5 ms·

> riding around Miami Beach in self-driving test cars several days a week I watched the video. 2+1+2 lanes, no trucks parking on the side, no bicycles, no bicy

> riding around Miami Beach in self-driving test cars several days a week I watched the video. 2+1+2 lanes, no trucks parking on the side, no bicycles, no bicycles-lanes. No pedestrians crossing the road, no pedestrians at all. Clear blue sky. The car can take a left turn alone. That's cool, until you realise that the majority of the cities outside of the USA doesn't look like Miami Beach. I highly doubt that any "self-driving" car could travel through Munich today without killing at least a couple of pedestrians or cyclists. And still, Munich is like a dream compared to Rome or Ho-Chi-Minh-City. BTW, only because sometimes I feel safe enough to ride my bike without hands on, it doesn't means I have a self-riding-bike.

andyroid 5y ago
> That's cool, until you realise that the majority of the cities outside of the USA doesn't look like Miami Beach. I highly doubt that any "self-driving" car could travel through Munich today without killing at least a couple of pedestrians or cyclists. Yeah, simply stating that they aren't yet at GA status seems pretty uncontroversial. Gotta start somewhere though :) > BTW, only because sometimes I feel safe enough to ride my bike without hands on, it doesn't means I have a self-riding-bike. Right, that was pretty much the point of the article.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- NumberCruncher 5y ago
  > Right, that was pretty much the point of the article. Agree. Nevertheless there is a flood of articles showing videos recorded under similar conditions but missing this point.
throw0101a 5y ago
You're not wrong, but at the very least it'd be handy to have self-driving at least on, say, highways. It could help with traffic flow efficiency, as well as help eliminating traffic waves: * http://trafficwaves.org http://trafficwaves.org * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave In cities, perhaps streetcars/trams could be made self-driving at least. Labour is a big expense in transit, and if we want more frequent service (which could encourage ridership), then scaling more drivers may not be economical.
- NumberCruncher 5y ago
  > very least it'd be handy to have self-driving at least on, say, highways Me too, like driving home after a long day on the highway, being sleepy, in the night, while raining. Good luck with that: [1] [1] https://9gag.com/gag/azMv16z https://9gag.com/gag/azMv16z
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    I live in Canada. Good luck with snow-covered roads: * http://icyroadsafety.com/icyroad1d.shtml http://icyroadsafety.com/icyroad1d.shtml
    - fragmede 5y ago
      lol, have you seen humans try and drive in the snow? Especially any of them who have AWD/4WD and snow tires makes them invincible? If you've ever had to brake in below-freezing conditions and ABS has kicked in, you're already trusting a computer to be better than a human at that task. Now granted, ABS is a far more limited system, with way more limited inputs and outputs, so the calculation and algorithms and code involved are dramatically easier, and self driving cars have a long way to go still, imo, but trivializing it to "lol snow" disregards the interesting technical challenges involved before self driving in snow can be solved for. You seem to think you have some expertise driving in winter - what is the biggest single challenge that self-driving cars face trying to drive in the snow?
      - tuatoru 5y ago
        > lol, have you seen humans try and drive ... This hints at an interesting issue. The difficult problems with self driving are not going to be the technical ones (driving in X environmental conditions) but the social ones. Self driving cars are going to need a theory of mind (be able to make good guesses about what mistakes other road users could make), and also behave in ways that don't make human road users uncomfortable. The latter is relatively easy, but the former is hard - never mind Theory of Mind, some self driving software doesn't even seem to have object permanence. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind 2. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Object-Permanence.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/Object-Permanence.html
sudosysgen 5y ago
You may find this video interesting : https://youtu.be/jKFV7qjWaD4 https://youtu.be/jKFV7qjWaD4 It's a self driving car spending an hour in Guangzhou traffic and managing to not hit anyone. I'm sure there is still a lot of progress to be made though.
- NumberCruncher 5y ago
  Second comment on the video: would of been nice to see inside of the car.. its easy to say "there was a human driving!" I mean, I am working at a start-up too, fake it till you make it is our daily bread...
nabla9 5y ago
It's called Level 4 autonomy. Level 4 ("mind off"): no driver attention is ever required for safety, the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self-driving is supported only in limited spatial areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip. Level 5 ("full autonomy"): No human intervention is required at all. Vehicle drives autonomously on all public roads, in all weather conditions, all surfaces, all over the world, year around.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The majority of cities in the US don't look like Miami beach. It just so happens that a bunch of cities where most of the people currently developing this kind of tech live do look like Miami beach and those people believe (or at least develop products like they do) there is no land beyond the valley.
nicbou 5y ago
Munich is still child's play. Try Sicily or Istanbul. At least the other drivers in Munich are good. In some places they're straight up murderous. Nonetheless I know what you mean. It requires your full attention with the pedestrians, cyclists, electric scooters and trams going all around.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
Geofenced full self-driving would be much more valuable than a non-geofenced, almost-full-self-driving. Being able to travel between LA and SF in a sleeper car would immediately eliminate a ton of flights, and is probably already doable with today's technology. Trucks could drive across the U.S. on their own with last-mile human drivers. Being able to play a video game while your car drives around your pedestrian-heavy city center in the rain is indeed much further off, but also much less valuable.
- atatatat 5y ago
  How do I invest in the idea that Apple is the only one that has cash and trust to revamp the highway system?

