

Cadillac To Release Self-Driving Cars By 2015 - hachiya
http://www.inquisitr.com/227496/cadillac-to-release-self-driving-cars-by-2015-video/

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crusso
"The only exception is when the lines do not exist, or are not visible, in
which case the driver will have to take the old-fashioned route and drive with
both hands."

That sounds like a severely limited AI.

I wonder if some of these half solutions won't actually be worse for safety.
Is someone a great deal more likely to completely shift attention from the
road if the car is driving? Maybe even by dozing off? When that happens, how
long will it take to regain sufficient focus if the white lines disappear on a
stretch of road? How robust is the AI for a car that could be fooled by
deceptively-painted lines?

Google's car is much more sophisticated. Given what Google has demonstrated,
I'd rather we skip any intervening generations of half-self-driving cars.
These pseudo driving cars seem just as likely to give the whole AI vehicle
concept a black eye and set the industry back 10 years.

~~~
excuse-me
I was involved in some work done many years ago.

The principle road tracking was to look for any sets of lines that moved in
parallel. The primitive hardware was a series of horizontal line scan cameras
aimed at increasing distances in front of the car and a simple sideways
shift+correlation to decide which direction.

This way that tracked not just white lines, but tire tracks, kerbs, road wear,
roadside barriers etc. The main problem we had was on a clean unmarked newly
laid road surface that was perfectly uniform.

There is a highway I commute on daily which has been undergoing roadworks for
the last 3years and has so many painted out lines, repairs, temporary
markings, filled in trenches etc that in the rain I have no idea where the
lanes are.

~~~
jberryman
Made me think of those sections of freeway (I mostly notice this in SoCal, not
sure if anyone is familiar w this) where there are grooves or gradations that
sort of slowly drift off of the lane dividers on a curve. People often start
to follow the false lanes at first. I imagine such a system would have trouble
with that.

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tzz
Who really believe Cadillac will release such car in 3 years? This news is
missing the following statement:

    
    
       This release contains "forward-looking-statements". 
       Forward-looking statements can generally be identified 
       by words such as "believe," "appears," "may," "could," 
       "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," 
       "should," "plan," "expect," and other words and terms of 
       similar meaning in connection with any discussion of    
       projections, future performance or expectations, beliefs, 
       plans or objectives for future operations (including 
       statements of assumption underlying or relating to any of 
       the foregoing). Actual results may differ materially from 
       those reflected in these forward-looking statements

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moocow01
Have insurance companies figured out how accidents, tickets and liability are
being handled?

If there is anything I've learned in my career it is that building systems
that are 100% completely error-free is pie in the sky thinking even in
moderately controlled environments. Suffice it to say, I will be a very late
adopter although I think the efforts are very exciting.

~~~
bgutierrez
It doesn't need to be 100% error-free, it just needs to be on average way
better than human drivers. Even if there are occasional major catastrophes
(e.g., 1000 cars drive off a collapsed bridge) it will still be better than
what we have now:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

~~~
moocow01
From a statistical, macro perspective you are correct. But from the
perspective of a driver this could be a hard sell.

I would say it is similar in essence to air travel. Even though commercial
airline travel is way safer than driving, I'm pretty sure more people fear
airline travel due to the element of having no control. Unfortunately when
they release probably any automated car crash, as rare as it may be, will be
played up as death by machine.

I think they will have to really play up the ability to easily override the
automation (even though I doubt it will mitigate automated car crashes in that
once you get used to it being successful you'll probably be reading a book
when the override is actually needed)

~~~
hughw
_I think they will have to really play up the ability to easily override the
automation_. I agree. Steamships retained masts for sails into the twentieth
century, and I believe horseless carriages could still be hooked up to a team,
for a while after their introduction.

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ColinWright
Related:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3881315>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3878730>

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mneedham
As the parent of two young boys (one of whom will be 16 in ~10 years) I can't
begin to tell you how excited this makes me.

Ford Taurus introduced a 'parent key/child key' concept a few years ago that
did things like limit stereo volume and top speed. This takes it one further.

No fretting about stupid accidents! No fretting about drunk driving!

"Sorry son, you can't ride with Johnny - he still has a manually controlled
car."

~~~
gigawhat
I guess one doesn't need a car at all with a helicopter parent.

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ChuckMcM
Better coverage on Endgadget: <http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/cadillac-
super-cruise/>

But it leaves me deeply suspicious. Having some insight into what it took the
team at Google to get theirs to work I find that unless GM starts with that
team, and their patent portfolio, this will be be a longer term thing. I'd put
money on a self driving car from _someone_ before 2020 but 2015 seems a bit
early.

