Autonomous Cars

[Phil]

So you agree human drivers are far from responsible and need to be forced to comply with the laws

I never claimed anything else. My position on the matter has always been that AVs still have a very long way to go to reach the level of safety that humans do. From this position, I have expressed doubts over the feasibility and viability of
such technology maturing enough.

What I think many in here fail to understand is that AVs aren't being developed because someone deemed humans needed to be saved from the 3000 deaths per day. It is being done because this technology poses a lucrative business. And with any business - in the end, it comes down to money and profits. In other words, don't expect the high-end version of anything to make it into consumer products. In the end, it'll be a compromise of sorts. At what cost in regards to safety? I find the thought quite frankly scary that we might have thousands of 'bots' roaming the roads. If the software has a specific flaw, it will be present in every single car. Example; the software has a bug and fails to identify certain objects and simply ignores them. Imagine the chaos if enough of these things are driving around? And before you bring up rigorous safety tests and standards... at what cost? Do you honestly think every bug can be found in software that has to be able to be that complex? Just look at the 737-Max incident... one wonders, how on earth could something like this happen and be allowed to fly in an industry with perhaps the most rigorous safety standards there are?

And once we assume AVs do come, do you really think they will replace manual cars in the hundred poorer countries where a majority of these 3000 deaths per day happen? Who will pay for that? Who will come up with the money for the required infrastructure there? Do you really think AVs will be the best and most efficient solution to save those lives?

True, AVs would act different, they don´t need to notice any weird behaviour in the car in front to keep correct safety distance, they´ll do it all the time

Any car, autonomous or not, does not have instant braking power. Simply 'reacting' to unpredictable circumstances is not always enough, hence why we are being taught to be pro-active on the road, drive with foresight and the recommended safety margins. With how much foresight a 'software' could ever hope to react to something about to happen depends on its ability to properly identify and assess what is happening - and some of these things require years of experience. Again; autonomous software has zero intelligence - it only knows what it has been programmed to.

[Big Tea]

Interesting short vid here. Considers ice and snow too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5laBg-ERbQ

[izzy]

So you agree human drivers are far from responsible and need to be forced to comply with the laws

I never claimed anything else. My position on the matter has always been that AVs still have a very long way to go to reach the level of safety that humans do. From this position, I have expressed doubts over the feasibility and viability of
such technology maturing enough.

What I think many in here fail to understand is that AVs aren't being developed because someone deemed humans needed to be saved from the 3000 deaths per day. It is being done because this technology poses a lucrative business. And with any business - in the end, it comes down to money and profits. In other words, don't expect the high-end version of anything to make it into consumer products. In the end, it'll be a compromise of sorts. At what cost in regards to safety? I find the thought quite frankly scary that we might have thousands of 'bots' roaming the roads. If the software has a specific flaw, it will be present in every single car. Example; the software has a bug and fails to identify certain objects and simply ignores them. Imagine the chaos if enough of these things are driving around? And before you bring up rigorous safety tests and standards... at what cost? Do you honestly think every bug can be found in software that has to be able to be that complex? Just look at the 737-Max incident... one wonders, how on earth could something like this happen and be allowed to fly in an industry with perhaps the most rigorous safety standards there are?

And once we assume AVs do come, do you really think they will replace manual cars in the hundred poorer countries where a majority of these 3000 deaths per day happen? Who will pay for that? Who will come up with the money for the required infrastructure there? Do you really think AVs will be the best and most efficient solution to save those lives?

True, AVs would act different, they don´t need to notice any weird behaviour in the car in front to keep correct safety distance, they´ll do it all the time

Any car, autonomous or not, does not have instant braking power. Simply 'reacting' to unpredictable circumstances is not always enough, hence why we are being taught to be pro-active on the road, drive with foresight and the recommended safety margins. With how much foresight a 'software' could ever hope to react to something about to happen depends on its ability to properly identify and assess what is happening - and some of these things require years of experience. Again; autonomous software has zero intelligence - it only knows what it has been programmed to.

but have they responded to the 737-Max problem by making pilots fly them manually? no it's still safer to fly it with computers

Tesla update their software automatically in their cars over the air, all the time. And if you watch some YouTube dashcam vids they're full of accidents that a self-driving car wouldn't have had

also i don't think it's true any more that software has zero intelligence, AI systems can learn

finally it's 100% clear that Elon isn't doing it for money is he?

[izzy]

Interesting short vid here. Considers ice and snow too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5laBg-ERbQ

nice, thanks

[Nickel]

It could be argued that an AV would do better in adverse weather conditions as an AV wouldn't take a risk a human would take. There was an instance some time ago when an AV wouldn’t merge onto a highway because in order to do it safely it would have had to have broken the speed limit!

does that not seem insane to you? safely merging should happen at or greater than the speed of traffic. Your statement strikes me as utterly ridiculous and not a functional version of an AI.

[AJI]

It could be argued that an AV would do better in adverse weather conditions as an AV wouldn't take a risk a human would take. There was an instance some time ago when an AV wouldn’t merge onto a highway because in order to do it safely it would have had to have broken the speed limit!

does that not seem insane to you? safely merging should happen at or greater than the speed of traffic. Your statement strikes me as utterly ridiculous and not a functional version of an AI.

It's not 'my' statement, it's what actually happeded...
If an AV is instructed never to break the speed limit, and every other car on the road is speeding, the action of merging onto a road can't be completed.

