Fully Driverless Cars Could Be Months Away (arstechnica.com) 160
An anonymous reader shares a report: Real driverless cars could come to the Phoenix area this year, according to a Monday report from The Information's Amir Efrati. Two anonymous sources have told Efrati that Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo, is preparing to launch "a commercial ride-sharing service powered by self-driving vehicles with no human 'safety' drivers as soon as this fall." Obviously, there's no guarantee that Waymo will hit this ambitious target. But it's a sign that Waymo believes its technology is very close to being ready for commercial use. And it suggests that Waymo is likely to introduce a fully driverless car network in 2018 if it doesn't do so in the remaining months of 2017. [...] According to a report on The Information, Waymo's service is likely to launch first in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb where Waymo has done extensive testing. Waymo chose the Phoenix area for its favorable weather, its wide, well-maintained streets, and the relative lack of pedestrians. Another important factor was the legal climate. Arizona has some of the nation's most permissive laws regarding self-driving vehicles. "Arizona's oversight group has met just twice in the last year, and found no reason to suggest any new rules or restrictions on autonomous vehicles, so long as they follow traffic laws," the Arizona Republic reported in June. "The group found no need to suggest legislation to help the deployment." According to the Arizona Republic, a 2015 executive order from Gov. Doug Ducey "allows universities to test vehicles with no driver on board so long as a licensed driver has responsibility for the cars and can take control remotely if the vehicle needs assistance." Waymo is getting ready to take the same approach.
No more pedistrains? (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess: the "extensive testing" took care of that problem.
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Thoughts and prayers.
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No need. The Phoenix area natives are fine with that temperature, the ones who have problems with it are the wildlings. Admittedly, we've been so overrun with wildlings over the last 20 years that natives are now somewhat rare here. I'm a native and I keep my apartment at 82 degrees during the day to stay comfortable, and I start to get cold at or below 78 degrees. The wildlings, however, get hot at 77 degrees, so every fucking office around here is put at 72 degrees to accomodate the wildlings. Wikipedia s
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I'll give you a "C" on that attempt at humor.
As a resident, I'll tell you that it has far more to do with 100 days a year of 100+ degree weather, and another two to three weeks worth of 110+ weather.
I think you mean "100 days a year of 100+ degree weather including two to three weeks worth of 110+ degree weather".
100+ includes 110+.
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So you've got great weather but stay indoors? (Score:2)
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I'm good up until the high 90s. After that, I'm looking for shade by a stream.
The critical point (Score:2)
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In Phoenix we call "warm sunny days" Winter.
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The whole Phoenix area very badly needs less asphalt, more shade trees, and taller buildings.
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The self-driving vehicle thing will take care of that, too. Once they're a well established means of transportation, the next logical step is to make them fly. Eventually there will be little need to have asphalt everywhere, and that land can be reclaimed and/or replanted. And the savings on the infrastructure will be substantial.
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I'll bet that you will see them in your lifetime.
I'm thinking that we're looking at about 20 years before driverless cars consist of at least half of traveled miles, assuming that the research projects don't hit a showstopper problem.
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They said we'd have flying cars when my grandfather was a kid, by the time he was an adult it hadn't happened. He was born in 1913. They also said that when my father was a kid. He was born in 1949. They said that when I was a kid too, that was ~40 years ago. And people have also been saying driverless cars, robots that will do everything and a life of ease that we'll never see.
Serfs might have worked harder, but they had a hell of a lot more leisure time then we do. I doubt we'll see driverless cars w
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They said we'd have flying cars when my grandfather was a kid... And people have also been saying driverless cars...
I don't get it. Driverless cars are HERE. They need work before we can say confidently say they're safer than humans, but we have prototypes driving around. These aren't illustrations in "Future Now!" magazine; these are actual, moving, autonomous car prototypes.
Hell even the trucking companies who've run trials with driverless trucks are finding that while the workers complain, they still got a better return.
For now. Early adopters never see the highest ROI, but I'm more confident than you that these human truck drivers are endangered.
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I don't get it. Driverless cars are HERE.
