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But why don't they let the operators drive the car remotely? That's the obvious thing to do. I was really shocked that the support agent couldn't do a damn thin

But why don't they let the operators drive the car remotely? That's the obvious thing to do. I was really shocked that the support agent couldn't do a damn thing except sit there and watch until someone physically turned up. Heck, why don't they let the passenger get in the front and take over if the car gets stuck? Being completely stalled in the middle of a highway for 5 minutes or more is terrible, I was watching that thinking my god, most people would be freaking out just from embarrassment alone let alone the safety issues. And all it takes is someone to just drive it past the cones for a minute, and it'd have been fine.

angry_octet 5y ago
Remote drive is the obvious and obviously bad thing to do. A remote driver doesn't have the situational awareness or perception of a local driver, or of the car. Letting the passenger drive would unfortunately involve the risk of exiting the vehicle in traffic, which the lawyers probably vetoed, even though it might be safer in some situations.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Waymo's passengers are neither insured, nor necessarily licensed to drive a motor vehicle. The Waymo is driving, this isn't like Tesla "autopilot" where it's just pretending and actually all responsibility remains with you throughout so you need a license and insurance.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    They could simply require that they are. Clearly they're not yet at the point where nobody driving is actually possible, they just require third party drivers to cruise the area in case the vehicles get stuck.
- thu2111 5y ago
  The car has 360 degree awareness of what's going on and cameras everywhere. VR headsets are real. I see no reason why remote drivers couldn't have even better situational awareness than a normal driver given the sheer number of sensors in the car. At any rate, the remote team in this case IS able to control the car, hence it trying to drive into traffic cones and Google blaming the humans. It appears that their interface just can't be very good, especially as it requires people to physically turn up in a truck - you definitely won't have good situational awareness if you're trying to drive a car through a web app whilst looking out the window at the other side of the road.
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    The bandwidth isn't available to transmit even the fused picture, VR has notorious misperception problems which are difficult to eliminate even in lab settings where you know the precise 3D measurements of everything, have carefully aligned the IPD (not even available on prosumer devices), and conduct careful per-session calibration. Is isn't ready for precise navigation tasks, and the delay and potential for jitter and dropout make it unsuited for safety critical tasks like driving. The remote assistant never does anything to affect the car onboard system. The only instance is when the assist car turns up and the car is put into hold mode for the driver to enter.
    - thu2111 5y ago
      But Google are claiming that the erratic behaviour was caused by the remote assistance in this case. So they must be able to control the car. Yes, VR is far from perfect, granted. But is it worse than what they appear to be using instead? Apparently they couldn't see the traffic cones properly from whatever system they were using and repeatedly gave it bad instructions, even though what to do was obvious to the person in the car. It seems like VR should be compared to the existing system rather than theoretically perfect vision.
      - tialaramex 5y ago
        > But Google are claiming that the erratic behaviour was caused by the remote assistance in this case. So they must be able to control the car. Nope. This was already explained once in this thread, and you ignored it. Here's what Google's statement actually says > ... the Waymo Driver detected an unusual situation and requested the attention of a remote Fleet Response specialist to provide additional information. During that interaction, the Fleet Response team provided incorrect guidance, which made it challenging for the Waymo Driver to resume its intended route, and required Waymo's Roadside Assistance team to complete the trip. They can remotely tell a Waymo, stuff like "this lane is closed" or "No, that's not a school bus, it's just a truck" - and it will add that to the information it has, this might enable it to complete the journey. If you phone your dad, asking what a street sign you saw means, and he tells you - is he now driving your car? No, clearly you are still driving the car, he just answered a question. If he says the symbol means "Free on-street parking" but it actually meant "No entry" you're going to get some problems if you try to act on this bad information.

angry_octet 5y ago

Remote drive is the obvious and obviously bad thing to do. A remote driver doesn't have the situational awareness or perception of a local driver, or of the car. Letting the passenger drive would unfortunately involve the risk of exiting the vehicle in traffic, which the lawyers probably vetoed, even though it might be safer in some situations.

tialaramex 5y ago
Waymo's passengers are neither insured, nor necessarily licensed to drive a motor vehicle. The Waymo is driving, this isn't like Tesla "autopilot" where it's just pretending and actually all responsibility remains with you throughout so you need a license and insurance.
- thu2111 5y ago
  They could simply require that they are. Clearly they're not yet at the point where nobody driving is actually possible, they just require third party drivers to cruise the area in case the vehicles get stuck.
thu2111 5y ago
The car has 360 degree awareness of what's going on and cameras everywhere. VR headsets are real. I see no reason why remote drivers couldn't have even better situational awareness than a normal driver given the sheer number of sensors in the car. At any rate, the remote team in this case IS able to control the car, hence it trying to drive into traffic cones and Google blaming the humans. It appears that their interface just can't be very good, especially as it requires people to physically turn up in a truck - you definitely won't have good situational awareness if you're trying to drive a car through a web app whilst looking out the window at the other side of the road.
- angry_octet 5y ago
  The bandwidth isn't available to transmit even the fused picture, VR has notorious misperception problems which are difficult to eliminate even in lab settings where you know the precise 3D measurements of everything, have carefully aligned the IPD (not even available on prosumer devices), and conduct careful per-session calibration. Is isn't ready for precise navigation tasks, and the delay and potential for jitter and dropout make it unsuited for safety critical tasks like driving. The remote assistant never does anything to affect the car onboard system. The only instance is when the assist car turns up and the car is put into hold mode for the driver to enter.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    But Google are claiming that the erratic behaviour was caused by the remote assistance in this case. So they must be able to control the car. Yes, VR is far from perfect, granted. But is it worse than what they appear to be using instead? Apparently they couldn't see the traffic cones properly from whatever system they were using and repeatedly gave it bad instructions, even though what to do was obvious to the person in the car. It seems like VR should be compared to the existing system rather than theoretically perfect vision.
    - tialaramex 5y ago
      > But Google are claiming that the erratic behaviour was caused by the remote assistance in this case. So they must be able to control the car. Nope. This was already explained once in this thread, and you ignored it. Here's what Google's statement actually says > ... the Waymo Driver detected an unusual situation and requested the attention of a remote Fleet Response specialist to provide additional information. During that interaction, the Fleet Response team provided incorrect guidance, which made it challenging for the Waymo Driver to resume its intended route, and required Waymo's Roadside Assistance team to complete the trip. They can remotely tell a Waymo, stuff like "this lane is closed" or "No, that's not a school bus, it's just a truck" - and it will add that to the information it has, this might enable it to complete the journey. If you phone your dad, asking what a street sign you saw means, and he tells you - is he now driving your car? No, clearly you are still driving the car, he just answered a question. If he says the symbol means "Free on-street parking" but it actually meant "No entry" you're going to get some problems if you try to act on this bad information.