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Some people don't have this. A lot of people aren't very curious at all. Last night in Austin I saw a full self driving car from Cruise drive by with no driver

Some people don't have this. A lot of people aren't very curious at all. Last night in Austin I saw a full self driving car from Cruise drive by with no driver while I was at a crosswalk. No one noticed or cared that a car just drove by with no one in it! It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care.

Jensson 4y ago
People get used to that sort of thing quick. People once thought seeing a car was incredible, but when you see them all the time it doesn't register.
Cognitron 4y ago
Reminds me of the Louis C.K. bit about flying https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4
- frays 4y ago
  This is fantastic, thanks.
mlyle 4y ago
> and the people around me did not notice or care. This is such a transient thing. If you're not primed to notice a self driving car (already thinking about it / having read it) you may miss it. And once you've seen it a few times, the novelty decreases a lot. I try to keep wonder for things that I have experienced already (Holy crap; I'm in a metal tube that's going close to the speed of sound 7 miles high!) But pretty soon other things win (How long do I have to sit in this little seat? And I'm hungry...). Arguably the thing that is most extraordinary is that we've made these wonderful, bizarre things such a matter of routine. Look around you. Nearly every object in the civilized world is a constructed object, borne from human thought. Every street, every edifice, every artifice. Even almost all of the foods and raw ingredients have been crafted to meet our needs. Wow. But flour is a >30,000 year old technology and not something people get excited about...
reidjs 4y ago
I’m not that impressed by self driving cars because while the tech is cool it’s not really solving anything in my personal life. A car is basically self driving when I pay someone else to drive me where I go - end result is the same, I get where I need to go without having to drive the car.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  For real? An Uber trip across the city costing $5 rather than $50 would be a game changer, as would finally being able to kill carparks on main roads.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Be careful assuming that humans (especially the humans you see) are the lion's share of cost for any system. Sure, Uber passes 60-75% of the fare to drivers, but that pays for the depreciation/opportunity cost of the vehicle, the energy to move the vehicle, the insurance, the cleaning, etc. A lot of the problems that these 'no brainer' new technology start-ups face (e.g., the autonomous delivery robots) is actually that they aren't that much cheaper than humans (for now).
    - hinkley 4y ago
      $5 would be a game changer but as you say, it’s more likely to be $20 which is not that big of a game changer.
      - wruza 4y ago
        Not having to deal with a driver would be worth even the same $50, for a while. I live in a relatively nice-drivers area, but from what I’ve heard about Uber, people would probably pay extra for an empty car (in some situations).
    - AussieWog93 4y ago
      Uber/Grab/Taxi fares in South East Asia (where the workers earn ~$10/day) are around that $5 mark, and the cars were often pretty decent.
tiborsaas 4y ago
This happens with everything, people are only aware of things they are focusing on, the surroundings are just "assumed" to be there. It's kinda like the invisible gorilla experiment: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html
- lostgame 4y ago
  Oh, wow - I had seen a version of this, years ago, as; I believe, a commercial. It was a much, much better and far less obvious version, I can't tell because obviously I knew what I was expecting, but I strongly feel with this 1999 version I absolutely would've caught it. Very poorly done compared to the other one I've seen. Ah, here it is, this one uses a 'moonwalking bear'. Upon seeing them both again, I 110% agree with my assessment that the bear version is far, far superior. The space the original video uses is too small, and maybe it's that the camera angle is poor; it's so hard to tell but I'd honestly be surprised if too many people fell for the original today. I actually had troubles following the ball because the gorilla was just too obvious and distracting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
  - wholinator2 4y ago
    I actually saw one recently that had a panda walking through, but just to still get everyone who knew what to look for, they altered other properties of the scene and after the panda reveal, then reveal the multiple other, now obvious changes that were made. I won't specify in case someone hasn't seen but it was pretty amazing.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > The space the original video uses is too small, and maybe it's that the camera angle is poor The whole point is that selective attention can make seeing even very obvious things difficult. > it's so hard to tell but I'd honestly be surprised if too many people fell for the original today. I used it on a class full of middle school science students two years ago. 21 out of 24 missed it in the first class. 5 out of 24 in the second, though they insisted no one warned them :D
kzrdude 4y ago
I was curious about the driverless metro trains in Copenhagen, and kind of in wonder. And then I commuted on them for years, and stopped thinking about who was driving.
muyuu 4y ago
I don't think the underlying instinct here is curiosity, but rather the need for some coherence and the bias towards both having things match our preconceived models of reality, and fit our models to reality. Even though very often there just isn't solid information to make that coherence happen without just making up stuff to fit the gaps.
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Dylan16807 4y ago
Noticing isn't curiosity. And the opportunity for curiosity for purely seeing a thing is only the first few times you see it. You were in that window, but how do you know they were in that window?
EFreethought 4y ago
Maybe the people who did not notice just do not care that much about traffic, but are curious about other things. When I am walking around in a big city, traffic is more of an annoying fact of life than something I would regard as interesting.
Xcelerate 4y ago
> It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care. This reminds me of a flight I was on a few months ago. There was a new flight attendant on board, and amazingly it was also her first time traveling in an airplane. She was looking out the window and commented to another flight attendant about how astonishing it was that you could see the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas or the canyons in Utah from that vantage point. Then she paused, looked around the cabin, and asked "Why does everyone have their window shade down? This view is breathtaking." The other flight attendant laughed and replied, "They're all desensitized to it by now."

