Uber Nowhere Close to Having a Fully Autonomous Vehicle, Its Self-Driving Cars Need a Lot of Human Help (recode.net)

Uber may see self-driving cars as "existential" to its future, but the company is nowhere close to having a fully autonomous vehicle. According to internal documents obtained by Recode, during the week ending March 8, Uber's self-driving cars traveled, on average, just 0.8 miles on their own before a human had to take over, in a process known as "disengagement." From the report: As a whole, Uber's self-driving system is putting on many more miles than it did in January. Last week, the company's 43 active cars drove 20,354 miles autonomously, according to the documents. This is only the second time since late December 2016 that its cars have driven more than 20,000 miles in a week. In January, the cars only drove 5,000 miles. At that point, however, the company only had about 20 active vehicles, mainly in Pittsburgh. By February, the company's cars were driving themselves around 18,000 miles a week. Uber passengers took around 930 rides in these autonomous cars in Pittsburgh last week and around 150 rides in Phoenix. To be clear, these vehicles still had a driver at the wheel to take over if needed. In Pittsburgh, where Uber launched its commercial self-driving pilot in September, the company has been performing around 800 or more UberX trips per week in semi-autonomous mode since the middle of February.

Comments

NO ONE is anywhere close

[elrous0]

We're still a lot farther away from truly autonomous cars than most people tend to think. Sure, driver assist and suped-up cruise control is coming in, and will be great on clearly marked and standardized interstates. But good luck trying to get a computer to navigate the old backroads of some city or country backwater.

Hell, Alexa still can't even understand a lot of basic questions I ask her. I'm sure as shit not about to let that bitch drive.

Re:NO ONE is anywhere close

[phantomfive]

It would be nice if we had similar numbers from Google. How long do their cars go on average before a human needs to take over?
That number is a lot more useful than "total miles driven" or "accident per /1000 miles"

For fully autonmous cars, you need real AI

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why this is so difficult to understand. Only real AI can hope to cope with the infinite number of variables that arise while driving. What does a rudimentary AI do when a wind storm has blown down a tree branch in the middle of the road? Does it know that it's OK to go around the obstacle even if it means briefly driving into an oncoming lane? What does it do when a piece of newspaper blows around in traffic on the freeway? Does it swerve to avoid collision with a harmless object? What does it do when it approaches a vehicle that has stalled? Does it wait for ever? Does it go around when the oncoming traffic has cleared? Does it do a 3-point turn and pick a new route? What does the rudimentary AI do when it's Friday night and the passengers are requesting to be dropped off at a night club in a part of the city that has scores of drunk pedestrians that are jay walking all over the place and are not sticking to the sidewalks. (eg 10th and Pike in Seattle). Maybe it drops the passengers off 2 blocks away instead.

Fully autonomous vehicles right now are nothing more than a hair-brained-scheme. Once (if ever) real AI is developed, teaching it to drive can be done over night. So to speak. Until then, I would not be investing a single dollar into companies like Uber or robotics companies. All of this talk about robots taking over wreaks of investor propaganda.