Comment by JumpCrisscross
1 day ago
> it doesn't even snow there
My Subaru can lane keep in a Wyoming blizzard. There isn’t some unsolved technical problem with snow for any system with radar, i.e. anyone who isn’t Tesla.
Keep in mind that like a fifth of Americans and half of humans live somewhere is rarely or never snows.
I guess once they demonstrate it working smoothly and profitably in cities like Boston, NY, Detroit, etc. I'll be more concerned? Given that it doesn't really even work too well in places with good signage, lane markings, etc--not to mention no weather--I'm not worried yet. And frankly I'm done with "the future". If it doesn't deliver results now, it's not real. Until it's real, it's nothing to get alarmed about.
> cities like Boston
Couldn't come soon enough [1].
> Given that it doesn't really even work too well in places with good signage, lane markings, etc
Works fine in Phoenix, Miami and Los Angeles. Plenty of neighbourhoods there have non-existent, defaced and degraded signage and markings.
> Until it's real, it's nothing to get alarmed about
I don't think there is anything to be alarmed about, period. Driving is a silly job when you think about it. We made these machines to do our bidding, not enslave us behind their wheels.
My belief in a smooth roll-out is reinforced by those who would probably oppose AVs also not believing it's real. Once the first factory mass manufacturing AVs breaks ground, any limited local opposition can be preëmpted.
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/shorts/back-to-boston/
> My belief in a smooth roll-out is reinforced by those who would probably oppose AVs also not believing it's real. Once the first factory mass manufacturing AVs breaks ground, any limited local opposition can be preëmpted.
I'm having trouble parsing this. If I understand correctly, you're taking skepticism that AV's work as somehow reinforcement that they do work? I have no idea what "limited local opposition can be preempted" means either.. I guess to me it seems the problems are pretty real? Like, police departments are struggling to figure out how to deal with all the Waymos that just randomly tweak out and block traffic, or violate the rules of the road. This is what happens when a bunch of silicon valley con artists try to sell some half-baked plan--it's all about forcing it down everyone's throats and making it "uncool" to be opposed to it for any reason at all. Not merely fake it til you make it, but gaslight everyone into believing anyone who doesn't play along with the fantasy is wrong. Is that what you mean by "preempting local opposition"? Because that's super fucked up.
> Driving is a silly job when you think about it.
OK, so, literally everything that makes your life good you owe to these "silly" workers. Truck drivers make your life possible. You should probably think about that for a bit. Yes, it's a hard job. It's not a particularly fun one. It's dangerous. But it's absolutely necessary because despite the fantasists' and charlatans' claims it absolutely cannot be automated. For all we know, it may never be. That's not to say there's no reason to try--I would love to see road transport be made safer. But there's no clear path from where we are right now to that future, and to claim it's "obvious" or "inevitable" is simply to lie.
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