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Look at Waymo, not Robotaxi. Waymo is essentially the self driving vision I had as a kid, and ridership is growing exponentially as they expand. It's also very

Look at Waymo, not Robotaxi. Waymo is essentially the self driving vision I had as a kid, and ridership is growing exponentially as they expand. It's also very safe if you believe their statistics[0]. I think there's a saying about overestimating stuff in the short term and underestimating stuff in the long term that seems to apply here, though the radiologist narrative was definitely wrong. [0] https://waymo.com/safety/impact/ https://waymo.com/safety/impact/

pkdpic 1y ago
I agree with both comments here. I wonder what the plausibility of fully autonomous trucking is in the next 10-30 years... Is there any saying that exists about overestimating stuff in the near term and long term but underestimating stuff in the midterm? Ie flying car dreams in the 50s etc.
- basisword 1y ago
  I remember Bill Gates said: "We overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten years".
  - jampekka 1y ago
    Not Musk. He promised full autonomy within 3 years about 10 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
    - nebula8804 1y ago
      Musk and Gates have very different philosophies. Gates seems more calm and collected having gone through the trauma of almost losing his empire. Musk is a loose cannon having never suffered the consequences of his actions (ie. early Gates and Jobs) and so he sometimes gets things right but will eventually crash and burn having not had the fortune of failing and maturing early on in his career(he is now past the midpoint of his career with not enough buffer to recover). They are both dangerous in their own ways.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  If it were about the costs for employees, you could ship it with the railway. That simply isn't the reason.
- omnicognate 1y ago
  > ... but underestimating stuff in the midterm? Ie flying car dreams in the 50s etc. We still don't have flying cars 70 years later, and they don't look any more imminent than they did then. I think the lesson there is more "not every dream eventually gets made a reality".
basisword 1y ago
It's limited to a few specific markets though. My bet is they aren't going to be able to roll it out widely easily. Probably need to do years of tests in each location to figure out the nuances of the places.
- christianqchung 1y ago
  Yeah, I have no idea if Waymo will ever be a rural thing honestly, mostly for economic reasons. I'm skeptical it would get serious suburban usage this decade too. But for major cities where less than 80% of people own cars, test time doesn't seem to be making a difference. They've been expanding in Austin and Atlanta, seemingly with less prep time than Phoenix and San Fran.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    I could see it taking off in the suburbs/rural areas if they start having a franchise model when it’s more mature.
  - red_rech 1y ago
    Atlanta seems to be a bit contradictory to some of your other thoughts. The city itself is relatively small. A vast majority of area population lives distributed across the MSA, and it can create hellish traffic. I remember growing up thinking 1+ hour commutes were just a fact of life for everyone commuting from the suburbs. Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20%
    - dingnuts 1y ago
      Austin is also a car city, everyone has a car there. Public transit in Austin is a joke, and Waymo can't get on the highway so it's only useful for getting back to your hotel from Rainey Street, and maybe back to your dorm from the Drag, but nobody is using Waymo to commute from Round Rock
    - christianqchung 1y ago
      > Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20% I said "less than 80% car ownership", not "80% do not own a car". Technically these are not mutually exclusive but I think you read it as the second one. I haven't really found much analysis about how public transit interfaces with self driving cars honestly.
hnav 1y ago
Even though the gulf between Waymo and the next runner up is huge, it too isn't quite ready for primetime IMO. Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity. As much as I appreciate the safety-first approach (table stakes really, they'd get their license pulled if they ever caused a fatality) I am frequently frustrated as both a cyclist and driver whenever I have to share a lane with a Waymo. The equivalent of a Waymo radiologist would be a model that has a high false-positive and infinitesimal false-negative rate which would act as a first line of screening and reduce the burden on humans.
- bsder 1y ago
  > Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity. As do most of the ridesharing drivers I interact with nowadays, sadly. The difference is that Waymo has a trajectory that is getting better while human rideshare drivers have a trajectory that is getting worse.
  - captainkrtek 1y ago
    Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”, whereas humans we just shrug. I think the theme of this extends to all areas where we are placing technology to make decisions, but also where no human is accountable for the decision.
    - nebula8804 1y ago
      Society only cares about the individual and no one else. If Uber/Lyft continue to enshittify with drivers driving garbage broken down cars, drivers with no standards (ie. having just smoked weed) and ever rising rates, eventually people will prefer the Waymos.
    - 1y ago
m0llusk 1y ago
Waymo is very impressive, but also demonstrates limitations of these systems. Waymo vehicles are still getting caught performing unsafe driving maneuvers, they get stuck alleys in numbers, and responders have trouble getting them to acknowledge restricted areas. I am very supportive of this technology, but also highly skeptical as long as these vehicles are directly causing problems for me personally. Driving is more than a technical challenge, it involves social communication skills that automated vehicles do not yet have.
trebligdivad 1y ago
Waymo still have the ability to remotely deal with locations the AI has problems; I'd love to know what type of percentage of trips need to do that now. Having that escape together with only doing tested areas makes their job a LOT easier. (Not that it's bad - it's a great thing and I wish for it here!)
pfdietz 1y ago
> a saying about overestimating stuff in the short term and underestimating stuff in the long term This is exactly what came to my mind also.
steveklabnik 1y ago
I am a long time skeptic of self-driving cars. However, Waymo has changed that for me. I spend a lot of time as a pedestrian in Austin, and they are far safer than your usual Austin driver, and they also follow the law more often. I always accept them when I call an Uber as well, and it's been a similar experience as a passenger. I kinda hate what the Tesla stuff has done, because it makes it easier to dismiss those who are moving more slowly and focusing on safety and trust.
- calvinmorrison 1y ago
  Yeah we don't need to compare robots to the best driver or human, just the average, for an improvement. However, like railroad safety is expensive heavily regulated, self driving car companies have the same issue. Decentralized driving decentralizes risk. so when I have my _own_ robot to do it, it'll be easy and cheap.
  - dns_snek 1y ago
    > Yeah we don't need to compare robots to the best driver or human, just the average, for an improvement. Sure, in theory. In practice, nobody is going to give up control on the basis that the machine is "slightly better than average". Those who consider the safety data when making their decision will demand a system that's just as good as the best human drivers in most aspects. And speaking of Waymo, let's not forget that they only operate in a handful of places. Their safety data doesn't generalize outside of those areas.
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      > And speaking of Waymo, let's not forget that they only operate in a handful of places. Their safety data doesn't generalize outside of those areas. Yeah, I'm curious in seeing how they function in environments that get snow.
newyankee 1y ago
Honestly, once a traffic island city (like Singapore) or some other small nation state adopts self driving only within its limits and shows that it is much easier when all are self driving I think the opposition to the change will slowly reduce. Rain, Snow etc. are still challenges but needs a bold bet in a place that wants to show how futuristic it is. The components are in place (Waymo cars), what is needed is high enough labor cost to justify the adoption.
qnleigh 1y ago
I've seen a similar quote attribute to Bill Gates; "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." I think about this quote a lot these days, especially while reading Hacker News. On one hand, AI doesn't seem to be having the productivity and economic impacts that were predicted, but on the other, LLMs are getting gold medals at the Math Olympiads. It's like the ground is shifting beneath our feet, but it's still too slow to be perceptible.

