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The terms of the bet require the car to navigate through New York in the winter. Definitely a lot of challenges there that aren't present in Austin. I think 203

The terms of the bet require the car to navigate through New York in the winter. Definitely a lot of challenges there that aren't present in Austin. I think 2030 is a nice contentious number to bet over. Far enough in the future that there could be key breakthroughs to make it work.

Animats 5y ago
Well, Waymo is already working in San Francisco. Winter in New York adds traction control and additional obstacles. Traction control is already mostly the vehicle's job anyway, what with anti-skid systems. It can go way beyond that. Stanford has an autonomous, electric, drifting, deLorean.[1][2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIDcT0Zdj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIDcT0Zdj4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3SqeSdrAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3SqeSdrAE
- slindsey 5y ago
  2030 seems impossible to me. In NY, you might not be able to see the road surface at all due to snow. Curbs and other landmarks that are necessary for Waymo to work (they map _everything_) will be covered. Seems unlikely to account for all conditions necessary for level 5 in 7 years.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Yeah. The against side of this bet seems like a no brainer. Is it possible (maybe even more likely than not) that there will be a fully autonomous system that will be available in that timeframe that can navigate many limited access highways in certain weather conditions by then? Absolutely. And that actually looks very interesting to me for long drives. I actually care less about handling local driving including urban driving near me. I want the long highway drives to be handled. Yes, 100% autonomous is another kind of interesting and opens up use cases like dropping me off at the airport. But that seems really hard.
- kortilla 5y ago
  The problem is not traction, it’s the visibility impact of snow drifts, etc.
  - mark-r 5y ago
    Exactly. Not being able to see where the lanes are because the paint is covered by snow brings about a whole new level of challenge.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      Forget snow; that problem exists for wet roads at night with oncoming traffic!
      - stingrae 5y ago
        polarizers reduce this problem.
        mark-r 5y ago
        Polarizers also reduce the amount of light, increasing the required camera sensitivity and noise.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        And there are basically non-existent lines on tons of roads.
      - mark-r 5y ago
        It's worse with snow. I'm in Minnesota, I speak from experience.
        aidenn0 5y ago
        It's definitely worse with snow, but the areas where "roads are sometimes wet" are a superset of "roads are sometimes covered with snow." That is to say, you could have L5 in Miami without handling snow, but rain...
- jreese 5y ago
  - limited visibility due to haze or precipitation - everything is some shade of white/grey/brown - snow is incredibly reflective - winter is cold; sensors are almost certainly affected, dirty, or covered - pedestrians are bundled up, looking less like people - road markings are obscured or buried - signs are dirty - stopping distances are increased - speeds must be slower to compensate for lack of traction - "traction control" only helps when accelerating; stability control and ABS only help so much in snow/ice
thetallstick 5y ago
My reading of the terms of the bet is major cities, which means more than one city with a population in excess of 250K. In my reading just Phoenix and Tucson would be sufficient.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  He said top 10 most populous.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - thetallstick 5y ago
    Looks like we both misread it. "By "major cities" we mean any of the top 10 most populous cities in the United States of America." Phoenix is in that list.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Tucson is not. If he only means 2 of them though there's definitely another car driven sunbelt city on that list though.
kibwen 5y ago
The terms appear to actually suggest any of the top ten most populous cities in the US, plenty of which are in places where it doesn't snow. Atwood's bet is extremely pessimistic, and I don't blame him. I don't even think that weather is the biggest issue to self-driving cars: dealing with roads full of human-driven cars will be harder to handle. It's not that AIs can't learn to aggressively accelerate onto a crowded highway or aggressively turn out of a busy stop sign, it's that the companies running the AIs will be unwilling to accept the legal liability that comes with being responsible for a fleet of aggressive AI drivers.
- randyrand 5y ago
  Liability is easy to solve. Just make the owner of the car responsible. Solved. If you don't want to accept that risk, don't operate a self driving car.
  - LosWochosWeek 5y ago
    What do you mean by "operate a self driving car"? That's the point of SAE5: You can't really operate a SAE5 vehicle other than telling it where to go. No steering wheel, no gas pedal, no brake pedal, no nothing. There is no way you could argue that the owner of a SAE5 car is responsible for it. You might as well be legally responsible for the bus, train, airplane you ride in.
    - randyrand 5y ago
      Operate as in, put fuel in it, turn it on, tell it where to go. You can operate a dishwasher without washing the dishes yourself. People are required to buy insurance to operate a vehicle. I don't see how why this needs to be any different. Companies go out of business. How can a defunct company be held legally liable? Companies and employees can easily die over the 20 year lifetime of a car. Liability can only be placed on the operator. Companies release new models every year. They get safer every year. Older cars will be more expensive to insure. Will a company want pay the ongoing insurance cost of your 20-30 year old self driving vehicle? What if they can't afford to? Will you still be able to use the car you bought despite the company not being able to insure it? or refusing to insure it (and wanting to force you into a new vehicle purchase)? All these problems magically go away when you make the operator responsible. They are able to make the choice every month whether they want to continue to pay to insure it, and are legally required to have insurance even if they die in the accident. Some brands will have better safety, and buying insurance for them will be cheaper. Everyone with the same car model will have pretty much the same insurance rate, unless you are negligent when it comes to maintenance. Insurance companies are more than capable of calculating these costs. Especially over 10-20 year time frames. If this sounds crazy to you, it's not that much different than buying liability insurance for pets. Owners are legally responsible. If you don't want to be legally responsible, don't buy a self driving car. Or a dog for that matter.
qiskit 5y ago
> The terms of the bet require the car to navigate through New York in the winter. By NY, do they mean manhattan, new york city or the actual state? Because much of manhattan is gridlike and almost made for self-driving cars. Though the sheer amount of pedestrians, cars and road work could make it especially challenging.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Navigation in much of Manhattan is straightforward. Driving at high traffic hours is certainly not in large areas of the city. I hate driving in Manhattan and will do just about anything to avoid it.

