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> for some reason often believed by otherwise quite smart people I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it is because "ma

> for some reason often believed by otherwise quite smart people I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it is because "machine learning" is just abstract enough that even the most jaded developer thinks they can treat it like a black box where if you pour enough videos, photos and LIDAR readings for training into the top it will somehow spit out a fully autonomous self driving car at the bottom. I do find it funny though. On the one hand Alexa only manages to turn on the lights successfully 50% of the time yet somehow we will magically have self driving cars capable of safely navigating the roads any day now. I mean for fsck sake, we don't even have a thing that can wash and fold clothes automatically but somehow self driving cars will be on the market any day. Like, if we cannot even get voice recognition to work right, how on earth will you tell this magical car which street parking spot to take in a busy city? How will you tell it to pull over to pick up a friend? Hell, how will you tell it to go through a drive-through at McDonalds? A touchscreen?

jodrellblank 7y ago
The way you suggest the future of automotive transport rests on a fast food chain drive through suggests a kind of astroturfing social media advert. If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way. None of those things are physically complex - the car will be able to see or lidar if a space is big enough for it to park in, pulling over to pick up a friend is no different to pulling over to let you out at your destination, and a drive-through is moving forwards slowly and steering a bit like all low speed driving is. None of them require the dexterity of folding soft wet fabric, and the market for $30,000+ vehicles is much larger than the market for $30,000+ washing machines. One simple answer is: you don't. Self-driving car owned by <car company. takes you from A to B and you get out. You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit, you don't pick up a friend they take their own separate ride, and you don't use the drive through, you use <car company>'s food delivery service.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  > None of those things are physically complex I don't care about how physically complex something is. You didn't tell me how I'd tell the self driving car which spot to park in or which person on the corner is my friend. If you think this detail is minor, trivial or doesn't matter.... you are sadly mistaken. > If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way. So you are telling me your $70,000 self driving car can't take me through one of the hundreds of thousands of drive thru's out there? That sounds pretty shitty. > You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit You are telling me that this self-driving taxi will just stop at whatever place it feels like? How will I tell it precisely where to let me out? Remember it is pouring down rain / I am physically disabled and cannot walk very far / I am not entirely sure where I need to be dropped off until I get there. So seriously, how will I command this self-driving car? Nobody seems to be able to answer this or even thought about it in any amount of detail at all. Probably because we are so far away from an actual self driving car that a realistic answer doesn't really matter at all. And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. Guess what... edge cases matter. Your edge case is my important case. You add up all these edge cases that "don't matter" and you've excluded almost your entire market.
  - Slartie 7y ago
    > I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all? > And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. I think you are you spot-on with that analysis. Way too much hand-waving going on. But that is a constant problem in tech, the entire area is susceptible to hypes and fads, with hands waving and waving at record speed. Like I said, maybe it's just not all geniuses and such...
    - RaceWon 7y ago
      > > I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all? The crux of the problem is you have people who although may well be cabable of driving to work--they are by no means cabable of understanding driving at its essence. They will never, not ever; be able to create a car that can also interact with human drivers because they don't understand driving. Period... end of story.
tim333 7y ago
As to "tech people" falling for the hype, it all depends which particular hype but: "surprised if we saw fully self driving cars any time in the next 50 years." a couple of years after there have been self driving cars driving around Arizona https://youtu.be/aaOB-ErYq6Y?t=93 https://youtu.be/aaOB-ErYq6Y?t=93 reminds me of quotes like "The aeroplane will never fly." — Lord Haldane, 1907 a while after the Wright brothers had done many flights. You could argue both the Wright brothers planes and the Arizona Waymos were a bit rubbish but these things tend to improve rapidly.
- toast0 7y ago
  Rather expensive self-driving cars, with safety drivers have been driving around a very small part of Arizona, right? That's not really that close to an affordable self-driving car that I can take overnight door to door from the bay area to the Los Angeles area while I sleep. That may not be 50 years away, but it sure doesn't seem any nearer than 20 years. Progress towards something usable has been pretty slow, and the edge cases are going to be tricky.
  - tigershark 7y ago
    A percentage of the trips have been without security driver for several months. As for affordable they are comparable to Uber and lyft and you can actually get a Waymo trip using the lyft app, so that seems pretty affordable to me.
  - tim333 7y ago
    If you click the video link it's one driving without a safety driver.
mr_toad 7y ago
> How will you tell it to pull over to pick up a friend? You can’t imagine a way to do this, therefore it’s impossible?