pkdpic 1y ago

I agree with both comments here. I wonder what the plausibility of fully autonomous trucking is in the next 10-30 years... Is there any saying that exists about overestimating stuff in the near term and long term but underestimating stuff in the midterm? Ie flying car dreams in the 50s etc.

basisword 1y ago
I remember Bill Gates said: "We overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten years".
- jampekka 1y ago
  Not Musk. He promised full autonomy within 3 years about 10 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
  - nebula8804 1y ago
    Musk and Gates have very different philosophies. Gates seems more calm and collected having gone through the trauma of almost losing his empire. Musk is a loose cannon having never suffered the consequences of his actions (ie. early Gates and Jobs) and so he sometimes gets things right but will eventually crash and burn having not had the fortune of failing and maturing early on in his career(he is now past the midpoint of his career with not enough buffer to recover). They are both dangerous in their own ways.
1718627440 1y ago
If it were about the costs for employees, you could ship it with the railway. That simply isn't the reason.
omnicognate 1y ago
> ... but underestimating stuff in the midterm? Ie flying car dreams in the 50s etc. We still don't have flying cars 70 years later, and they don't look any more imminent than they did then. I think the lesson there is more "not every dream eventually gets made a reality".

basisword 1y ago

It's limited to a few specific markets though. My bet is they aren't going to be able to roll it out widely easily. Probably need to do years of tests in each location to figure out the nuances of the places.

christianqchung 1y ago
Yeah, I have no idea if Waymo will ever be a rural thing honestly, mostly for economic reasons. I'm skeptical it would get serious suburban usage this decade too. But for major cities where less than 80% of people own cars, test time doesn't seem to be making a difference. They've been expanding in Austin and Atlanta, seemingly with less prep time than Phoenix and San Fran.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  I could see it taking off in the suburbs/rural areas if they start having a franchise model when it’s more mature.
- red_rech 1y ago
  Atlanta seems to be a bit contradictory to some of your other thoughts. The city itself is relatively small. A vast majority of area population lives distributed across the MSA, and it can create hellish traffic. I remember growing up thinking 1+ hour commutes were just a fact of life for everyone commuting from the suburbs. Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20%
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    Austin is also a car city, everyone has a car there. Public transit in Austin is a joke, and Waymo can't get on the highway so it's only useful for getting back to your hotel from Rainey Street, and maybe back to your dorm from the Drag, but nobody is using Waymo to commute from Round Rock
  - christianqchung 1y ago
    > Not sure what car ownership looks like, and I haven’t been in years, but I’d imagine it’s still much more than just 20% I said "less than 80% car ownership", not "80% do not own a car". Technically these are not mutually exclusive but I think you read it as the second one. I haven't really found much analysis about how public transit interfaces with self driving cars honestly.

