

Why The Idea of a Google Driverless Car is Nonsense - OGinparadise
http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/01/23/why-the-idea-of-a-google-driverless-car-is-nonesense/

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newishuser
Title is a bit overblown and unnecessarily negative. Why can't we just be
happy about the future. 'Cos it doesn't attract readers? 'Cos even seasoned
contributers to Forbes have to express their petty, pissy attitudes?

The title should be, _Don't forget Volvo, Nissan, BMW and others are working
on driverless cars too. The future will be awesome._

Why is anyone getting worked up over this.

~~~
roisin09
The title was a clear response to another Forbes article that claimed Google
was about to inherit a multi-trillion $ market.

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krschultz
This might be the worst written article I have ever read. What the heck is
this guys point?

I'll tell you why it's being done by Google. A computer driving a car is an
artificial intelligence problem. Google is fundamentally an artificial
intelligence company.

Car companies are _not_ artificial intelligence companies. They're not even
software companies - just look at antiquated the average stereo/navigation
system is in even the latest, most expensive cars.

I'd definitely rather have Google do it and license it back to the car
companies than have the car companies do it on their own.

The software is going to be solved in the next 5-10 years. The hard part after
that is dropping the sensor price enough to make this work (a lot of the SICK
lasers are $35k+ still). But 10-15 years from now, we are going to have self
driving cars for sale, no question in my mind.

~~~
Someone
_"Car companies are [...] not even software companies"_

\- Fuel injection: software

\- ABS: software

\- Airbags: software

\- Traction control: software

\- Brake assist: software

\- That clicker that opens your car door: software

Etc.

~~~
deelowe
I don't think the op was arguing that car companies don't produce software. He
was arguing that they don't produce it well, because it's not a core
competency for the company. Car company profits are tied to industrial design,
manufacturing, and logistics, not software.

His point about GPS is an apt one. My brother has the best SUV Infinity makes
and the GPS is so terrible, he uses his phone (android) instead.

~~~
roisin09
Suppliers to the car makers, like those that produce anti-lock brakes, do good
software. Car makers typically have Silicon Valley offices. And they typically
buy components from companies rather than rely on themselves. None of that
means Google will make and driverless car that sells in the way the original
article claimed.

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georgecmu
Unfortunately, this article exposes its author's near total ignorance of the
background and history of the topic, and nothing else.

 _Driverless car projects have been around for 30 years. Anyone following
European R &D in this area can easily cast their minds back to the DRIVE
project_

That's awesome. Where were they in DARPA's 2 Grand Challenges and the Urban
Challenge [1]? We can also cast our minds to ALV [2] and NAVLAB [3], which
were state-of-the-art in 80s and 90s respectively, so what? They demonstrated
that a computer can control the car in a strict sense -- keeping it on the
road and _maybe_ stopping for obstacles, but driving is a bit more complicated
than that. The real challenge is in navigating from point A to point B which
observing rules of the road and interacting with other traffic participants
safely -- something that was not demonstrated until 2007. Google's autonomous
car program grew directly out of CMU's and Stanford's Urban Challenge
projects.

 _Volvo pulled off the more impressive feat of platooning the three cars
behind a lorry for 200 kilometres on a busy Spanish motorway._

It's not a _more impressive feat_ by anyone's standard. Following the leader
is a much simpler problem than navigating traffic independently.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge_(2007)#Ov...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge_\(2007\)#Overview)

[2]:
[http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/21...](http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2108)

[3]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navlab#History>

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wtracy
"You might then ask why in the USA is this being left to a search company?"

Because of the liability involved in the American legal environment.

I've long suspected that Europe, Japan, or Korea will beat the US to
commercially viable driverless cars.

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niggler
Forbes.com = sensationalist headlines designed to grab clicks. Even their
financial coverage is far more sensationalist than WSJ or techcrunch (and
that's saying something ...)

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calciphus
This seems like an odd straw-man of an argument.

