Waymo Testing Self-Driving Cars on Public Roads with No One at the Wheel, Ridehailing in a Few Month - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Psychokitten;52868327]Training is expensive and time-consuming. If you're making shit pay and living on the road, how are you supposed to make the switch?[/QUOTE] State-run training centers exist nearly everywhere, and the majority of the time, they're free. It's not like being a truck driver is exactly a high-skill position, so pivoting may be as simple as avoiding training entirely and just filing applications for jobs that aren't in immediate peril before your ass is on the road.

The creepiest thing about these kinda things is that big companies like Google will know where you have been driving and what places you visit at all times.

I'm looking forward to this but it will still be awhile before all jackasses on the road disappear.

[QUOTE=Amakir;52868464]The creepiest thing about these kinda things is that big companies like Google will know where you have been driving and what places you visit at all times.[/QUOTE] who cares what Google knows what I'm doing. The worst I can get is more specific targeted ads that I'm just going to ignore when I browse the web.

[QUOTE=Amakir;52868464]The creepiest thing about these kinda things is that big companies like Google will know where you have been driving and what places you visit at all times.[/QUOTE] That's already a thing with Google's (optional) location history. [QUOTE=Matrix374;52868687]who cares what Google knows what I'm doing. The worst I can get is more specific targeted ads that I'm just going to ignore when I browse the web.[/QUOTE] And that's why I have location history enabled. It's useful for me to know where I was on a specific day in the past and as long as Google shows me all the data it has about me I don't mind it too much. Shit gets shady if I don't have access to my own data and can't delete it manually.

Google location history on my pixel saved me from a 70mph ticket in a 40mph zone. I thought it was originally me since the ticket was in London and I happened to be in London around that time. I wasn't going to oppose the ticket until I checked my location history and it turned out I was in London two days before the ticket and whilst I was in London I had never driven on the specific road where it was caught. Challenged it and turned out the cameras had mis-identified my plates. Phew! [editline]8th November 2017[/editline] Would have never challenged it unless Google had given me the confidence to say it definitely wasn't me.

[QUOTE=BlackWolf97;52867087]Overhearing a truck driver explain why self-driving cars are worthless was the highlight of my week when it happened. The raw pettiness was just too real. He all but admitted "These cant become a thing because it undermines 100% of my value as a worker"[/QUOTE] Automation is a real problem that governments are likely going to take too long to address, leading to a shitload of poverty.

[QUOTE=Matrix374;52868687]who cares what Google knows what I'm doing. The worst I can get is more specific targeted ads that I'm just going to ignore when I browse the web.[/QUOTE] Its more how the tech can be abused. Imagine a scenario where a political activist against a facist regime suddenly gets tracked down and captured/killed because of the car they rode in. Imagine if Google for some reason supported this regime because it gave them profit.

Y'know, I'm mostly curious as to how these things handle inclement weather. Like, how well do they handle black ice? Fog? Wall-clouds? 90MPH wind gusts?

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;52868908]Y'know, I'm mostly curious as to how these things handle inclement weather. Like, how well do they handle black ice? Fog? Wall-clouds? 90MPH wind gusts?[/QUOTE] Honest to god question: how will they handle bad road conditions like loose gravel, deep potholes and just general shit in the road. I mean I’m sure the lasers are good but I worry about it not detecting some of the monster traps that we have in my town

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;52868920]Honest to god question: how will they handle bad road conditions like loose gravel, deep potholes and just general shit in the road. I mean I’m sure the lasers are good but I worry about it not detecting some of the monster traps that we have in my town[/QUOTE] I'm more concerned about them driving on roads with shitty or no markings. Every time you see a demo of the Tesla self-driving, it is pretty clearly in an area with clean roads and good painted markings. As soon as you get snow, or you drive in an area where the roads are just a free for all (much of the northeast), what happens? I know that Tesla has a safeguard mode that uses obstructions (such as a curb or, theoretically, a snowbank) to help guide it along, but I would never think about using that in traffic. There is also the problem that in much of the northeast, you have to drive like a fucking maniac to get anywhere. You have to jam in at merges, you have to floor it for left turns, etc. I can very easily see a self-driving car getting stuck in bad traffic. Also, how would a self-driving car handle a flagger controlling contraflow or a detour? How does a self-driving truck handle non-MUTCD-compliant signs on truck restrictions? Or any vehicle with non-MUTCD signage? I just feel like what we've actually seen of self-driving cars so far has been demonstrated in a California bubble of perfect road conditions. I'm excited for self-driving cars but I'm not very convinced that the technology is advanced and flexible enough to handle these quirks outside the "bubble".