jodrellblank 7y ago

The way you suggest the future of automotive transport rests on a fast food chain drive through suggests a kind of astroturfing social media advert. If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way. None of those things are physically complex - the car will be able to see or lidar if a space is big enough for it to park in, pulling over to pick up a friend is no different to pulling over to let you out at your destination, and a drive-through is moving forwards slowly and steering a bit like all low speed driving is. None of them require the dexterity of folding soft wet fabric, and the market for $30,000+ vehicles is much larger than the market for $30,000+ washing machines. One simple answer is: you don't. Self-driving car owned by <car company. takes you from A to B and you get out. You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit, you don't pick up a friend they take their own separate ride, and you don't use the drive through, you use <car company>'s food delivery service.

spookthesunset 7y ago
> None of those things are physically complex I don't care about how physically complex something is. You didn't tell me how I'd tell the self driving car which spot to park in or which person on the corner is my friend. If you think this detail is minor, trivial or doesn't matter.... you are sadly mistaken. > If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way. So you are telling me your $70,000 self driving car can't take me through one of the hundreds of thousands of drive thru's out there? That sounds pretty shitty. > You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit You are telling me that this self-driving taxi will just stop at whatever place it feels like? How will I tell it precisely where to let me out? Remember it is pouring down rain / I am physically disabled and cannot walk very far / I am not entirely sure where I need to be dropped off until I get there. So seriously, how will I command this self-driving car? Nobody seems to be able to answer this or even thought about it in any amount of detail at all. Probably because we are so far away from an actual self driving car that a realistic answer doesn't really matter at all. And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. Guess what... edge cases matter. Your edge case is my important case. You add up all these edge cases that "don't matter" and you've excluded almost your entire market.
- Slartie 7y ago
  > I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all? > And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. I think you are you spot-on with that analysis. Way too much hand-waving going on. But that is a constant problem in tech, the entire area is susceptible to hypes and fads, with hands waving and waving at record speed. Like I said, maybe it's just not all geniuses and such...
  - RaceWon 7y ago
    > > I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype. Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all? The crux of the problem is you have people who although may well be cabable of driving to work--they are by no means cabable of understanding driving at its essence. They will never, not ever; be able to create a car that can also interact with human drivers because they don't understand driving. Period... end of story.

tim333 7y ago

As to "tech people" falling for the hype, it all depends which particular hype but: "surprised if we saw fully self driving cars any time in the next 50 years." a couple of years after there have been self driving cars driving around Arizona https://youtu.be/aaOB-ErYq6Y?t=93 https://youtu.be/aaOB-ErYq6Y?t=93 reminds me of quotes like "The aeroplane will never fly." — Lord Haldane, 1907 a while after the Wright brothers had done many flights. You could argue both the Wright brothers planes and the Arizona Waymos were a bit rubbish but these things tend to improve rapidly.

toast0 7y ago
Rather expensive self-driving cars, with safety drivers have been driving around a very small part of Arizona, right? That's not really that close to an affordable self-driving car that I can take overnight door to door from the bay area to the Los Angeles area while I sleep. That may not be 50 years away, but it sure doesn't seem any nearer than 20 years. Progress towards something usable has been pretty slow, and the edge cases are going to be tricky.
- tigershark 7y ago
  A percentage of the trips have been without security driver for several months. As for affordable they are comparable to Uber and lyft and you can actually get a Waymo trip using the lyft app, so that seems pretty affordable to me.
- tim333 7y ago
  If you click the video link it's one driving without a safety driver.

mr_toad 7y ago

> How will you tell it to pull over to pick up a friend? You can’t imagine a way to do this, therefore it’s impossible?