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You say this like people are good at driving in rain or snow. They are not. I've driven in 42 winters on icy roads with thick snow and limited visibility, with

You say this like people are good at driving in rain or snow. They are not. I've driven in 42 winters on icy roads with thick snow and limited visibility, without the aid of GPS which has a funny way of disappearing in inclement weather. Google's cars have been demonstrated driving in exactly 0 winters under those conditions. Because they know it would be a disaster. There is a reason for all of those pileup pictures whenever there is severe weather in the US. They're driving too fast. But they knew that. They just decided to do it anyways. But they didn't drive that fast thinking that the snow was actually falling leaves or that the windshield was dirty or that the car was suddenly moving backwards, or any of the other ridiculous things that an AI will begin thinking when it falls out of a switch statement, encounters a case it wasn't trained on, or loses its GPS signal. Self-driving cars are going to be WAY better in bad weather than any human could ever be I have said this before but it bears repeating, once we get self-driving cars, the insurance companies won't actually let you drive anymore. I completely agree. One day they will be completely superior to human drivers. But that isn't today and won't be for years. Many years. Like decades.

bsder 11y ago
People said this about nav systems. I know I did. Sure, Google maps was great on the Interstate, but put it on the side roads of Pittsburgh, PA and nav was completely toast. Guess what? A couple years later and nav systems were better than 99% of people even in places like Pittsburgh. I haven't bought a Thomas Guide (remember those?) in 10 years, I think. It's going to be like this for self-driving cars. It will be slow progress for a while and then it will just go exponential. Part of the slow progress is that nobody wants to have the first fatality in a self-driving car as it will be an absolute PR disaster.
bsder 11y ago
> But they didn't drive that fast thinking that the snow was actually falling leaves or that the windshield was dirty or that the car was suddenly moving backwards, or any of the other ridiculous things that an AI will begin thinking when it falls out of a switch statement, encounters a case it wasn't trained on, or loses its GPS signal. Except that autonomous cars will have lidar and radar which sees through rain and snow, accelerometers and wheel monitors to integrate position even in the face of GPS loss, and infrared and ultraviolet cameras which can see much further than human eyes. You are right. Autonomous cars are worse right now. But they will be way better than humans really quickly. Look at how fast the DARPA challenge went from "can't complete the course" to "had to slow the vehicles down for safety".
- CountSessine 11y ago
  But they will be way better than humans really quickly I'm naturally suspicious of faith-based engineering.
  - bsder 11y ago
    > I'm naturally suspicious of faith-based engineering. LOL. I like that comment. However, engineering is part science and part art. The art part often has a significant component of faith. Moore's Law is a good example of faith-based engineering--because we had faith it would happen we committed resources to make it happen. And that operated well for almost 40 years. I view self-driving cars in the same light--there is now faith that it will happen, so people are now committing resources to make it happen. And there don't seem to be any insurmountable problems (the biggest problems are "vision" being power and CPU intensive, but a car is a very high-density power source). I do understand your point, though, initially many people regarded self-driving cars as "AI" and that, of course, remains elusive. However, what the engineers quickly figured out was that you don't need to approach the problem as AI. There are much simpler heuristics--which is not surprising since driving is a background task for most humans.

bsder 11y ago

People said this about nav systems. I know I did. Sure, Google maps was great on the Interstate, but put it on the side roads of Pittsburgh, PA and nav was completely toast. Guess what? A couple years later and nav systems were better than 99% of people even in places like Pittsburgh. I haven't bought a Thomas Guide (remember those?) in 10 years, I think. It's going to be like this for self-driving cars. It will be slow progress for a while and then it will just go exponential. Part of the slow progress is that nobody wants to have the first fatality in a self-driving car as it will be an absolute PR disaster.

bsder 11y ago

> But they didn't drive that fast thinking that the snow was actually falling leaves or that the windshield was dirty or that the car was suddenly moving backwards, or any of the other ridiculous things that an AI will begin thinking when it falls out of a switch statement, encounters a case it wasn't trained on, or loses its GPS signal. Except that autonomous cars will have lidar and radar which sees through rain and snow, accelerometers and wheel monitors to integrate position even in the face of GPS loss, and infrared and ultraviolet cameras which can see much further than human eyes. You are right. Autonomous cars are worse right now. But they will be way better than humans really quickly. Look at how fast the DARPA challenge went from "can't complete the course" to "had to slow the vehicles down for safety".

CountSessine 11y ago
But they will be way better than humans really quickly I'm naturally suspicious of faith-based engineering.
- bsder 11y ago
  > I'm naturally suspicious of faith-based engineering. LOL. I like that comment. However, engineering is part science and part art. The art part often has a significant component of faith. Moore's Law is a good example of faith-based engineering--because we had faith it would happen we committed resources to make it happen. And that operated well for almost 40 years. I view self-driving cars in the same light--there is now faith that it will happen, so people are now committing resources to make it happen. And there don't seem to be any insurmountable problems (the biggest problems are "vision" being power and CPU intensive, but a car is a very high-density power source). I do understand your point, though, initially many people regarded self-driving cars as "AI" and that, of course, remains elusive. However, what the engineers quickly figured out was that you don't need to approach the problem as AI. There are much simpler heuristics--which is not surprising since driving is a background task for most humans.