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Waymo's Autonomous Vehicles Are Driving 25,000 Miles Every Day (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the it's-over-9000 dept.

With Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval at the National Governors Association, Waymo CEO John Krafcik announced a huge milestone: Waymo's fleet of self-driving vehicles are now logging 25,000 miles every day on public roads. The company reportedly has 600 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans on the road in 25 cities. Waymo has also driven 8 million miles on public roads using its autonomous vehicles, "meaning the comopany has been able to double the number of autonomous miles driven on public roads in just eight months," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The company also relies on simulation as it works to build an AI-based self-driving system that performs better than a human. In the past nine years, Waymo has "driven" more than 5 billion miles in its simulation, according to the company. That's the equivalent to 25,000 virtual cars driving all day, everyday, the company says. This newly shared goal signals Waymo is getting closer to launching a commercial driverless transportation service later this year. More than 400 residents in Phoenix have been trialing Waymo's technology by using an app to hail self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans. The company says it plans to launch its service later this year.

2 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. safer, but not perfectly safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    It's a matter of when, not if, auto-driving cars will be safer than human-driven.

    Still they will not be 100% safe: that is an impossible goal.

    We need a legal framework so that we don't block off a safer future just because of a non-zero accident rate, when humans kill 30K's of people with cars just in the US per year and over a million worldwide.

    If auto-driving cars can let us say reduce that death rate by 50% it would be a huge tragedy if we blocked off that future by suing them out of existence.

    People WILL continue to die to these.... but each learning can be reflected in all the cars on the road, and over time they will get better and better. It is inevitable that they surpass human accident rates. Humans are not very good, but we don't stop all progress every time a human kills with a car.

    1. Re:safer, but not perfectly safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Self driving cars are SHIT and always will be because the shitty excuse for AI they use will never be able to think like a human being, and we live in a human world built for human beings with human minds and until you can build a computer that has at least the equivalent of a human mind they will ALWAYS BE SHIT and shouldn't be allowed on public roads. Period. You're a fool if you strap yourself into something with no controls and you deserve to die if you're stupid enough to do it.