of public backslash once videos showing crashes in cases that are extremely obvious to humans. Videos from avoided crashes, that wouldn't be that obvious to humans won't be enough to change the sentiment. Distribution of headlines that say "car crashed" vs "car avoided a crash" will be the same as "someone does a bad thing" vs "someone does a good thing".
dheera 7y ago
Probably investors just not "feeling" like it. Real advancements in tech need years of R&D funding before they can come to fruition; most of the venture capital industry is hell-bent on short term numbers and PowerPoint hockey stick curves and not hard promising science.

ramraj07 7y ago

Because every automotive company already has a self driving division and they have realized it's not a realistic dream to work on for at least a decade?

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
How is it "not realistic to work on"? Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market, and a quick youtube research will show you that it blows the competition right off, they are better by an order of a magnitude. Now, it is nowhere near full (level 5 or whatever) self-driving, but noone says that it has to be. The point is that you bring up all other car manufacturers, and they all have obviously inferior products compared to Tesla's (if we are looking at commercially available general personal vechicles). The self-driving as it is right now (even though not level 5) is obviously very useful to many people, it is a good product, the market is right there. And yet these Every Automotive Companies have failed to produce something that Tesla already has on the market. So the problem is not that it is not an "unrealistic dream",(if it exists already), the problem is that other automotive companies are basically behind on this. My guess is that they are not software companies, they have never had to develop really complicated software, and while having expertise on the mechanical side of things, they are ways behind on the software.
- Jasper_ 7y ago
  It killed five people, Erlich.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  > Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market It’s semi-autonomous, requiring constant attention from the driver and operating in an extremely limited set of conditions. Truly autonomous cars are decades away.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    Which is exactly what I wrote if you read the complete message. The point is, how does a new company produce this good product (which many people find very useful, even if it sounds like you don't) - when all the other major manufacturers with their experience and budgets are failing in this regard?
    - ummonk 7y ago
      You called it self driving, which it most definitely is not. Unless you’re going to argue that old school cruise control also constituted self driving tech. And Tesla’s assisted driving tech isn’t that much better than other manufacturers.
    - dmitriid 7y ago
      Other manufacturers are not failing, you’re just blinded by Tesla’s flashy marketing. For example, Volvo’s current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. However, their approach is “no person killed by Volvo by 2020”, so their tech is rightly called assisted driving. Other manufacturers have similar tech and approaches. A few years back European truck manufacturers even had a competition that involved autonomous driving on general roads across multiple state borders in Europe. However, Tesla’s marketing keeps insisting that their tech is full autonomous driving, and their lawyers correctly insist that its not. Now, back to the “not realistic to work on”. Because it’s not realistic. Real autonomous driving is decades away. And “state-of-the-art” is barely semi-autonomous (requires driver’s attention at all times), barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), can barely handle a very restricted set of road and weather conditions etc. etc.
      - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
        > For example, Volvo’s current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. Have you actually tried it or did you just read it off some anti-tesla rant on the Internet? I desperately want to believe that statement because Teslas are very overpriced for the amount of comfort they provide, but every time I test any other car, the "lane assist" and similar things are nowhere near what Tesla offers. They are all "just as good" on paper, and then you activate lane assist and smallest problem like one small segment of the road line being off makes a Volvo or something else scream in panic and force you to take the wheel while Tesla gracefully doesn't even notices at as a problem and keeps driving. Just because the other manufacturers say on paper "we also have lane assist" does not mean it's the same function. Look at this latest Audi e-tron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM When you say that other manufacturers are not doing as much marketing for this, you are right. But you got it the other way around: it's not that they are behind on the marketing, and that's why they are failing. They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in great quality on the mass-market, - and that's why they don't have the audacity to market those features, because they know that if they forced people to actually take their "lane assist" seriously, they would be scrutinized by the market even more and all those flaws would be brought to light. Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive, and then go actually test a Volvo, VW, BMW, etc lane assist -and then come back and review your statement. Your mind will be changed. > barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), Watch more of videos on that channel. Many rain situations are fine, and barely some visible road markings is all that is needed. Yes level 5 might be a decade away, but even as it is - that's like 80% of driving time covered. What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?
bluGill 7y ago
If you are an automotive company you need a self driving plan (not always a division) as risk control. If your competitor comes out with a self driving car that is statically safer than humans you might find your manual driven cars banned from the road. Having some IP in self driving cars is thus a good way to ensure that should that happen you can get good license terms for their tech (play nice with us, or we will sue your for patent violation). Note that good license terms can be millions of dollars. A plan means either you have a division, or you have an agreement that you can use someone else's if it works out. Either works. As car makers discover self driving cars are hard they worry less about the risk and put less into development.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

justapassenger 7y ago

There's a huge amount of work to be done, between releasing promising videos and having customer ready self driving product. For video, you don't need any 9s of reliability. For a product, you need to have a lot of 9s, and each nine is getting exponentially harder.

bluGill 7y ago
How many 9s do you need? I have long said you just need more than humans: one is probably enough for that... Getting to 1 9 is pretty hard though.
- supertiger 7y ago
  Humans have higher expectations for technology. Better than humans is not enough.
  - dougmany 7y ago
    >Better than humans is not enough. By that logic, perfection is not enough because perfect is better than humans.
    - ummonk 7y ago
      Saying “x condition is not sufficient” does not mean “x is always insufficient”.
- justapassenger 7y ago
  I used to think that getting just to human level of 9s is enough, but I've changed my mind recently. I think we can get to human level, by pure fact that we computers don't get distracted (they only crash ;-) ) and can also pickup signals, we cannot, due to 360° sensors. But computers are still bad at dealing with cases that are obvious to humans, due to lack of context and awareness. I don't think that public will accept technology like that. I think there'll be a lot of public backslash once videos showing crashes in cases that are extremely obvious to humans. Videos from avoided crashes, that wouldn't be that obvious to humans won't be enough to change the sentiment. Distribution of headlines that say "car crashed" vs "car avoided a crash" will be the same as "someone does a bad thing" vs "someone does a good thing".

dheera 7y ago

Probably investors just not "feeling" like it. Real advancements in tech need years of R&D funding before they can come to fruition; most of the venture capital industry is hell-bent on short term numbers and PowerPoint hockey stick curves and not hard promising science.