hnav 1y ago

Even though the gulf between Waymo and the next runner up is huge, it too isn't quite ready for primetime IMO. Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity. As much as I appreciate the safety-first approach (table stakes really, they'd get their license pulled if they ever caused a fatality) I am frequently frustrated as both a cyclist and driver whenever I have to share a lane with a Waymo. The equivalent of a Waymo radiologist would be a model that has a high false-positive and infinitesimal false-negative rate which would act as a first line of screening and reduce the burden on humans.

bsder 1y ago
> Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity. As do most of the ridesharing drivers I interact with nowadays, sadly. The difference is that Waymo has a trajectory that is getting better while human rideshare drivers have a trajectory that is getting worse.
- captainkrtek 1y ago
  Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”, whereas humans we just shrug. I think the theme of this extends to all areas where we are placing technology to make decisions, but also where no human is accountable for the decision.
  - nebula8804 1y ago
    Society only cares about the individual and no one else. If Uber/Lyft continue to enshittify with drivers driving garbage broken down cars, drivers with no standards (ie. having just smoked weed) and ever rising rates, eventually people will prefer the Waymos.
  - 1y ago

m0llusk 1y ago

Waymo is very impressive, but also demonstrates limitations of these systems. Waymo vehicles are still getting caught performing unsafe driving maneuvers, they get stuck alleys in numbers, and responders have trouble getting them to acknowledge restricted areas. I am very supportive of this technology, but also highly skeptical as long as these vehicles are directly causing problems for me personally. Driving is more than a technical challenge, it involves social communication skills that automated vehicles do not yet have.

trebligdivad 1y ago

Waymo still have the ability to remotely deal with locations the AI has problems; I'd love to know what type of percentage of trips need to do that now. Having that escape together with only doing tested areas makes their job a LOT easier. (Not that it's bad - it's a great thing and I wish for it here!)

pfdietz 1y ago

> a saying about overestimating stuff in the short term and underestimating stuff in the long term This is exactly what came to my mind also.

steveklabnik 1y ago

I am a long time skeptic of self-driving cars. However, Waymo has changed that for me. I spend a lot of time as a pedestrian in Austin, and they are far safer than your usual Austin driver, and they also follow the law more often. I always accept them when I call an Uber as well, and it's been a similar experience as a passenger. I kinda hate what the Tesla stuff has done, because it makes it easier to dismiss those who are moving more slowly and focusing on safety and trust.

calvinmorrison 1y ago
Yeah we don't need to compare robots to the best driver or human, just the average, for an improvement. However, like railroad safety is expensive heavily regulated, self driving car companies have the same issue. Decentralized driving decentralizes risk. so when I have my _own_ robot to do it, it'll be easy and cheap.
- dns_snek 1y ago
  > Yeah we don't need to compare robots to the best driver or human, just the average, for an improvement. Sure, in theory. In practice, nobody is going to give up control on the basis that the machine is "slightly better than average". Those who consider the safety data when making their decision will demand a system that's just as good as the best human drivers in most aspects. And speaking of Waymo, let's not forget that they only operate in a handful of places. Their safety data doesn't generalize outside of those areas.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    > And speaking of Waymo, let's not forget that they only operate in a handful of places. Their safety data doesn't generalize outside of those areas. Yeah, I'm curious in seeing how they function in environments that get snow.

newyankee 1y ago

Honestly, once a traffic island city (like Singapore) or some other small nation state adopts self driving only within its limits and shows that it is much easier when all are self driving I think the opposition to the change will slowly reduce. Rain, Snow etc. are still challenges but needs a bold bet in a place that wants to show how futuristic it is. The components are in place (Waymo cars), what is needed is high enough labor cost to justify the adoption.

qnleigh 1y ago

I've seen a similar quote attribute to Bill Gates; "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." I think about this quote a lot these days, especially while reading Hacker News. On one hand, AI doesn't seem to be having the productivity and economic impacts that were predicted, but on the other, LLMs are getting gold medals at the Math Olympiads. It's like the ground is shifting beneath our feet, but it's still too slow to be perceptible.