andyroid 5y ago

> That's cool, until you realise that the majority of the cities outside of the USA doesn't look like Miami Beach. I highly doubt that any "self-driving" car could travel through Munich today without killing at least a couple of pedestrians or cyclists. Yeah, simply stating that they aren't yet at GA status seems pretty uncontroversial. Gotta start somewhere though :) > BTW, only because sometimes I feel safe enough to ride my bike without hands on, it doesn't means I have a self-riding-bike. Right, that was pretty much the point of the article.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
NumberCruncher 5y ago
> Right, that was pretty much the point of the article. Agree. Nevertheless there is a flood of articles showing videos recorded under similar conditions but missing this point.

throw0101a 5y ago

You're not wrong, but at the very least it'd be handy to have self-driving at least on, say, highways. It could help with traffic flow efficiency, as well as help eliminating traffic waves: * http://trafficwaves.org http://trafficwaves.org * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave In cities, perhaps streetcars/trams could be made self-driving at least. Labour is a big expense in transit, and if we want more frequent service (which could encourage ridership), then scaling more drivers may not be economical.

NumberCruncher 5y ago
> very least it'd be handy to have self-driving at least on, say, highways Me too, like driving home after a long day on the highway, being sleepy, in the night, while raining. Good luck with that: [1] [1] https://9gag.com/gag/azMv16z https://9gag.com/gag/azMv16z
- throw0101a 5y ago
  I live in Canada. Good luck with snow-covered roads: * http://icyroadsafety.com/icyroad1d.shtml http://icyroadsafety.com/icyroad1d.shtml
  - fragmede 5y ago
    lol, have you seen humans try and drive in the snow? Especially any of them who have AWD/4WD and snow tires makes them invincible? If you've ever had to brake in below-freezing conditions and ABS has kicked in, you're already trusting a computer to be better than a human at that task. Now granted, ABS is a far more limited system, with way more limited inputs and outputs, so the calculation and algorithms and code involved are dramatically easier, and self driving cars have a long way to go still, imo, but trivializing it to "lol snow" disregards the interesting technical challenges involved before self driving in snow can be solved for. You seem to think you have some expertise driving in winter - what is the biggest single challenge that self-driving cars face trying to drive in the snow?
    - tuatoru 5y ago
      > lol, have you seen humans try and drive ... This hints at an interesting issue. The difficult problems with self driving are not going to be the technical ones (driving in X environmental conditions) but the social ones. Self driving cars are going to need a theory of mind (be able to make good guesses about what mistakes other road users could make), and also behave in ways that don't make human road users uncomfortable. The latter is relatively easy, but the former is hard - never mind Theory of Mind, some self driving software doesn't even seem to have object permanence. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind 2. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Object-Permanence.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/Object-Permanence.html

sudosysgen 5y ago

You may find this video interesting : https://youtu.be/jKFV7qjWaD4 https://youtu.be/jKFV7qjWaD4 It's a self driving car spending an hour in Guangzhou traffic and managing to not hit anyone. I'm sure there is still a lot of progress to be made though.

NumberCruncher 5y ago
Second comment on the video: would of been nice to see inside of the car.. its easy to say "there was a human driving!" I mean, I am working at a start-up too, fake it till you make it is our daily bread...

nabla9 5y ago

It's called Level 4 autonomy. Level 4 ("mind off"): no driver attention is ever required for safety, the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self-driving is supported only in limited spatial areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip. Level 5 ("full autonomy"): No human intervention is required at all. Vehicle drives autonomously on all public roads, in all weather conditions, all surfaces, all over the world, year around.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The majority of cities in the US don't look like Miami beach. It just so happens that a bunch of cities where most of the people currently developing this kind of tech live do look like Miami beach and those people believe (or at least develop products like they do) there is no land beyond the valley.

nicbou 5y ago

Munich is still child's play. Try Sicily or Istanbul. At least the other drivers in Munich are good. In some places they're straight up murderous. Nonetheless I know what you mean. It requires your full attention with the pedestrians, cyclists, electric scooters and trams going all around.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago

Geofenced full self-driving would be much more valuable than a non-geofenced, almost-full-self-driving. Being able to travel between LA and SF in a sleeper car would immediately eliminate a ton of flights, and is probably already doable with today's technology. Trucks could drive across the U.S. on their own with last-mile human drivers. Being able to play a video game while your car drives around your pedestrian-heavy city center in the rain is indeed much further off, but also much less valuable.

atatatat 5y ago
How do I invest in the idea that Apple is the only one that has cash and trust to revamp the highway system?