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I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, y
by _acco 3y ago
I love Waymo and use it all the time.
One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out:
As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you.
I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up because I just couldn't tell.
I've wondered if they could use the light/display on top to signal acknowledgment? How do you simulate the precision of a gaze with a machine that's "seeing" everything at once?
- whimsicalism 3y agoas a biker, they are seeing you and that is how i always assume
- SeanAnderson 3y agoYeah, I agree there is opportunity for improvement here. Maybe they should take a note from the Apple Vision Pro and display a pair of eyes on the windshield looking at you? (/s ?) :)
- heliophobicdude 3y agoSo like Apple Vision Pro's EyeSight but for a Waymo?
- s0rce 3y agoCombine this: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FUQQmcv3Y5Bo2N5xywnzDKCZHZk9H8UjpFI6gkyXVruY.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D23b4d38ef00cfaaf86f65da5189d0a9b35d3e07c https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev... and this: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/17fjv1h/emoji_sphere/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/17fjv1h/emoji_sph...
- andbberger 3y agoeven without eye contact i'll take a waymo over a sf driver every time when biking in the city...
- konschubert 3y agoAs a biker, I feel MICH safer around self driving cars because I know they are paying attention. I don’t need to check if they see me. They do.
- SoftTalker 3y agoThat's the exact opposite assumption I'd make. As a biker, a pedestrian, or a driver.
- candiddevmike 3y agoSeeing a bike and recognizing a bike are two different things with self driving cars. I like OP's idea of having a visual cue that it recognized a bike.
- somethoughts 3y agoGoing forward - I think it's important to not just categorically say all self driving cars are safer than human drivers. It's probably better to say I feel safer around Waymo and <insert other trusted company> self driving cars. With such complexity and unknowns within the codebase - there is likely going to be a much higher amount of variability w.r.t. safety and AI decision making. I'm not so sure I'd categorically say a self driving car from say Nikola or some SPAC'd startup would make me feel all that safe.
- amelius 3y ago"I feel so safe around commit 07cc283a8344 of the Waymo software."
- iancmceachern 3y agoI'm the exact opposite. I've had a couple incidents that make me not trust them. (Weird this was down voted, just sharing personal experiences)
- dataflow 3y agoWith Waymo? Or others?
- bragr 3y agoJoking, not joking: Cylon scanner [1] at the top the windscreen that locks on to you when it's giving way [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faukADr0_6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faukADr0_6g
- Andrex 3y agoI have very little BSG in my head but I still jumped to this solution. Odd.
- montag 3y agoCylon + vehicle = KITT (Night Rider)
- toast0 3y agoBoth shows produced by Glen Larson. Some call it a Larson Scanner.
- omoikane 3y agoMaybe they should have two screens in front of the car that show eyeballs, like the ones in the first picture here: https://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car https://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car
- ironmagma 3y agoThe cars could see you at one moment, and then not see you the next. They lack any good object permanence unlike humans, so I'm not sure surfacing this information would help.
- eep_social 3y ago> I've wondered if they could use the light/display on top to signal acknowledgment? They have started trialing exactly this as of about two weeks ago. [edit: But I haven’t seen it operate up close yet.]
- __loam 3y agoI agree that the UX could be better but it's definitely seeing you better than a human would. It can see you behind shit and around corners and in blind spots. Whether it reacts correctly is another story, but additionally, there's a strong incentive for Waymo not to hit you because of the regulatory regime. They have to report all collisions to a regulatory body and they have to send in all the data they had showing why they hit you. If they're at fault, you're almost certainly getting a big payout.
- cj 3y agoDitto as a motorcyclist. Making eye contact with drivers makes riding a lot easier. You know they see you.
- marssaxman 3y agoWhen I'm on a motorcycle, I assume they are never seeing me - but it's still useful to see them, and I can often tell what they are about to do before they've started doing it. I have not yet had the chance to share the road with a robot, but I wonder whether that feeling for traffic will still work.
- cj 3y agoAgreed. It would be nice if there were a simple directional light on the top of robotaxis that indicates where it’s intending to go next (directional light) and how imminently it will begin moving (perhaps how fast the light blinks) when e.g. at a stop sign.
- rukuu001 3y agoYeh, the only time I assume a driver has really seen me is when we make eye contact. (But - twice in 20 years I’ve had the chilling experience of a driver making eye contact and pulling out in front of me anyway.)
- guenthert 3y agoI don't think that's actually all that uncommon. I'll give them the benefit of doubt and assume that they habitually turn to look, but don't actually see or that they grossly misjudge your speed. That was more of a problem in my 'Sturm & Drang' time. These days grannys on their electically-assisted bicycles are faster than me, hence I don't surprise car drivers any more.