[QUOTE=Amakir;52868464]The creepiest thing about these kinda things is that big companies like Google will know where you have been driving and what places you visit at all times.[/QUOTE] That's likely already the case with most highly computerized cars. Tesla's pretty open about how much data it collects on your driving habits. [editline]8th November 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Snowmew;52868937] Also, how would a self-driving car handle a flagger controlling contraflow or a detour? How does a self-driving truck handle non-MUTCD-compliant signs on truck restrictions? Or any vehicle with non-MUTCD signage? I just feel like what we've actually seen of self-driving cars so far has been demonstrated in a California bubble of perfect road conditions. I'm excited for self-driving cars but I'm not very convinced that the technology is advanced and flexible enough to handle these quirks outside the "bubble".[/QUOTE] I suspect they've been trained for most of those situations; in terms of the California bubble of road conditions, I think that's partially why this test is in a suburb of Phoenix; road conditions/weather will be extremely consistent. They are sending a bunch of cars to Detroit for testing/training in bad road conditions. I think their goal is to get it working in areas with good roads, roll it out, then gradually progress to areas with less hospitable conditions. [url]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-26/alphabet-s-waymo-will-test-self-driving-cars-in-wintry-detroit[/url]

[QUOTE=Harbie;52869101]I suspect they've been trained for most of those situations; in terms of the California bubble of road conditions, I think that's partially why this test is in a suburb of Phoenix; road conditions/weather will be extremely consistent. They are sending a bunch of cars to Detroit for testing/training in bad road conditions. I think their goal is to get it working in areas with good roads, roll it out, then gradually progress to areas with less hospitable conditions. [url]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-26/alphabet-s-waymo-will-test-self-driving-cars-in-wintry-detroit[/url][/QUOTE] Detroit is a step up from California (well, a step down) but the main problem in my opinion is severe traffic combined with every-man-for-himself road conditions, and you will be that you just can't make the system aggressive enough without sacrificing safety. I remember someone here posted an article about the Tesla system working in NYC, and it turned out that it was only briefly tested on a large, straight ring road with light traffic. How does a self-driving car emulate the frustrated rage of a driver who can't find a free space to merge, for example? Here, the only people who don't just cram their car into a gap inches wide with total disregard for the drivers behind them are out-of-staters, and they have a very common tendency to really fuck up our shitty merges by sitting there with their blinker on like a scared little idiot. I mean, you either have a road rage AI (which is dangerous and goes against the point of self-driving) or you just never get to your destination in, at a minimum, the NYC area.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52871505]Detroit is a step up from California (well, a step down) but the main problem in my opinion is severe traffic combined with every-man-for-himself road conditions, and you will be that you just can't make the system aggressive enough without sacrificing safety. I remember someone here posted an article about the Tesla system working in NYC, and it turned out that it was only briefly tested on a large, straight ring road with light traffic. How does a self-driving car emulate the frustrated rage of a driver who can't find a free space to merge, for example? Here, the only people who don't just cram their car into a gap inches wide with total disregard for the drivers behind them are out-of-staters, and they have a very common tendency to really fuck up our shitty merges by sitting there with their blinker on like a scared little idiot. I mean, you either have a road rage AI (which is dangerous and goes against the point of self-driving) or you just never get to your destination in, at a minimum, the NYC area.[/QUOTE] This is really just a (relatively) short-term issue; once self-driving cars become--by law--the only cars on the road (unless the car insurance and transportation driver unions lobbyist manages to turn self-driving cars into the next nuclear; fear mongered into being regulated effectively to death), aggressive behavior being required to get anywhere because people can't share the road if they aren't forced to won't be necessary.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52871505]Detroit is a step up from California (well, a step down) but the main problem in my opinion is severe traffic combined with every-man-for-himself road conditions, and you will be that you just can't make the system aggressive enough without sacrificing safety. I remember someone here posted an article about the Tesla system working in NYC, and it turned out that it was only briefly tested on a large, straight ring road with light traffic. How does a self-driving car emulate the frustrated rage of a driver who can't find a free space to merge, for example? Here, the only people who don't just cram their car into a gap inches wide with total disregard for the drivers behind them are out-of-staters, and they have a very common tendency to really fuck up our shitty merges by sitting there with their blinker on like a scared little idiot. I mean, you either have a road rage AI (which is dangerous and goes against the point of self-driving) or you just never get to your destination in, at a minimum, the NYC area.[/QUOTE] Seeing as many of these vehicles are taught with some sort of machine learning, I can imagine a car learning how to drive "aggressively" but also safely. But it would require more advanced vision systems and more computing horsepower in order to tell not only how far away and fast that oncoming car is, but whether or not there'll be a chance to do anything once that one passes. Wall-clouds are a different story altogether. You literally go from "I can see just fine!" to "CAN'T SEE SHIT CAP'N!" in mere seconds.