In spite of Google's fudging the delicate bits (see my comment on the drive
thru non-experience) they have done a tremendous amount of work that a car
company would be hard pressed to duplicate quickly. That and Lidar or their
functional equivalent systems are still darn expensive.

That being said, I think it is _AWESOME_ that we've got a major car company
putting this stake firmly in the ground. If nothing else it will motivate a
response from the others.

~~~
Someone
_"Having some insight into what it took the team at Google to get theirs to
work I find that unless GM starts with that team, and their patent portfolio,
this will be be a longer term thing."_

You write that as if Google's team is the only one in the world working on
this, or far ahead of all others. Their PR department may be superior, but I
do not think they are the only ones; many car companies have been working on
this for years, sometimes decades
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car#History>). I cannot judge
whether they are far ahead; please show data proving that if you know more.

~~~
danielharan
Wasn't the DARPA grand challenge enough proof that they were ahead of everyone
else?

~~~
Someone
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge> shows Stanford and
Carnegie Mellon switching places between the 2005 and 2007 versions. Also, in
both cases, I would say the top three are so close together that chance may
have affected the rankings more than 'being ahead'. For example, if the course
would have been slightly different (tighter corners, different road signage,
whatever), would the teams have finished in the same order? Also, in both
challenges, I would say the third-placed team had similar performance as the
top two.

So no, I do not think that that shows Google is far ahead of the field. Or did
Google hire both teams? Even that would not totally convince me., as it looks
as if only US teams took part in those races.

------
khafra
DARPA challengers have gotten really good at this, even when the road isn't
that well marked. I think they can do it. I just hope there's a "sport mode"
button to make it launch at its quickest 0-60, drift around corners and such.

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ilaksh
I think the journalist made a mistake because he mentioned radar but not
LIDAR. Far as I know no one has a serious self-driving vehicle without LIDAR,
and I doubt that Cadillac is really proposing to change that.

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millzlane
They may be onto something. If we get all the bad drivers into these things.
Maybe We'll finally have drivers that can drive and follow the rules of the
road. Hooray! One concern though if these cars will watch for the lines on the
road, how will they handle roads with no lines? I live in a place where
apparently lines on the road are a new concept. And are non existent in a lot
of places.

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scoot
Question re. LIDAR (slightly OT to the specific article, but relevant to the
general subject). How will LIDAR behave when there are multiple sources
transmitting similar but overlapping scanning patterns across the terrain
(like, say, a highway full of self-driving vehicles)?

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georgieporgie
As a motorcyclist, I really hope that all the upcoming variations of
autonomous vehicles are _heavily_ tested in all conceivable edge cases. Also,
as a motorcyclist, I welcome the well-tested, never-tiring, unimpaired, highly
predictable, self-driving AIs! :-)

With all manufacturers pursuing their own AI, though, I wonder if we'll have a
future that echoes the past. If, say, Volvo has sub-optimal testing, perhaps
'ovlov' (an old Usenet joke - Volvo in your mirrors) will again become known
as the bane of motorcyclists. Will Toyota launch ads bragging about their
higher AI safety rating than Volvo?

~~~
tadfisher
As a bicyclist, I echo your hopes and concerns. I'll also add a hope that the
most common car-bike accidents (right- and left-hooking) are tested for
extensively, as they require a bit more math and foresight than simply
recognizing that I'm there.

~~~
warfangle
I'd like it if cars had a warning system for when you open the street-side
door, as well.

I know far too many people who have gotten broken bones by having someone open
their door unexpectedly into the bike lane.

~~~
ceejayoz
A couple second delay before my car permits me to open the door? No thanks...

~~~
danielharan
Jesus. A thing that warns you that you're about to injure another human being,
and you're upset you might have to wait 2 seconds?

I hope that was sarcasm on your part...

~~~
Bleys
I think their issue was not having control over when they leave the vehicle.
If the locks are computer controlled, there's risk of a false alarm preventing
your exit, potentially in an emergency.

I agree that this is better left to a warning indicator.

~~~
ceejayoz
Yep, that's exactly my issue. Warning light is fine, lockout is not. Too many
situations in which a lockout would be dangerous - false positives/failure of
the system locking me into the car, carjackers taking advantage of it by
parking a bike behind me, etc.

------
excuse-me
I thought Cadillacs were already self driving

At least you never see any driver behind the wheel, perhaps a pair of hands or
the top of a hat but never any driver.

