Self Driving Cars

[hacko]

To add to this; how many of you would feel comfortable ridding in the passenger seat of a self driven car?

Ask my friends ride with me or the driverless car. I would get shut out !!!!

I have been saying for 2 years my next car will be the Google car!!!!

Then the Jetson car!!!!

[The Feral Slasher]

My guess is that it would be easier and cheaper to develop coast-to-coast mass transit and shipping that it would be to rebuild our highways to accommodate 300 million new driverless cars. That would, however, run contrary to the American ideal of freedom of the open road, man behind the wheel, etc.

Not sure what you mean here. What is coast-to-coast mass transit ? And what rebuilding of highways do you think would be needed ?

[Redbirds Fan]

Not sure what you mean here. What is coast-to-coast mass transit ? And what rebuilding of highways do you think would be needed ?

Highways in most of America are non-standard, varying in width, construction, markings, etc. How will driver-less cars calibrate for those variables absent absent modifications? As cool as driverless cars are, ultra-high speed rail (or whatever would be faster) might be a more practical way to move goods and people across the country. High speed rail has certainly worked in some countries. I think most people would agree that less traffic on the road would be better than more traffic.

[The Feral Slasher]

Highways in most of America are non-standard, varying in width, construction, markings, etc. How will driver-less cars calibrate for those variables absent absent modifications? As cool as driverless cars are, ultra-high speed rail (or whatever would be faster) might be a more practical way to move goods and people across the country. High speed rail has certainly worked in some countries. I think most people would agree that less traffic on the road would be better than more traffic.

I assume that in time we will figure out a way for cars to drive on just about any road. I don't think it is going to require a massive investment in infrastructure.

As far as high speed rail, I don't think that would be easier or cheaper and it is fairly limited in what in can do compared to self driving cars. Self driving cars will be useful for both a local and long distance and will serve just about any location you can choose.

Anyway, I'm far from an expert on any of this so who knows - I guess I have faith in our ability to develop the technology needed. Should be interesting to see how it develops.

[The Feral Slasher]

Apparently won't be that long until some self driving cars are available.

https://www.wired.com/2016/12/google-self-driving-car-waymo/

In the past year, Uber, Tesla, Baidu, Ford, and General Motors have announced aggressive plans to bring fully self-driving cars to market, with launch dates ranging from next year to 2021.

[TranaGreg]

I assume that in time we will figure out a way for cars to drive on just about any road. I don't think it is going to require a massive investment in infrastructure.

Exactly. This is being worked on now, as is discussed in the yahoo article linked to above that raises the issue - eg use of lidar and other means... the short answer is that cars will learn to drive on poorly marked roads the same way people do. This is a classic machine learning scenario.

[Redbirds Fan]

I assume that in time we will figure out a way for cars to drive on just about any road. I don't think it is going to require a massive investment in infrastructure.

As far as high speed rail, I don't think that would be easier or cheaper and it is fairly limited in what in can do compared to self driving cars. Self driving cars will be useful for both a local and long distance and will serve just about any location you can choose.

Anyway, I'm far from an expert on any of this so who knows - I guess I have faith in our ability to develop the technology needed. Should be interesting to see how it develops.

You're probably right. I have faith, too. But the only time I have ever seen any tests, they have been on test tracks or perfect city streets. Out here in flyover country, we have many roads that cars have trouble with now.

[The Feral Slasher]

Saw another interesting article somewhat related to this topic.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...e-heart-of-ai/

Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey. The experimental vehicle, developed by researchers at the chip maker Nvidia, didn’t look different from other autonomous cars, but it was unlike anything demonstrated by Google, Tesla, or General Motors, and it showed the rising power of artificial intelligence. The car didn’t follow a single instruction provided by an engineer or programmer. Instead, it relied entirely on an algorithm that had taught itself to drive by watching a human do it.

Getting a car to drive this way was an impressive feat. But it’s also a bit unsettling, since it isn’t completely clear how the car makes its decisions. Information from the vehicle’s sensors goes straight into a huge network of artificial neurons that process the data and then deliver the commands required to operate the steering wheel, the brakes, and other systems. The result seems to match the responses you’d expect from a human driver. But what if one day it did something unexpected—crashed into a tree, or sat at a green light? As things stand now, it might be difficult to find out why. The system is so complicated that even the engineers who designed it may struggle to isolate the reason for any single action. And you can’t ask it: there is no obvious way to design such a system so that it could always explain why it did what it did.

[bryanbutler]

decent article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-s...-shelly-palmer

[The Feral Slasher]

Not related to cars, but interesting. I didn't know that there are robotic weeders.

https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/jul/20/drones-driverless-tractors-future-farming

Blacker has a different perspective. “It’s not often in agriculture that we get a win-win-win. But I think that all of this technology has the potential to make farming far more sustainable as well as profitable. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity to do this. We can work with much more justification than historically. For example, if you look at the robotic weeders and spraying systems they can use up to 95% less chemicals than before.”

With these discussions in full flow, the quiet revolution in the British countryside continues to gather pace. What the smart farm of the future may look like no one can quite say yet. In his recent presentation Professor Blackmore projected his vision. It involved miniature crop scouts - little red robots - moving up and down the fields, inspecting plants and tugging out weeds. There were weather dependent sprayers and drones that hovered in the sky, relaying data to the farmhouse where charts of fields were plotted at a central hub.

“I think that in 10 years we will look back at today and think that we were dinosaurs in our methods,” says Blacker.

[The Feral Slasher]

https://www.axios.com/waymo-will-ope...91404f9ca.html

As it prepares to make its fully driverless cars (without a safety driver in the front seat) available for rides to the public this year, Waymo says it has ordered thousands of additional Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans.

Why it matters: The self-driving car race continues at full speed. General Motors' Cruise recently said it will deploy its cars to the public in 2019, while ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft have been testing rides with passengers on smaller scales.

The fully driverless car rides will first be publicly available in Phoenix, and later in more cities. Waymo began testing its driverless cars there in November.
So far, Fiat Chrysler has provided Waymo with 600 such cars.

[chancellor]

A self-driving Fiat? LOL. It better be able to place automated calls to AAA's road service when (not if) it breaks down.

[heyelander]

[B][url]Why it matters: The self-driving car race continues at full speed. General Motors' Cruise recently said it will deploy its cars to the public in 2019, while ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft have been testing rides with passengers on smaller scales.

So what happens to Lyft and Uber's bullshit claim that they aren't a taxi service, but just a technology set up to help people who want to drive people around for money with people who need rides, once they don't have the first group of people?

[Mithrandir]

So what happens to Lyft and Uber's bullshit claim that they aren't a taxi service, but just a technology set up to help people who want to drive people around for money with people who need rides, once they don't have the first group of people?

That sentence has way too many "people"'s in it!

[Hi.I'm.Mandy]

That sentence has way too many "people"'s in it!

Maybe he likes peeples