Comment by tim333
7 months ago
Four years into people mocking "we'll have self driving cars next year" while they are on the street daily driving around SF.
7 months ago
Four years into people mocking "we'll have self driving cars next year" while they are on the street daily driving around SF.
They are self driving the same way a tram or subway can be self driving. They traffic a tightly bounded designated area. They're not competing with human drivers. Still a marvel of human engineering, just quite expensive compared with other forms of public transport. It just doesn't compete in the same space and likely never will.
They are literally competing with human uber drivers in the area they operate and also having a much lower crash and injury rate.
I admit they don't operate everywhere - only certain routes. Still they are undoubtedly cars that drive themselves.
I imagine it'll be the same with AGI. We'll have robots / AIs that are much smarter than the average human and people will be saying they don't count because humans win X Factor or something.
Self-driving vehicles can only exist in cities of extreme wealth like SF. Try running them in Philadelphia and see what happens.
How are they competing, if their routes are limited?
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They're driving, but not well in my (limited) interactions with them. I had a waymo run me completely out of my lane a couple months ago as it interpreted 2 lanes of left turn as an extra wide lane instead (or, worse, changed lanes during the turn without a blinker or checking its sensors, though that seems unlikely).
Yes, but ...
The argument that self-driving cars should be allowed on public roads as long as they are statistically as safe as human drivers (on average) seems valid, but of course none of these cars have AGI... they perform well in the anticipated simulator conditions in which they were trained (as long as they have the necessary sensors, e.g. Waymo's lidar, to read the environment in reliable fashion), but will not perform well in emergency/unanticipated conditions they were not trained on. Even outside of emergencies, Waymos still sometimes need to "phone home" for remote assistance in knowing what to do.
So, yes, they are out there, perhaps as safe on average as a human (I'd be interested to see a breakdown of the stats), but I'd not personally be comfortable riding in one since I'm not senile, drunk, teenager, hothead, distracted (using phone while driving), etc - not part of the class that are dragging the human safety stats down. I'd also not trust a Tesla where penny pinching, or just arrogant stupidity, has resulted in a sensor-poor design liable to failure modes like running into parked trucks.
The challenge is that most people think they’re better than average drivers.
I'm not sure what the "challenge" is there, but certainly true in terms of human psychology.
My point was that if you are part of one of these accident-prone groups, you are certainly worse than average, and are probably safer (both for yourself, and everyone around you) in a Waymo. However, if you are an intelligent non-impaired experienced driver, then maybe not, and almost certainly not if we're talking about emergency and dangerous situations which is where it really matters.
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In my lens, as long as companies don't want to be held liable for an accident, the shouldn't be on roads. They need to be extremely confident to the point of putting their money where their mouths are. That's true "safety".
That's the main difference with a human driver. If I take an Uber and we crash, that driver is liable. Waymo would fight tooth and nail to blame anything else.
Mercedes is doing this for specific places and conditions.
Well, it depends on the details. I'd trust a Waymo as much as an Uber but I'm pretty skeptical of the Tesla stuff they are launching in Austin.
I'm quoting Elon.
I don't care about SF. I care about what I can but as a typical American. Not as an enthusiast in one of the most technologically advanced cities on the planet
They’re in other cities too…
Other cities still isn't available to average American.
You read the words but missed their meaning
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