3 ms·

> "I view it as a solved problem" Wow. We've been trying to nail "simple" things like street light timing algorithms for years and all of a sudden, self-drivin

by mholt 12y ago

> "I view it as a solved problem" Wow. We've been trying to nail "simple" things like street light timing algorithms for years and all of a sudden, self-driving cars are being prototyped and promised for sale soon. I feel like this is popping out of nowhere, even though self-driving cars are the type of things fantasized about in science fiction from the 20th century. I even thought "I, Robot" was presumptuous to depict automated cars being the majority in 2030. And yet here we are...

Apocryphon 12y ago
It's really weird for this sort of parallel invention to happen independently due to corporate secrecy, rather than because of free exchange of ideas and designs. Also: all of these working VR headsets are coming out of the woodwork after decades of being insufficiently immersive.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  "If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree can not find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time." Charles Fort http://www.resologist.net/lo104.htm http://www.resologist.net/lo104.htm edit - a quick game of Charles Fort Discovering Things would be great right now, though it is difficult without a frog and an umbrella.
- dronethinktank 12y ago
  The free exchange of ideas and designs will ultimately win out. This will be evident by 3DRobotics outpacing a company like DJI. Also, I agree with the whole VR thing. Have you heard of the Lighthouse tracking technology by Valve? Crazy stuff
  - Apocryphon 12y ago
    My biggest puzzlement is why after decades, VR is now suddenly a viable thing. But I've heard the answer is because the rise of smartphones have presented us with cheaper high-resolution displays and motion sensors and other tech that finally brought the medium out of the '80s. As far as self-driving cars go, I remember this article, written just over a decade ago: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot_pr.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot_pr.html Now that's astounding advancement.
skriticos2 12y ago
This reminds me on how researchers call speech synthesis a "solved problem" since decades. When asked why they don't use it for presentations, they say that it just doesn't sound very well..
- quanticle 12y ago
  Speech synthesis is substantially more of a solved problem than you think. Look at Vocaloids, for example. Here you have entirely computer-generated "voices" singing pop songs, and achieving a surprising degree of commercial success. Or look at something like the Tupac "hologram" that sang one of Tupac's unreleased songs at Coachella. Granted, that was taking samples of Tupac and combining them, but it was combining them seamlessly to perform a new work. That's pretty close to pure synthesis.
  - skriticos2 12y ago
    If I put your comment to any of the popular TTS systems, it will be understandable, but painful to listen to. If I create a presentation and use a TTS instead of talking myself, people will cringe and hope it's over soon. That's what I meant. Also, the examples you mentioned were very specific. The Tupac song was a one-off, limited scope and highly optimized before release. If I'd use the same system to render any random text, it would still sound off. So yes, speech synthesis does "work". But to find back to the original topic, it's like driving drunk..
snogglethorpe 12y ago
We're not "here" though. Elon Musk saying "it's a solved problem" and it actually being a "solved problem" are two extremely different things. Musk is a smart guy and a good engineering manager, but he's far from being a supergenius, and has said stupid things before. Google has a system that kinda works, but requires a very controlled environment, and doesn't cope with exceptions all that well. Hopefully it is "fail safe", in that cars will stop or slow down rather than run the risk of running someone over (something humans arguably fail at way too often!), but it's not yet clear that it's sufficient for a workable system. Maybe Musk has something magic up his sleeve that will change everything, but so far there's zero evidence for that, and given Musk's history of bluster, I'm pretty skeptical.... If he really has something, he'll show it eventually.
- monk_e_boy 12y ago
  He seems to think that these problems are just bugs in the system. We as humans know how to solve them, so it's just a case of coding that into the cars brain. Did you see the video nvidia showed where all the cars are networked, so as one car figures out something, it uploads this to the cloud so all cars get that knowledge. ..
joe_the_user 12y ago
Yes, Here we are, with the smaller, easiest subset of the autonomous driving solved and massive hype anticipating the rest being solved "just 'cause" but offering no details concerning the solution. I mean, with this hype flurry, we might soon see posters of flying cars. Imagine that once again we could look forward to that and once again be disappointed. Wouldn't that be a rush? The coast-to-coast autonomous drive: "A human driver is going to be sitting behind the wheel at all times, but won’t interfere unless the car requests help or has to turn off the highway." -- Yes, an autonomous can drive a directly forward on a freeway with other cars or up a mountain alone. ETC. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-self-driving-car-heading-on-a-3500-mile-coast-to-coast-trip/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-self-driving-car-...

