Autonomous vehicles

[Deleted User 1874]

I think what we’re all aspiring to to where we can 100% sit back and read e-mails etc is called the train / bus / taxi.......

I can only see fully autonomous vehicles working within a controlled environment where vehicles are segregated from pedestrians and those idiots on two wheels who disregard the rules of the road.

Certainly not within a town environment where there to many variables to make the systems safe.

The human brain is a wonderful computer, lets see an autonomous system solve this.

I agree, it needs to be a sterile environment. The nearest we have to that sort of controlled environment right now are trains and planes, neither of which are yet fully automated - except for airport shuttles and other closed loop systems.

If you designed a city from scratch it would be feasible to include segregated driving loops for autonomous vehicles, but that isn't going to happen in our towns and cities any time soon. Any idea of driving around in a fully autonomous car within the next decade is nothing but a pipe dream IMHO. The players who were pushing it heavily only a few years ago e.g. Uber, Google, Tesla are now starting to realise the challenges they face moving from semi-autonomous (which is relatively easy) to true autonomy (which is a massive step, requiring a vast array of abilities).

[PaulR]

I cannot see how full autonomy can work. Think of the times I'm driving down a very narrow road hoping a vehicle isn't coming the other way. When one does, you wave at each other and come to some kind of non-verbal agreement as to who goes where. Perhaps one of you reverses back a little. Perhaps you both drive up the grass verge, and use a bit of skill to avoid damaging your vehicles or falling off a cliff! I cannot imagine me trusting an autonomous car to sort me out! There's just got to be lots of situations where autonomous won't work.

[Deleted User 1874]

I cannot see how full autonomy can work. Think of the times I'm driving down a very narrow road hoping a vehicle isn't coming the other way. When one does, you wave at each other and come to some kind of non-verbal agreement as to who goes where. Perhaps one of you reverses back a little. Perhaps you both drive up the grass verge, and use a bit of skill to avoid damaging your vehicles or falling off a cliff! I cannot imagine me trusting an autonomous car to sort me out! There's just got to be lots of situations where autonomous won't work.

Yeah, there are loads of tricky scenarios it would have to cope with safely. Everything from a simple bit of debris in the road to safely moving out of the way of emergency vehicles. There's a HUGE difference between autonomous driving with a human supervisor at the wheel ready to take over at any time vs true driverless autonomy. The enormous step up of AI involved in removing a paid human driver is what will prevent automated city taxis becoming reality (on normal public UK roads) in the next decade or 3. The ambition is certainly there, but not the reality.

[Pivot]

I am certain that the same thing was said ~10 years ago, in the automotive boardrooms, about EVs. E.g. EVs are good for a Golf club; or for a milk delivery van; or for a forklift in a warehouse.
Then BOOM! A self-made millionaire, a little mad, intelligent and very capable entrepreneur put his livelihood on the line and proved them wrong!

Now you say that semi-autonomous driving was easy to make... if it was, why did it take over 100 years to commercialise it?

Having said that, I see progress on this forum, our resident experts have revisited their forecast from 30-years to 10-years [emoji38]

[Deleted User 1874]

I am certain that the same thing was said ~10 years ago, in the automotive boardrooms, about EVs. E.g. EVs are good for a Golf club; or for a milk delivery van; or for a forklift in a warehouse.
Then BOOM! A self-made millionaire, a little mad, intelligent and very capable entrepreneur put his livelihood on the line and proved them wrong!

Now you say that semi-autonomous driving was easy to make... if it was, why did it take over 100 years to commercialise it?

Having said that, I see progress on this forum, our resident experts have revisited their forecast from 30-years to 10-years [emoji38]

I still actually think 30+ years personally. Where did I revise that to 10 years? If I did it was a mistake!

Semi-autonomous driving is realistic with today's technology. It exists and I've been using it for a year now. However, fully autonomous is clearly not there or even nearly there. Musk has finally realised it too with the recent dilution of his FSD to nothing more than assisted navigation and traffic light recognition (in some countries only). Less than 2 years ago he was selling FSD as the real thing close to release. A lot of people bought into it, but it didn't happen. The road networks are simply not consistent enough and the AI is simply not good enough to drive safely without human supervision.

I like to be optimistic about new technology, but in this case I think the reality of delivering autonomous cars is proving to be much more challenging than the tech nerds thought. 10 years? No, I don't think so. Not on UK roads. 30+ years, who knows? I'll be an old man if I'm still going and won't care anyway

[Pivot]

WOT!? Where goes the driver?



What is with the nonsense re: “AI for Good” and “RoboRace”!?

[Col Lamb]

I am certain that the same thing was said ~10 years ago, in the automotive boardrooms, about EVs. E.g. EVs are good for a Golf club; or for a milk delivery van; or for a forklift in a warehouse.
Then BOOM! A self-made millionaire, a little mad, intelligent and very capable entrepreneur put his livelihood on the line and proved them wrong!

Now you say that semi-autonomous driving was easy to make... if it was, why did it take over 100 years to commercialise it?

Having said that, I see progress on this forum, our resident experts have revisited their forecast from 30-years to 10-years [emoji38]

I still actually think 30+ years personally. Where did I revise that to 10 years? If I did it was a mistake!

Semi-autonomous driving is realistic with today's technology. It exists and I've been using it for a year now. However, fully autonomous is clearly not there or even nearly there. Musk has finally realised it too with the recent dilution of his FSD to nothing more than assisted navigation and traffic light recognition (in some countries only). Less than 2 years ago he was selling FSD as the real thing close to release. A lot of people bought into it, but it didn't happen. The road networks are simply not consistent enough and the AI is simply not good enough to drive safely without human supervision.

I like to be optimistic about new technology, but in this case I think the reality of delivering autonomous cars is proving to be much more challenging than the tech nerds thought. 10 years? No, I don't think so. Not on UK roads. 30+ years, who knows? I'll be an old man if I'm still going and won't care anyway

Tonight at 10:15 we left the Theatre in Manchester, the City Centre was gridlocked with cars and brain dead Taxi drivers and coach drivers parking opposite and outside the Theatre in such a manner that two cars travelling in opposite directions could not pass.

Insufficient places to park, horrendous roadworks and road closures, drunks staggering all over the place, theatregoers walking in front of moving vehicles to cross the road. Double parked Taxis dropping people off and picking people up, Taxis U turning, blocked side roads, faulty traffic lights, the list goes on.

There is no way in hell that a fully autonomous system can cater for so many variables.

[Deleted User 1874]

WOT!? Where goes the driver?



What is with the nonsense re: “AI for Good” and “RoboRace”!?

Roborace has been around for a few years now. They are slow - seriously slow compared to a good human driver - like 20-30 seconds a lap off the pace on a 2 min lap! Plus they have a tendency to crash quite easily too, despite being so far off the limit. They'll get quicker for sure, but not to professional human standards any time soon. Very easy controlled environment too, nothing like driving on public roads. You can basically map the racing line with target speeds, brake points etc. Not much AI going on really.

[Pivot]

While we chit-chat about autonomous vehicles, see what robots get up to:

[Pivot]

And a little dated, but somewhat concerning: