
May they all go to hell with the drivers that are not driving them.
I think ...Grammatron wrote:What sort of measure is a "truck journey"?
And that truck journey, if measured in freedom units would be what exactly?Rob Lister wrote:I think ...Grammatron wrote:What sort of measure is a "truck journey"?
They currently haul fertilizer by truck rather than barge.
The reporter starts out well giving good and valid reasons the technology is not yet ready for prime time but I think he's a little short-sighted and pessimistic. Agreed, it isn't yet ready and 2020 is way too soon. Yea, LIDAR is in its infancy but kids grow up fast.Anaxagoras wrote:Not about the accident reports, but a piece about the challenges ahead:
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/01/30/ ... r-slowdown
Basically there are still a lot of difficult problems to overcome. We'll get there eventually, but it's not "just around the corner".
And free up that labor to do more creative things. This is akin to a broken window fallacy.Moving to autonomous vehicles could destroy the jobs of millions of truckers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, dispatchers, and all the support jobs that make up the entire transportation industry.
He doesn't say how.It could also upend the automotive industry, despite the brave faces of Toyota and Audi and Ford and the like.
Maybe. Or maybe they'll just insure other things. But if they do, so fucking what. Buggy whip.There’s the auto insurance industry — will Geico go under if there aren’t any more car accidents?
The proposed unintended consequences start to get a lot darker, too, like the idea that there might be a sudden drop in organ donations when all those car accidents go away.
The reporter is a she, BTW. You'd do her. Yeah I didn't pay much attention to that last bit about the "unintended consequences". They are all actually net positives, as you correctly point out, that are being looked at as negatives. However, there will be losers and the losers will probably make a stink about it, and sometimes politicians will pander to the losers by throwing up roadblocks, so it's still something to keep in mind.Rob Lister wrote:The reporter starts out well giving good and valid reasons the technology is not yet ready for prime time but I think he's a little short-sighted and pessimistic. Agreed, it isn't yet ready and 2020 is way too soon. Yea, LIDAR is in its infancy but kids grow up fast.Anaxagoras wrote:Not about the accident reports, but a piece about the challenges ahead:
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/01/30/ ... r-slowdown
Basically there are still a lot of difficult problems to overcome. We'll get there eventually, but it's not "just around the corner".
He then starts to jump the shark with ...And free up that labor to do more creative things. This is akin to a broken window fallacy.Moving to autonomous vehicles could destroy the jobs of millions of truckers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, dispatchers, and all the support jobs that make up the entire transportation industry.
He doesn't say how.It could also upend the automotive industry, despite the brave faces of Toyota and Audi and Ford and the like.
Maybe. Or maybe they'll just insure other things. But if they do, so fucking what. Buggy whip.There’s the auto insurance industry — will Geico go under if there aren’t any more car accidents?
Then he gets really stupid ...The proposed unintended consequences start to get a lot darker, too, like the idea that there might be a sudden drop in organ donations when all those car accidents go away.
They'll be okay.gnome wrote:In the case of the trucking industry, I expect resistance to the point of civil unrest. We should already be planning how to get ahead of that problem and make the transition less painful. And I don't mean by getting better riot gear for police.
Not me, have you?Grammatron wrote:I'm curious how many people here have had an opportunity to be behind the wheel of a self-driving car.
So it drives like my wife but without collisions.Grammatron wrote:The car gets confused and can exhibit unsettling maneuvers where it would just jump into another lane or swerve to avoid some perceived but non-existing obstacle.
I don't see how it compares at all.Abdul Alhazred wrote:How does it compare with (for example) riding a bus?Grammatron wrote:I have "driven" such a car from San Diego to Los Angeles.
As a daily commuter in populated area it's significantly less stressful to drive on highways. With all the radars I barely had to pay any attention to the road as the car kept itself in the proper lane and stopped to avoid collisions. The issues prop up when the lanes are not clear and in residential areas. The car gets confused and can exhibit unsettling maneuvers where it would just jump into another lane or swerve to avoid some perceived but non-existing obstacle.
In short, as an added safety measure it's unparalleled, as an autonomous system it's nowhere near ready.
You will have to drive and be competent at it, so it doesn't compare in those terms.Abdul Alhazred wrote:Getting to work without having to drive.Grammatron wrote: I don't see how it compares at all.
At the moment, yes. Though some are better than others.Abdul Alhazred wrote:So really more like an especially slick cruise control?Grammatron wrote:You will have to drive and be competent at it, so it doesn't compare in those terms.
So, once I assume? A Google car (now Waymo)? No rain?Grammatron wrote:I have "driven" such a car from San Diego to Los Angeles.
As a daily commuter in populated area it's significantly less stressful to drive on highways. With all the radars I barely had to pay any attention to the road as the car kept itself in the proper lane and stopped to avoid collisions. The issues prop up when the lanes are not clear and in residential areas. The car gets confused and can exhibit unsettling maneuvers where it would just jump into another lane or swerve to avoid some perceived but non-existing obstacle.
In short, as an added safety measure it's unparalleled, as an autonomous system it's nowhere near ready.
