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> Right now it's the most exciting tourist attraction in San Francisco. I'm as excited as you about self driving cars, but the vehicles are essentially driven

> Right now it's the most exciting tourist attraction in San Francisco. I'm as excited as you about self driving cars, but the vehicles are essentially driven remotely, maybe not by live video feed but nonetheless by remote operators, in the sense that matters. It is more tourist attraction than it is end-all be-all of technology, which was very deflating to find out. All I am really saying Simon is that you are a highly educated guy: adopt a more nuanced take on this. According to the people I know who work in this space and are not trying to raise money for autonomous vehicles, and according to many journalists, there is a lot of consensus that Waymo has adopted a remote driving scheme that is working, and perhaps that is why they are operating a taxi service and others are not. It isn't clear if that growth story, as great as it is, will help them raise enough money to invent truly autonomous vehicles.

Elinvynia 2y ago
It's like people forgot about the Amazon stores being an army of cheaply paid third world labour disguised as revolutionary technology.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  They had too high a rate of needing humans, but nevertheless it was almost entirely computers. That wasn't a disguise.
bowmessage 2y ago
Source for this claim?
porphyra 2y ago
Remote operators only help out in rare cases
Pxtl 2y ago
Vehicles per-operator is the important metric, imho. If one operator can supervise a dozen vehicles at a time with only occasional manual intervention then it's still a massive labor-saving tool.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  All the evidence suggests that the number is >1 operators per vehicle.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    >150,000 trips / week. 3000 employees. 1:1 supervision is only viable if every single employee was a supervisor, and that's obviously not true.
    - smokel 2y ago
      If those 3000 employees work full-time (40 hours per week), they could theoretically serve 150,000 trips of up to 48 minutes in length, which seems reasonable, no? Another interesting statistic here is that Waymo apparently has only 700 vehicles in its fleet [1]. That would require only 700 supervisors. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphabets-waymo-robotaxi-unit-doubles-its-paid-rides-three-months-2024-08-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphab...
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        Supervisors don't work 24/7 like the cars do. For 1:1 coverage you need ~4X as many people as cars. As I said, theoretically viable if all employees were supervisors. But they're not.
        smokel 2y ago
        I tend to agree with you that it's very likely that the cars are operating autonomously most of the time. However, I don't think this kind of math helps much in actually proving (or disproving) that. We don't know how many of the employees are supervisors. For all we know, Waymo hires dozens of external mechanical turks per vehicle and uses a simple majority voting algorithm to ensure safety. Unlikely, or even ridiculous, but apart from Waymo's press releases, and the accidental legislation report [1], there is little hard evidence. [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/disengagement-reports/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...
gniv 2y ago
Even if they wanted to they couldn't drive real-time. Remote operators help when stuck.
mattj 2y ago
Good news: this isn't true - https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  https://archive.is/20240913090221/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/insider/when-self-driving-cars-dont-actually-drive-themselves.html https://archive.is/20240913090221/https://www.nytimes.com/20... > For years, companies like Waymo (owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company) and Cruise (owned by General Motors) avoided any mention of the remote assistance they provided their self-driving cars. > That is just how things work in Silicon Valley. By creating the illusion of complete autonomy... https://archive.is/iPKWQ#selection-719.0-719.483 https://archive.is/iPKWQ#selection-719.0-719.483 > While Zoox and other companies have started to reveal how humans intervene to help driverless cars, none of the companies have disclosed how many remote-assistance technicians they employ or how much it all costs. Zoox’s command center holds about three dozen people who oversee what appears to be a small number of driverless cars — two in Foster City and several more in Las Vegas — as well as a fleet of about 200 test cars that each still have a driver behind the steering wheel. > ...the [Cruise] cars were supported by about 1.5 workers per vehicle > Waymo and Cruise declined to comment for this story. I don't know what to say. It's an "illusion of complete autonomy." The energy of these replies is the same as, "When a parent does a kid's homework, it isn't cheating." The difference is we still have no idea if the child will grow up into an adult, and it's not guaranteed that Waymo will be the one to crack real autonomy, even if it looks that way today. Indeed the longer it takes them the more likely it's not going to be them.
  - ra7 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - doctorpangloss 2y ago
      > There's no illusion of any kind. I don't know dude. Simple question: is it fully autonomous? No. If you step inside the vehicle, does it feel that way? Yes. That is nearly the definition of an illusion.
sagz 2y ago
Any source on the "most waymos are remotely driven by a human" claim?
lazyeye 2y ago
[flagged]
- fragmede 2y ago
  don't forget to enable showdead in your profile too
- smokel 2y ago
  Apparently the controversial post is a bit unfounded. California legislation requires filing the events where an autonomous vehicle required human intervention. The reports for 2023 are in: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/disengagement-reports/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto... Still, it could be a massive scam, but if so, it sure is a good one.

