
The self-driving car that will never arrive - edward
https://theoutline.com/post/5964/the-self-driving-car-that-will-never-arrive
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whorleater
I don't disagree with this article's premise, but I do disagree with it's
overall diagnosis. AI's near perpetual boom/bust cycle stems from a lack of
clear expectations on what AI _is_. AI runs the gamut from "a poorly
understood pile of linear algebra" to "this will automate all work and free us
from the shackles of labor". This, of course, will fuel hype cycles.

Self driving cars _has_ a clear benefit, when all the hype shit is scraped
off. Motor vehicles killed ~33,000 people in the US in 2010, and nearly 38,000
people in 2016. Accessibility without a car in large parts of the United
States is extremely difficult. These are real problems that can be solved.
Will they arrive with Uber, or Waymo, or whatever startup-of-the-month that
promises revolution? Almost certainly not. But like any research, each failure
hopefully pushes us forward.

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howeyc
What about the people that are currently being driven around Arizona by
Waymo's cars with no person sitting in the driver's seat? Do those rides not
count?

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-31/inside-
th...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-31/inside-the-life-of-
waymo-s-driverless-test-family)

~~~
aphextron
>What about the people that are currently being driven around Arizona by
Waymo's cars with no person sitting in the driver's seat? Do those rides not
count?

You have to remember that Phoenix was specifically chosen as the number one
place on earth that is most friendly to autonomous driving, for a lot of
reasons. The problems with autonomy discussed in this article are exactly what
will make the transition to operating in a place like Boston incredibly
harder, if not impossible.

~~~
thatswrong0
This article doesn't really discuss, in any reasonable depth, the problems
with AI. Its primary example of self-driving car's failure to perform as
promised was the Uber incident, and we all know that the Uber incident was
most likely the fault of Uber's reckless engineering practices rather than
some fundamental issue with self-driving cars in general.

Self-driving cars seem to work reasonable well in Phoenix. That's already
miles better than this article is portraying the situation. No one who has
been really paying attention would think that we're immediately going to from
no self driving cars to self-driving cars that work in all situations. Getting
them working in inclement weather will just be another iterative step.

~~~
derekp7
I really think that once self driving proves itself on interstate highways in
sunny weather areas, that the transition to other places will have to include
additional technology such as beacons that get installed along the roads. Then
self driving will only be turned on when those beacons are available.

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alphakappa
> It’s easy to forget how quickly we can overextend technology, which is so
> good at solving some of our problems, into a good way of solving all of our
> problems. But eventually the self-driving wheel turns and we realize we
> don’t have as much command to reduce the whole complex world to a set of yes
> or no answers, let alone predictions, and our grossest capitalistic dreams
> are thwarted yet again, but not without a cost.

If the argument is that when viewed through the lens of today's technology
these are seemingly insurmountable problems, then it is a weak argument for
the case that the self driving car will not arrive.

It's easy to forget that what these cars can do today is leaps and bounds
ahead of what self-driving technology could do a decade back. When these
problems will be solved, it will be through other breakthroughs that we are
not aware of today, so this is a premature obituary for self-driving AI.

~~~
AstralStorm
This is presuming it is actually AI and not a bunch of very smart though not
intelligent algorithms. (essentially an expert system for car driving)

This is similar to how chess human players were soundly beaten using very
unintelligent algorithms and learning algorithms are only more getting close
with a lot of CPU/TPU effort...

Car control, routing, computer vision and 3D vision enough for driving cars
well are not in essence AI-complete problems.

(compare to say making music, writing sensible text or learning complex games
with hidden stage and deferred reward or exploring unknown situations)

~~~
mchahn
> actually AI and not a bunch of very smart though not intelligent algorithms

That is a relatively old philosophy question that won't be resolved any time
soon.