They aren't here, that's the thing. Those prototypes still have people in them, they still run red lights, still hit people, still drive off the road. Take one into downtown Toronto and it would be in an accident in 8 seconds.
For now. Early adopters never see the highest ROI, but I'm more confident than you that these human truck drivers are endangered.
It has a negative ROI, just like electric trucks do. The problems that persist in driverless cars exist in those trucks too. My favorite case being the truck that got lost, the one that drove off the on-ramp, and the other one that got into on-coming traffic. They aren't even clo
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I too disagree, I'm conservatively estimating that about 10% of cars will be driverless in about 20 years time (+/- 5 years). My guess is that a lot of these will be fleet or co-op owned vehicles.
So many reasons why adoption will go rapidly. (Score:5, Insightful)
What all of you luddites are missing is a very simple point - a driverless car only needs to be a little better than the average human driver, and it will take over like wildfire from humans.
Not only is there the obvious savings of not paying every increasing salary and taxes to pay a human driver, but there's the massive hidden savings on insurance costs as driverless cars ratchet up the quality of performance relative to again, the average human.
The demand will be enormous, not only driven by taxi/trucking companies, but by an aging population who no longer have to worry about driving as senses and reflexes deteriorate.
As for the examples you list - most of the deployments would be hard pressed to be confused by much, they will not need ANY network connection because on-board they will have the entire system they might be driving within already stored for comparison with external sensors. And the examples you gave? Why would any *human* driver not be equally confused by a bag or a ladder, plenty of accidents have been caused by people swerving to miss something innocuous - a computer system can classify and react to something WAY faster than human can, while also knowing with certainly if cars are to either side to maneuver - something most humans cannot handle.
I cannot believe how behind the times most Slashdot readers seem to be of modern performance and capabilities of neural networks, to the point where calling this place a technical site anymore seems pretty questionable. I never really bought fully into the idea of the Singularity, but there are facets of life like driving where that concept is obviously valid.
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That is assuming self driving car don't crash often. I for one will NEVER put my life in the hands of a computer. As with any computer, eventually there will be an error.
It will be as popular as electric cars... not very popular.
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I for one will NEVER put my life in the hands of a computer.
Good luck with that. Maybe you'll never willingly/knowingly put your life in the hands of a computer, but if you've ever flown then you already have. That's not the only example.
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Pretty sure he's talking about a level 5 fully autonomous car.
Commercial airplanes still have pilots that are always paying full attention to the flight and can easily take over full control if something goes wrong.
If you are in a self-driving car and it's fully autonomous, maybe you aren't paying full attention, and you certainly don't have time to take over when you are going 70mph with other cars right around you if something suddenly goes wrong.
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That's one theory, sure.
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I for one will NEVER put my life in the hands of a computer.
You put your life in the hands of computers every day. You just don't notice it.
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Personally I could also see if having detrimental effects if we don't make the cars more energy efficient at the same time. The waste of time spent driving is all that's stopping from people moving out of the city and taking on even longer commutes. Nobody wants to spend 4 hours a day driving back and forth to work, but if the car is driving you, it all of a sudden becomes reasonable.
We should be looking for solutions that help people drive less. Whether that includes autonomous cars or not is open to que
Driverless cars also make electric practical (Score:2)
Personally I could also see if having detrimental effects if we don't make the cars more energy efficient at the same time.
That is obviously going to happen at the same time, a big benefit you get from driverless cars is they can go find a charging location while you are busy, meaning you don't have to have every parking spot have charging capabilities (which will not happen).
Instead there will probably be charging hubs cars scattered through cities that cars can top off at, then return to be close to you b
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If Google was able to replace ALL the vehicles in the US with fully-automated vehicles overnight and reduce the deaths and injuries on the road by 75% you might think it would be a success... but Google would cease
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That's not how it works in practice. Liability insurance is mandatory. It's the not the driver that is financially liable, it's the driver's insurance company. Driverless cars will not take over all at once, Google will only have to cover the liability insurance on the ride-share cars that they operate. If the driverless cars have a lower accident rate than other comparable commercial vehicles, then
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I argue that A driverless car only needs to be almost as good as the average human driver, and it will take over like wildfire from humans.