Animats 5y ago

Well, Waymo is already working in San Francisco. Winter in New York adds traction control and additional obstacles. Traction control is already mostly the vehicle's job anyway, what with anti-skid systems. It can go way beyond that. Stanford has an autonomous, electric, drifting, deLorean.[1][2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIDcT0Zdj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIDcT0Zdj4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3SqeSdrAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3SqeSdrAE

slindsey 5y ago
2030 seems impossible to me. In NY, you might not be able to see the road surface at all due to snow. Curbs and other landmarks that are necessary for Waymo to work (they map _everything_) will be covered. Seems unlikely to account for all conditions necessary for level 5 in 7 years.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Yeah. The against side of this bet seems like a no brainer. Is it possible (maybe even more likely than not) that there will be a fully autonomous system that will be available in that timeframe that can navigate many limited access highways in certain weather conditions by then? Absolutely. And that actually looks very interesting to me for long drives. I actually care less about handling local driving including urban driving near me. I want the long highway drives to be handled. Yes, 100% autonomous is another kind of interesting and opens up use cases like dropping me off at the airport. But that seems really hard.
kortilla 5y ago
The problem is not traction, it’s the visibility impact of snow drifts, etc.
- mark-r 5y ago
  Exactly. Not being able to see where the lanes are because the paint is covered by snow brings about a whole new level of challenge.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Forget snow; that problem exists for wet roads at night with oncoming traffic!
    - stingrae 5y ago
      polarizers reduce this problem.
      - mark-r 5y ago
        Polarizers also reduce the amount of light, increasing the required camera sensitivity and noise.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      And there are basically non-existent lines on tons of roads.
    - mark-r 5y ago
      It's worse with snow. I'm in Minnesota, I speak from experience.
      - aidenn0 5y ago
        It's definitely worse with snow, but the areas where "roads are sometimes wet" are a superset of "roads are sometimes covered with snow." That is to say, you could have L5 in Miami without handling snow, but rain...
jreese 5y ago
- limited visibility due to haze or precipitation - everything is some shade of white/grey/brown - snow is incredibly reflective - winter is cold; sensors are almost certainly affected, dirty, or covered - pedestrians are bundled up, looking less like people - road markings are obscured or buried - signs are dirty - stopping distances are increased - speeds must be slower to compensate for lack of traction - "traction control" only helps when accelerating; stability control and ABS only help so much in snow/ice