[QUOTE=DaMastez;52872078]This is really just a (relatively) short-term issue; once self-driving cars become--by law--the only cars on the road (unless the car insurance and transportation driver unions lobbyist manages to turn self-driving cars into the next nuclear; fear mongered into being regulated effectively to death), aggressive behavior being required to get anywhere because people can't share the road if they aren't forced to won't be necessary.[/QUOTE] The only cars on the road being fully self-driving cars with no manual control whatsoever is, in my opinion, a pipe dream. Allow me to expand on why I believe this. Well-developed autonomous systems can do certain things much better than humans; maintaining parameters (speed, staying in lane, etc), reaction times, number of factors that can be paid attention to at a given time, and of course, they can't doze off or be distracted by a phone or the scenery. This is exactly the same case as aviation, where I'm from. These two environments differ in the fact that the environment on the ground is much more complex with a lot more going on than in the air; but maintaining the parameters of a car isn't as important as maintaining those of a plane. However, there's certain things that autonomous systems can't do, mostly involving things where actual thinking is involved, and also certain "vulnerabilities" they have. This is why you're never going to see comercial planes with nobody flying them in our lifetime, and also the reason why you won't have cars with the impossibility of manual take over the market in our lifetime either. Are situations where thinking is involved standard situations? Both in aviation and on the road, not exactly, it's mostly routine procedures. In the case of driving to and from work, doing the usual route while making sure you don't hit anything using muscle memory and relying on reactions, and sometimes deciding if you should turn into your exit now or if you have the speed and the room to pass that slow guy who intends to do the same. However, the environment on the ground is a lot more prone to change than the enviroment on the air. An easy example I'm sure a lot can relate to; On a single-lane road, a car may be broken down, causing you to have to go around it in a way that deviates from the standard. (going into the oncoming lane momentarily, for example). A fully autonomous car would need the ability to tell when it's okay to deviate from the rules and when it's not, depending on a number of factors which may or may not be in the scope of the car's analysis. Situations like these may not be the standard but they happen often enough that a manual override would be absolutely necessary. I could name more examples if you wish but I'm sure you can come up with a bunch of them yourself. Another example that follows more or less the same line as my previous one; in my city, parking spaces are few, so parking on the sidewalk is a necessity for anyone that arrives home after 6/7 PM. Without the ability to control the car manually, the car would probably wander for a great while until it found a "proper" parking space, likely a great distance away. Next, there's roads where the conditions are not ideal. An autonomous car may do very well in a place like San Francisco, where the signage and road painting is optimal. But even in metropolitan environments, there's places where the conditions aren't as ideal, and if we start going into rural places, even moreso. Roads with no painting whatsoever, roads with barely any signs, dirt roads, roads that can barely even be called "roads", are all situations I encounter more often the less the population density is. Potholes, etc are a factor soo. Not difficult for a human driver, but for something "objective" like an autonomous vehicle, it may not be that easy. Next, there's the question that different vehicles have different purpose. Emergency vehicles, offroad vehicles. The only way I can imagine an offroad vehicle with no manual control working is if you're contantly pressing a screen to tell it where you want to go; at which point, it may as well just be a manual vehicle. Then there's the question of wether it knows which obstacles it can avoid and how to avoid them, and what obstacles to just drive through because it has enough ground clearance. And finally, there's the question of motorcycles. Would they be outlawed as well, since there's the most unsafe vehicle statistically? It's a popular vehicle because of the low price and low running costs, banning them is not realistic. The thing is, you and some others on this forum seem to have this misconception that cars have [I]any need at all[/I] to be fully autonomous to get all the benefits that these technologies can give us. That's not the case at all. In aviation, autonomous systems serve the purpose of not to rid the pilot of their duties, but to reduce their workload and also protect them from controlled flight into terrain, stalling, collision with other aircraft via TCAS, etc. You can have both the benefits of manual driving with the benefits of autonomous safety, if fact, that's the most realistic thing. Rough sensors that stop you from bumping into the car in front if you get distracted have existed for a long time and they're just now becoming the standard rather than an optional extra, but some high-end new cars from Volvo and Mercedes are already starting to come with greatly advanced safety features derived from the sort of technology that is used in these autonomous car projects. Technology that detects pedestrians and stops you crashing into them (whether on purpose or accicdentally), technology that keeps you in your lane in case you doze off (or just during normal driving, even), technology that keeps you from having a crash by sensing other vehicles and obstacles and comparing your speed with the distance with the obstacle, technology that stops you accidentally taking a corner so fast that you lose grip and understeer into a wall. These features becoming the standard rather than optional extras will happen way before vehicles with no manual control whatseover take off in the market. Which is why I don't think truck drivers should be worried as much about their jobs as they are; sure, in the future they might spend most of the time "monitoring" the truck rather than actually driving, but I doubt they really want to drive for 10 hours straight on a motorway in the first place.