Even if driverless cars increased the rate of accidents by a small percentage, it would not be enough to stop their adoption. So the question becomes, what safety level is required? The most important statistic here is really perception, not reality. Think of the people who avoid planes, even though planes are safer than cars. We will only know the true long-term s
Re:Could be (Score:4, Interesting)
If Waymo wants the car to leave that small, well-defined area, then they have two options: map the whole world (at a much, much higher quality than Google maps), or develop new algorithms for self-driving cars.
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Apparently we're going to have a live experiment where we find out.
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Well, the summary hints at it, but in TFA it states it outright:
The company has built a real-time command center that allows self-driving cars to "phone home" and consult human operators about the best way to deal with situations it finds confusing. The ability to remotely monitor vehicles and give timely feedback on tricky situations will be essential if Waymo hopes to eliminate the human driver from its cars.
So they are taking a hybrid approach, at least initially.
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such a detailed map will need an big data plan / e (Score:2)
such a detailed map will need an big data plan / endless updates for years. And just remapping roads say each 6 months (may be to long of gap) will big a lot of work / need a lot of hardware.
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streetview is years out of date in some areas
and a drive outside the usa can cost a car in roam (Score:2)
and a drive outside the usa can cost you the cost of a NEW CAR in roaming fees at are as high as $15-$20 a MEG.
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Really? When do you plan on dying? The advantages are so ridiculously enormous that it's inevitable.
Please tell me... (Score:2)
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It picks me up on the way to work, notices that you're also going the same way, picks you up, drops me off, picks up someone at my workplace going somewhat in your direction, drops them off cause they're on the way and you're good on time, then drops you off. ;-)
P.S.
Before you get mad about getting dropped off last, my co-worker is super-hot and single and thought you were kind of cute and had a good sense of humor. My co-worker has a thing for chubby neck-beards
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Re: Please tell me... (Score:2)
You didn't catch that this was an on-demand just-in-time custom route? This is nothing like a bus, much more like a very optimized taxi.
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As long as one of them is John McCain it's all good. Jeff Flake would be a plus.
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Not any more than pulling the same jack-assery on a meat-bag driver. Don't forget these are literally mobile data gathering systems. It will accurately record how maliciously(and awkwardly) you threw your three hundred pounds of cheeto smeared mountain-dew dribbled slovenly self in front of its nicely maintained chassis.
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You seem to think I am going to let it hit me. I'm not. I know how the computer works, and I know how quickly the car stops. I won't jaywalk in front of a human because they might hit me. But the computer will go into maximum breaking, and throw all the occupants up against their belts, while everything not nailed down careens into the windshield, with surprising regularity and accuracy.
The kids playing frogger on my commute at 55mph on the expressway are going to love it. No more standing on the media
Think again curb rash (Score:2)
Before you step into the path of a self driving car, consider this - there are going to be MANY cases where the programming will consider pedestrians expendable. After all, if braking super hard means the car behind may slam into them and harm many people, everyone involved will be happier if it just slows down somewhat and hits just you - trying to minimize harm to you, but you are the LEAST important thing in the equation and you should remember that possibility before playing games.
Afterwards of course,
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I suspect one or two assholes will try this until the consequences make national news and their life is destroyed to pay for the damage they've caused.
Maximum breaking (Score:2)
So... what, you're emitting gamma radiation that disrupts the silicon? Or do you plan to smash through the hood with a hammer to break the computer?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Check list. (Score:5, Interesting)
Check list.
* Favorable weather
* Well-maintained streets
* Lack of pedestrians.
* Everyone driving slow golf carts
* Shopping malls don't always work.
Sounds like not really ready for prime time, just cherry picked locations.
Re:Check list. (Score:4, Interesting)
Gotta start somewhere. They'll work out the bugs. I know this, if I was a taxi or uber or lyft driver, I'd seriously be making alternative career plans. I'm guessing they'll have to buy out the taxi drivers that have invested in badges and such. Lyft and Uber drivers are SOL.
