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> driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver
by Abroszka 2y ago
> driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?"
That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver monitoring, but they monitor not one but many cars, ready to take over.
- ra7 2y agoHighly recommend people read how Waymo's fleet response works before throwing out phrases like "remote drivers take over cars": https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
- Abroszka 2y agoThere is someone to take over as soon as the car encounters something it cannot handle. It's not self driving. By definition it's not driverless, there is always a driver assigned who will take care of it if needed. One of the reason they cannot scale beyond small areas.
- alphabetting 2y agoDo you think the remote operators are driving the vehicles? They can only give the car instructions (pull over, go back to depot etc). In no sense are they driving.
- ra7 2y agoAssistance != taking over. It's driverless by definition because... there's no driver in the seat. The car is in control and is responsible for its safety at all times.
- lucianbr 2y agoRegardless of the definition, I can't buy and own such a "driverless car" because I don't operate a supervision center with people available to "assist" the car. Whatever "assist" means. Nor can any company that's not large enough to operate the infrastructure. I'm sure at least some of the hype is in regards to people owning such "driverless" cars. It's driverless by definition because it does not have a driver, but it's not autonomous by definition, because it requires outside help to function. Cool hair splitting. It's an impressive technical feat for sure. In regards to perceived benefits for society, it's part of the way there, as it reduces the number of humans required to driver from 1 per car to 0.something per car.
- ra7 2y agoThese cars are not meant to be owned. They're part of a fleet. They are driverless and specifically L4 autonomous, which is the best autonomy you can get right now. The vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation.
- lucianbr 2y agoNo, what you explained is 100% what I expected. Driverless cars for Google. For me, I'll be waiting a loong time.
- dilyevsky 2y agoDoesn’t seem impossible to offer remote assistance as a paid subscription. The real showstoppers are cost and maintenance of the self-driving hardware which is astronomical
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation Eh, I'd say we're a decade out from an L5 vehicle. It'll officially be L4, on road only. But that matches a good fraction of American drivers' capabilities.
- longdustytrail 2y agoPresumably if you own the car you can act as your own “assistant”
- foota 2y agoSince the assist doesn't require real time response (e.g., the failure mode is the car not moving, not you dying unlike a tesla) it seems like a non taxi version could simply set you up as the assist monitor. If you fall asleep or don't respond it's fine, you're just stuck. I don't think Google plans to do this for a variety of reasons, but I don't think there's fundamentally any reason they couldn't.
- dventimi 2y agoHow many someones are there per active vehicle?
- voxic11 2y agoIt would go against their operating license for a remote driver to completely take over control of the car. The car is always in ultimate control even when it's getting "assistance" from a remote operator.
- xnx 2y agoWhere did you get this information? There are definitely people ready to respond to any requests from the car or passenger when they come up, but I've never read anything to indicate that each ride is actively monitored by a person.
- Abroszka 2y agoSearch for "driver monitoring system". As soon as there is something unexpected there is an actual driver taking care of it. Also the reason why it's not level 5, but stuck at level 4 self driving.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThat's not "always a driver monitoring". They're not actively monitoring all of them all of the time, they're responding to requests from the car. And they're not drivers, they're supervisors. They don't take over driving, AFAICT they issue high-level commands like "safe to proceed", "take the right lane", et cetera.
- Abroszka 2y agoThere is always somebody ready to respond. Of course they can't take full control, that would be stupid dangerous, but they can still control the car. They even have people who go to your car to get it unstuck manually when needed.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> There is always somebody ready to respond I mean, this is true for Uber as well.
- TulliusCicero 2y agoThey can tell the car what to do like a human navigator in the front seat, but they don't directly operate the car. Those are very different things.
- 2y ago
- Stevvo 2y agoIf you could rent/purchase a vehicle without a steering wheel, would you not want there to be someone available who can help out when the system runs into trouble? As long as there is no driver in the car, does it matter how it drives? Is that not just an irrelevant implementation detail that has no bearing on your passenger experience?
- lucianbr 2y agoAs long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense. If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.
- dventimi 2y agoIf you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service. Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab driver, capuchin monkey, whatever), many people will be happy to forgo owning a vehicle.
- __loam 2y agoThe waymo I took on Sunday didn't have a driver.