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More context on the -no safety driver- issue. "Eliminating the safety driver is an important step toward making Waymo's service profitable. But it may not be e

More context on the -no safety driver- issue. "Eliminating the safety driver is an important step toward making Waymo's service profitable. But it may not be enough on its own because Waymo says the cars still have remote overseers. These Waymo staffers never steer the vehicles directly, but they do send high-level instructions to help vehicles get out of tricky situations. For example, a Waymo spokeswoman told me, "if a Waymo vehicle detects that a road ahead may be closed due to construction, it can pull over and request a second set of eyes from our fleet response specialists." The fleet response specialist can then confirm that the road is closed and instruct the vehicle to take another route." https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-an-actual-public-driverless-taxi-service/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-...

sudosysgen 6y ago
As long as you can get a good ratio, says 10:1, that sounds workable as a robotaxi, actually.
oldgradstudent 6y ago
The language seems to be chosen very carefully. They say that they don't do one very specific thing, and they give one very specific example of something they do. Leaving it open to interpretation. I'll remain very skeptical about their no safety driver claims. We'll probably have to wait until the first fatality or serious injury to know in certain. The lawsuits and police/NTSB investigations will expose a lot of the inner workings.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Every case of remote assistance I've seen in Waymo videos tends to look like this: https://youtu.be/D1sZnbORfAE?t=830 https://youtu.be/D1sZnbORfAE?t=830 Stuck in a parking lot, with an unexpected massive obstacle (Christmas tree display) blocking the "road". "RAD MONITORING" shows up on passenger screen. Objects get labelled and vehicle starts making progress. It seems to be happening a lot less in recent videos.

sudosysgen 6y ago

As long as you can get a good ratio, says 10:1, that sounds workable as a robotaxi, actually.

oldgradstudent 6y ago

The language seems to be chosen very carefully. They say that they don't do one very specific thing, and they give one very specific example of something they do. Leaving it open to interpretation. I'll remain very skeptical about their no safety driver claims. We'll probably have to wait until the first fatality or serious injury to know in certain. The lawsuits and police/NTSB investigations will expose a lot of the inner workings.

mlyle 6y ago
Every case of remote assistance I've seen in Waymo videos tends to look like this: https://youtu.be/D1sZnbORfAE?t=830 https://youtu.be/D1sZnbORfAE?t=830 Stuck in a parking lot, with an unexpected massive obstacle (Christmas tree display) blocking the "road". "RAD MONITORING" shows up on passenger screen. Objects get labelled and vehicle starts making progress. It seems to be happening a lot less in recent videos.