6 ms·

> Self driving works. No it doesn't. Only in San Francisco maybe.

by wg0 2y ago

kredd 2y ago
But it works? We only have functional public transit in small amount of cities in NA as well. If we can scale it up, it might be a game changer. I’m as pro-transit as it gets, but unfortunately we don’t have political appetite for it.
- starluz 2y ago
  Just wait till you see these in action. Driverless is here
- freehorse 2y ago
  Public transit could scale up with drivers too, as it does in many other places.
- piva00 2y ago
  > But it works? We only have functional public transit in small amount of cities in NA as well. If we can scale it up, it might be a game changer. I’m as pro-transit as it gets, but unfortunately we don’t have political appetite for it. Rather sad though that instead of implementing what empirically is already known to work in so many cities there's a quest for a solution to a problem that's completely self-inflicted. Self-driving might help a bit with transportation in NA cities but it definitely won't be the solution, there's just not enough physical space on the roads to be a game changer, at worst it will create even more issues with road usage. And my fear is that instead of realising it was the wrong bet (just like the car-centric approach) it will be doubled down into some ever-more-complex maze of solutions to make cars transporting 1-2 passengers to get to their destinations quicker by interconnecting them, and doing traffic management on a network of cars. Those are fun problems to think about and try to solve but completely missing the mark about what actually works for a city and why. Someone will call that "innovation" and sell it to some suckers, just like car-centric urbanism.
  - iknowstuff 2y ago
    Self driving vehicles will have to morph into small autonomous buses. They should be able to run on a much higher cadence, and way cheaper, than buses driven by humans.
    - piva00 2y ago
      It will eventually come full circle to trains. Why not just build trains? They don't need technological breakthroughs, there's existing expertise all around the world on how to build; are much more easily automated (even more underground); can transport lots more people than busses; scheduling is much easier, etc.
      - iknowstuff 2y ago
        Big fan of trains, but obviously the world is not binary. its not one or the other and AVs stand to save a lot of lives sooner than whatever you are proposing would. Even the Dutch and Japanese drive a lot you’ll find out
        piva00 2y ago
        I'm very aware they drive a lot, I travel to the Netherlands quite often. At the same time you absolutely can live without a car in major cities in NL or JP, not really easily done in most of NA cities; traffic is also much, much more gentle and respectful than in NA, fatalities are an order of magnitude lower, so perhaps automated vehicles are not the answer since other countries have achieved a much safer traffic environment than the US without that technology. I don't know what about the American culture creates this magical thinking, if it's the short-term thinking, the culture of looking for business opportunities everywhere, the inability to approach complex systems in a more holistically way, and/or the hyper-individualistic view of society. No single technology will be the silver bullet, transportation (as any complex system) requires layers of solutions, maybe automated vehicles are part of it but there's already technology to solve 80% of the issues, it's unfortunate the USA doesn't have the will to change its ways to proven solutions and keeps chasing its tail.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
San Francisco isn't a purpose-built lab, it's a real city that grew organically over centuries, like every other city. So if it works only in San Francisco now, it means it's 99% to working everywhere else on the planet.
- wg0 2y ago
  That reads like 99% cities are like San Francisco. The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that. It is, but only at the surface level. 99% of the actual problem of driving in urban areas is the same everywhere on the planet, because all human cities are pretty much the same, because all humans are pretty much the same - once you start comparing with the rest of the universe, and not just with other people. San Francisco, Moscow, Cape Town and Prague are almost entirely unlike each other, yet they're all obviously the same when you compare them against ant hills or forests or coral reefs. Self-driving is a physical reality problem, not social diversity perception problem.
    - cjblomqvist 2y ago
      Have you driven in these cities? I think it's quite a different problem! But, there are a lot of places that are quite similar to San Francisco! Can we scale it to a thousand cities it'll still be revolutionary. And we then haven't even started talking automating transports! It's just taken longer than what people thought. The usual Gartner Hype Cycle.
    - virtualritz 2y ago
      Sorry, but have you driven in a city in India or Indonesia? Just for example? My favorite example is a major intersection with no traffic lights. Everyone just drives onto it and then you get a sticky sauce of cars that move at a fraction of the allowed max speed until they leave the intersection again. Horns and eye contact are used to negotiate progress by all paricipants. I would love to see a "self driving" car on such an intersection. My guess is a video of this car's encounter would go absultely viral. But not for the reasons proponents of this tech hope for. ;)

> Self driving works. No it doesn't. Only in San Francisco maybe.

by wg0 2y ago

> Self driving works. No it doesn't. Only in San Francisco maybe.

