5 ms·

SV is the most cloistered place I've ever seen. I'm comfortable assuming that nobody in any position of power at Waymo ever thought to themselves "gee maybe the

SV is the most cloistered place I've ever seen. I'm comfortable assuming that nobody in any position of power at Waymo ever thought to themselves "gee maybe the weather is different in this new city we're deploying to, perhaps we should test that"

pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
This seems silly -- they roll the service out to individual cities in different regions, one at a time. Why do you think they do that? I'm pretty sure this is exactly that testing that you're referring to.
- zardo 5mo ago
  Surely Waymo can afford a test track.
  - pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
    They can, and I bet they have! But they cannot afford a test track that accurately reproduces every condition exactly as it will be encountered in the real world. At some point, it is judicious to test with real-world conditions, and simulating only gets you so far.
jfim 5mo ago
There's a long tail of unpredictable events in the AV industry that you end up seeing, especially since the cars in aggregate end up driving more than one could over a lifetime. At a previous employer, we've seen anything from cars getting mooned, a SUV slowly driving past the AV, the rear window roll down, and someone poke their head out and start throwing dollar bills at the AV, a convention of people dressed up in animal costumes, the "Miami left," and so on. So it's much less of "maybe we should test that" and more of "we don't know what we don't know, so let's gather some data." In practice, the cars have lidar so they won't crash into solid objects that aren't recognized, they just end up getting stuck in embarrassing situations like these.
- fwip 5mo ago
  A flooded road is a very predictable event, though.
  - mulmen 5mo ago
    Is it? I have been driving for 25 years and never encountered one. Waymo seems to accept they can’t predict everything so they built a system that’s safe enough to operate in the real world and learn from experience.
    - zardo 5mo ago
      You probably haven't been driving in areas that flood then.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
    - forgetfreeman 5mo ago
      You haven't been driving for 25 years anywhere east of the Mississippi river if you've never encountered road flooding. Accepting they can't predict everything sounds reasonable. Failing to account for a routine occurrence is negligent.
    - fwip 5mo ago
      I haven't encountered one as a driver either, but I'm pretty sure "Don't drive into roads with water on them" was a basic safety question on the permit test.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
  - hnthrow0287345 5mo ago
    My guess is this was brought up but getting the product out there was more important to the business so it got ignored. Now that it's a problem for them, they get to hide behind an "oops sorry, let's fix the really obvious thing now", almost like taking "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to malicious levels. This jives with CRUD software in general, where people are not usually rewarded for preventing future issues and instead rewarded for waiting until it's a visible problem and then fixing it.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
jlebar 5mo ago
As a former engineer and manager at Waymo I can say with the confidence and sincerity of firsthand experience that this is not the case. People at all levels of the company think deeply about how different locations have present different challenges, including different weather. Also it's not like we never have flooded roads here in the valley. Whatever is going on, I'm confident it's not a result of straightforward parochialism in the way that you say you're comfortable assuming.
- viking123 5mo ago
  How many years for Waymo to work in Mumbai?
robotresearcher 5mo ago
I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.
- jsrozner 5mo ago
  Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.
  - bitpush 5mo ago
    True. While we're at it, let's not fixing roads as well. Also electric cars. Also what's the deal with space exploration? Fix what's on earth first please.
  - robotresearcher 5mo ago
    These are companies. They can invest where they please. Call your government reps.
    - contubernio 5mo ago
      They depend on public investment to build and support road infrastructure. If one accepts your point of view, these companies depend on massive government subsidies. Or perhaps they should pay for the construction and upkeep of the roads their vehicles use.
      - jlebar 5mo ago
        All companies (and indeed individuals) rely on and benefit from various public goods, such as roads, law and order, and an educated populace. They pay for these public goods through taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

pinkmuffinere 5mo ago

This seems silly -- they roll the service out to individual cities in different regions, one at a time. Why do you think they do that? I'm pretty sure this is exactly that testing that you're referring to.

zardo 5mo ago
Surely Waymo can afford a test track.
- pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
  They can, and I bet they have! But they cannot afford a test track that accurately reproduces every condition exactly as it will be encountered in the real world. At some point, it is judicious to test with real-world conditions, and simulating only gets you so far.

jfim 5mo ago

There's a long tail of unpredictable events in the AV industry that you end up seeing, especially since the cars in aggregate end up driving more than one could over a lifetime. At a previous employer, we've seen anything from cars getting mooned, a SUV slowly driving past the AV, the rear window roll down, and someone poke their head out and start throwing dollar bills at the AV, a convention of people dressed up in animal costumes, the "Miami left," and so on. So it's much less of "maybe we should test that" and more of "we don't know what we don't know, so let's gather some data." In practice, the cars have lidar so they won't crash into solid objects that aren't recognized, they just end up getting stuck in embarrassing situations like these.

fwip 5mo ago
A flooded road is a very predictable event, though.
- mulmen 5mo ago
  Is it? I have been driving for 25 years and never encountered one. Waymo seems to accept they can’t predict everything so they built a system that’s safe enough to operate in the real world and learn from experience.
  - zardo 5mo ago
    You probably haven't been driving in areas that flood then.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - forgetfreeman 5mo ago
    You haven't been driving for 25 years anywhere east of the Mississippi river if you've never encountered road flooding. Accepting they can't predict everything sounds reasonable. Failing to account for a routine occurrence is negligent.
  - fwip 5mo ago
    I haven't encountered one as a driver either, but I'm pretty sure "Don't drive into roads with water on them" was a basic safety question on the permit test.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
- hnthrow0287345 5mo ago
  My guess is this was brought up but getting the product out there was more important to the business so it got ignored. Now that it's a problem for them, they get to hide behind an "oops sorry, let's fix the really obvious thing now", almost like taking "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to malicious levels. This jives with CRUD software in general, where people are not usually rewarded for preventing future issues and instead rewarded for waiting until it's a visible problem and then fixing it.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

jlebar 5mo ago

As a former engineer and manager at Waymo I can say with the confidence and sincerity of firsthand experience that this is not the case. People at all levels of the company think deeply about how different locations have present different challenges, including different weather. Also it's not like we never have flooded roads here in the valley. Whatever is going on, I'm confident it's not a result of straightforward parochialism in the way that you say you're comfortable assuming.

viking123 5mo ago
How many years for Waymo to work in Mumbai?

robotresearcher 5mo ago

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

jsrozner 5mo ago
Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.
- bitpush 5mo ago
  True. While we're at it, let's not fixing roads as well. Also electric cars. Also what's the deal with space exploration? Fix what's on earth first please.
- robotresearcher 5mo ago
  These are companies. They can invest where they please. Call your government reps.
  - contubernio 5mo ago
    They depend on public investment to build and support road infrastructure. If one accepts your point of view, these companies depend on massive government subsidies. Or perhaps they should pay for the construction and upkeep of the roads their vehicles use.
    - jlebar 5mo ago
      All companies (and indeed individuals) rely on and benefit from various public goods, such as roads, law and order, and an educated populace. They pay for these public goods through taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good