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What would make that impractical? We’re talking a rack of GPUs for $50k. Nothing about the problem suggests that automated driving can’t be done with a rack of

What would make that impractical? We’re talking a rack of GPUs for $50k. Nothing about the problem suggests that automated driving can’t be done with a rack of GPUs per vehicle. We have tractors self-driving and doing real-time analysis on a field of view to decide how to treat plants with a lot less compute than that.

smcl 4y ago
This isn't just about the cost of a rack of GPUs. I think you're severely underestimating the difficulty of self-driving, it's still not certain that we'll safely and reliably make autonomous, self-driving cars and trucks. And the cost in R&D to make such a breakthrough, assuming it is possible, is a complete unknown. Slapping an extra $50k on the sticker price of an average truck (which is what I think we both googled to discover it's $150k) and doing some rudimentary maths doesn't result in an answer to the question of whether self-driving trucks are possible, affordable or practical. It just tells you whether some finger-in-the-air numbers you selected sum to >0.
- Thlom 4y ago
  Seems like everyone have completely forgotten everything else a trucker does except driving the damn truck on the highway. They assist with loading and unloading the goods, make sure the goods are adequately stacked and strapped and obeying laws and regulations (at least in my country truckers must have a bunch of certificates to be allowed to transport dangerous goods), handle paper work (this is probably the easiest problem to solve) and probably a lot of other stuff I know nothing about. In addition to automating the driving, you must offload these activities to warehouse workers and others who ship/receive goods. The autonomous truck also have to be able to handle all kinds of tight and busy city streets, badly thought out warehouse terminals and a million other things that is an annoyance for a trucker but a huge problem to automate.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    I had a mental model of trucks going from waiting lot to waiting lot on the freeway, and going the last couple miles either by switching cabs or having local drivers take over. I think you reduce a lot of the challenge with freeway-only driving between large staging lots adjacent to industrial areas and allowing humans to do the “hard” part of the first + final mile.
    - labcomputer 4y ago
      In fact, the NY State Throughway already has something like this, but for a different purpose: Combining and separating double-bottom trucks (which are allowed on the Throughway, but not on many local roads around it).
  - labcomputer 4y ago
    > They assist with loading and unloading the goods, make sure the goods are adequately stacked and strapped This seems like a problem already solved in the airline industry. * Pilots don't load and unload the planes. Baggage handlers and gate agents do that. Flight attendants ensure that self-loading cargo is adequately strapped. * Airline dispatchers (a job which requires an FAA certification) handle much of the flight planning, weather monitoring and other paperwork. In other words, many of the "other things" a truck driver does are outsourced in the airline context to other employees who are not controlling the airplane. I don't really see why the DoT couldn't create an analogous "truck dispatcher" position for OTR trucking, who handles all or most of the things you described. One long-term consequence is that it would further entrench the scale effects of volume shippers (like ports and Amazon warehouses): A dispatcher at the origin would be the responsible person to verify that loads are correctly stacked and strapped, and shippers below a certain scale would not be able to fully use a full-time person in that role.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  You can see the parallel thread about R+D and if that makes it unaffordable: Amortized, the answer seems to be that trucks would remain affordable — even at the $100B to $1T cost to develop. > It just tells you whether some finger-in-the-air numbers you selected sum to >0. Estimating the unit economics and R+D amortized cost (as I did) is more reliable than going based purely on your feelings — as you have done. I’d appreciate if you would make specific criticisms about my model, rather than tell me how you feel about the topic.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Thing is I don’t think there’s a fact-based argument in favour or against either position right now. You feel that self-driving trucks will be solved with a $100b-$1tn investment I feel like that simply won’t happen. That’s really what this boils down to. It’s ok to fall back on gut-feel on these issues, don’t let guys like Ben Shapiro tell you otherwise :-)
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      Well, no. The difference is that we can look at other R+D of technologies (which cost less than that), the rate of autonomous piloting in drones and cars, and have reasonable idea that $100B-$1T over a decade will allow us to reach the level of freeway driving for trucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/self-driving-car-trial-launched-on-oxford-roads/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/self-driving-car-trial-lau... There are already most of the key components — and we’re ball-parking (on the high side) what that will cost to productize. You haven’t presented any basis for why you think that won’t happen, other than you just don’t like it. I understand you want estimates based on existing technologies and unit prices to be the same as your gut feeling — but they’re not.
stevehawk 4y ago
those tractors don't have to avoid other vehicles or pedestrians, they don't have to obey traffic laws, they don't have to be on the lookout for road maintenance, closures, detours, etc. that's not even close to a fair comparison.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  And they have a driver in the cab to take over whenever something goes wrong.

