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Cars are vastly more complex to do navigation for than planes too so we need to be even more careful when making auto autos. Plane autopilots are basically deal

by rtkwe 5y ago

Cars are vastly more complex to do navigation for than planes too so we need to be even more careful when making auto autos. Plane autopilots are basically dealing with just the physical mechanics of flying the plane which while complex are quite predictable and modellable. All of the obstacle avoidance and collision avoidance takes place outside of autopilots through ATC and the routes are known and for most purposes completely devoid of any obstacles. Cars have a vastly harder job because they're navigating through an environment that is orders of magnitude more complex because there are other moving objects to deal with.

toxik 5y ago
Interesting point of view: autonomous cars as a form of contact-rich manipulation
- rtkwe 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by that. Care to expand?
ghaff 5y ago
Which is one reason I come back to thinking that you may see full automation in environments such as limited access highways in good weather but likely not in, say, Manhattan into the indefinite future. Unexpected things can happen on highways but a lot fewer of them and it's not like humans driving 70 mph are great at avoiding that unexpected deer or erratic driver either. ADDED: You'd actually think the manufacturers would prefer this from a liability perspective as well. In a busy city, pedestrians and cyclists do crazy stuff all the time (as do drivers) and it's a near certainty that FSD vehicles will get into accidents and kill people that aren't really their fault. That sort of thing is less common on a highway.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  This is what I'd be happy with. Something to get me the 20-50 miles between cities (Atlanta<->Winder<->Athens in particular), or through the closed highway loops around them. Driving within them isn't so boring that my focus wanders before I notice it's wandering. We could just expand MARTA, but the NIMBY crowd won't allow it. People are still hopped up on 1980s fearmongering about the sorts of people who live in cities and don't want them infesting their nice, quiet suburbs that still have the Sherriff posting about huge drug and gun busts.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Public transit isn't a panacea for suburbs/small cities. I'm about a 7 minute drive from the commuter rail into Boston but because of both schedule and time to take a non-express train, it's pretty much impractical to take into the city except for a 9-5 workday schedule, especially if I need to take a subway once I get into town. For me, it's more the 3-5 hour drive, mostly on highways, to get up to northern New England.
- ra7 5y ago
  > Which is one reason I come back to thinking that you may see full automation in environments such as limited access highways in good weather but likely not in, say, Manhattan into the indefinite future. This is why there are SAE levels of automation and specifically Level 4 is what you're describing. Anyone claiming their system will be Level 5 is flat out lying.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Even just in the US, there are some cities that can be fairly challenging for an experienced human driver, especially one unfamiliar with them. And there are plenty of even paved mountain roads in the West which can be a bit stressful as well. And that's in good weather.
    - chrismcb 5y ago
      Which paved mountain roads in the west are stressful?
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Highways are probably the best case scenario for full automation but we've seen scenarios where even that idealized environment has deadly failures in a handful of Tesla crashes.
arcticbull 5y ago
Sounds more comparable to ATTOL does it not? Planes in development now are capable of automatic taxi, take-off and landing.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  They're still in a vastly more controlled environment than cars and moving at much lower speeds as well. If an auto taxiing plane has to avoid another airport vehicle something has gone massively wrong. Judging by this video [0] I'm not sure they're even worrying about collisions and are counting on the combination of pilots and ATC ground controllers to avoid issues while taxiing. It looks like the cameras are entirely focused on line following. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU

by rtkwe 5y ago

toxik 5y ago

Interesting point of view: autonomous cars as a form of contact-rich manipulation

rtkwe 5y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Care to expand?

ghaff 5y ago

Which is one reason I come back to thinking that you may see full automation in environments such as limited access highways in good weather but likely not in, say, Manhattan into the indefinite future. Unexpected things can happen on highways but a lot fewer of them and it's not like humans driving 70 mph are great at avoiding that unexpected deer or erratic driver either. ADDED: You'd actually think the manufacturers would prefer this from a liability perspective as well. In a busy city, pedestrians and cyclists do crazy stuff all the time (as do drivers) and it's a near certainty that FSD vehicles will get into accidents and kill people that aren't really their fault. That sort of thing is less common on a highway.

mkr-hn 5y ago
This is what I'd be happy with. Something to get me the 20-50 miles between cities (Atlanta<->Winder<->Athens in particular), or through the closed highway loops around them. Driving within them isn't so boring that my focus wanders before I notice it's wandering. We could just expand MARTA, but the NIMBY crowd won't allow it. People are still hopped up on 1980s fearmongering about the sorts of people who live in cities and don't want them infesting their nice, quiet suburbs that still have the Sherriff posting about huge drug and gun busts.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Public transit isn't a panacea for suburbs/small cities. I'm about a 7 minute drive from the commuter rail into Boston but because of both schedule and time to take a non-express train, it's pretty much impractical to take into the city except for a 9-5 workday schedule, especially if I need to take a subway once I get into town. For me, it's more the 3-5 hour drive, mostly on highways, to get up to northern New England.
ra7 5y ago
> Which is one reason I come back to thinking that you may see full automation in environments such as limited access highways in good weather but likely not in, say, Manhattan into the indefinite future. This is why there are SAE levels of automation and specifically Level 4 is what you're describing. Anyone claiming their system will be Level 5 is flat out lying.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Even just in the US, there are some cities that can be fairly challenging for an experienced human driver, especially one unfamiliar with them. And there are plenty of even paved mountain roads in the West which can be a bit stressful as well. And that's in good weather.
  - chrismcb 5y ago
    Which paved mountain roads in the west are stressful?
rtkwe 5y ago
Highways are probably the best case scenario for full automation but we've seen scenarios where even that idealized environment has deadly failures in a handful of Tesla crashes.

arcticbull 5y ago

Sounds more comparable to ATTOL does it not? Planes in development now are capable of automatic taxi, take-off and landing.

rtkwe 5y ago
They're still in a vastly more controlled environment than cars and moving at much lower speeds as well. If an auto taxiing plane has to avoid another airport vehicle something has gone massively wrong. Judging by this video [0] I'm not sure they're even worrying about collisions and are counting on the combination of pilots and ATC ground controllers to avoid issues while taxiing. It looks like the cameras are entirely focused on line following. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIBeso4abU