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Sounds like not really ready for prime time, just cherry picked locations.
Sounds like a cautious start in a state that allows it.
Good engineering mandates aggressive testing, but production deployment should be done slowly and in the most favorable environment first. You don't do your first real surgery on a tricky brain aneurysm, you start with an ingrown toenail or similar. Oh, and you also do it in a state which gives you legal permission to practice medicine.
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Go ahead. Find a lawyer that will take your case, move there, sue. I'm guessing YANAL, cause you sound like you have it all worked out.
Working in Tempe, you see driverless UBER.. (Score:2)
..multiple times every day. It's no surprise that we're taking a more liberal stance on testing the technology. With that said...
Another important factor was the legal climate. Arizona has some of the nation's most permissive laws regarding self-driving vehicles.
That's because of our lousy state legislature (a.k.a. Ducey's rubber stamp).
The McDonald's manager's pay package ($30K/year salary for their time and trouble - it's for about 6-7 mos out of the year) keeps a lot of people out of the job. Then you
What about speed? (Score:1)
So last weekend I drove down I-5 to L.A. Trucks in the right line going 55-60mph. Cars in the left lane going 90mph, or passing anyone on the right who isn't.
So how does this work with automated cars? because I didn't see a SINGLE car on I-5 traveling at the legal limit. Will the Google car go 100 on I-5? Cause I can't imagine anyone wanting to ride in one if they only go the speed limit.
The automated future looks like this?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&
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Yes they will exceed the limit (Score:2)
Probably not as much as the faster drivers you are seeing, but they will generally be programed to follow the flow of traffic, which is much safer than following a speed limit. Except for school zones where the programming would probably keep it pretty strict out of an abundance of caution...
Basically just think of the best drivers on the road, that is what self driving cars will be doing. Only better. Because once they know how to do something well, they just improve from there.
In other words (Score:1)
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Tesla Autopilot has already killed several people. Yet Tesla owners continue to use it. Statistically, it is still safer than a human driver.
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Lies (Score:1)
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Arizona calls this a new thing? (Score:2)
Cars are operated like that in South Florida . . . all the time!
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According to TFA:
The company has built a real-time command center that allows self-driving cars to "phone home" and consult human operators about the best way to deal with situations it finds confusing. The ability to remotely monitor vehicles and give timely feedback on tricky situations will be essential if Waymo hopes to eliminate the human driver from its cars.
We can fly drones in Afghanistan from Nevada, it's not too far fetched to think they can have a remote driver for tricky situations. One
What are the Liability ramifications (Score:3)
I would like to know what happens if one hits me. Does the vehicle just try and drive off and perform a return to base, while I am trying to get the lic number and vendor id before it gets out of sight.
Will it drop a little paper note saying, "Call this number to settle up with us over your accident."
And when you call you get a message saying, "Your call is very important to us! Someone will be with you soon."
Do these vehicles have orange flashing beacons on the roof letting everyone know "Warning, Be Careful, Be Aware, Automated Machine in your midst!"
Do they have any liability protections built in to the laws to protect the companies deploying these vehicles?
Is it assumed the human is wrong and the autonomous vehicle is right?
Do the companies have complete control of all the logs on the vehicle before the authorities? Do they get to choose what to hand over and when?
I am very suspicious about this being fast tracked. About issues and accidents being covered up. What are the liability protections for the public and the riders?
I think it would also be interesting to hear from inidivduals working in one of the Amazon warehouses that have both bots and individuals working in them. What is their experience? Maybe that would be informative
I am not against this, I just think the path is longer than most think
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When one hits you? Good news, even though all the IP is owned by Alphabet in general, and even though the rider contracted Waymo to drive you around, that car was actually fully owned by a special LLC that only owned that one vehicle. Oh, and it was entirely underwater (debt-wise), so the LLC had no assets to sue. Enjoy your state minimum insurance payout.
For the rider, it's even more fun. Because they EULA they agreed to means that they have to agree to individual arbitration with the LLC, and have alr
hope for a criminal case where that EULA shit goes (Score:2)
hope for a criminal case where that EULA shit goes away!
