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Self-driving cars are just a dream. It will just not happen as long as self-driving cars and humans share the same roads. AI will never be better at avoiding a

Self-driving cars are just a dream. It will just not happen as long as self-driving cars and humans share the same roads. AI will never be better at avoiding a playing child who accidentally stepped on the road as an average human driver. If we want self-driving cars to become a reality, we should instead make separate roads, and let the drive there. Some analogue to railroads, that are used exclusively by trains.

myrmidon 3y ago
> AI will never be better at avoiding a playing child who accidentally stepped on the road as an average human driver. What makes you so confident? I'd argue for the reverse-- there is absolutely no way that humans are able to compete long term, because human reaction time and focus/attention is inherently limited-- as soon as computer vision starts to outperform, humans will NEVER become competitively safe drivers again (could be 5 years, could be 50, who knows, but this seems EXCLUSIVELY a matter of time, especially considering the progress we made in the last decades).
- miroljub 3y ago
  You misunderstood my point. I'm not saying that humans are always "better", just that humans are better in mixed environment. In controlled roads without humans, AI can be clearly better even today.
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    I don't see how the mixedness of the environment changes anything; sure, a mixed-driver environment is more difficult to navigate because traffic participants are less predictable, but this effectively just delayes the point slightly at which AI will simply outperform even the best humans, right?
Closi 3y ago
> AI will never be better at avoiding a playing child who accidentally stepped on the road as an average human driver. Very hard to predict what will be possible with AI in 10 years time, but I wouldn’t bet on humans here. Humans have a number of disadvantages compared to an AI agent in this scenario - they look at phones, get tired, technically have slower response times… And then AI has seen tremendous advancement in the last 3 years with it basically smashing a load of tasks that were thought to be entirely ‘non-automatable’ by many people. Plus think about what has been achieved in the self driving space in the last 10 years and then imagine what can be done in the next 20. It’s probably not a 1-2 year thing (imo), it’s probably a 10-20 year thing (but again totally unpredictable! Maybe 5 maybe 50!). And self-driving without operating cooperating alongside human drivers just won’t happen from an infrastructure perspective.
saberience 3y ago
I think this is destined to be one of those comments which we will look back on in a few years and smile at its naivety.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  If by a few years you mean 50, sure.
- tim333 3y ago
  I'm not sure you have to wait a few years. There is a certain something about saying self driving cars are future dream when they are working for real 24/7 in SF.
z7 3y ago
>Self-driving cars are just a dream. It will just not happen as long as self-driving cars and humans share the same roads. "On Monday, Waymo began letting the public pay for rides in its driverless cars in San Francisco." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/technology/waymo-driverless-cars-san-francisco.html?unlocked_article_code=GgyTpYvmbsq-m6EtivT6rxN79l5sqGbDt-n2yGjh3FirTe9r1rZMFlHQBpNimm1pNtI6M4KMyOlqVnSizX5ONZMbmHuhmSvBnuHvRd6SBa44rnk44xuMePbiKM0VYCduUThwulcg_zMleJKsnWdy07Z2u4smyosX_ZlqpotRBrZRsdRViJSCaJD6Lb7exyDplrjGbJ5r7zH9l6c-T3to7tsOVWB6RG2VTgCiT7N3kDPO82fy-zyOXGHAJEprwFPZTfzZBIeOa-sszw7HKF7yE8x30aoU5mkA1la38gB5hgWnxjjEmDh6fYqxA7FTtuhAwozrgJ7kqRTY4vPT8yCRtxlZyFLSS9nX0me3pqwOZB8&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/technology/waymo-driverle...
paxys 3y ago
Never say never, but I do agree that developing self driving AI by teaching it to mimic human drivers on regular roads vs building a fully closed system and slowing expanding it was a mistake. Had the problem been tackled more intelligently we could have had closed off "self driving lanes" or entire thoroughfares in major cities with advanced sensors built-in and no interaction with humans at all. Considering how many hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested into the problem, we would definitely have had more to show for it by now.

myrmidon 3y ago

> AI will never be better at avoiding a playing child who accidentally stepped on the road as an average human driver. What makes you so confident? I'd argue for the reverse-- there is absolutely no way that humans are able to compete long term, because human reaction time and focus/attention is inherently limited-- as soon as computer vision starts to outperform, humans will NEVER become competitively safe drivers again (could be 5 years, could be 50, who knows, but this seems EXCLUSIVELY a matter of time, especially considering the progress we made in the last decades).

miroljub 3y ago
You misunderstood my point. I'm not saying that humans are always "better", just that humans are better in mixed environment. In controlled roads without humans, AI can be clearly better even today.
- myrmidon 3y ago
  I don't see how the mixedness of the environment changes anything; sure, a mixed-driver environment is more difficult to navigate because traffic participants are less predictable, but this effectively just delayes the point slightly at which AI will simply outperform even the best humans, right?

Closi 3y ago

> AI will never be better at avoiding a playing child who accidentally stepped on the road as an average human driver. Very hard to predict what will be possible with AI in 10 years time, but I wouldn’t bet on humans here. Humans have a number of disadvantages compared to an AI agent in this scenario - they look at phones, get tired, technically have slower response times… And then AI has seen tremendous advancement in the last 3 years with it basically smashing a load of tasks that were thought to be entirely ‘non-automatable’ by many people. Plus think about what has been achieved in the self driving space in the last 10 years and then imagine what can be done in the next 20. It’s probably not a 1-2 year thing (imo), it’s probably a 10-20 year thing (but again totally unpredictable! Maybe 5 maybe 50!). And self-driving without operating cooperating alongside human drivers just won’t happen from an infrastructure perspective.

saberience 3y ago

I think this is destined to be one of those comments which we will look back on in a few years and smile at its naivety.

rootusrootus 3y ago
If by a few years you mean 50, sure.
tim333 3y ago
I'm not sure you have to wait a few years. There is a certain something about saying self driving cars are future dream when they are working for real 24/7 in SF.

z7 3y ago

>Self-driving cars are just a dream. It will just not happen as long as self-driving cars and humans share the same roads. "On Monday, Waymo began letting the public pay for rides in its driverless cars in San Francisco." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/technology/waymo-driverless-cars-san-francisco.html?unlocked_article_code=GgyTpYvmbsq-m6EtivT6rxN79l5sqGbDt-n2yGjh3FirTe9r1rZMFlHQBpNimm1pNtI6M4KMyOlqVnSizX5ONZMbmHuhmSvBnuHvRd6SBa44rnk44xuMePbiKM0VYCduUThwulcg_zMleJKsnWdy07Z2u4smyosX_ZlqpotRBrZRsdRViJSCaJD6Lb7exyDplrjGbJ5r7zH9l6c-T3to7tsOVWB6RG2VTgCiT7N3kDPO82fy-zyOXGHAJEprwFPZTfzZBIeOa-sszw7HKF7yE8x30aoU5mkA1la38gB5hgWnxjjEmDh6fYqxA7FTtuhAwozrgJ7kqRTY4vPT8yCRtxlZyFLSS9nX0me3pqwOZB8&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/technology/waymo-driverle...

paxys 3y ago

Never say never, but I do agree that developing self driving AI by teaching it to mimic human drivers on regular roads vs building a fully closed system and slowing expanding it was a mistake. Had the problem been tackled more intelligently we could have had closed off "self driving lanes" or entire thoroughfares in major cities with advanced sensors built-in and no interaction with humans at all. Considering how many hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested into the problem, we would definitely have had more to show for it by now.