thetallstick 5y ago

My reading of the terms of the bet is major cities, which means more than one city with a population in excess of 250K. In my reading just Phoenix and Tucson would be sufficient.

colinmhayes 5y ago
He said top 10 most populous.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thetallstick 5y ago
  Looks like we both misread it. "By "major cities" we mean any of the top 10 most populous cities in the United States of America." Phoenix is in that list.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Tucson is not. If he only means 2 of them though there's definitely another car driven sunbelt city on that list though.

kibwen 5y ago

The terms appear to actually suggest any of the top ten most populous cities in the US, plenty of which are in places where it doesn't snow. Atwood's bet is extremely pessimistic, and I don't blame him. I don't even think that weather is the biggest issue to self-driving cars: dealing with roads full of human-driven cars will be harder to handle. It's not that AIs can't learn to aggressively accelerate onto a crowded highway or aggressively turn out of a busy stop sign, it's that the companies running the AIs will be unwilling to accept the legal liability that comes with being responsible for a fleet of aggressive AI drivers.

randyrand 5y ago
Liability is easy to solve. Just make the owner of the car responsible. Solved. If you don't want to accept that risk, don't operate a self driving car.
- LosWochosWeek 5y ago
  What do you mean by "operate a self driving car"? That's the point of SAE5: You can't really operate a SAE5 vehicle other than telling it where to go. No steering wheel, no gas pedal, no brake pedal, no nothing. There is no way you could argue that the owner of a SAE5 car is responsible for it. You might as well be legally responsible for the bus, train, airplane you ride in.
  - randyrand 5y ago
    Operate as in, put fuel in it, turn it on, tell it where to go. You can operate a dishwasher without washing the dishes yourself. People are required to buy insurance to operate a vehicle. I don't see how why this needs to be any different. Companies go out of business. How can a defunct company be held legally liable? Companies and employees can easily die over the 20 year lifetime of a car. Liability can only be placed on the operator. Companies release new models every year. They get safer every year. Older cars will be more expensive to insure. Will a company want pay the ongoing insurance cost of your 20-30 year old self driving vehicle? What if they can't afford to? Will you still be able to use the car you bought despite the company not being able to insure it? or refusing to insure it (and wanting to force you into a new vehicle purchase)? All these problems magically go away when you make the operator responsible. They are able to make the choice every month whether they want to continue to pay to insure it, and are legally required to have insurance even if they die in the accident. Some brands will have better safety, and buying insurance for them will be cheaper. Everyone with the same car model will have pretty much the same insurance rate, unless you are negligent when it comes to maintenance. Insurance companies are more than capable of calculating these costs. Especially over 10-20 year time frames. If this sounds crazy to you, it's not that much different than buying liability insurance for pets. Owners are legally responsible. If you don't want to be legally responsible, don't buy a self driving car. Or a dog for that matter.

qiskit 5y ago

> The terms of the bet require the car to navigate through New York in the winter. By NY, do they mean manhattan, new york city or the actual state? Because much of manhattan is gridlike and almost made for self-driving cars. Though the sheer amount of pedestrians, cars and road work could make it especially challenging.

ghaff 5y ago
Navigation in much of Manhattan is straightforward. Driving at high traffic hours is certainly not in large areas of the city. I hate driving in Manhattan and will do just about anything to avoid it.