
Sebastian Thrun and Google's Driverless Car (video) - jmartin
http://techtalks.tv/talks/56391/
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espinchi
This field of research is far more advanced than I thought, actually.

For instance, in the minute 25:12, they show a graph that compares how often
the time to collision among a human driver (a professional one, actually) and
the self-driving car. For small reaction times, the self-driving car
outperforms the humans by far. It is of course expected, but it shows that
driverless cars are not that distant in the future already.

The biggest issue is how to avoid those outlier situations, such as a plastic
bag being interpreted as an obstacle and making a mess. Fixing these is a huge
challenge.

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agildehaus
A plastic bag could also fly right onto the LIDAR, completely obstruct it, and
it wouldn't matter what the software is capable of. These cars are going to
need some sensor redundancy.

The Velodyne LIDAR Google uses costs somewhere near $75,000. I realize these
sensors are new tech and are likely to nosedive in price, but having two is
currently tremendously expensive.

There needs to be a LIDAR unit that performs as well for a lot less before
these are going to ever hit regular people.

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danielweber
One really nice measure is "how long between having the human take over."

A year ago it was every 100 miles. Now it's half a year. (See around 14:20.)

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autophil
I'd be more impressed with a car-less society.

More cars, different cars, smarter cars aren't the answer. It just leads to
more roads, more urban sprawl, more pollution on the planet.

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Goronmon
>I'd be more impressed with a car-less society.

You are basically saying a society without need for any transportation
whatsoever. That seems a bit of an unrealistic goal for anytime in the near
future.

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nswanberg
What did humanity do to get around before the 20th century?

I'm not sure that autophil is advocating eliminating cars and roads
altogether. Maybe he is. But it seems legitimate to be concerned about
removing one limiting factor of car use--the patience and stamina of the
driver. A 90 minute each way commute would be possible for more drivers, which
isn't necessarily a net benefit for humanity given the increased road use,
increased construction further from urban areas, and increased energy use,
even assuming these self-driving cars become entirely electric.

I'm as fascinated by self-driving cars as anyone and believe self-driving cars
have a useful place, but it's good to question the consequences.

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stcredzero
StCredZero's law of unintended consequences: There will be unintended
consequences. The more energy, technological, and computational facilities
involved, the greater the unintended consequences.

Addendum: Not all unintended consequences are bad.

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warfangle
Whoever did sound editing/recording for this video needs to learn about levels
and ... well, sound editing/recording. I couldn't watch it the sound was so
bad.

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yen223
I am really glad I wasn't wearing headphones at the time.

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FrojoS
Great talk. I didn't know they were editing the maps by hand. Adding trafic
lights etc. is only starting to be automated. (around 17:30)

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andrewfelix
Is there anyway to get a better quality version of this? I was enjoying but
the quality is making it really unpleasant to watch/listen.

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intellegacy
what does he say at 31:10?

"The top two were _________"

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kenmazy
"The top two were robots, and number 3 were all the humans"

