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Since it seems people are interested. I had one situation which this sort of thing made me a bit uneasy (So one gripe actually). I was sitting back right seat.

by fhub 3y ago

Since it seems people are interested. I had one situation which this sort of thing made me a bit uneasy (So one gripe actually). I was sitting back right seat. Waymo was waiting to make an unprotected left turn over two lanes. There was a vehicle waiting to also make an unprotected left in the other direction. Behind it was a truck. Waymo made that turn where I wouldn't have. I thought it through after and it had at least two advantages over a human here. 1. It knew the car situation behind truck well before a driver would have considered it. 2. It's front lidar could see around that truck earlier than a driver could. I still provided feedback that I'd have preferred it to not make that turn even if it was safe to do so. At the end of the day I'm the customer and I want to feel safe at all times not just be safe. This was the turn - https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7337193,-122.4350752,3a,75y,85.91h,81.51t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szwm9w2VmkdzzoqaIChiibg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7337193,-122.4350752,3a,75y,...

pbarnes_1 3y ago
I've been in this situation, and it's something that seems to get tweaked every week. They definitely pushed the "aggressive" lever up a little over the last month. I think it's one of those cases where it's sort of obvious it can calculate trajectories and speeds much better than a human, so it's a safe manoeuvre in theory, but it "feels" bad as a passenger. Same thing for where it can see that it can squeeze through a tight "lane" but a normal human driver would probably wait until the oncoming traffic had passed.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  One huge advantage sensor-equiped vehicles have is knowing velocity and acceleration of traffic around them. Human drivers are often conservative because they don't know the speed/acceleration of a potentially colliding vehicle. We look at something and estimate (How fast? Speeding up or slowing down?), but we don't know. If you could put an actual number on it, I think you could drive a lot more "aggressively" and still be perfectly safe.
  - patrick451 3y ago
    When a Tesla can accelerate to 60 mph in less than 2 seconds, knowing the instantaneous velocity and acceleration is not very meaningful. You really need to be able to predict what the acceleration profile will look like over the next N seconds of your maneuver. Holding the currently perceived velocity and acceleration constant over the next N seconds is one naive way to do that. But the actual set of possible trajectories of the other actor is much larger, and you need to drive more conservatively to account for that.
  - ballooney 3y ago
    To be clear and dispel your misconception: These cars estimate rather than ‘know’.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      They objectively know in a much truer sense than any human. (Vehicle) Lidar/image multi-point calculation against a precision chronometer (Human) Parallax and object size change estimation against an extremely irregular, low-precision chronometer
      - layla5alive 3y ago
        LOL. Tell race car drivers and truckers that they're inferior. Their senses are probably tuned just as finely as any vision system. You really discount non-quantitative measurements - as most tech people here do. You are wrong, though, that the best of the meat brains are so inferior.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        The only thing wrong with non-quantitative measurements is that physics has a well-known quantitative bias.
      - caf 3y ago
        Really they both estimate, but the vehicle tends to have smaller error bars on its estimates. Which still goes to your point.
- ehsankia 3y ago
  It's a lose lose situation. I've been reading conversation about self driving cars for years and what you always heard back in the days is that they were way too conservative on these kinds of turns and blocked traffic. Hell even in this very thread people are saying that about Cruise. Yet when they make it more aggressive, people feel unsafe. As you say, this is something they are constantly tweaking to find the perfect middle ground. That being said, maybe people are extra hyper aware of the turns when it's a self driving car, and wouldn't bat an eye or pay attention if it was a normal taxi driver?
  - fhub 3y ago
    Fair point. When I take a passenger in a Waymo and it is there first time I'm hyper aware of the driving. But for myself personally, I'm mostly tuned out. For me it started to feel "normal" as early as about the 4th ride. So they could probably subtly adjust the "middle ground" based on the passenger's experience and feedback (As long as it doesn't create inconsistencies for surrounding vehicles).
  - taneq 3y ago
    People have an interesting “trust curve” regarding automation. At first they’ll be very suspicious and critical of it and any issues they have will be blamed on it. Then some point later when they’re used to the system, this attitude will suddenly flip around and they’ll start regarding the system as infallible. Sounds like this might be happening here.
  - njarboe 3y ago
    You should be able to set the "aggressive" level. I believe Tesla has this option internally on their FSD Beta. Hopefully you will be able to set this level for robot taxis and personal vehicles like you can with (some) human drivers.
    - bumby 3y ago
      Call me cynical, but this feels like a way for tech companies to absolve themselves of responsibility. “Your Honor, the pedestrian would have never been struck if the driver had set the system in its most conservative mode as we suggest on page 1,047 of Terms and Conditions.” /s
- Swenrekcah 3y ago
  It is also very important to consider the effect on other drivers. A self driving car might calculate it can squeeze through a gap in oncoming traffic but doing so probably will cause human drivers of those cars to slam the breaks and create a large crash. So unless they’re driving on a road where only self driving is allowed they’ll probably need to be much more conservative than they can be. Also thinking about it, the first roads to become robot-only driven will probably be inner city streets where pedestrians abound, so no aggressive driving there either.
transreal 3y ago
I'm laughing because I know that intersection well from taking my kids to basketball practice. I might have had the opposite reaction to you had my car not gone when it could. Also, you have greater visibility as a driver in the front than a passenger in the back, so it's likely that an experienced SF driver might have also done the same thing (speaking as someone who's driven in the city for over 20 years)
- fhub 3y ago
  I get your point. But the approach to the situation differs I think. A human driver would creep into the intersection to get a better view and then go if clear. The Waymo proceeded with far more confidence. Just better vision. It starting tracking vehicles earlier than a human would (this is shown in a simplified way on the display inside - but I wasn't watching in this case). As it pulled into the intersection, it's front camera and/or lidar has a much better angle than a human driver so can make a go/no-go assessment earlier and without hesitation.
smelendez 3y ago
To be fair, a human cab driver will usually know the dimensions of their vehicle and what they can get away with better than a random driver.
LorenPechtel 3y ago
I suspect a lot of the concern could be handled by having the car display a map of moving things that it will interact with and it's projection of encounter times/distances.

