5 ms·

Seems like a great reason to test, gather data, and improve in NYC, no?

by curiousllama 5y ago

tonypags 5y ago
I can't wait to see one and punch the hood and yell "I'm walkin' here!"
- tempest_ 5y ago
  I don't know about New York but I live in a major city and I wonder what will happen when the homeless population figures out they can mess with them.
  - vntok 5y ago
    What is this population currently doing with cars operated by humans and how would it be any different?
    - dont__panic 5y ago
      In my city, mostly throwing glass bottles at vehicles and screaming.
    - tempest_ 5y ago
      It is not uncommon to see someone cut across the road and scream at people in cars or throw things. Depending on the driver lots of different stuff happens. Some will drive around them, others get out and confront them etc. I suspect an automated vehicle will just come to a stop an wait.
      - stevenwoo 5y ago
        Worst case, add one more person armed with a crowbar and then we have the smash and grab thieves that seem to rampant in San Francisco with a very compliant automated driver stuck behind the accomplice just standing in front of the vehicle.
    - natch 5y ago
      Envisioning a "keep summer safe" approach…
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    "Mess" with them? WDYM? I live in SF by the way.
ethnt 5y ago
Sounds more like a great reason to stay away from some of the most chaotic traffic in the US until it can be considered safer. There are far, far more pedestrians in NYC than in Phoenix, and I do not trust a Waymo car to not hit some of them.
- darkwizard42 5y ago
  In the article (only a few paragraphs btw) it specifically says the goal is to map and have safety operators manually controlling all the vehicles.
- wepple 5y ago
  When I got my NYC drivers license, the full end to end test was 8 minutes (I got a printout) on empty roads. I’d take a high quality autonomous vehicle over a tired Uber driver any day as a pedestrian
  - dml2135 5y ago
    Well I think "high quality" is doing a lot there. Obviously autonomous vehicles would be safer if they work perfectly -- the concern is that they will not.
  - ridethebike 5y ago
    Yeah, approximately 10 minutes for me to pass driving test (from second attempt). And then around a year of driving (effectively training myself) in city to get more or less comfortable with traffic.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- mpalmer 5y ago
  There are people behind the wheel.
- deegles 5y ago
  I trust a Waymo car way-more than Tesla's autopilot...
cjrp 5y ago
Sounds like a great reason to train the model on a closed road with a trained (and consenting) driver playing the role of "lane-blocking-driver" (in that example).
- natch 5y ago
  But that would take about a billion years, with all the variations and edge cases.
  - RandallBrown 5y ago
    It would take the same amount of time if they're on a closed course or in a city. The difference is you'd need to pay a lot more people to work on it.
    - natch 5y ago
      Or you could have a large fleet of a million plus instrumented vehicles gathering data as they drive, then you could use that real world data to analyze and learn from all sorts of situations.
    - _ea1k 5y ago
      Yeah, and the real world has advantages as the response of human drivers is likely more realistic. I'd bet they use this data to feed their simulators.
  - jonas21 5y ago
    They also train in simulation, where they modify real scenarios to run through variations and edge cases. [1] As of last year, they'd driven 15 billion miles in simulation - which is more than a typical person will drive in a million years. Still a ways to go to get to a billion though. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--simulation27.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--sim...
    - wolverine876 5y ago
the-pigeon 5y ago
But to what end? Gathering more data on a problem you don't know how to solve won't give you a solution to solving it. We don't have any evidence to support that current AI is capable of the advanced problem solving the city driving requires.

Seems like a great reason to test, gather data, and improve in NYC, no?

tonypags 5y ago

I can't wait to see one and punch the hood and yell "I'm walkin' here!"

tempest_ 5y ago
I don't know about New York but I live in a major city and I wonder what will happen when the homeless population figures out they can mess with them.
- vntok 5y ago
  What is this population currently doing with cars operated by humans and how would it be any different?
  - dont__panic 5y ago
    In my city, mostly throwing glass bottles at vehicles and screaming.
  - tempest_ 5y ago
    It is not uncommon to see someone cut across the road and scream at people in cars or throw things. Depending on the driver lots of different stuff happens. Some will drive around them, others get out and confront them etc. I suspect an automated vehicle will just come to a stop an wait.
    - stevenwoo 5y ago
      Worst case, add one more person armed with a crowbar and then we have the smash and grab thieves that seem to rampant in San Francisco with a very compliant automated driver stuck behind the accomplice just standing in front of the vehicle.
  - natch 5y ago
    Envisioning a "keep summer safe" approach…
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  "Mess" with them? WDYM? I live in SF by the way.

ethnt 5y ago

Sounds more like a great reason to stay away from some of the most chaotic traffic in the US until it can be considered safer. There are far, far more pedestrians in NYC than in Phoenix, and I do not trust a Waymo car to not hit some of them.

darkwizard42 5y ago
In the article (only a few paragraphs btw) it specifically says the goal is to map and have safety operators manually controlling all the vehicles.
wepple 5y ago
When I got my NYC drivers license, the full end to end test was 8 minutes (I got a printout) on empty roads. I’d take a high quality autonomous vehicle over a tired Uber driver any day as a pedestrian
- dml2135 5y ago
  Well I think "high quality" is doing a lot there. Obviously autonomous vehicles would be safer if they work perfectly -- the concern is that they will not.
- ridethebike 5y ago
  Yeah, approximately 10 minutes for me to pass driving test (from second attempt). And then around a year of driving (effectively training myself) in city to get more or less comfortable with traffic.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mpalmer 5y ago
There are people behind the wheel.
deegles 5y ago
I trust a Waymo car way-more than Tesla's autopilot...

cjrp 5y ago

Sounds like a great reason to train the model on a closed road with a trained (and consenting) driver playing the role of "lane-blocking-driver" (in that example).

natch 5y ago
But that would take about a billion years, with all the variations and edge cases.
- RandallBrown 5y ago
  It would take the same amount of time if they're on a closed course or in a city. The difference is you'd need to pay a lot more people to work on it.
  - natch 5y ago
    Or you could have a large fleet of a million plus instrumented vehicles gathering data as they drive, then you could use that real world data to analyze and learn from all sorts of situations.
  - _ea1k 5y ago
    Yeah, and the real world has advantages as the response of human drivers is likely more realistic. I'd bet they use this data to feed their simulators.
- jonas21 5y ago
  They also train in simulation, where they modify real scenarios to run through variations and edge cases. [1] As of last year, they'd driven 15 billion miles in simulation - which is more than a typical person will drive in a million years. Still a ways to go to get to a billion though. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--simulation27.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--sim...
  - wolverine876 5y ago

the-pigeon 5y ago

But to what end? Gathering more data on a problem you don't know how to solve won't give you a solution to solving it. We don't have any evidence to support that current AI is capable of the advanced problem solving the city driving requires.