It's a remnant of the era when we believed in using gov't investment to lay the groundwork for private investment.  The gov't reaps the rewards through taxes.

It's a remnant of the era when we believed in using gov't investment to lay the groundwork for private investment.  The gov't reaps the rewards through taxes.

 

The National Institutes of Health is now (last 10 years or so) regularly collecting royalties from its patents and inventions and sharing the proceeds with the staff involved. Imagine if DARPA got royalties for the Internet - no more federal deficit.

It's a remnant of the era when we believed in using gov't investment to lay the groundwork for private investment.  The gov't reaps the rewards through taxes.

 

The National Institutes of Health is now (last 10 years or so) regularly collecting royalties from its patents and inventions and sharing the proceeds with the staff involved. Imagine if DARPA got royalties for the Internet - no more federal deficit.

 

Or a lot less Internet and all the various companies that use it, and possibly even a balkanized world of competing Internets set up by foreign governments who wouldn't want to pay the U.S. government royalties.

Yawn.  We now have a consistent pattern with these stories:

 

1. clickbait headline tells you that some driverless vehicle just did something (stunt was not announced ahead of time -- of course).

2. No video or photos -- certainly none from an independent journalist.

3. article tells you there was actually a driver aboard

4. article tells you the driverless vehicle had *almost* no problems

 

Also, a level 2 driverless truck?  What good is that except for free publicity?  These things are useless until they are 100% level 5 autonomous. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/embark-self-driving-semi-completes-203400076.html

 

 

Here's yet another one that follows that exact pattern:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/03/06/uber-trucks-start-shuttling-goods-arizona-no-drivers/397123002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-techtopstories

 

Self-driving Uber car hits, kills pedestrian in Arizona

 

Tempe Police says the vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and a vehicle operator was also behind the wheel. No passengers were in the vehicle at the time.

I hope there's timestamps when it switches from auto to manual and recorded in a way that officers could verify it themselves. Otherwise, anyone could blame a murder or vehicular homicide on the auto mode.

 

If there was a driver in the car, what was he doing? He's not supposed to be paying attention? He couldn't hit the breaks?

 

^I'd bet that the circumstances surrounding this incident were very unusual.  But then again, so are the circumstances surrounding many accidents. 

 

 

Here's yet another one that follows that exact pattern:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/03/06/uber-trucks-start-shuttling-goods-arizona-no-drivers/397123002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-techtopstories

 

 

 

And another one:

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/08/technology/starsky-self-driving-truck-florida/index.html

 

 

 

They’ll probably rush out a software fix and get approved to resume testing. Which will be fine until the next software bug or unforeseen combination of software bugs causes the next accident. And then we’ll all get to be test subjects as company B and company C refine their own software versions as well.

Theyll probably rush out a software fix and get approved to resume testing. Which will be fine until the next software bug or unforeseen combination of software bugs causes the next accident. And then well all get to be test subjects as company B and company C refine their own software versions as well.

 

My guess is that the really big money is in driverless trucks, not cars.  And so I think we're going to see a very strong push to close off the interstate and state highways to exclusive driverless use during some overnight hours and possibly during the day.  The trucking companies that run terminal-to-terminal trucks overnight would love this.  "Waves" of driverless trucks could leave a city at the same time in the middle of the night and get to the next one on a regular schedule...like a train.  In theory a Level 4 truck could do this. 

 

But I think getting trucks to level 5 is going to be even more difficult than getting cars there.  A jackknifed driverless truck has the potential to kill A LOT of people and cause A LOT of property damage. 

 

 

 

^I'd bet that the circumstances surrounding this incident were very unusual.  But then again, so are the circumstances surrounding many accidents. 

 

This article has some detail. The Sheriff's opinion based on the video is that the Uber was not at fault:

 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Exclusive-Tempe-police-chief-says-early-probe-12765481.php

 

Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode.

 

“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” said Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Ariz., the location for the first pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”

 

...

 

From viewing the videos, “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir said. The police have not released the videos.

from early reports someone stepped out into the street outside of a crosswalk right in front of the car. Hard for a computer to catch erratic pedestrians. Even harder when travelling 40 mph at night. A human likely would have hit the person too. There's only so much an autonomous car can detect. According to the driver behind the wheel (who wasn't actually driving at the time) he didn't see the pedestrian until they made contact.

