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I think the only reasonable path forward is to move away from completely general AI (because we all know that anyone who claims they have reliable general AI is

I think the only reasonable path forward is to move away from completely general AI (because we all know that anyone who claims they have reliable general AI is lying) and embrace specific AI. Intelligent route planning to compensate for the deficits of our current perception tech stack is a good thing and allows greater reliability. It is harder to scale this but it’s a far more tractable problem than aiming for complete generalization.

slimsag 5y ago
This is literally what Waymo is already doing.
- machinelearning 5y ago
  This is literally what I was saying. It was in response to: “That's pretty damning and it makes me wonder if there is a huge gap in autonomy here that is being papered over by clever route planning” To which I said that clever route planning is not a hack but the only reasonable way forward.
  - slimsag 5y ago
    I didn't mean it in a derogatory way. I was just trying to say it in even more plain terms - because this whole thread was full of people who seemingly have no idea about how AVs are being approached today and are, as is usual for HN, suggesting they are smarter than the actual people working on the technology.
joe_the_user 5y ago
Waymo has never claimed completely general AI. Indeed, no serious researcher or company claims such a thing. The term "AI" has gained currency in the last few years but it's just marketing or shorthand for machine learn usually based on deep neural networks. Intelligent route planning to compensate for the deficits of our current perception tech stack is a good thing and allows greater reliability. This is what Waymo is doing and has done from the start. But this approach itself has significant limitations as the video shows. You have to automate the route planning process also, remember.
- machinelearning 5y ago
  In this context it is fairly clear what “AI” is referring to and it’s not used in the marketing sense. Also note that the AV system used by waymo is not only neural network based. There are many components that work together to create autonomy. In this context “AI” refers to the entirety of the autonomy stack. It has limitations but there is no evidence of there being a better alternative. Automating the route planning process is easier than behavior planning, path planning or perception.

slimsag 5y ago

This is literally what Waymo is already doing.

machinelearning 5y ago
This is literally what I was saying. It was in response to: “That's pretty damning and it makes me wonder if there is a huge gap in autonomy here that is being papered over by clever route planning” To which I said that clever route planning is not a hack but the only reasonable way forward.
- slimsag 5y ago
  I didn't mean it in a derogatory way. I was just trying to say it in even more plain terms - because this whole thread was full of people who seemingly have no idea about how AVs are being approached today and are, as is usual for HN, suggesting they are smarter than the actual people working on the technology.

joe_the_user 5y ago

Waymo has never claimed completely general AI. Indeed, no serious researcher or company claims such a thing. The term "AI" has gained currency in the last few years but it's just marketing or shorthand for machine learn usually based on deep neural networks. Intelligent route planning to compensate for the deficits of our current perception tech stack is a good thing and allows greater reliability. This is what Waymo is doing and has done from the start. But this approach itself has significant limitations as the video shows. You have to automate the route planning process also, remember.

machinelearning 5y ago
In this context it is fairly clear what “AI” is referring to and it’s not used in the marketing sense. Also note that the AV system used by waymo is not only neural network based. There are many components that work together to create autonomy. In this context “AI” refers to the entirety of the autonomy stack. It has limitations but there is no evidence of there being a better alternative. Automating the route planning process is easier than behavior planning, path planning or perception.