Comment by simmonmt
1 day ago
> When they want data about a school intersection in SF at a certain time of day, they just... synthetically generate it and simulate
I think it's more about detecting changes to the world. You need boots on the ground, so to speak, to see that new speed limit sign or the new lane paint. The Waymo vehicle can no doubt react to changes in the world when it encounters them, relaying them back to the mothership, but it's better to know about them in advance.
Most AVs, definitely Waymo vehicles, are self mapping. They can detect environment changes and relay it to the entire fleet. That's because they map using the same vehicles as the fleet.
>You need boots on the ground, so to speak, to see that new speed limit sign or the new lane paint.
It'll shock you to know that you can simply get this from governments, some even provide this in API form
It probably won't shock you to know that those sources of data can be months to even years delayed from what's actually out in the world.
no visual data, you need picture data for that. companies like NC tech do it for like $1m a city. or thereabouts.
> or the new lane paint.
I'd be surprised if this is a thing outside the biggest US (and European, for that matter) cities, judging from Google StreetView there are lots of streets in US cities/towns with almost no paint lines at all.
Do you mean in the API? I live in an European country and I don't think I ever saw an asphalt road without paint lines. This varies a lot between countries though.
4 replies →
That’s dumb then. It shows it’s just brute force rather than AI.
A human doesn’t need to be shown every single road that exists in order to drive.
That's true, but the human can do a much better job planning for the journey if they know what to expect along the way.
One example, from the end of the journey: knowing in advance where the actual entrance to the business is, or the specific curb cut that leads to the residence, makes it easier and far less error prone to decide exactly where the journey should end. Even humans have a hard time figuring out the right access point for a business or residence. This is a job for an offline process, fed by as many data sources as possible.
Just a bunch of sophisticated if statements, I guess.