I am just wondering how many people have to die before it finally dawns on on us that the current approach is idiotic.

The supposed smart cars can't even talk to each-other directly 'without internet' to warn of a car pileup! They can't report to city traffic control about their condition.

We should be innovating in infrastructure instead - create standardised computer readable infrared road markings, equip each traffic light and each lamp post with a radio beacon, each crash barrier could have a radio marker, create PUBLIC maps of each city, have a central traffic control sypercomputer in each city provide directions to cars. Have each car painted with infrared markers so they recognise each-other. Provide cyclists with something these cars can recognise.

We could even make radar-reflective pants so that autonomous cars see them better.

the whoe traffic system needs to be looked at and brought to a new set of standards, whatever they may be. I am not sure what they are, but it should be clear to anyome with half a brain thay having a car use a camera to tell if the traffic light is red or green is idiotic.

untill a new system is ready, no car without AGI level ai will ever be safe

The only problem is that such collective approach conflicts with the way VCs work.

There is currently some kind of geomagnetic storm which is causing a lot of GPS tracks to be offset over the past few days. It's all over the running/cycling forums. Could be related, here's an example:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/vo17e2/the_magnetic...

Yup, it's a mess.

What it's not is, a huge multi-car multi-injury accident. So I don't mind it much more than if all the traffic lights in the area were out.

The promises of self driving cars have always seemed weird to me. Sure, I would love to have a world where all cars are self driving. The security benefits seem large.

But decreasing congestion? We already know how to do that, and in many ways it seems like a safer bet than some kind of technogy with large problems and even larger unknowns; public transport.

Cheap, well developed, reliable public transport will beat autonomous cars on throughput and resource use any day.

With all of the talk, usually around Teslas but I suppose it applies to all EVs, that I've seen over the years akin to, "Just imagine how safe driving will be when every vehicle is FSD and can talk to one another," I have to ask... shouldn't we anticipate seeing similar issues to this in that scenario?

I mean yeah, there will be different manufacturers so it's not like every car in a city could come to a standstill. And I'm also speaking from a place of ignorance, so please correct me if I'm off-base. But isn't this kind of a thing (mass stoppages of entire fleets) a cause for concern as we see increased FSD adoption?

I saw a version of this myself at Geary and Mason around midnight on June 20th[1]. That it happened again but at a larger scale ten days later is deeply concerning.

Given I had no clue what state the vehicles were in, and that they'd start moving without indication, it felt pretty damn worrying.

[1]: https://twitter.com/Smerity/status/1539144641206882304

From a customer's perspective, it isn't clear that a software taxi driver is in any way better than a human taxi driver, particularly with (human) driver assist preventing collisions and all the other warnings provided by a modern car.

In both cases someone else is driving for the customer. With a human driver (plus driver assist braking and collision warnings) you have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth driving. With a robotaxi you have something inferior. But maybe it's a lot cheaper, right?

The robotaxi can only compete on price because that's its only advantage.

If you own a car that drives itself, that's a different story. Everybody can see the value proposition.

We would have to look at the cost of the hardware and maintenance and fallback remote operators and the R&D investment to evaluate whether a robotaxi fleet is indeed cheaper. How much cheaper is it, exactly? 5%? 10%? 15%?

Would you pay a little more to have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth (human brain + driver assist) or would you want to save a few dollars and risk having some dumb piece of software strand you in the middle of the road somewhere?

We all use Google Maps or Apple Maps when driving and most of us have seen these systems do boneheaded things. Just imagine the dumb things a robotaxi could do.

It's hard for a normal person to be excited about this. I don't know a single person who is excited by robotaxis.

If you thought drivers on the road are bad now, this is is a sneak peek of the dystopian future where other drivers on the road drive like they are a support ticket for Facebook or Google. If your situation isn’t covered by the preprogrammed logic, you’re out of luck with nobody to talk to. Self driving vehicles belong on rails.

I am completely and positively shocked by how little has been going wrong (as in upsetting the public order, damaging property or killing people) with AI driving over the last couple of years, considering the whole world is watching and the press is always happy to report on the next train wreck. Either it's the best cover up operation of all time or all the devs are actually a great right mix of skilled and careful.