smcl 4y ago

This isn't just about the cost of a rack of GPUs. I think you're severely underestimating the difficulty of self-driving, it's still not certain that we'll safely and reliably make autonomous, self-driving cars and trucks. And the cost in R&D to make such a breakthrough, assuming it is possible, is a complete unknown. Slapping an extra $50k on the sticker price of an average truck (which is what I think we both googled to discover it's $150k) and doing some rudimentary maths doesn't result in an answer to the question of whether self-driving trucks are possible, affordable or practical. It just tells you whether some finger-in-the-air numbers you selected sum to >0.

Thlom 4y ago
Seems like everyone have completely forgotten everything else a trucker does except driving the damn truck on the highway. They assist with loading and unloading the goods, make sure the goods are adequately stacked and strapped and obeying laws and regulations (at least in my country truckers must have a bunch of certificates to be allowed to transport dangerous goods), handle paper work (this is probably the easiest problem to solve) and probably a lot of other stuff I know nothing about. In addition to automating the driving, you must offload these activities to warehouse workers and others who ship/receive goods. The autonomous truck also have to be able to handle all kinds of tight and busy city streets, badly thought out warehouse terminals and a million other things that is an annoyance for a trucker but a huge problem to automate.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  I had a mental model of trucks going from waiting lot to waiting lot on the freeway, and going the last couple miles either by switching cabs or having local drivers take over. I think you reduce a lot of the challenge with freeway-only driving between large staging lots adjacent to industrial areas and allowing humans to do the “hard” part of the first + final mile.
  - labcomputer 4y ago
    In fact, the NY State Throughway already has something like this, but for a different purpose: Combining and separating double-bottom trucks (which are allowed on the Throughway, but not on many local roads around it).
- labcomputer 4y ago
  > They assist with loading and unloading the goods, make sure the goods are adequately stacked and strapped This seems like a problem already solved in the airline industry. * Pilots don't load and unload the planes. Baggage handlers and gate agents do that. Flight attendants ensure that self-loading cargo is adequately strapped. * Airline dispatchers (a job which requires an FAA certification) handle much of the flight planning, weather monitoring and other paperwork. In other words, many of the "other things" a truck driver does are outsourced in the airline context to other employees who are not controlling the airplane. I don't really see why the DoT couldn't create an analogous "truck dispatcher" position for OTR trucking, who handles all or most of the things you described. One long-term consequence is that it would further entrench the scale effects of volume shippers (like ports and Amazon warehouses): A dispatcher at the origin would be the responsible person to verify that loads are correctly stacked and strapped, and shippers below a certain scale would not be able to fully use a full-time person in that role.
zmgsabst 4y ago
You can see the parallel thread about R+D and if that makes it unaffordable: Amortized, the answer seems to be that trucks would remain affordable — even at the $100B to $1T cost to develop. > It just tells you whether some finger-in-the-air numbers you selected sum to >0. Estimating the unit economics and R+D amortized cost (as I did) is more reliable than going based purely on your feelings — as you have done. I’d appreciate if you would make specific criticisms about my model, rather than tell me how you feel about the topic.
- smcl 4y ago
  Thing is I don’t think there’s a fact-based argument in favour or against either position right now. You feel that self-driving trucks will be solved with a $100b-$1tn investment I feel like that simply won’t happen. That’s really what this boils down to. It’s ok to fall back on gut-feel on these issues, don’t let guys like Ben Shapiro tell you otherwise :-)
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    Well, no. The difference is that we can look at other R+D of technologies (which cost less than that), the rate of autonomous piloting in drones and cars, and have reasonable idea that $100B-$1T over a decade will allow us to reach the level of freeway driving for trucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/self-driving-car-trial-launched-on-oxford-roads/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/self-driving-car-trial-lau... There are already most of the key components — and we’re ball-parking (on the high side) what that will cost to productize. You haven’t presented any basis for why you think that won’t happen, other than you just don’t like it. I understand you want estimates based on existing technologies and unit prices to be the same as your gut feeling — but they’re not.

stevehawk 4y ago

those tractors don't have to avoid other vehicles or pedestrians, they don't have to obey traffic laws, they don't have to be on the lookout for road maintenance, closures, detours, etc. that's not even close to a fair comparison.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
And they have a driver in the cab to take over whenever something goes wrong.