But it works? We only have functional public transit in small amount of cities in NA as well. If we can scale it up, it might be a game changer. I’m as pro-transit as it gets, but unfortunately we don’t have political appetite for it.

starluz 2y ago
Just wait till you see these in action. Driverless is here
freehorse 2y ago
Public transit could scale up with drivers too, as it does in many other places.
piva00 2y ago
> But it works? We only have functional public transit in small amount of cities in NA as well. If we can scale it up, it might be a game changer. I’m as pro-transit as it gets, but unfortunately we don’t have political appetite for it. Rather sad though that instead of implementing what empirically is already known to work in so many cities there's a quest for a solution to a problem that's completely self-inflicted. Self-driving might help a bit with transportation in NA cities but it definitely won't be the solution, there's just not enough physical space on the roads to be a game changer, at worst it will create even more issues with road usage. And my fear is that instead of realising it was the wrong bet (just like the car-centric approach) it will be doubled down into some ever-more-complex maze of solutions to make cars transporting 1-2 passengers to get to their destinations quicker by interconnecting them, and doing traffic management on a network of cars. Those are fun problems to think about and try to solve but completely missing the mark about what actually works for a city and why. Someone will call that "innovation" and sell it to some suckers, just like car-centric urbanism.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  Self driving vehicles will have to morph into small autonomous buses. They should be able to run on a much higher cadence, and way cheaper, than buses driven by humans.
  - piva00 2y ago
    It will eventually come full circle to trains. Why not just build trains? They don't need technological breakthroughs, there's existing expertise all around the world on how to build; are much more easily automated (even more underground); can transport lots more people than busses; scheduling is much easier, etc.
    - iknowstuff 2y ago
      Big fan of trains, but obviously the world is not binary. its not one or the other and AVs stand to save a lot of lives sooner than whatever you are proposing would. Even the Dutch and Japanese drive a lot you’ll find out
      - piva00 2y ago
        I'm very aware they drive a lot, I travel to the Netherlands quite often. At the same time you absolutely can live without a car in major cities in NL or JP, not really easily done in most of NA cities; traffic is also much, much more gentle and respectful than in NA, fatalities are an order of magnitude lower, so perhaps automated vehicles are not the answer since other countries have achieved a much safer traffic environment than the US without that technology. I don't know what about the American culture creates this magical thinking, if it's the short-term thinking, the culture of looking for business opportunities everywhere, the inability to approach complex systems in a more holistically way, and/or the hyper-individualistic view of society. No single technology will be the silver bullet, transportation (as any complex system) requires layers of solutions, maybe automated vehicles are part of it but there's already technology to solve 80% of the issues, it's unfortunate the USA doesn't have the will to change its ways to proven solutions and keeps chasing its tail.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

San Francisco isn't a purpose-built lab, it's a real city that grew organically over centuries, like every other city. So if it works only in San Francisco now, it means it's 99% to working everywhere else on the planet.

wg0 2y ago
That reads like 99% cities are like San Francisco. The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that. It is, but only at the surface level. 99% of the actual problem of driving in urban areas is the same everywhere on the planet, because all human cities are pretty much the same, because all humans are pretty much the same - once you start comparing with the rest of the universe, and not just with other people. San Francisco, Moscow, Cape Town and Prague are almost entirely unlike each other, yet they're all obviously the same when you compare them against ant hills or forests or coral reefs. Self-driving is a physical reality problem, not social diversity perception problem.
  - cjblomqvist 2y ago
    Have you driven in these cities? I think it's quite a different problem! But, there are a lot of places that are quite similar to San Francisco! Can we scale it to a thousand cities it'll still be revolutionary. And we then haven't even started talking automating transports! It's just taken longer than what people thought. The usual Gartner Hype Cycle.
  - virtualritz 2y ago
    Sorry, but have you driven in a city in India or Indonesia? Just for example? My favorite example is a major intersection with no traffic lights. Everyone just drives onto it and then you get a sticky sauce of cars that move at a fraction of the allowed max speed until they leave the intersection again. Horns and eye contact are used to negotiate progress by all paricipants. I would love to see a "self driving" car on such an intersection. My guess is a video of this car's encounter would go absultely viral. But not for the reasons proponents of this tech hope for. ;)