5 ms·

I understand what you're saying, and i agree there are a ton in testing. But it's not like i can go to the volvo website and check the box for the "no steering

by jfoutz 12y ago

I understand what you're saying, and i agree there are a ton in testing. But it's not like i can go to the volvo website and check the box for the "no steering wheel" option at any price. Furthermore if i'm say, WalMart, I can't call up any truck manufacturers and get a self driving option for my next fleet purchases. That's in spite of having a huge infrastructure for supporting and maintaining my trucks. Today, unless your title is "Director of self driving car research" you can't just go take one for a spin. Again, they're coming, they are the future. Uber wouldn't have cleaned out Carnage Mellon robotics department if it didn't still require original research.

threeseed 12y ago
Sure. But the point is that these will be available in the short to medium term by companies with experience in scaling out. A world of difference between someone like Volvo showing something and Google/Uber doing it. Uber could easily approach Volvo but then again there is no competitive advantage to. The car companies are interested in volume sales not building cars to niche specifications.
Alupis 12y ago
There's also a lot of unknowns and serious challenges and difficult problems to solve before driver-less vehicles can become "mainstream". Majority (all?) of the road testing has been on fairly controlled roads with "normal" circumstances, ie. not a blizzard with iced roads, hydroplaning, debris falling in front of the vehicle at speed, etc. Longevity of the vehicle - it's doubtful a driverless vehicle purchased today will still be on the road (and safe!) 10-15 years from now (there's an awful lot of computing and sensors in place, but would a computer that old still perform safely -- ie. would you use your computer from 15 years ago as your daily-use work machine? no - so why trust your life to it?), whereas majority of vehicles on the road today are 10-15+ years old. Sensors are expensive and prone to natural wear, etc. What about sensors frizzing out and providing false-readings? Similar circumstances have destroyed $100 million spacecraft missions, let alone some $20K vehicle that's several years old and neglected by the owner. Even military-grade electronics and sensor arrays are not "fool proof" and totally "failsafe" -- and you know the quality, robustness, redundantness, etc.. of the electronics going into self-driving vehicles are not on par. The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world.
- visakanv 12y ago
  > The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world. Just want to add to the discussion a reminder that this is said about literally every new piece of technology that has ever happened- the first human casuality from riding a horse, first human casualty from driving a car, etc. It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Also out of curiosity– re: longevity, why would a driverless car have to be on the road for 15 years? Why not just update/retrofit/repair/replace every year or so? Spacecraft and military equipment are used in really extreme settings! Also can't driverless cars update themselves, go for repairs themselves, etc? Also I'm guessing it wouldn't make a lot of sense for regular folks to own their own driverless car. They'll just use one at the touch of a button whenever they need to. When renting becomes THAT cheap, ownership makes less sense (for most people, at least). My $0.02
  - krisgee 12y ago
    >It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Exactly, call me when they're killing 1.2 million people a year[1]. The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane and the only reason we're cool with it is it mostly doesn't happen to someone a large number of people care about and if it does we can hum, haw and then lay blame on someone (who is probably dead). 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
    - Alupis 12y ago
      > The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I say that word relatively) 32,000 people died in any sort of automobile related accident last year (including siting in their driveway idling and somehow died). To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable, preventable, and treatable illness) killed more than 52,000 people in the US last year alone. In reality, automobiles in the US are the safest they have ever been since 1949, and automobile related deaths have dropped more than 26% since 2005 alone. According to the CDC, automobile related deaths are not even in the top 10 leading causes of death in the US. Last year, heart disease was responsible for 596,577 US deaths last year alone. Stroke claimed 128,932 US lives. Diabetes took 73,831 american lives. Suicide robbed 39,518 people their life last year -- in excess of 7,000 more than died by automobile related accidents. In 2009, approximately a grand total of 2,436,652 died in the US of all causes (including natural causes). Of that number, automobile related deaths only accounts for 1%. Of the entire US population, we're talking about 0.0096%... According to the CDC, in 2012, 10,322 people (or 31%) of all automobile related deaths were alcohol-related deaths. Another 18% of automobile related deaths are attributed to drugs other than alcohol in the same year. That accounts for just about 50% of all vehicle related deaths, leaving the true automobile related deaths due to accident at a shockingly low number (relatively) of about 15,000 people per year. All of this is to say, relatively speaking, automobile related deaths are not a significant concern anymore. It does not make logical nor financial sense to do anything significant in this sector while ignoring or not increasing efforts in these other much more significant areas. So, to counter your original assertion -- no, it's not "completely fucking insane"... the amount of people dying from the common Flu is. Sources: [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-tr... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-states-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-st... [5] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... [6] http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...

