
Latest to Quit Google’s Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist - Qworg
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/technology/alphabet-google-autonomous-car-chris-urmson.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=CC520E9B5D3F22E2DE4DD4808171F4A1&gwt=pay&_r=0
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Animats
Urmson quit? Wow. That's a bad sign. He was the guy who seemed to be keeping
that project on track, making it better, more capable, safer, and not killing
anybody. His boss, John Krafcik, came from Hyundai, and is an old-line car
guy. He goes all the way back to the days of the old GM Fremont/NUMMI plant,
the building Tesla now occupies. His statements are about "partnering" \- he's
saying that Google's place is to be a parts supplier to the auto industry.

Maybe Urmson just didn't want to move to Novi, MI, where Krafcik is moving the
self-driving car effort.

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mathattack
Novi, MI is very different than Mountain View, CA! Convincing people to accept
winter will be difficult. It's one thing if it's a "Let's change the world!"
pitch from a technical genius. It's another if it's "Let's supply GM" from a
business genius.

~~~
andrewjf
I moved from Farmington Hills, MI (across the street from Novi) to San Jose,
no way I'd go back there. 70% because of the winter.

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geogra4
Oh that's silly. You drive to work you drive home. Maybe you go out to dinner
then you go to bed. What lifestyle are you talking about? Sf would be one
thing but sj and mv are really not so different from novi or farmington. Just
suburbs

~~~
echelon
I will never live where it snows. Ever. You couldn't pay me enough.

I grew up with 90 degree summers, and frankly, I find the heat to be amazing.
Anything under 50 is downright unpleasant. I curse every moment of being
outside when it's near or below freezing.

I realize this is only a personal anecdote, but I bet there are people out
there just like me (and on all parts of the spectrum).

~~~
brianwawok
If it's cold I put on more clothes. Once it gets past like 80 I'm naked so how
do I make more clothes off?

Plus I can run way faster when it is 20 out vs 100. Snow running rocks. Sun
running is awful.

~~~
gruturo
Different strokes, I guess. I absolutely hate every minute the sky isn't a
clear blue with that lovely unshielded fusion reactor in the sky bathing us in
its mostly benign radiation :-) I accept other people like it different -
anything not resembling California (or central Italy) summer plain sucks in my
view, while others would like 9 months of rain and winter.

~~~
simplemath
I grew up in upstate NY with long, long winters.

Have lived in Phoenix since 2003.

I curse at the Daystar about half the year

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samcheng
I was just thinking about how the Google Self-Driving Car effort has become
more aggressive recently. On a five-mile drive through Mountain View this
afternoon (on El Camino and a residential neighborhood) I saw FOUR of the
little bubble cars, and one of the Lexuses.

Of course, on each of the cars I saw closely, the operator had their hand on
the joystick...

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Gotta rack up those miles, man. They're all on the same stretches of road
they've been driving for years, but Google sells that "miles driven" stat
hard.

~~~
obmelvin
Obviously you do need to drive in other areas, particularly to get different
weather conditions. However, even driving in the same area different incidents
are encountered everyday - it is not a waste of training.

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kuschku
Google's cars have:

0 miles in snowstorms

0 miles in historic city centers with small mixed-use (pedestrian, bike and
car) streets without lane markings

0 miles in mixed-used residential streets (basically, it's both a footpath and
a street, usually with kids playing on it, and also used for cars)

etc.

They mastered only highway driving and driving on perfectly segregated roads.

That's the easy part that VW and Sony's cars had already working in 2008.

~~~
beachstartup
i think self driving cars will be a reality, but probably in no less than 50
years.

it's 2016 and we can't even keep websites up without armies of people tending
to them 24/7\. i don't know what reality everyone who is enthusiastic about
this technology is living in.

~~~
ghaff
A lot of "AI"/machine learning/etc. examples show impressive results on
relatively narrow and well-controlled use cases. A lot of people look at those
and extrapolate to much broader and less controlled environments with lots of
messy corner cases and assume it's just a bit more incremental work to get
there. Whereas, in fact, getting from essentially a demo to mostly just works
in messy real world environments can easily be 90% of the work.

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ChuckMcM
Ouch, I interviewed with Chris when I was looking around inside Google for a
new gig. At the time he was "the guy", Sebastian had this great vision but
Chris was the guy making it happen. I hope he does something new and exciting.

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kilroy123
You know, my gut just tells me Google isn't really going to do much with the
self driving car thing.

I think the technology will eventually become a reality. The real car
companies will be the ones to deploy it.

~~~
amelius
Well, they could for instance wipe Uber from the face of the Earth.

~~~
soberhoff
That seems like one of the least noticeable consequences self driving cars
would have.

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karma_vaccum123
A car project seems complex enough that it demands its own org and will
flounder as a division inside a company with other primary motivations
(Google: Ads, Apple: phones).

~~~
dougk16
Agreed, but the tension there seems to be that it also demands an org with
enough money to buy small countries. Not just for the R&D either but also to
sway public opinion, change existing laws and create favorable new ones, and
for lawsuit armor. Probably a bunch more wetware-associated costs. In fact R&D
might end up being a tiny slice of spending.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'd find a company being able to do many of those things to be kinda
scary/bad. If the technology can actually stand on its own and pass rigorous
independent testing, law and opinion will follow.

The only reason you need to influence these things artificially, is if
something isn't all there under the hood.

~~~
Paul-ish
This is overly idealistic. Many people are afraid of technologies they don't
understand, and self driving cars will certainly be a technology people don't
understand. I can already imagine the scaremongering headlines about self
driving cars "assassinating" their passengers or pedestrians. Countering fear
and uncertainty may take effort, and effort = money.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The reason there's currently fear and uncertainty is because there's good
reason to be. Tesla's troubles with people improperly understanding that their
feature is a "beta" and watching Harry Potter on the highway aside, Google has
routinely avoided mentioning their disengagement figures and "would-be
accidents" avoided solely because they have professional test drivers, while
repetitively citing how many total miles they've driven. The technology ISN'T
there yet, but some PR departments are going full throttle that it is. This
sort of disingenuous marketing is what causes these incidents, and causes
these headlines to be blown out of proportion.

Nobody's flipped out about car manufacturers having cars that can parallel
park themselves and brake themselves to prevent collisions. Reason why: It's
tested, it's reliable enough for a Detroit company to advertise it, and it's
not oversold as "autopilot" or "self-driving". It just is.

~~~
csallen
I disagree with your first sentence. I know at least two people who've flat
out told me they wouldn't trust computers driving their cars or even other
cars on the highway regardless of how pristine their driving records were.
Don't underestimate irrationality.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I bet we can find at least two people in this thread who would ALREADY trust a
Google Self-Driving Car. Clearly, the guy watching Harry Potter while his
Tesla flew down the highway towards a semi truck trusted his Tesla... and it
cost him his life.

For everyone you can find who will, without reason, be afraid of this
technology, you will find someone who will, without reason, trust it
implicitly.

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radicality
Am I the only one that found that title difficult to parse and understand? For
a moment I thought the guy's name is Latest.

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perseusprime11
I will not be surprised if Urmson ends up at Tesla.