So, how much is a trip on a driverless taxi?

I hope they give them some emotion. I hate it when I use the voice controls on my devices and I say "thank you" and my computer or phone doesn't say "you're welcome". I just want to thank my devices for doing a good job

Honestly, the sooner we have less piss heads fucking bombing it up and down residential roads, the better.

[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;52883163] long post[/QUOTE] Most of the situations you describe don't sound particularly challenging for self driving cars. I think Waymo's cars are already capable of overtaking. Not being able to see lines isn't that big of a deal either, even Tesla's less advanced system can handle that by basing it on GPS. If humans can do it with just two eyes it's probably not impossible for a computer to do it just as well. Off road vehicles might never be fully autonomous because it doesn't really make sense for them to be.

And of course, this is where ethics gets interesting. For governments to take interest in making self-driving cars mandatory, it won't take self-driving cars being perfect. All they'll have to do is better than human-driven cars... which they already are. But I bring up the ethics because, of course, stuff will still happen in weird situations. There's a lot of fear behind something being beyond your control.

[QUOTE=DETrooper;52866589]RIP transportation jobs.[/QUOTE] I don't think people understand what this means... A big part of the uneducated white men population will be out of a job, i honestly think it will get a lot worse before it gets better. I expect riots and maybe even more horrific events. There are 3.5 million truckdrivers in the US and the number of unemployed in nov 2016 was 7.4 million.

