3 ms·

The question was if they are closer. Materially closer is closer? How would materially closer not meet the bar for closer?

ux-app 5y ago
>How would materially closer not meet the bar for closer? I don't have a horse in this race, but I think what the other commenter was getting at is that: if there were 10 problems that needed solving 5 years ago, and in the course of solving those 10 problems you discovered 100 more than needed solving that you weren't initially aware of, then sure you got closer to the goal, but the progress was so tiny that it's almost not relevant. I'm personally not arguing one way or another, but that's how I read the other person's comment.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  I guess that would be a reasonable take if Waymo announced they were "close" or had solved "x technical problems". But here progress = cars on the road with no driver in more and more difficult situations. So, even if more problems keep coming up they seem to be overcoming them at a good clip.
  - ux-app 5y ago
    fwiw, I agree that progress has been astounding in the past 10 years... but on the other hand I really do wonder what the limits of the current approach is. After all humans don't drive by analysing 1 frame at a time, we have a model of how the world works, we anticipate, we have intuition etc... I know the whole human flight is different to bird flight argument, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. Exciting times :)
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > but on the other hand I really do wonder what the limits of the current approach is. If the technology stagnates, the hardware stops improving, and the software stops getting better, then we would hit the limit pretty quickly. > After all humans don't drive by analysing 1 frame at a time, we have a model of how the world works, we anticipate, we have intuition etc... All self driving cars also maintain those models as well, and use frame by frame input to correct those models in real time (but they have already guessed where something is going to be 100+ frames from now).
      - ux-app 5y ago
        cool! I hope we go all self driving in my lifetime, i'd be so stoked to not have to worry about my young boys driving when they become teenagers :)
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        If your young boys are like mine, then they are sad that they might not actually get to drive cars in the future. However, my 5 year old already talks a lot about self driving Teslas (too much YouTube?) so what do I know?
jacquesm 5y ago
Let me give you an analogy. Say we are on Earth looking up and we see the moon. We decide we want to go visit. Every day we add a couple of stones to a large pile on top of a mountain (those are the edge cases). We are provably getting closer to the moon every day. But we will not get there because we need better technology, we don't need piles of stones, we need a rocket. In your view we are within striking distance of the moon, another couple of piles of stones and we are there. In my view, I'm not sure that it will just take more stones and not a better technology, and I'm beginning to lean more and more towards the latter because the problems that we were seeing 10 years ago we are still seeing today: more and more edge cases. And edge cases can be a symptom of a problem that is almost solved or it can be a symptom of a problem that is being solved using the wrong toolset, especially when there are lots of them and new ones keep popping up all the time. Clear now? And by the way: none of this is to imply that what has been done isn't impressive, the MB statement that they will accept liability if their software is in control of the vehicle is a step in the right direction and shows a lot of confidence. But it's incremental progress towards a goal that might not be reachable in that way.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  This whole line of reasoning sounds like a philosopher debating the number of teeth in a horse's mouth. Just come visit San Francisco and see the evidence. Look in the horse's mouth, so to speak. The cars are driving around a complex city, without a driver, and doing an amazing job. The progress is real.

ux-app 5y ago

>How would materially closer not meet the bar for closer? I don't have a horse in this race, but I think what the other commenter was getting at is that: if there were 10 problems that needed solving 5 years ago, and in the course of solving those 10 problems you discovered 100 more than needed solving that you weren't initially aware of, then sure you got closer to the goal, but the progress was so tiny that it's almost not relevant. I'm personally not arguing one way or another, but that's how I read the other person's comment.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
I guess that would be a reasonable take if Waymo announced they were "close" or had solved "x technical problems". But here progress = cars on the road with no driver in more and more difficult situations. So, even if more problems keep coming up they seem to be overcoming them at a good clip.
- ux-app 5y ago
  fwiw, I agree that progress has been astounding in the past 10 years... but on the other hand I really do wonder what the limits of the current approach is. After all humans don't drive by analysing 1 frame at a time, we have a model of how the world works, we anticipate, we have intuition etc... I know the whole human flight is different to bird flight argument, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. Exciting times :)
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    > but on the other hand I really do wonder what the limits of the current approach is. If the technology stagnates, the hardware stops improving, and the software stops getting better, then we would hit the limit pretty quickly. > After all humans don't drive by analysing 1 frame at a time, we have a model of how the world works, we anticipate, we have intuition etc... All self driving cars also maintain those models as well, and use frame by frame input to correct those models in real time (but they have already guessed where something is going to be 100+ frames from now).
    - ux-app 5y ago
      cool! I hope we go all self driving in my lifetime, i'd be so stoked to not have to worry about my young boys driving when they become teenagers :)
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        If your young boys are like mine, then they are sad that they might not actually get to drive cars in the future. However, my 5 year old already talks a lot about self driving Teslas (too much YouTube?) so what do I know?

jacquesm 5y ago

Let me give you an analogy. Say we are on Earth looking up and we see the moon. We decide we want to go visit. Every day we add a couple of stones to a large pile on top of a mountain (those are the edge cases). We are provably getting closer to the moon every day. But we will not get there because we need better technology, we don't need piles of stones, we need a rocket. In your view we are within striking distance of the moon, another couple of piles of stones and we are there. In my view, I'm not sure that it will just take more stones and not a better technology, and I'm beginning to lean more and more towards the latter because the problems that we were seeing 10 years ago we are still seeing today: more and more edge cases. And edge cases can be a symptom of a problem that is almost solved or it can be a symptom of a problem that is being solved using the wrong toolset, especially when there are lots of them and new ones keep popping up all the time. Clear now? And by the way: none of this is to imply that what has been done isn't impressive, the MB statement that they will accept liability if their software is in control of the vehicle is a step in the right direction and shows a lot of confidence. But it's incremental progress towards a goal that might not be reachable in that way.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
This whole line of reasoning sounds like a philosopher debating the number of teeth in a horse's mouth. Just come visit San Francisco and see the evidence. Look in the horse's mouth, so to speak. The cars are driving around a complex city, without a driver, and doing an amazing job. The progress is real.