The video is out from the driverless Uber wreck.  The pedestrian, the driverless car, AND the standby driver mess-up, big-time.  The pedestrian was clearly jaywalking with their bicycle but there is no explanation for why the car didn't detect it.  Meanwhile, the backup driver was on Facebook or Twitter instead of paying attention to the road. 

Most of this stuff is going to struggle with nighttime more than people think.

^ I wonder how much the car relies upon input from the camera versus input from other types of sensors. The video makes it look like the woman came out of nowhere, but in reality the naked eye has a much higher dynamic range than the type of cameras used as dash cams. If the driver wouldn't have been looking down at her cell phone, she should have been able to see the woman crossing the street. If the car were using the same types of sensors park-assist technology has been using for over a decade now, it should have detected the pedestrian.

 

But of course, people will see this video and say "wow she came out of nowhere" and there probably won't even be a debate about these types of details. People assume video evidence tells the whole story when half the time it's completely misleading.

Arizona Governor orders halt to uber's driverless car program in his state:

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/26/technology/arizona-suspends-uber-self-driving-cars/index.html?iid=surge-story-summary

What do those cities even get out of being Uber or Waymo's guinea pigs? Why the hell would cities want to be a test market before all the kinks are worked out? They enjoy feeling special?  :D  ::)

What do those cities even get out of being Uber or Waymo's guinea pigs? Why the hell would cities want to be a test market before all the kinks are worked out? They enjoy feeling special?  :D  ::)

 

They get to say they're on the bleeding edge of technology.  In this case, literally. 

What happens when you're pulled over by the police for traffic violations in a driverless car that wasn't in manual? Can you still face points and citations? How easy is it to prove you weren't in manual? Are you allowed to be intoxicated in a driverless car, as long as it's in auto?  Are you technically even operating it? Who should be issued the citation? SOMEONE is getting a citation because they have a quota to meet.

At this juncture, Autopilot is a misnomer, as many others have observed. “This is not self-driving technology,” said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist and expert on autonomous vehicle technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a collaborative system that leaves responsibility for safety in the drivers’ hands and isn’t intended to let them sit in the back seat or pursue other activities while driving.” Even though some companies have said they plan driverless ride services in as little as two years, Reimer said full automation was likely to be many years or even decades in the future.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/04/05/with-tesla-in-a-danger-zone-can-model-3-carry-it.html

 

 

Driverless pizza delivery developers acknowledge that it won't work as well in cities as in suburbs because drunks will harass the vehicle:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-11/nuro-s-driverless-cars-don-t-have-to-worry-about-passenger-safety

Uber has cancelled its driverless car program in Pittsburgh.  We'd all love to know the real reasons, but we are left to speculate. 

Venkatesh Rao

‏

 

@vgr

Aug 4

More

Just hit me that at say $3/gallon and say 40mpg, it would be cheaper for a self-driving gasoline car to just circle around than park anywhere at more than $3/hr. At say $0.5/mile fully loaded operating cost it’s not worth parking above $20/h.

 

The loitering car cloud is coming.

 

Hopefully when/if that become an issue there will be regulations about when and how driverless cars can actually truly be driverless. If nobody is in it it shouldn't be able to do anything other than a bee line straight to the driver or to a parking space.

Venkatesh Rao

‏

 

@vgr

Aug 4

More

Just hit me that at say $3/gallon and say 40mpg, it would be cheaper for a self-driving gasoline car to just circle around than park anywhere at more than $3/hr. At say $0.5/mile fully loaded operating cost it’s not worth parking above $20/h.

 

The loitering car cloud is coming.

 

 

Deadheading personal AV's will be the end of society.

Is that guy famous?  I thought of that on my own 5 years ago, at least.  Ah yes, back in 2012 we were told AV were going to be here by 2015.  Now it's 2018 and they're going to be here by 2021.  In 2021 they're going to be here in 2025. 