[QUOTE=Orki;52889430]I don't think people understand what this means... A big part of the uneducated white men population will be out of a job, i honestly think it will get a lot worse before it gets better. I expect riots and maybe even more horrific events. There are 3.5 million truckdrivers in the US and the number of unemployed in nov 2016 was 7.4 million.[/QUOTE] Replacing entire truck fleets is going to be pretty expensive. There are also the logistic concerns with having an unsupervised truck driving around - we're going to need to retrain and upgrade factories and distribution terminals to deal with autonomous trucks by guiding them to loading docks and whatnot. There is also the looming question of the legality of autonomous commercial interstate vehicles, and don't expect the feds and every state with an interstate to give the all-clear anytime soon. The autonomous revolution is going to be finished someday but it's not happening overnight. If you're studying to be a truck driver right now, you're wasting your time, but current drivers are going to have enough opportunity to retrain. Whether they see the writing on the wall is another question.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52892833]If you're studying to be a truck driver right now, you're wasting your time, but current drivers are going to have enough opportunity to retrain. Whether they see the writing on the wall is another question.[/QUOTE] Unlikely that it'll become a problem in their lifetime. And I wouldn't say those training to be a truck driver right now are wasting their time either; even when the technology is eventually good enough for the truck to do 99% of trips on their own, there's always going to be situations that require human intervention, especially in countries like Russia. Truck drivers might see their jobs being reduced to mostly just sitting in the truck making sure it's doing the right thing (kinda like Emirates pilots, I guess), but people sitting in trucks aren't going away anytime soon, regardless of silicon valley's automation utopia dreams.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52884878]There's a lot of fear behind something being beyond your control.[/QUOTE] Like other drivers?

[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;52893032]Unlikely that it'll become a problem in their lifetime. And I wouldn't say those training to be a truck driver right now are wasting their time either; even when the technology is eventually good enough for the truck to do 99% of trips on their own, there's always going to be situations that require human intervention, especially in countries like Russia. Truck drivers might see their jobs being reduced to mostly just sitting in the truck making sure it's doing the right thing (kinda like Emirates pilots, I guess), but people sitting in trucks aren't going away anytime soon, regardless of silicon valley's automation utopia dreams.[/QUOTE] I figure that in the next ~30 years, you are going to see a lot of major shipping routes (mainly on the west coast) become automated. Dumping more people into the transportation labor pool isn't particularly wise when the industry is going to start contracting. Wages go out of whack real quick in response to things like that. But undoubtedly we are going to see legislation kick in that "saves" these jobs.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;52866698]I would not ride in one of those even if you paid me. You can't really guarantee that the system isn't going to fail and end up killing yourself or other people, even aircraft which have some of the most advanced computer systems that have been developed for decades still fail on occasion. If you can manually take control in an emergency then that's fine but I still think it's a bad idea, people riding it at are hardly going to be paying much attention to the road like a normal driver would.[/QUOTE] I see your point but then let me remind you how many things humans do wrong behind the wheel

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52884878] But I bring up the ethics because, of course, stuff will still happen in weird situations. There's a lot of fear behind something being beyond your control.[/QUOTE] Doesn't stop people using public transport which is still beyond their control if a driver fucks up.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;52866698]I would not ride in one of those even if you paid me. You can't really guarantee that the system isn't going to fail and end up killing yourself or other people, even aircraft which have some of the most advanced computer systems that have been developed for decades still fail on occasion. If you can manually take control in an emergency then that's fine but I still think it's a bad idea, people riding it at are hardly going to be paying much attention to the road like a normal driver would.[/QUOTE] can't guarantee your computer is going to blow up right as you were typing this post, but you did it anwyays

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52892833]If you're studying to be a truck driver right now, you're wasting your time[/quote] [QUOTE=Snowmew;52893172]I figure that in the next ~30 years, you are going to see a lot of major shipping routes (mainly on the west coast) become automated. Dumping more people into the transportation labor pool isn't particularly wise when the industry is going to start contracting. Wages go out of whack real quick in response to things like that. But undoubtedly we are going to see legislation kick in that "saves" these jobs.[/QUOTE] Maybe the generic box runs, but there's a lot more to trucking than that. Oversized loads, tankers, and (especially) hazmat require additional manpower and oversight. Some of the weird niches pay very well too. There are a lot of owner/operators pulling in 200-300k a year. In an industry where many people are effectively making below minimum wage, that kind of paycheck doesn't happen without at least some kind of hard to replicate skills/knowledge. If it did, those paychecks would plummet as people flooded into those careers. Yeah, long distance trucking requires a certain disposition, but a lot of people will put up with a lot worse to make ~150k, let alone double that. Those jobs will be automated eventually, but the oddball ones are a lot harder to completely automate because a lot of the parameters surrounding a run vary from job to job, or require manual inspections that would depend on complex sensor arrays that aren't going to be cheap to produce in small numbers.