- Rapzid 3y agoThe motorcycle safety courses teaches NOT to assume a driver sees or will yield the right away because of "eye contact".
- jessriedel 3y agoThey have tried many variations out, but so far they don't seem to think they work better than doing nothing. The only communication the Waymo's currently do it to signal that they are stopping for pedestrians, both to the pedestrians themselves and also to the cars behind. https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23913251/waymo-roof-dome-communicate-intent-pedestrian-driver https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23913251/waymo-roof-dome...
- wavefunction 3y agoEven if the cars had a "I'm currently deciding" indicator it would be a major improvement. My only issue with these sorts of anti-socialized services is not being able to promptly and easily sue for remedy. Maybe a blood price on a few mid-level managers (or possibly higher depending on the situation) if the service ends up killing people. That would put my heart at mind in the marketplace of the future.
- danlugo92 3y ago> "I'm currently deciding" indicator Million dollar idea right there
- gleenn 3y agoIsn't that constantly happening? Every millisecond it's "deciding" what to do.
- sagarm 3y agoMaybe we can start with putting a blood price on human drivers, since they have direct culpability?
- nextaccountic 3y agoWhen a human driver is negligent or reckless, they don't potentially endanger millions of people at once. So there's a difference
- 3y ago
- AlbertCory 3y agosince I'm out walking the dog often, in the dark and in daytime: Often you can't tell if a human sees you. Even in day, they may have tinted windows, or the sun might make it impossible. At night, you definitely can't tell.
- suzzer99 3y agoAs a constant pedestrian, my main concern is people turning right at a light as I'm starting out in the crosswalk. In that case you can usually check their eyes from the side even at night. If I don't have confirmation they see me, or if they aren't obviously stopping for me, I don't go. If it's someone at a 4-way stop, you can usually tell when they come to a stop far from back the crosswalk. Otherwise I don't walk out in front of them. I also try to be aware if I'm in their blind spot.
- AlbertCory 3y agoyes. Always cautious. And yell "Stop!!!" if in any doubt. Better to have them be pissed off than running over you.
- foota 3y agoYou can imagine some ominously humorous implementations of this. Red dot laser for pointing out people?
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago[dead]
- nox101 3y agoThere was a Honda concept car years back that had LCDs in front of the headlights. They used them to make eye expressions to signal things
- Adj_and_Styles 3y agoJapanese already tested it, with googly eyes. It seems to work. Modern cars are expensive, some extra plastic and servos is not going to break the bank. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543174.3546841 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543174.3546841 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11250965/Japanese-engineers-pair-googly-eyes-self-driving-car.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11250965/Jap... https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2022/09/26/5624499769514507507/640x360_MP4_5624499769514507507.mp4 https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2022/09/26/56244997... British used a LED matrix. More "output" options (frowns and smiles, text), similar results. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/first-ever-uk-ghost-driver-study-using-visual-displays-to-communicate-with-pedestrians-completes-in-nottingham/ https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/first-ever-uk-ghost-driver... https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/pedestrian-study-gauges-reactions-to-visual-prompts-on-ghost-driven-autonomous-car/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/pedestrian-study-...
- pavlov 3y agoIn the now defunct Apple Car, the windshield exterior was a giant OLED that rendered weird big eyes using the same code as on the Vision Pro. Apparently Johnny Ive insisted on this expensive external screen to make the car feel more human. (Not really. But you never know?)
- amelius 3y agoJobs already worked on this during his time at Pixar: https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/70489/files/113563271/600x600x3/image.jpg https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/70489/files/113563271/600x6...
- Geisterde 3y agoI really like the idea, maybe eyes and gaze come across as a bit creepy though.
- tzs 3y agoAssuming that they will eventually have displays around the sides to show ads, they could also use those to show nearby people who they see and how they plan to maneuver around them. So if they are showing an ad on the display on your side it means that either it doesn’t see you or thinks you are far enough away that it does not have to account for you in its short term planning. If it sees you and is taking you into account it could show a diagram showing you and what it plans to do.
- jajko 3y agoIf they will be running around with displays showing ads I'll never be without few rocks in my pocket just to keep things balanced and maintaining healthier society. I know it sounds harsh, but force feeding me ads I definitely don't want to see while being unable to avoid them (stay home ain't no argument in civilized world) is unacceptable, and there is no but XYZ to make that stance any weaker. Ads are a cancer of society, not the worst one but the core principle is rotten beyond reason - manipulate general population at your will, against their default choices, for money or power (or worse).
- derwiki 3y agoHow do you feel about billboards?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]