Venkatesh Rao

‏

 

@vgr

Aug 4

More

Just hit me that at say $3/gallon and say 40mpg, it would be cheaper for a self-driving gasoline car to just circle around than park anywhere at more than $3/hr. At say $0.5/mile fully loaded operating cost it’s not worth parking above $20/h.

 

The loitering car cloud is coming.

 

 

Deadheading personal AV's will be the end of society.

 

The only solution to this problem is congestion pricing that charges you for the amount of time you spend driving on city streets. Same concept as parking meters, just applied to the driving lanes too. You pay for your usage of a public asset.

Kroger launches driverless delivery at one store in Arizona, except they're using a driverless Toyota Prius with -- you guessed it -- a driver in it:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/16/kroger-launches-driverless-delivery-today.html

 

This crap is just to convince stockholders that they're trying something and to trick white collar recruits into thinking they're working for a tech company. 

Unclear if these robots will be observed by a real human being in a chase car or if they're really turning them loose:

https://www.wcpo.com/money/business-news/kroger-nuro-launch-delivery-service-using-unmanned-vehicles

 

 

 

 

As usual, more autonomous vehicle technology was on display at this year's CES. This autonomous "taxi" from a Russian company called Yandex looks like it works well. However it only operates along specific routes that the company has already "mapped". What "mapped" means in this context (and how difficult and time consuming it is to do) is not really explained.

 

Last year, one of the rideshare companies had self-driving rideshare cars at CES. But the catch was that you could not specify a destination, only select from specific destinations on a route that had been, you guessed it, already mapped.

 

So it seems like all of the companies making autonomous car technology are at about the same point. Detecting nearby cars, changing lanes, stopping for traffic lights ... they've got all of that stuff down. But typing in a destination and pressing "go" is not going to be possible until they figure out how to make it work on any given street, not just pre-mapped ones.

So they have just passed the point of the WVU PRT from the '70s then.

As usual, there is a dude there to "take over if anything happens". 

 

I think getting into one of these with no dude is a totally different psychological experience than one with a dude.  There are a couple times when I've thought about this while driving at freeway speeds and imagined riding in a vehicle with zero control surfaces.  No wheel, no pedals.  It was terrifying. 

 

Also, for those of us with herniated discs, the thought of even a minor accident is terrifying.  On new year's eve I was rear-ended at about 1mph.  It didn't leave a mark on the bumper or bump it, but nevertheless I had the hint of whiplash.  A strange tension down my back and around the front of my shoulders.  Since I already have a herniated disc in my neck from an incident that didn't involve a car, I think it was exaggerated, but the bottom line is that whiplash is not a joke.  It ruins your life.  It causes you to get addicted to painkillers. 

 

But self-driving cars are going to be safer, even though they don't actually exist...

 

 

...I mean, in 10 years, if self-driving demos look pretty much the same as what we saw here, won't self-driving cars become a cultural joke?  I have no doubt that it will work as campus circulators and to drive you in and out from long-term parking, but there is simply no way that this is going to tackle the endless variety of driving situations that we expect a car to work in. 

Edited January 16, 20196 yr by jmecklenborg

In the sixth minute, engineer doubts that driverless trucks will exist within 10 years or even 30 years:

 

 

 

Small stickers on the ground trick Tesla autopilot into steering into opposing traffic lane

 

Much more seriously, they were able to use "small stickers" on the ground to effect a "fake lane attack" that fooled the autopilot into steering into the opposite lanes where oncoming traffic would be moving. This worked even when the targeted vehicle was operating in daylight without snow, dust or other interference.

Last month I was driving in the right lane of a 3-lane section of I-74.  In my driver's side mirror I saw a Tesla lane change from the passing lane into the center lane...and right into my blind spot.  I don't know if it was on autopilot or not, but that seems like the sort of thing that should not be allowed by autopilot-type systems. 

A database that keeps knows of the blind spots of every vehicle ever made would be required for that.

It should be criminal to release self-driving software at this stage of its development to the general public. If it only works on highways, and fails this spectacularly on city streets, drivers should only be able to activate it on highways. Or they should wait until it's fully baked before putting into actual cars that people can buy and drive.