Jensson 4y ago

People get used to that sort of thing quick. People once thought seeing a car was incredible, but when you see them all the time it doesn't register.

Cognitron 4y ago

Reminds me of the Louis C.K. bit about flying https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4

frays 4y ago
This is fantastic, thanks.

mlyle 4y ago

> and the people around me did not notice or care. This is such a transient thing. If you're not primed to notice a self driving car (already thinking about it / having read it) you may miss it. And once you've seen it a few times, the novelty decreases a lot. I try to keep wonder for things that I have experienced already (Holy crap; I'm in a metal tube that's going close to the speed of sound 7 miles high!) But pretty soon other things win (How long do I have to sit in this little seat? And I'm hungry...). Arguably the thing that is most extraordinary is that we've made these wonderful, bizarre things such a matter of routine. Look around you. Nearly every object in the civilized world is a constructed object, borne from human thought. Every street, every edifice, every artifice. Even almost all of the foods and raw ingredients have been crafted to meet our needs. Wow. But flour is a >30,000 year old technology and not something people get excited about...

reidjs 4y ago

I’m not that impressed by self driving cars because while the tech is cool it’s not really solving anything in my personal life. A car is basically self driving when I pay someone else to drive me where I go - end result is the same, I get where I need to go without having to drive the car.

AussieWog93 4y ago
For real? An Uber trip across the city costing $5 rather than $50 would be a game changer, as would finally being able to kill carparks on main roads.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Be careful assuming that humans (especially the humans you see) are the lion's share of cost for any system. Sure, Uber passes 60-75% of the fare to drivers, but that pays for the depreciation/opportunity cost of the vehicle, the energy to move the vehicle, the insurance, the cleaning, etc. A lot of the problems that these 'no brainer' new technology start-ups face (e.g., the autonomous delivery robots) is actually that they aren't that much cheaper than humans (for now).
  - hinkley 4y ago
    $5 would be a game changer but as you say, it’s more likely to be $20 which is not that big of a game changer.
    - wruza 4y ago
      Not having to deal with a driver would be worth even the same $50, for a while. I live in a relatively nice-drivers area, but from what I’ve heard about Uber, people would probably pay extra for an empty car (in some situations).
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    Uber/Grab/Taxi fares in South East Asia (where the workers earn ~$10/day) are around that $5 mark, and the cars were often pretty decent.

tiborsaas 4y ago

This happens with everything, people are only aware of things they are focusing on, the surroundings are just "assumed" to be there. It's kinda like the invisible gorilla experiment: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

lostgame 4y ago
Oh, wow - I had seen a version of this, years ago, as; I believe, a commercial. It was a much, much better and far less obvious version, I can't tell because obviously I knew what I was expecting, but I strongly feel with this 1999 version I absolutely would've caught it. Very poorly done compared to the other one I've seen. Ah, here it is, this one uses a 'moonwalking bear'. Upon seeing them both again, I 110% agree with my assessment that the bear version is far, far superior. The space the original video uses is too small, and maybe it's that the camera angle is poor; it's so hard to tell but I'd honestly be surprised if too many people fell for the original today. I actually had troubles following the ball because the gorilla was just too obvious and distracting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
- wholinator2 4y ago
  I actually saw one recently that had a panda walking through, but just to still get everyone who knew what to look for, they altered other properties of the scene and after the panda reveal, then reveal the multiple other, now obvious changes that were made. I won't specify in case someone hasn't seen but it was pretty amazing.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > The space the original video uses is too small, and maybe it's that the camera angle is poor The whole point is that selective attention can make seeing even very obvious things difficult. > it's so hard to tell but I'd honestly be surprised if too many people fell for the original today. I used it on a class full of middle school science students two years ago. 21 out of 24 missed it in the first class. 5 out of 24 in the second, though they insisted no one warned them :D

kzrdude 4y ago

I was curious about the driverless metro trains in Copenhagen, and kind of in wonder. And then I commuted on them for years, and stopped thinking about who was driving.

muyuu 4y ago

I don't think the underlying instinct here is curiosity, but rather the need for some coherence and the bias towards both having things match our preconceived models of reality, and fit our models to reality. Even though very often there just isn't solid information to make that coherence happen without just making up stuff to fit the gaps.

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Dylan16807 4y ago

Noticing isn't curiosity. And the opportunity for curiosity for purely seeing a thing is only the first few times you see it. You were in that window, but how do you know they were in that window?

EFreethought 4y ago

Maybe the people who did not notice just do not care that much about traffic, but are curious about other things. When I am walking around in a big city, traffic is more of an annoying fact of life than something I would regard as interesting.

Xcelerate 4y ago

> It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care. This reminds me of a flight I was on a few months ago. There was a new flight attendant on board, and amazingly it was also her first time traveling in an airplane. She was looking out the window and commented to another flight attendant about how astonishing it was that you could see the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas or the canyons in Utah from that vantage point. Then she paused, looked around the cabin, and asked "Why does everyone have their window shade down? This view is breathtaking." The other flight attendant laughed and replied, "They're all desensitized to it by now."