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Alphabet Is Finally Taking the Driver Out of Some of Its Driverless Cars (recode.net)

Posted by msmash on from the future-is-here dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: After almost a decade, Google's parent company Alphabet is getting closer to fulfilling its promise of rolling out cars that can take anyone anywhere without a driver behind the wheel. Alphabet's self-driving car company, Waymo, is introducing truly driverless cars to public roads for the first time, the company's CEO John Krafcik announced today at the Web Summit conference. That means there won't have to be a person sitting in the driver's seat, waiting to take over, and that the car's computer system will complete all parts of the driving task -- though for now, only in some of the company's cars in Phoenix, Ariz. While this move is still geographically limited, it marks the beginnings of Alphabet's driverless future finally becoming a reality. No other company has succeeded in operating a fleet of fully driverless cars on public roads.

15 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. This is coming a lot faster than most think by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've seen other posts on Slashdot before that were dubious we'd see self driving cars in the next 20 years... but it's not even going to be five before they are in use with real people in all sorts of areas, as this article indicates.

    There is just too much demand, too much benefit, and SO much effort being put into making self driving cars work. People seem concerned these cars may make mistakes but the benefits are so huge mistakes will be overlooked, because in the end even now they are probably safer than most human drivers, much less after a few more years of effort.

    The largest obstacle I see really is how to deal with snow, which can really block up pretty much any kind of sensor. Otherwise the technology to drive correctly has advanced and will continue to advance at a very rapid clip...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: This is coming a lot faster than most think by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      There are interesting issues to do with interaction with other road users. And there are people working on those things. But no, it's not nearly as big as issue as snow. Snow is a showstopper right now. It interferes with sensors. It makes the expected view completely different from the ones usually trained with. And what to do in a skid is a huge issue.

    2. Re:This is coming a lot faster than most think by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 2

      I've driven in snow that blocked up all my sensors though too. I once had to open my door and follow the white line on the road outside the door to navigate while someone watched for tail lights ahead at 5mph for an hour. Having GPS + Radar guidance would have been invaluable. Radar would have seen through the snow no problem and GPS could have kept me on the road.

    3. Re: This is coming a lot faster than most think by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Snow is a showstopper right now.

      Tesla Autopilot works in the snow. Why would Waymo be different?

      And what to do in a skid is a huge issue.

      Baloney. Computers deal with skids way better than humans.

  2. I keep telling people by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    that driving for a living is going away soon but you'd be amazed how many don't believe that. It's gonna be like when computers decimated junior accountants but without all the new jobs working on computers.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I keep telling people by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      It's gonna be like when computers decimated junior accountants

      When did that happen? My wife's firm just hired 3 more.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  3. Here is a question I have... by Noryungi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Quoting from the article:

    That means there won't have to be a person sitting in the driver's seat, waiting to take over, and that the car's computer system will complete all parts of the driving task -- though for now, only in some of the company's cars in Phoenix, Ariz.

    Now: Phoenix, Arizona. Probably one of the driest spots in the USA, and one with nice, straight roads. Hmmm... Is it possible that the Waymo / Alphabet / Googleplex cars are not that good at self-driving?

    I mean this seriously: the more I think about it, and the harder it is for me to take the idea of a self-driving car seriously in anything that is not in the southwestern United States.

    A self driving car in some parts of Europe would simply be very, very difficult: anyone who has navigated the beautiful little streets of, say, Granada in Spain knows what I am talking about (hint: very narrow). Anyone who has driven in Norway, or any other country in Scandinavia, knows that the weather can be grueling there (Alaska or North Dakota, some parts of Illinois or Wisconsin also come to mind).

    All of this to say, a decade into this slef-driving car project, has Waymo been blowing smoke all along? Is the self-driving car vaporware? Discuss.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    1. Re:Here is a question I have... by gnick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Phoenix, Arizona. Probably one of the driest spots in the USA, and one with nice, straight roads. Hmmm... Is it possible that the Waymo / Alphabet / Googleplex cars are not that good at self-driving?

      When you're running code for the first time, do you present it with the most complicated input you can imagine? Maybe if you're really sure of yourself and have little consequence for errors. I start with simple test cases and work my way up. My dad was always fond of telling me to "shoot the cripples first."

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Here is a question I have... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      When developing and testing complex new systems, you try to keep your unknowns and external variables to a minimum (i.e. bad weather, terrible roads and traffic). Once you've established your algorithms work in the simpler cases, you move on to tougher and tougher situations. This is normal, logical development progression. I'm not sure why you'd think it's somehow indicative that cars will *never* be able to handle anything but good weather and traffic.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:Here is a question I have... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't understand why we have driving schools. We don't we just put humans in to the worst possible situation behind the wheel and see how the driver will handle it. Is it possible that the humans are not that good at driving?

      I mean this seriously: the more I think about it, and the harder it is for me to take the idea of human driving seriously in anything that is not in the southwestern United States.

      Driving a car in some parts of Europe would simply be very, very difficult for humans.

      All of this to say, centuries into this human driving car project and humans still kill over million people every year.

    4. Re:Here is a question I have... by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What utter nonsense. You start with something that works for the general case. Then you start exploring the edge cases. Writing a test for each potential issue. that's standard Test Driven Development. And standard practice (minus doing the tests first) for every other kind of coder too.

      If you are trying to tell me that people deal with the hard cases first, before the general cases, I won't believe you have any experience at all.

    5. Re:Here is a question I have... by slinches · · Score: 2

      I don't need a self-driving car that works in Norway and Spain. I need one that works where I live (Phoenix). Oh hey, look at that, the one from Google seems to fit the bill.

      You don't have to solve every corner case to have a useful product.

      --
      Knowledge Brings Fear
    6. Re: Here is a question I have... by gnick · · Score: 2

      Actually there's nothing wrong with that and I have too. But only when the consequences of failure are slight or beneficial.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  4. Anyone familiar with the technology by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who says the technology has advanced at a rapid clip?

    I've spent some of my spare time studying self driving car tech (including the Udacity course). It's not like I'm going to be building my own self driving car anytime soon, but I've learned enough to see that self driving car tech is very real and not hype. There are a LOT of prototype cars on real roads today from a large number of companies,, not just in California, not just Google, but others cities and companies now as well. We are very close to the cars operating in limited areas with no employees - think trucks on highways or cars to transport people in retirement communities.

    There has been and continues to be a huge volume of data gathered from current sensors, especially Tesla, that makes getting closer to true self driving tech much more rapid than it might be otherwise. Like I said, at this point self driving car tech can handle most situations better than human drivers - as long as teh sensors are not blocked.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. Re:At this very moment by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And given that self-driving cars have cameras pointing in every direction, plus logging of every action they take, these will be the least likely of all cars to suffer from insurance fraudsters.