Another Tesla autopilot crash, this time with a police car...

[orion242]

working so many hours that he thinks he will not get old.

Driving like that he is likely right.  Will get killed in a car crash long before getting old.

[Kjelt]

Driving like that he is likely right.  Will get killed in a car crash long before getting old.

That would be the positive scenario, the negative scenario is that he gets someone else killed 

[rrinker]

Interesting viewpoint I heard from a psychiatrist, the less a person has to do in order to perform a task, the less attention the person will pay to that task.
That is exactly what is going on here.
So this is not a human compatible feature IMO , better make the car 100% autonomous without human intervention at all or make sure that the car checks regularly if the person is paying attention, if not disable the feature.

 Exactly. That's why I think every car should have a manual transmission. You have to DRIVE the car, there's no time for texting to whatever other bullshit these idiots do behind the wheel. Self help braking, self help cruise control, self help lane departure - everything like that conspires to make the 'drive' less and less attentive because "it will beep at me". Teslas do, when a situation arises that the 'autopilot' is not sure. But the driver in this case just ignored the beep and flashing instead of taking control - or else was so inattentive as to react far too slowly to prevent the crash.

[nctnico]

A Tesla driver suffered only minor injuries Tuesday after her sedan crashed into a parked Laguna Beach police car while in autopilot mode, officials said.

At least the police arrived on time at the scene of the accident 

[coppice]

Autonomous cars are not smart, you don't have to be smart to drive and follow the traffic rules.

I think you are quite wrong.  To drive competently and safely on a public road you need the intelligence of a human. An adult human. And even with that level of intelligence it is a difficult task.

Waymo is already doing it: (can their cars be said to be more intelligent than an adult human?)

Since 2009, our fleet has self-driven more than 5 million miles, mostly on city streets. That would take the average American driver nearly 300 years to complete. This builds on 2.7 billion miles we drove in simulation in 2017 alone.

https://waymo.com/ontheroad/

5 million miles, zero fatalities! (And as far as I know, not even any accidents that were caused by incorrect behaviour of the computer.) That is how it should be done.

Waymo, like Uber and others, are not really building self driving cars. They are building something much more like self driving trains. Trains not bound to a route by steel rails, but by a high precision map. If they go where no high precision map exists they are lost. If the world changes too much from the map they are lost.

Tesla, like other current luxury car makers, offer something that can roam freely using a few basic heuristics about following lines and avoiding things that show up visually or on radar. These systems have very different strengths and weaknesses from the Waymo system.

Before being too impressed by Waymo's claims I would need to see a LOT more information than they have published to date.

[orion242]

I think every car should have a manual transmission.

Never thought about it that way, but man I sure miss a manual trans.  That was driving!  Hard to even find that option on new cars.

[ataradov]

Never thought about it that way, but man I sure miss a manual trans.  That was driving!  Hard to even find that option on new cars.

Yes, sitting in commute traffic with manual transmission is sure a blast.

[coppice]

I think every car should have a manual transmission.

Never thought about it that way, but man I sure miss a manual trans.  That was driving!  Hard to even find that option on new cars.

If you don't like machines doing the work for you, why not walk?

[orion242]

If you don't like machines doing the work for you, why not walk?

Simple, don't have the acceleration with my feet to get that pleasant smell of burning rubber.

Manual trans + horsepower = the perfect man-machine interface IMO.

[james_s]

Never thought about it that way, but man I sure miss a manual trans.  That was driving!  Hard to even find that option on new cars.

Yes, sitting in commute traffic with manual transmission is sure a blast.

Every car I've owned for any length of time has a manual gearbox and I don't intend to change that. I don't find it to be a burden at all, shifting gears is like walking, I don't consciously think about the mechanical process, it just happens. Sitting in commute traffic is a drag no matter what, having to use both feet instead of just one foot is not much difference.

[apis]

Waymo, like Uber and others, are not really building self driving cars. They are building something much more like self driving trains. Trains not bound to a route by steel rails, but by a high precision map. If they go where no high precision map exists they are lost. If the world changes too much from the map they are lost.

Tesla, like other current luxury car makers, offer something that can roam freely using a few basic heuristics about following lines and avoiding things that show up visually or on radar. These systems have very different strengths and weaknesses from the Waymo system.

Before being too impressed by Waymo's claims I would need to see a LOT more information than they have published to date.

Waymo do seem to rely heavily on detailed map. I don't fully understand why but it's been suggested it's simply easier and therefore safer. Not sure about all the other teams though.
It's not a big problem for Waymo because Google are already mapping all roads for Google Street View regularly, they just have to add more sensors to those cars and then they will have detailed maps of virtually everything.

(And if you think about it, we also rely on internal maps kept in memory (to some extent) when we drive in a familiar area, so maybe it's not so strange after all.)

Before being too impressed by Waymo's claims I would need to see a LOT more information than they have published to date.

Iv'e been following their progress since the days of Stanley and I guess I have gained some trust in some of the people involved. I'm feeling quite confident they will surpass expectations. They don't seem to cut corners or rush things but keep playing it safe, and they are doing everything the same way I would have (based on my limited knowledge, but still). (Or maybe I'm just a bit of a fanboy?)

[coppice]

Waymo do seem to rely heavily on detailed map. I don't fully understand why but it's been suggested it's simply easier and therefore safer. Not sure about all the other teams though.
It's not a big problem for Waymo because Google are already mapping all roads for Google Street View regularly, they just have to add more sensors to those cars and then they will have detailed maps of virtually everything.

From talks you can find on YouTube, Waymo relies ENTIRELY on high res maps (I think its 11cm resolution), which are being produced by their own scanning systems. The Google Street View information is much lower resolution, and appears to be of no value for their self driving cars.

[apis]

From talks you can find on YouTube, Waymo relies ENTIRELY on high res maps (I think its 11cm resolution), which are being produced by their own scanning systems.

There has to be some flexibility, there will always be noise and small changes from day to day and obviously they can't see all of the ground because there are obstacles blocking the view (other cars, pedestrians). At least they rely on the map to determine exactly where the car is (relative to the map), and probably to help distinguish temporary objects like cars and people.

I guess it gives them a lot of advantages to have a reliable detailed map. If there is a pothole in the road they could mark it and the cars could automatically avoid it for a more comfortable ride; if it's an area outside a school, they could mark it as an area where the cars should slow down; etc.

The Google Street View information is much lower resolution, and appears to be of no value for their self driving cars.

Yes of course, it's still in the beta stage. That is why I said they would have to add the sensor suite necessary to create the waymo maps to the street view cars.. Would be strange if they wouldn't use the same car for both purposes. Anyway, the point is that Google has already proven they can do it when they want to.