Premise: "Car companies have been toying with driverless cars for years, so
the idea that Google will produce driverless cars end-to-end is without merit"

What I can't understand is who thinks Google is going to be building these
cars. Has anyone claimed that, even the referenced Forbes article? I don't
think so. As others suspect, Google wants to offer the brains to these car
companies, and tie them into the world of other Google services (Android
phones, browser integration, ad injection, media streaming, etc).

Look at it another way: Microsoft supplies much of the tech to Ford, Hyundai,
and others for their in-car "infotainment" systems, that doesn't mean when
they started the CAR.NET initiative in the '90s they were trying to take on
Ford and GM.

~~~
calciphus
A second, follow-up point: If car makers have worked so long on driverless
technology and made so little progress, what is Google doing better? I've seen
the driverless cars in action, they work very well (though I elected not to
leap in front of one).

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Mahn
Google Maps. The idea that a car maker is better positioned than Google to
pull this out is silly; it's mostly about understanding
geographical/geospatial data best, not so much how to make cars; that's
already pretty well researched and understood and Google can partner with cars
makers in an Android like model if necessary.

~~~
Anechoic
_it's mostly about understanding geographical/geospatial data best_

If Google's driverless tech is more dependent on geographical/geospatial data
than monitoring actual conditions, it's going to fail horribly. Roads can
change a lot day-to-day from storms, accidents, construction, etc.

~~~
deelowe
I recommend reading up on how they create the "geographical/geospatial data"
before casting doubt. It's similar tech that's used for identifying road
signs, land widths, exits, on-ramps, etc...

Read this and I think it will make more sense:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-
go...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-google-
builds-its-maps-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-everything/261913/)

I think that covers the hardest bits. Maintaining safe distances, self
parking, and obstacle avoidance were nearly solved problems before Google
started the driver-less cars program.

~~~
Anechoic
_Read this and I think it will make more
sense:[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-
go...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-go...*)

That article doesn't address my concerns at all - namely roadway changes
caused by factors like construction, storm washouts, etc - that haven't been
integrated into the geographical/geospatial data.

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nazgulnarsil
Standard rant from someone who hears "driverless cars" and responds without
investigating.

~~~
roisin09
In fact the article was not anti-driverless cars and says Volvo will introduce
some driverless features in 2014. It simply disputes the idea that this market
is Google's for the taking

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laureny
I'm excited about the prospect of driverless cars but at this point, even a
regular car design by Google would get my money in a heart beat. I imagine a
nice Nexus 10 as the main console and extreme environment friendliness.

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kaliblack
> You might then ask why in the USA is this being left to a search company?
> Google is a technology company. I'd prefer a tech company was working on
> this problem.

~~~
opinali
Automakers are tech companies too, just other kind of tech. And I may be
biased, but driverless cars are a software problem.

~~~
taligent
That shows how narrow your thinking is.

Driverless cars involve so much more than just an algorithm. It is the
hardware integration, safety and reliability, regulatory and compliance and
the worldwide scalability of the approach.

Google may understand the algorithm but they have nothing to contribute
elsewhere.

~~~
hedgie
i have no idea why you're being downvoted. auto and avionics companies go
through hell to test this stuff at a level that involves the hardware and how
it integrates with the software. this just doesn't happen in most software
companies.

this is much more than a software problem. i've heard of people verifying
opcode behavior on avionics processors to determine the correct implementation
of the hardware - when your software relies on it it's fair game.

i don't doubt that google could do this if they made it a priority. but it's a
huge issue that encompasses more than a "software algorithm." if the
collisions sensors degrade over time doesn't matter if the software works.

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c2prods
I don't get the point of this article. I like the idea of tech companies
expanding to other businesses. They can bring a fresh look to onboard systems,
and make them less complicated and more elegant.

Yet the only thing they shouldn't forget is that cars are not computers. I'm
not sure that Google's modified Prius will be as enjoyable (when driving) as a
BMW 1 Series for instance.

~~~
acchow
> I'm not sure that Google's modified Prius will be as enjoyable (when
> driving) as a BMW 1 Series for instance.

We're talking about self-driving cars.

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spinchange
Congratulations, Forbes/Haydn. You got my click. I will be tremendously wary
of clicking again.

~~~
roisin09
then follow the threat back to Chunka Mui's article.