Once as a driver. It was a Honda Sensinsg system, I am not if it uses any Waymo tech or it's Honda home brew. No rain and during the day.Anaxagoras wrote:So, once I assume? A Google car (now Waymo)? No rain?Grammatron wrote:I have "driven" such a car from San Diego to Los Angeles.
As a daily commuter in populated area it's significantly less stressful to drive on highways. With all the radars I barely had to pay any attention to the road as the car kept itself in the proper lane and stopped to avoid collisions. The issues prop up when the lanes are not clear and in residential areas. The car gets confused and can exhibit unsettling maneuvers where it would just jump into another lane or swerve to avoid some perceived but non-existing obstacle.
In short, as an added safety measure it's unparalleled, as an autonomous system it's nowhere near ready.
I have wondered what rain would do to LIDAR. If it sometimes "sees" obstacles that aren't there, rain might make that worse.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/02/ro ... e-in-2018/Robotaxi permit gets Arizona’s OK; Waymo will start service in 2018
The state has granted Waymo a Transportation Network Company permit.
On Friday, we discovered that Waymo, the self-driving Google spinoff, has been granted a permit to operate as a Transportation Network Company in the state of Arizona. This means that it can launch an official ride-hailing service and start charging customers for their journeys. It also confirms the findings of a recent report that put Waymo at the front of the autonomous vehicle pack, meaning my colleague Tim Lee was right when he said the launch of a commercial operation by Waymo in Arizona was imminent.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/06/uber- ... customers/Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers
Uber’s autonomous trucks are now doing actual work for customers via Uber Freight, Uber’s commercial cargo shipping on-demand app. The first runs are being done in Arizona, with regular hauls operating with both human drivers and autonomous trucks working in tandem.
How it works is that Uber will load up the freight on a conventional, human driven truck who collects the load from the shipper and then does a short haul run to a transfer hub. The short haul truck then loads its cargo onto a long-haul freight transport, which is autonomous for the purposes of these trips. That self-driving test truck handles the highway driving for the longer portion of the trip, handing it off once again to a human-driven trip for the short haul cap to the overall journey.
For now. Give it a decade.Anaxagoras wrote:I assume that the "self-driving truck" still has a human being on board just in case, right?
I don't think that will be a problem. A driverless vehicle will be in constant contact with a control center and has about a gazillion cameras. They may not even have steering wheels in the near future. Tough to steal that though I'm sure some will try.Abdul Alhazred wrote:Of course they would.Anaxagoras wrote:That's the other thing. Without a driver, would autonomous trucks be targeted by robbers or vandals?
I'm not sure it would actually be any easier than highjacking a truck with a human driver. In some ways it might be harder, given countermeasures. With no driver to hold hostage, police can be informed immediately. And the truck and trailer could be "hardened" in various ways. With GPS, they know exactly where the truck and trailer is at all times, so they could tell the police exactly where to go.Abdul Alhazred wrote:"Luddites"?
I'm talking about the same sort of people who already high jack trucks and steal cargo.
This is a case of automation making someone's job easier.
The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices.[1] Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry.[2] It is a misconception that the Luddites protested against the machinery itself in an attempt to halt the progress of technology. Over time, however, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation, or new technologies in general.[3] The Luddite movement began in Nottingham and culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with military force.
As a similar example, which one is easier to rob, a bank or an ATM machine? I guess the most common method to steal directly from an ATM is a so-called "ram raid" or "crash and grab". You need a large stolen vehicle to do that, so the crime would seem to involve first stealing a pickup truck or SUV. Another way is to mug somebody at an ATM and make them withdraw money, but with most ATMs having like a $200 limit, that has fairly meager results. Basically, if it was too easy, ATMs probably wouldn't exist, because the risk of robbery would make the whole enterprise unprofitable. On the other hand, there are over 4000 bank robberies in the US every year according to the FBI statistics. You don't even need a real gun to do it, sometimes just a hand in the pocket pretending to have a gun does the trick.Abdul Alhazred wrote:Typically, those who high jack trucks leave the driver unharmed if he doesn't fight, because why risk a felony murder charge when you're in it for the money?
So shit like stopping a speeding truck by shooting out the tires is right out.
But with no driver to worry about ...
$700 at my bank, Up to $2000 at some. That's a respectable mugging.Anaxagoras wrote:Another way is to mug somebody at an ATM and make them withdraw money, but with most ATMs having like a $200 limit, that has fairly meager results....
Draw me a picture of how you think a robbery might take place here 'cause the way I see it, it would look the same as robbing a human-driven truck except they can't steal the truck itself and nobody has the keys to the rear cargo doors. So once they bust that lock, what then? They can't steal the truck itself. Did they bring another semi to steal the cargo? Oh, and the whole thing is being recorded six ways to Sunday and the cops are already on the way, btw.Abdul Alhazred wrote:I see self driving trucks as being no more armored than regular trucks.
Sure they could be built like tanks (including even AI controlled weaponry if you like), but that nullifies the cost savings in terms of increased fuel + tearing up the roads.
You're just being Clausian here.Abdul Alhazred wrote:They steal the cargo with another (smaller) truck, not necessarily the whole cargo of course. As sometimes done now, because police aren't looking for the other