by fhub 3y ago

pbarnes_1 3y ago

I've been in this situation, and it's something that seems to get tweaked every week. They definitely pushed the "aggressive" lever up a little over the last month. I think it's one of those cases where it's sort of obvious it can calculate trajectories and speeds much better than a human, so it's a safe manoeuvre in theory, but it "feels" bad as a passenger. Same thing for where it can see that it can squeeze through a tight "lane" but a normal human driver would probably wait until the oncoming traffic had passed.

ethbr1 3y ago
One huge advantage sensor-equiped vehicles have is knowing velocity and acceleration of traffic around them. Human drivers are often conservative because they don't know the speed/acceleration of a potentially colliding vehicle. We look at something and estimate (How fast? Speeding up or slowing down?), but we don't know. If you could put an actual number on it, I think you could drive a lot more "aggressively" and still be perfectly safe.
- patrick451 3y ago
  When a Tesla can accelerate to 60 mph in less than 2 seconds, knowing the instantaneous velocity and acceleration is not very meaningful. You really need to be able to predict what the acceleration profile will look like over the next N seconds of your maneuver. Holding the currently perceived velocity and acceleration constant over the next N seconds is one naive way to do that. But the actual set of possible trajectories of the other actor is much larger, and you need to drive more conservatively to account for that.
- ballooney 3y ago
  To be clear and dispel your misconception: These cars estimate rather than ‘know’.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    They objectively know in a much truer sense than any human. (Vehicle) Lidar/image multi-point calculation against a precision chronometer (Human) Parallax and object size change estimation against an extremely irregular, low-precision chronometer
    - layla5alive 3y ago
      LOL. Tell race car drivers and truckers that they're inferior. Their senses are probably tuned just as finely as any vision system. You really discount non-quantitative measurements - as most tech people here do. You are wrong, though, that the best of the meat brains are so inferior.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        The only thing wrong with non-quantitative measurements is that physics has a well-known quantitative bias.
    - caf 3y ago
      Really they both estimate, but the vehicle tends to have smaller error bars on its estimates. Which still goes to your point.
ehsankia 3y ago
It's a lose lose situation. I've been reading conversation about self driving cars for years and what you always heard back in the days is that they were way too conservative on these kinds of turns and blocked traffic. Hell even in this very thread people are saying that about Cruise. Yet when they make it more aggressive, people feel unsafe. As you say, this is something they are constantly tweaking to find the perfect middle ground. That being said, maybe people are extra hyper aware of the turns when it's a self driving car, and wouldn't bat an eye or pay attention if it was a normal taxi driver?
- fhub 3y ago
  Fair point. When I take a passenger in a Waymo and it is there first time I'm hyper aware of the driving. But for myself personally, I'm mostly tuned out. For me it started to feel "normal" as early as about the 4th ride. So they could probably subtly adjust the "middle ground" based on the passenger's experience and feedback (As long as it doesn't create inconsistencies for surrounding vehicles).
- taneq 3y ago
  People have an interesting “trust curve” regarding automation. At first they’ll be very suspicious and critical of it and any issues they have will be blamed on it. Then some point later when they’re used to the system, this attitude will suddenly flip around and they’ll start regarding the system as infallible. Sounds like this might be happening here.
- njarboe 3y ago
  You should be able to set the "aggressive" level. I believe Tesla has this option internally on their FSD Beta. Hopefully you will be able to set this level for robot taxis and personal vehicles like you can with (some) human drivers.
  - bumby 3y ago
    Call me cynical, but this feels like a way for tech companies to absolve themselves of responsibility. “Your Honor, the pedestrian would have never been struck if the driver had set the system in its most conservative mode as we suggest on page 1,047 of Terms and Conditions.” /s
Swenrekcah 3y ago
It is also very important to consider the effect on other drivers. A self driving car might calculate it can squeeze through a gap in oncoming traffic but doing so probably will cause human drivers of those cars to slam the breaks and create a large crash. So unless they’re driving on a road where only self driving is allowed they’ll probably need to be much more conservative than they can be. Also thinking about it, the first roads to become robot-only driven will probably be inner city streets where pedestrians abound, so no aggressive driving there either.

transreal 3y ago

I'm laughing because I know that intersection well from taking my kids to basketball practice. I might have had the opposite reaction to you had my car not gone when it could. Also, you have greater visibility as a driver in the front than a passenger in the back, so it's likely that an experienced SF driver might have also done the same thing (speaking as someone who's driven in the city for over 20 years)

fhub 3y ago
I get your point. But the approach to the situation differs I think. A human driver would creep into the intersection to get a better view and then go if clear. The Waymo proceeded with far more confidence. Just better vision. It starting tracking vehicles earlier than a human would (this is shown in a simplified way on the display inside - but I wasn't watching in this case). As it pulled into the intersection, it's front camera and/or lidar has a much better angle than a human driver so can make a go/no-go assessment earlier and without hesitation.

smelendez 3y ago

To be fair, a human cab driver will usually know the dimensions of their vehicle and what they can get away with better than a random driver.

LorenPechtel 3y ago

I suspect a lot of the concern could be handled by having the car display a map of moving things that it will interact with and it's projection of encounter times/distances.