Original source: https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/vnmpf1/bunch_...

I would expect the first driverless vehicles to be something like buses, metros, ferrys, etc. Something that always follow a predetermine route should have an easier time than a cab that must be able to drive basically anywhere. Still has to deal with unexpected things of course, the real world is chaotic, but AI manufacturers should try to limit the variables as much as they if they want to give a good showing to get more adoption.

It's amazing how driverless taxies are a reality now . It shows how there is progress being made as much as there is talk about stagnation.

The fact that they all stopped at one intersection, suggests to me that it's a deadlock issue. "You go". "No, you go". "No, really, I insist".

Looks like they are unionizing and starting a strike

This is a good demonstration of Artificial Intelligence vs real intelligence

Could this just be a simple case of GPS jamming?

The amount of negative comments here is simply daunting. The issue will be resolved. The fact that thousands and thousands of Americans die each year and nothing is being done to it and this company is on a mission to actually do so to prevent humans from dying should be championed and encouraged.

Oh and by the way there's real time traffic on Google maps. So most people usually drive with it either on their smartphones or their main – GPS navigation. So you could probably know that there's a slowdown ahead before you take your route.

Sure. It may suck that you have to use real time navigation to go anywhere, but that's the reality when driving in a congested city or route.

I think the best use case for self driving car tech is not self driving but teaching the humans how to drive better "You should slow down approaching that junction two seconds earlier because the last ten times i noticed a car approaching from left that you were not seeing"

What’s surprising to me is that the cars are outside the bounds of the lane markers.

There are even two side by side and the one is almost 1/3 of the way in the other’s lane??

This isn't the progress that was promised, this is the promise that is deserved.

Just teach people to drive better, pay them a living wage and start paying your taxes. After all of that I doubt there would be an industry here for automation because some people enjoy driving.

> The Last Driver License Holder ... has already been born. How Google, Tesla, Apple, Uber & Co will change our lives, cities and destroy jobs. And why this is good this way.

A bit overdramatic IMO. Personally I can't wait until I never have to drive a car again.

When that Windows Update finally forces itself on you at the worst possible time...

Networking and software introduce a new systemic risk.

Instead of Cloudflare is down, AWS is down, we can start having Uber is down this morning or "Taxi fleet suddenly switched into left-hand traffic mode for five minutes".

Everyone wanted autonomous cars, forgetting that the cost was their own autonomy.

In 40 years time, we'll be taking to the streets in joy and laughter, wiping the tears from our eyes, when the robotaxi fleet is finally paralyzed completely.

all of this time and money wasted on driverless cars has been a complete failure.

companies and cities should be investing their time into improving public transportation and designing our cities to be more walkable and make alternate modes of transportation more feasible. the US culture of using a car for everyday transportation is fucking insane, wasteful, and contributes to the rising cost of living across the US (not just SF).

Any industry insiders know how Cruise is doing compared to Waymo and Zoox in SF? It seems Cruise is hyperfocused on SF.

I'd hate to be on call for that!

Do people really think this will replace all newly licensed drivers in less than 15 years?

mmm yes posting on hackernews with WordPress version 5.9 i see, looking to be pwned i see

It would be more efficient and safer to have wires buried beneath roads which show correct positioning and transmit info regarding which road it is, direction etc in case of gps position errors or failures

> Le dernier titulaire d’un permis de conduire est déjà né

X Doubt

This honestly reads like a “The Onion” headline.

Was there a referendum in SF on allowing this public beta of driverless cars to happen? Or was it decided by some “forward-thinking” officials? All seems premature if you ask me.

"What could possibly go wrong"

It looks like a strike action by the AI drivers.

People may get annoyed at cruise for this, but imo it’s still not as bad as the constant blocking of bike lanes and stopping in the middle of the road by human ride share drivers.

Why Google is allowed to run a robotaxi service in megacity is beyond me. Google invades its users privacy and keeps users hostages for money. What can one expect from a company like Google when it runs a service in physical world? Something very harmful to humanity.