
How Pittsburgh Became Uber’s Driverless Testing Ground - sethbannon
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/technology/no-driver-bring-it-on-how-pittsburgh-became-ubers-testing-ground.html
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jayjay71
I can't tell from the picture, but their test track looks like where we used
to test self-driving cars when I was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon.
Except when I was doing it, it was basically dirt (most of it not even roads)
in a super-sketchy part of the city. The Roundhouse, where we kept the cars,
looked like an abandoned building - in fact, and I am not exaggerating, 1/3 of
the roof had collapsed in on the building.

It'll be interesting to see what impact this has on the city of Pittsburgh.
Mayor Peduto is definitely a progressive guy who is very gung-ho about
reinventing the city.

Here's another interesting fact - almost none of the initial 40 engineers that
Uber poached from NREC had any previous experience with self-driving cars.
Those guys mostly went to Google, and a handful created a startup called
Ottomatika which was acquired by Delphi.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Did you do any tests at Allegheny airport?

~~~
jayjay71
I never did, but I don't know too much about what they did after I left. We
did most of our testing on a construction site near a defunct steel mill.
Otherwise we sometimes drove around the city, usually Southside as it was
nearby and great for testing. There was a media release about driving the car
to the Pittsburgh Internatioal Airport.

[http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/september/sept...](http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/september/sept4_selfdrivingcar.html)

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TheSpiceIsLife
I wonder how people felt when the automobile revolution was taking place.
Probably a mixture of all the same things people are feeling now, human nature
being what it is. Could probably look up the newspapers of the time to get a
feel.

I like that bit in the article where it says the local politicians have stayed
out of the way - that's the sort of thing politicians mostly should do.

For me the real turning point will be when the first passenger hails an
autonomous vehicle that doesn't have a human behind the wheel, I'll be
satisfied with a remote operator, because that will be truly novel as current
laws asume a human behind the wheel.

~~~
icebraining
For a perspective on how the automobile revolution was viewed:
[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-
modern-...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-
moloch/)

~~~
joe_the_user
The auto revolution was awful.

We can hope the self-driving revolution is something of a counter-revolution,
turning the auto into a better-behaved tram, allowing driving time to become
free time, etc.

~~~
notyourwork
> a better-behaved tram

I have always felt this way. If everyone driving looked at the bigger picture,
it would be a much more efficient and pleasant place. Road rage, traffic jams,
death, all these things are mostly the result of human error and poor mental
judgement.

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brandonmenc
If a car can drive itself around Pittsburgh, it can drive itself anywhere.

~~~
mynegation
Seconded. Of all places in North America PGH for me is the most stressful
place to drive. The use of GPS for someone not familiar with the city is
obligatory and even then you need to stay exactly in the right lane at the
right time. Other places in the world can present different type of stress
like hectic streets of India, China, or South East Asia, but there you have an
option to slow down and do a lot of honking. Not so much in PGH. It is
combination of three rivers, hilly terrain, complicated interchanges and
numerous bridges, but knowledgeable locals just vroom by.

~~~
Isamu
I am sad about the slow but steady loss of the few remaining cobblestone
streets around Pgh.

But have you seen the wooden street in Shadyside? That's still there.

~~~
Hydraulix989
[http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/06/05/construction-
begin...](http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/06/05/construction-begins-to-
replace-brick-road-in-oakmont/)

At least they are still keeping the brick road in Oakmont. I had to check
online to make sure.

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Animats
Singapore already has some autonomous taxis in test.[1] They have a backup
driver on board, as do Uber and Google.

[1] [http://mashable.com/2016/08/25/driverless-cars-starts-
singap...](http://mashable.com/2016/08/25/driverless-cars-starts-
singapore/#drtTnH6as5q8)

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hprotagonist
step 0: poach an entire department from CMU.

~~~
Hydraulix989
To be clear, they hired most of their talent away from CMU's National Robotics
Engineering Corporation, CMU Robotics Institute's commercial arm -- not
actually faculty.

~~~
jayjay71
They hired some faculty as well, although the vast majority were senior
personnel at NREC.

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yari_ashi_zero
I lived in Pittsburgh from 1989 to 1991, very close to Carnegie Mellon
University. One of their technical departments (CMU) had a self-driving car
(really a van like a UPS van) even back then ; we saw it driving around our
neighborhood sometimes. I think it always had an operator standing by inside
it, for override.

~~~
Animats
That was the NavLab, an autonomous vehicle with a crew of 5. I was in it once
when I visited CMU. Rack-mounted workstations in the back with up to 3
operators, a driver, and someone with a keyboard in the passenger seat. Top
speed about 5 MPH. First 3D LIDAR.

Good ideas, nowhere near enough compute power or good enough sensors. Or
precision GPS, which modern self-driving cars lean on too much.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> That was the NavLab, an autonomous vehicle with a crew of 5.

And a "Nobody on board" yellow diamond sign in the window. Pfui.

~~~
Animats
They had to start somewhere. But progress was too slow for years. Tony Tether
at DARPA came up with the DARPA Grand Challenge because he thought the DARPA-
funded automatic driving projects needed a serious kick in the ass. It worked.

(The reason it worked is not well known. Some major research universities were
quietly told by DARPA that if they didn't do well in the Grand Challenge,
their DARPA funding would be cut off. Suddenly entire CS departments were
being devoted to automatic driving. Levels of effort went from 5 people to
over 100, and not at DARPA's expense.)

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Sniffnoy
Non-mobile link: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/technology/no-driver-
bring...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/technology/no-driver-bring-it-on-
how-pittsburgh-became-ubers-testing-ground.html)

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we updated the submission from
[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/technology/no-driver-
br...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/technology/no-driver-bring-it-on-
how-pittsburgh-became-ubers-testing-ground.html).

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cmurf
Why is it OK to protect American IT jobs with limited (or expensive) H-1Bs,
but it's Ok to replace commerical drivers with autonomous vehicles? Why is one
kind of protectionism Ok and the other overdue for being squashed?

~~~
khuey
Because regulating who comes into the country is generally seen as the
government's job, but regulating what labor-saving technology is used is
generally not.

~~~
toomuchtodo
And government can always tax automation to provide an income to those who are
redundant if other jobs are not available.