by mholt 12y ago

Apocryphon 12y ago

It's really weird for this sort of parallel invention to happen independently due to corporate secrecy, rather than because of free exchange of ideas and designs. Also: all of these working VR headsets are coming out of the woodwork after decades of being insufficiently immersive.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
"If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree can not find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time." Charles Fort http://www.resologist.net/lo104.htm http://www.resologist.net/lo104.htm edit - a quick game of Charles Fort Discovering Things would be great right now, though it is difficult without a frog and an umbrella.
dronethinktank 12y ago
The free exchange of ideas and designs will ultimately win out. This will be evident by 3DRobotics outpacing a company like DJI. Also, I agree with the whole VR thing. Have you heard of the Lighthouse tracking technology by Valve? Crazy stuff
- Apocryphon 12y ago
  My biggest puzzlement is why after decades, VR is now suddenly a viable thing. But I've heard the answer is because the rise of smartphones have presented us with cheaper high-resolution displays and motion sensors and other tech that finally brought the medium out of the '80s. As far as self-driving cars go, I remember this article, written just over a decade ago: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot_pr.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot_pr.html Now that's astounding advancement.

skriticos2 12y ago

This reminds me on how researchers call speech synthesis a "solved problem" since decades. When asked why they don't use it for presentations, they say that it just doesn't sound very well..

quanticle 12y ago
Speech synthesis is substantially more of a solved problem than you think. Look at Vocaloids, for example. Here you have entirely computer-generated "voices" singing pop songs, and achieving a surprising degree of commercial success. Or look at something like the Tupac "hologram" that sang one of Tupac's unreleased songs at Coachella. Granted, that was taking samples of Tupac and combining them, but it was combining them seamlessly to perform a new work. That's pretty close to pure synthesis.
- skriticos2 12y ago
  If I put your comment to any of the popular TTS systems, it will be understandable, but painful to listen to. If I create a presentation and use a TTS instead of talking myself, people will cringe and hope it's over soon. That's what I meant. Also, the examples you mentioned were very specific. The Tupac song was a one-off, limited scope and highly optimized before release. If I'd use the same system to render any random text, it would still sound off. So yes, speech synthesis does "work". But to find back to the original topic, it's like driving drunk..

snogglethorpe 12y ago

We're not "here" though. Elon Musk saying "it's a solved problem" and it actually being a "solved problem" are two extremely different things. Musk is a smart guy and a good engineering manager, but he's far from being a supergenius, and has said stupid things before. Google has a system that kinda works, but requires a very controlled environment, and doesn't cope with exceptions all that well. Hopefully it is "fail safe", in that cars will stop or slow down rather than run the risk of running someone over (something humans arguably fail at way too often!), but it's not yet clear that it's sufficient for a workable system. Maybe Musk has something magic up his sleeve that will change everything, but so far there's zero evidence for that, and given Musk's history of bluster, I'm pretty skeptical.... If he really has something, he'll show it eventually.

monk_e_boy 12y ago
He seems to think that these problems are just bugs in the system. We as humans know how to solve them, so it's just a case of coding that into the cars brain. Did you see the video nvidia showed where all the cars are networked, so as one car figures out something, it uploads this to the cloud so all cars get that knowledge. ..

joe_the_user 12y ago

Yes, Here we are, with the smaller, easiest subset of the autonomous driving solved and massive hype anticipating the rest being solved "just 'cause" but offering no details concerning the solution. I mean, with this hype flurry, we might soon see posters of flying cars. Imagine that once again we could look forward to that and once again be disappointed. Wouldn't that be a rush? The coast-to-coast autonomous drive: "A human driver is going to be sitting behind the wheel at all times, but won’t interfere unless the car requests help or has to turn off the highway." -- Yes, an autonomous can drive a directly forward on a freeway with other cars or up a mountain alone. ETC. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-self-driving-car-heading-on-a-3500-mile-coast-to-coast-trip/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-self-driving-car-...