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> The issue with self-driving is (1) how it generalises across novel environments without "highly-available route data" and provider-chosen routes; (2) how fail

> The issue with self-driving is (1) how it generalises across novel environments without "highly-available route data" and provider-chosen routes; (2) how failures are correlated across machines. Why is (1) an issue? Route data never gets worse.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
Route data gets worse all the time Any time there is a detour, or a construction zone, or a traffic accident, or a road flooded, or whatever else your route data is not just "worse" it is completely wrong
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  it's true, but if the scenarios are rare you can treat them as outliers and have the vehicle switch to a "safety mode" or similar. Even human drivers effectively do that (or should!).
ceejayoz 2y ago
> Route data never gets worse. Construction? Parade? Giant tire-crunching pothole in the middle of the freeway?
- virtue3 2y ago
  Oddly enough Waymo does a solid job of avoiding those.
  - Animats 2y ago
    There was a problem in SF with a Waymo not avoiding a parade. Somebody didn't enter the parade in SF MUNI's list of street closures. Nobody was hurt; it was just embarrassing.
mjburgess 2y ago
Consider London: a series of randomly moving construction sites connected by patches of city. Waymo, as far as I recall, relies on pretty active route mapping and data sharing -- ie., the cars arent "driving themselves" in the sense of discovering the environment as a self-driving system would.
- bsder 2y ago
  Huh? All the Waymo cars in Austin have lots of LIDAR spinny bits and are driving around all the active construction zones downtown and near campus. I'm pretty sure that counts as "discovering the environment".
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    Sure, my understanding is that they collectively share data, and this is combined with central mapping. On net, yes, they are sensitive to features of the environment and via central coordination maintain a safe map of it. The mechanism there heavily relies on this background of sharing, mapping, and route planning (and the like) -- which impacts on the ability of these cars to operate across all driving environments.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  Waymo's map data is a prior, not an authoritative reference to the world. The cars report update when the map data is wrong, and a lot of what they use it for (e.g. traffic light identification, fine localization) degrades gracefully when there's new information in the environment.

bluefirebrand 2y ago

Route data gets worse all the time Any time there is a detour, or a construction zone, or a traffic accident, or a road flooded, or whatever else your route data is not just "worse" it is completely wrong

zmmmmm 2y ago
it's true, but if the scenarios are rare you can treat them as outliers and have the vehicle switch to a "safety mode" or similar. Even human drivers effectively do that (or should!).

ceejayoz 2y ago

> Route data never gets worse. Construction? Parade? Giant tire-crunching pothole in the middle of the freeway?

virtue3 2y ago
Oddly enough Waymo does a solid job of avoiding those.
- Animats 2y ago
  There was a problem in SF with a Waymo not avoiding a parade. Somebody didn't enter the parade in SF MUNI's list of street closures. Nobody was hurt; it was just embarrassing.

mjburgess 2y ago

Consider London: a series of randomly moving construction sites connected by patches of city. Waymo, as far as I recall, relies on pretty active route mapping and data sharing -- ie., the cars arent "driving themselves" in the sense of discovering the environment as a self-driving system would.

bsder 2y ago
Huh? All the Waymo cars in Austin have lots of LIDAR spinny bits and are driving around all the active construction zones downtown and near campus. I'm pretty sure that counts as "discovering the environment".
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Sure, my understanding is that they collectively share data, and this is combined with central mapping. On net, yes, they are sensitive to features of the environment and via central coordination maintain a safe map of it. The mechanism there heavily relies on this background of sharing, mapping, and route planning (and the like) -- which impacts on the ability of these cars to operate across all driving environments.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
Waymo's map data is a prior, not an authoritative reference to the world. The cars report update when the map data is wrong, and a lot of what they use it for (e.g. traffic light identification, fine localization) degrades gracefully when there's new information in the environment.