by jfoutz 12y ago

threeseed 12y ago

Sure. But the point is that these will be available in the short to medium term by companies with experience in scaling out. A world of difference between someone like Volvo showing something and Google/Uber doing it. Uber could easily approach Volvo but then again there is no competitive advantage to. The car companies are interested in volume sales not building cars to niche specifications.

Alupis 12y ago

There's also a lot of unknowns and serious challenges and difficult problems to solve before driver-less vehicles can become "mainstream". Majority (all?) of the road testing has been on fairly controlled roads with "normal" circumstances, ie. not a blizzard with iced roads, hydroplaning, debris falling in front of the vehicle at speed, etc. Longevity of the vehicle - it's doubtful a driverless vehicle purchased today will still be on the road (and safe!) 10-15 years from now (there's an awful lot of computing and sensors in place, but would a computer that old still perform safely -- ie. would you use your computer from 15 years ago as your daily-use work machine? no - so why trust your life to it?), whereas majority of vehicles on the road today are 10-15+ years old. Sensors are expensive and prone to natural wear, etc. What about sensors frizzing out and providing false-readings? Similar circumstances have destroyed $100 million spacecraft missions, let alone some $20K vehicle that's several years old and neglected by the owner. Even military-grade electronics and sensor arrays are not "fool proof" and totally "failsafe" -- and you know the quality, robustness, redundantness, etc.. of the electronics going into self-driving vehicles are not on par. The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world.

visakanv 12y ago
> The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world. Just want to add to the discussion a reminder that this is said about literally every new piece of technology that has ever happened- the first human casuality from riding a horse, first human casualty from driving a car, etc. It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Also out of curiosity– re: longevity, why would a driverless car have to be on the road for 15 years? Why not just update/retrofit/repair/replace every year or so? Spacecraft and military equipment are used in really extreme settings! Also can't driverless cars update themselves, go for repairs themselves, etc? Also I'm guessing it wouldn't make a lot of sense for regular folks to own their own driverless car. They'll just use one at the touch of a button whenever they need to. When renting becomes THAT cheap, ownership makes less sense (for most people, at least). My $0.02
- krisgee 12y ago
  >It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Exactly, call me when they're killing 1.2 million people a year[1]. The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane and the only reason we're cool with it is it mostly doesn't happen to someone a large number of people care about and if it does we can hum, haw and then lay blame on someone (who is probably dead). 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
  - Alupis 12y ago
    > The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I say that word relatively) 32,000 people died in any sort of automobile related accident last year (including siting in their driveway idling and somehow died). To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable, preventable, and treatable illness) killed more than 52,000 people in the US last year alone. In reality, automobiles in the US are the safest they have ever been since 1949, and automobile related deaths have dropped more than 26% since 2005 alone. According to the CDC, automobile related deaths are not even in the top 10 leading causes of death in the US. Last year, heart disease was responsible for 596,577 US deaths last year alone. Stroke claimed 128,932 US lives. Diabetes took 73,831 american lives. Suicide robbed 39,518 people their life last year -- in excess of 7,000 more than died by automobile related accidents. In 2009, approximately a grand total of 2,436,652 died in the US of all causes (including natural causes). Of that number, automobile related deaths only accounts for 1%. Of the entire US population, we're talking about 0.0096%... According to the CDC, in 2012, 10,322 people (or 31%) of all automobile related deaths were alcohol-related deaths. Another 18% of automobile related deaths are attributed to drugs other than alcohol in the same year. That accounts for just about 50% of all vehicle related deaths, leaving the true automobile related deaths due to accident at a shockingly low number (relatively) of about 15,000 people per year. All of this is to say, relatively speaking, automobile related deaths are not a significant concern anymore. It does not make logical nor financial sense to do anything significant in this sector while ignoring or not increasing efforts in these other much more significant areas. So, to counter your original assertion -- no, it's not "completely fucking insane"... the amount of people dying from the common Flu is. Sources: [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-tr... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-states-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-st... [5] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... [6] http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...