 

 

Self-driving cars will be considered unthinkable 50 years from now

The vision of the “smart city” of the future involves driverless cars. Driverless trucks. Driverless buses. Driverless trains. But what happens to the space inside vehicles when nobody is driving? Is it really a smart social strategy to get rid of drivers?

 

Recently, I rode a bus uptown in Manhattan with a visibly disoriented and distressed man. As we passed 14th Street, the man got up from his seat and started throwing air punches and talking loudly to an imaginary companion. Those of us seated near him started to lean away and wonder if we ought to move.

 

Quote

It doesn’t feel safe to imagine riding in a shared driverless vehicle. Not just because the technology doesn’t work — but because it doesn’t feel safe to be alone in a small, enclosed space with strange men.

 

Ah yes the safety boogeyman. Apparently bus drivers are unsung heroes for rescuing helpless women from other passengers.

 

I suppose the author of that story has never been in a train with more than one car?

A big downside of driverless cars I hadn't considered before.....

 

 

You'd still be giving up 3 hours of your day, everyday.  I don't think the time commuters will travel will change much.  There will always be supercommuters, but 30 minutes will still be the rule for most.

the difference for commuters is what you can and cannot do with the commute time depending on the mode.

21 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

the difference for commuters is what you can and cannot do with the commute time depending on the mode.

 

This is certainly a huge attraction of Tesla's self-driving technology even in the state it exists today.  I did my first two long-range trips with this in the last month (once to Columbus, once to Toronto ... or, well, Mississauga).  The highway miles really are much less stressful once you get past the initial "who's driving this thing?!?!" hump.  And it allowed me to pay much more attention to my children in the backseat.

 

Doesn't work on city streets yet but I'm sure we'll be there in the next few years, especially with the next-gen hardware coming out very soon.

39 minutes ago, X said:

You'd still be giving up 3 hours of your day, everyday.  I don't think the time commuters will travel will change much.  There will always be supercommuters, but 30 minutes will still be the rule for most.

 

I'm familiar with PNC executives and at least one manufacturing executive who hire drivers for their multiple weekly trips between Cleveland and Pittsburgh so they can stay productive while traveling. I'm sure there are other places where this happens, but in the absence of passenger rail services (or even a business-class bus service), this is one market that is pushing for self-driving cars.

China is all about chauffers.

Everybody's so desperate for 1995 to 2010-style changes without realizing that was all just screen stuff. But if you tell them things are going to keep changing because of you they might throw money at you for a while. Then stop. Remember, "promises" usually come from children, politicians and crooks.

 

 

The Long and Lucrative Mirage of the Driverless Car

For years, Silicon Valley giants and Detroit automakers alike have sold the public visions of a utopia featuring autonomous vehicles. That reality is still far off, but that hasn’t stopped companies from cashing in on repeated promises that suggest otherwise.

By Victor Luckerson May 16, 2019, 9:21am EDT

 

In the past, Musk’s bold predictions have been met with A-for-effort enthusiasm and a smattering of polite skepticism. But the response this time has been different. People have less patience for PR campaigns masquerading as engineering timelines.

 

 

https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/5/16/18625127/driverless-cars-mirage-uber-lyft-tesla-timeline-profitability

 

Even the Guy Who Started a Church Worshipping A.I. Is Pulling Back on Driverless Car Gospel

 

Anthony Levandowski, the guy you may recall from the center of the Waymo and Uber lawsuit over autonomous vehicle I.P., the radical who started a church worshipping an A.I. god, the person who allegedly intentionally modified Google’s driverless car fleet to take them where they weren’t permitted only to get into a crash, injure a co-worker, and allegedly covered it up, that freaking guy, is now taking a cautious approach to autonomous vehicles.

 

https://jalopnik.com/even-the-guy-who-started-a-church-worshipping-a-i-is-p-1835664305

 

 

See this guy is just a guy and isn't a car company that has to bring the "only-a-few-years-away Autonomous Future" into every conversation with the press. If cars get re-framed as tech, car companies can lose all the money they want like tech rather than having their share price drop 25% when there's one quarter when Buzz the Overpaid Boomer didn't buy enough F-150s.

Edited June 20, 20195 yr by GCrites80s