[Big Tea]

Thinking (not too deeply ) once there are many AV's about, far fewer driver will have to venture out in adverse conditions, not for having fun when they are poor in good conditions either.

[strad]

Love the way either side always starts with "this is a world we ALL want to live in".
Sorta like when they tell you what kind of pizza crust you want. Which just happens to be the kind of pizza crust they are selling.

[subcritical71]

Love the way either side always starts with "this is a world we ALL want to live in".
Sorta like when they tell you what kind of pizza crust you want. Which just happens to be the kind of pizza crust they are selling.

Yep, I caught that also. I don't think I've ever thought about sleeping in a car much less making that the world I want to live in.

[roon]

...don't expect the high-end version of anything to make it into consumer products.
...

And once we assume AVs do come, do you really think they will replace manual cars in the hundred poorer countries where a majority of these 3000 deaths per day happen?

...

With how much foresight a 'software' could ever hope to react to something about to happen depends on its ability to properly identify and assess what is happening - and some of these things require years of experience. Again; autonomous software has zero intelligence - it only knows what it has been programmed to.

To each paragraph, respectively:

The tech is already in all of the mass market 30k USD Model 3--just not switched on yet.

Tesla aiming for ~0.2 USD robotaxi rides. This may allow them access to global markets that Uber & Lyft do not.

Tesla supposedly have over a billion miles of learning with Autopilot. Depending on experienced human driver lifespan driving miles, that's something like 1k to 10k human lifetimes of driving experience already. Those figures may double next year.

[Phil]

Aaah, yes of course. The future has clearly already arrived and in all Teslas out there, there is already a hidden lv5 class autonomy software waiting to be activated. We should keep tabs on our cars, who knows, while we’re at work the car might be roaming the streets by itself.

Oh wait, that is being promised too and apparently we can even make money from it. Supposedly, when we are not using it, our cars can serve as a robotaxi and make us up to 30’000 USD a year.

There’s just one big problem here; if the ride will only cost a couple of cents, how many miles will my car actually need to cover to generate that kind of cash over a year? And assuming it does, who pays for the servicing cost of the car? The tires? Brakes? Who replaces the batteries once the charging cycles are reached and maxed out? Or can my Tesla also magically service itself, free of cost?

I really would love to hear how this supposed future is supposed to work. Anyone can post some random claims, but are they based inside the realms of reality?

[roon]

No need for hyperbole, Phil. They're claiming to be able roll out full self driving, I believe they mean level 5, by sometime within 2020. Taxiing would be an opt-in. Calculating tire and brake wear would be relatively trivial, all things considered. That would be part of the ride cost, which would comprise, logically: profit to Tesla and profit to vehicle owner which would need to encapsulate consumables. All taxi and rideshare services consider this necessarily.

I miswrote earlier. $0.18 per mile, not per ride, was Tesla's claim at the FSD press conference.

Consider $4k worth of tires consumed within 100k miles. Dwarfed by the potential $18k in profit, shared between Tesla and the vehicle's owner.

Your last sentence written without retrospective pause? Your fingers may also qualify as full self driving.

[Nickel]

It could be argued that an AV would do better in adverse weather conditions as an AV wouldn't take a risk a human would take. There was an instance some time ago when an AV wouldn’t merge onto a highway because in order to do it safely it would have had to have broken the speed limit!

does that not seem insane to you? safely merging should happen at or greater than the speed of traffic. Your statement strikes me as utterly ridiculous and not a functional version of an AI.

It's not 'my' statement, it's what actually happeded...
If an AV is instructed never to break the speed limit, and every other car on the road is speeding, the action of merging onto a road can't be completed.

You stated that it could be argued that they are better based on the ai deciding not to merge. that's clearly your subjective opinion, no? anyways thanks for the downvote.

[AJI]

You stated that it could be argued that they are better based on the ai deciding not to merge. that's clearly your subjective opinion, no? anyways thanks for the downvote.

I said nothing of the sort. In fact, I didn't say anything at all about AI.
There seems to be two different conversations going on here, one about AV's and one about AI.
As far as I know, and I'm happy to be corrected, there is no AI in current AV tech (or anything else for that matter) because it doesn't exist.
Perhaps @Phil can chime-in on this one?

[Phil]

No need for hyperbole, Phil. They're claiming to be able roll out full self driving, I believe they mean level 5, by sometime within 2020. Taxiing would be an opt-in. Calculating tire and brake wear would be relatively trivial, all things considered. That would be part of the ride cost, which would comprise, logically: profit to Tesla and profit to vehicle owner which would need to encapsulate consumables. All taxi and rideshare services consider this necessarily.

I miswrote earlier. $0.18 per mile, not per ride, was Tesla's claim at the FSD press conference.

Consider $4k worth of tires consumed within 100k miles. Dwarfed by the potential $18k in profit, shared between Tesla and the vehicle's owner.

I was assuming it was a rate.

Assuming ride costs of 18 cents per mile and Teslas claim that my car could generate me 30k per year... my car would need to travel (paid travel) 166k miles per year (266k kms)... considering servicing costs, maintenance and depreciation, do these numbers make any sense to you?

Just consider for a moment if a Tesla can actually do 166k miles on its originally fitted batteries.

I’ll throw another one in there: cost to recharge the car. Assuming a battery of 100kWh. Here in Europe, we pay around 0.28 Euros per kW. That equates to 28 euros per “tank”. I’m hearing a Tesla uses around 21kW per 100km in the real world.

Lastly; would you want your Tesla driving around servicing complete strangers?