Elinvynia 2y ago

It's like people forgot about the Amazon stores being an army of cheaply paid third world labour disguised as revolutionary technology.

Dylan16807 2y ago
They had too high a rate of needing humans, but nevertheless it was almost entirely computers. That wasn't a disguise.

bowmessage 2y ago

Source for this claim?

porphyra 2y ago

Remote operators only help out in rare cases

Pxtl 2y ago

Vehicles per-operator is the important metric, imho. If one operator can supervise a dozen vehicles at a time with only occasional manual intervention then it's still a massive labor-saving tool.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
All the evidence suggests that the number is >1 operators per vehicle.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  >150,000 trips / week. 3000 employees. 1:1 supervision is only viable if every single employee was a supervisor, and that's obviously not true.
  - smokel 2y ago
    If those 3000 employees work full-time (40 hours per week), they could theoretically serve 150,000 trips of up to 48 minutes in length, which seems reasonable, no? Another interesting statistic here is that Waymo apparently has only 700 vehicles in its fleet [1]. That would require only 700 supervisors. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphabets-waymo-robotaxi-unit-doubles-its-paid-rides-three-months-2024-08-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/alphab...
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Supervisors don't work 24/7 like the cars do. For 1:1 coverage you need ~4X as many people as cars. As I said, theoretically viable if all employees were supervisors. But they're not.
      - smokel 2y ago
        I tend to agree with you that it's very likely that the cars are operating autonomously most of the time. However, I don't think this kind of math helps much in actually proving (or disproving) that. We don't know how many of the employees are supervisors. For all we know, Waymo hires dozens of external mechanical turks per vehicle and uses a simple majority voting algorithm to ensure safety. Unlikely, or even ridiculous, but apart from Waymo's press releases, and the accidental legislation report [1], there is little hard evidence. [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/disengagement-reports/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...

gniv 2y ago

Even if they wanted to they couldn't drive real-time. Remote operators help when stuck.

mattj 2y ago

Good news: this isn't true - https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/

doctorpangloss 2y ago
https://archive.is/20240913090221/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/insider/when-self-driving-cars-dont-actually-drive-themselves.html https://archive.is/20240913090221/https://www.nytimes.com/20... > For years, companies like Waymo (owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company) and Cruise (owned by General Motors) avoided any mention of the remote assistance they provided their self-driving cars. > That is just how things work in Silicon Valley. By creating the illusion of complete autonomy... https://archive.is/iPKWQ#selection-719.0-719.483 https://archive.is/iPKWQ#selection-719.0-719.483 > While Zoox and other companies have started to reveal how humans intervene to help driverless cars, none of the companies have disclosed how many remote-assistance technicians they employ or how much it all costs. Zoox’s command center holds about three dozen people who oversee what appears to be a small number of driverless cars — two in Foster City and several more in Las Vegas — as well as a fleet of about 200 test cars that each still have a driver behind the steering wheel. > ...the [Cruise] cars were supported by about 1.5 workers per vehicle > Waymo and Cruise declined to comment for this story. I don't know what to say. It's an "illusion of complete autonomy." The energy of these replies is the same as, "When a parent does a kid's homework, it isn't cheating." The difference is we still have no idea if the child will grow up into an adult, and it's not guaranteed that Waymo will be the one to crack real autonomy, even if it looks that way today. Indeed the longer it takes them the more likely it's not going to be them.
- ra7 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    > There's no illusion of any kind. I don't know dude. Simple question: is it fully autonomous? No. If you step inside the vehicle, does it feel that way? Yes. That is nearly the definition of an illusion.

sagz 2y ago

Any source on the "most waymos are remotely driven by a human" claim?

lazyeye 2y ago

[flagged]

fragmede 2y ago
don't forget to enable showdead in your profile too
smokel 2y ago
Apparently the controversial post is a bit unfounded. California legislation requires filing the events where an autonomous vehicle required human intervention. The reports for 2023 are in: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/disengagement-reports/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto... Still, it could be a massive scam, but if so, it sure is a good one.