What level of autonomy? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are five SAE accepted levels of autonomy: [washingtonpost.com]
Level 0: No self driving features
Level 1: Some driver assistance
Level 2: More driver assistance
Level 3: Conditional autonomy
Level 4: Nearly autonomous.
Level 5: Completely autonomous.
When will it get here? Dates range from 2017 (Ol' Musky) to 2026 (president of IIHS) and beyond, from people in the know. [qz.com]
Every bit of driver assistance I think is a good thing, but Level 5 - true autonomy - is still a ways off, it seems to me.
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I can assure you that Musk is wrong. Tesla haven't even got their Autopilot V2 hardware working as well as the V1 yet, let alone self driving. I see they have release a V2.5 hardware as well, which doesn't bode well for people with V1 and V2.0.
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From the Washington Post article:
"Level 3: Conditional autonomy. Many automakers such as Ford and Volvo have indicated that they'll skip this step—and for good reason. Unlike Level 2 cars, Level 3 autonomy can control a car in all situations and the car is constantly monitoring the road, but unlike higher levels on the SAE scale, Level 3 cars will return to human control if the system can't function correctly. According to the SAE definition, Level 3 cars will ask drivers to intervene when the self-dr
Months and months (Score:2)
So...100 years = 1200 months. So yes, definitely just months away!
remotely so are they paying an sat + cell link wit (Score:2)
remotely so are they paying an sat + cell link with no caps and no roaming fees?
or an drive in to mexico or canada can cost $10K-$20K for just 1GB of data on some plans.
Obligatory xkcd references (Score:2)
We are not ready yet (Score:2)
While automakers focus on defending the systems in their cars against hackers, there may be other ways for the malicious to mess with self-driving cars. Security researchers at the University of Washington have shown they can get computer vision systems to misidentify road signs using nothing more than stickers made on a home printer.
UW computer-security researcher Yoshi Kohno described an attack algorithm that uses printed images stuck on road signs. These images confuse the cameras on which most self-driv
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There's a 35 MPH sign in my area with graffiti that makes it look like 85! On a city street! Yikes!!
NO THANK YOU! (Score:2)
Sorry, No thanks!
Driver-assist? Lane keeping? Collision warning? Auto-park? Cool.
But I ultimately refuse to put my physical safety into the hands of a machine built AND programmed by humans.
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Then don't step into that elevator! Take the stairs!
Joking aside, nobody steps into an elevator thinking "I'm locked in a box dangling on top of a deep shaft - I put my physical safety into the strength of a cable". They trust the machine.
Same when flying across the ocean, or driving at speed down the motorway. Planes and cars are orders of magnitude more complex and they can easily kill their passengers if anything goes wrong. Yet people trust them because they work just fine the vast majority of the time.
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An elevator travels inside a brick/concrete vertical tunnel. Not on a public road with dozens/hundreds/thousands of other cars.
An elevator's controls actually DISENGAGE the brakes to travel between floors. If the controls fail, the car locks itself in the shaft.
A plane flies in a pre-determined path that's cleared of other traffic in a fully 3D medium of which the plane occupies an infinitesimally small percentage of.
A motorway has a person in charge of a car. People generally don't suffer software failu
Google cloud vs tesla (Score:1)
LOL,
Think of all the data Google can collect about road data and road closures via 3d capture methods. Then share it with all it's cars to prevent accidents.
Sorry Tesla, you don't have a chance.
I applaud this plan! (Score:4, Interesting)
Less Traffic Violations = Less Revenue (Score:2)
So, what do you think municipalities will do when they realize that by allowing driverless cars, they've effectively slashed their revenues to the bone?
In the (alleged) words of George Westinghouse, "where will we put the meter?"
Lots of great ideas have died horrible deaths by being suffocated by red tape.
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I agree that's how it should operate, but the trouble is, that's not how it actually operates.
I can see local and state officials scrambling to find new revenue streams once they realize they won't be making fat bank of writing tickets anymore.