4 ms·

>Any reason why everyone seems to be stuck on this problem? ML maximalism focused on the narrow problem of 'solving driving' while not recognizing that any tas

>Any reason why everyone seems to be stuck on this problem? ML maximalism focused on the narrow problem of 'solving driving' while not recognizing that any task as complex as driving requires probably something closer to general intelligence, and theoretically the field has been impoverished in favor of "throw more graphics cards at everything".

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. Especially when it comes to city driving, which would obviously be necessary for robotaxis, when AI zealots promise "it'll be here in a year or two", I always wondered "Have these people ever driven in the city?" I mean, to drive in a city, you basically: 1. Need to understand all standard signage (seems possible with AI). 2. Need to understand all "unstandard" signage (not sure how possible). 3. Need to understand the cop with the thick NY accent yelling at you saying "Can't you see there's been an accident and the road is covered with glass you dufus? Turn the F around." I can certainly see AI solving the problem of driving in specially designed limited access highways (which could also support normal human drivers), and that alone would be a huge benefit, but I never saw how so many were willing to make the leap to "robotaxis that can drive you anywhere in the city."
- dmd 4y ago
  4. Need to understand the cop who is directing people into lanes by jutting his chin subtly in different directions when you make eye contact with him 5. Need to understand that occluded objects have not vanished from the universe never to be seen again
  - naijaboiler 4y ago
    6. Need to reasonably predict what that human that just made eye contact with you would likely do next, and how that's different from what he might do when he doesn’t make eye contact with you. And all of that differs if you're in NYC or SF or small town, Indiana
    - dibujante 4y ago
      7. Need to understand that drunk person staggering along the roadside has been repeatedly slipping off the sidewalk and there's a non-zero chance they trip and fall right in front of you.
      - dekhn 4y ago
        This is a dance move known as the "tenderloin lurch". Well, not really, the Tenderloin Lurch is when a person staggers up to a crosswalk, waits until they have a NO WALK sign and proceeds to cross, while ignoring all the drivers who about to run them over.
        uoaei 4y ago
        I sincerely hope you are not this unpleasant in social settings.
        dekhn 4y ago
        when I float that joke in social settings in SF, everybody nods sagely
        uoaei 4y ago
        I've been in situations like this. In SF. I grew up here. What you describe is the classic west coast non-confrontationalism. You're probably annoying enough that it's simply not worth it to counter anything you say because you just dive into a petty and self-aggrandizing argumentative mode. Brash and confused conservatives think everyone agrees with them, but in reality people don't want to get caught up in absolute bullshit by joining any kind of interaction with them. This is a common pattern by now. You would do well to recognize it.
      - powerhour 4y ago
        8. Need to understand that sometimes the stripes you see aren't the real stripes, you're driving near sunset and are seeing the sun reflected off of old stripes that were painted over with glossy black (wtf WSDOT).
highwaylights 4y ago
Even then, even if you can solve every case involving actual roads with perfect markings and intact signs and functioning signals, I’ve found myself just this week: - driving across an unmarked grassy mound to park a car at a store in their designated area. - paying a fee with coins to enter and exit a toll road. - stopping to move around roadworks based solely on hand signals from one of the workers. These aren’t even scratching the surface in terms of edge cases that could be encountered regularly.
steveBK123 4y ago
Agreed. People point at statements like "it just needs to drive better than the average driver" and "well lots of idiots drive". On the flip side, lots of intelligent people with other skills do not have the confidence & comfort to drive outside of their towns local roads, or at all. There are problem sets for ML like quant trading or phone album image tagging where you just need to be right 51% of the time to make money / be novel & useful. We've seen plenty of examples showing ML is not appropriate for life&death problems like being the primary reviewer of diagnostic imaging for cancer screening. The bar for ML to drive a car is much much higher, and I'm not even sure we have the right sensor suites feeding into the models, not to mention the compute capacity to operate at low enough latency.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Couldn't agree more. Especially when it comes to city driving, which would obviously be necessary for robotaxis, when AI zealots promise "it'll be here in a year or two", I always wondered "Have these people ever driven in the city?" I mean, to drive in a city, you basically: 1. Need to understand all standard signage (seems possible with AI). 2. Need to understand all "unstandard" signage (not sure how possible). 3. Need to understand the cop with the thick NY accent yelling at you saying "Can't you see there's been an accident and the road is covered with glass you dufus? Turn the F around." I can certainly see AI solving the problem of driving in specially designed limited access highways (which could also support normal human drivers), and that alone would be a huge benefit, but I never saw how so many were willing to make the leap to "robotaxis that can drive you anywhere in the city."

dmd 4y ago
4. Need to understand the cop who is directing people into lanes by jutting his chin subtly in different directions when you make eye contact with him 5. Need to understand that occluded objects have not vanished from the universe never to be seen again
- naijaboiler 4y ago
  6. Need to reasonably predict what that human that just made eye contact with you would likely do next, and how that's different from what he might do when he doesn’t make eye contact with you. And all of that differs if you're in NYC or SF or small town, Indiana
  - dibujante 4y ago
    7. Need to understand that drunk person staggering along the roadside has been repeatedly slipping off the sidewalk and there's a non-zero chance they trip and fall right in front of you.
    - dekhn 4y ago
      This is a dance move known as the "tenderloin lurch". Well, not really, the Tenderloin Lurch is when a person staggers up to a crosswalk, waits until they have a NO WALK sign and proceeds to cross, while ignoring all the drivers who about to run them over.
      - uoaei 4y ago
        I sincerely hope you are not this unpleasant in social settings.
        dekhn 4y ago
        when I float that joke in social settings in SF, everybody nods sagely
        uoaei 4y ago
        I've been in situations like this. In SF. I grew up here. What you describe is the classic west coast non-confrontationalism. You're probably annoying enough that it's simply not worth it to counter anything you say because you just dive into a petty and self-aggrandizing argumentative mode. Brash and confused conservatives think everyone agrees with them, but in reality people don't want to get caught up in absolute bullshit by joining any kind of interaction with them. This is a common pattern by now. You would do well to recognize it.
    - powerhour 4y ago
      8. Need to understand that sometimes the stripes you see aren't the real stripes, you're driving near sunset and are seeing the sun reflected off of old stripes that were painted over with glossy black (wtf WSDOT).

highwaylights 4y ago

Even then, even if you can solve every case involving actual roads with perfect markings and intact signs and functioning signals, I’ve found myself just this week: - driving across an unmarked grassy mound to park a car at a store in their designated area. - paying a fee with coins to enter and exit a toll road. - stopping to move around roadworks based solely on hand signals from one of the workers. These aren’t even scratching the surface in terms of edge cases that could be encountered regularly.

steveBK123 4y ago

Agreed. People point at statements like "it just needs to drive better than the average driver" and "well lots of idiots drive". On the flip side, lots of intelligent people with other skills do not have the confidence & comfort to drive outside of their towns local roads, or at all. There are problem sets for ML like quant trading or phone album image tagging where you just need to be right 51% of the time to make money / be novel & useful. We've seen plenty of examples showing ML is not appropriate for life&death problems like being the primary reviewer of diagnostic imaging for cancer screening. The bar for ML to drive a car is much much higher, and I'm not even sure we have the right sensor suites feeding into the models, not to mention the compute capacity to operate at low enough latency.