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Poll & Prediction: Autonomous Car Equipment at 5k by 2019


Mallette

Autonomous Vehicles: Good or Bad  

49 members have voted

  1. 1. Are autonomous vehicles a good witch, or a bad witch?

    • Good
      20
    • Bad
      28


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Autonomous individual cars would be the ultimate in public transportation.  The concept has merit, and might be worth a separate infrastructure to keep the two systems apart.  I could imagine direct routes into and out of cities and airports to key destination points.  It would destroy the current public transportation model relying on set schedules which are often not convenient, especially during off hours.  Cities are already installing bike paths.  The logistical technology is there and when everything else catches up, especially the will to accomplish it, civilization will be better off for it.  I love driving a well made auto, but imagine if you could cut insurance, maintenance, and payments out of your budget?  The cost would be equally shared by all who use and benefit the system.

 

We have transportation now using rail lines and right of ways.  Pedestrians, like terrorists, will always be a concern.  Weather is no more of a problem than it is now.  Try driving on ice by yourself.  Look at all the idiots who can't drive themselves in rain.

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Dave and I'll will likely be pushing up daisy by then, but if we're lucky, a fully autonomous hurst will carry the casket...... though I would prefer a horse and carriage.

 

My next...and last car before the one you describe...will be autonomous by the common definition.  My son's first car in two years will be as well.  The Tesla that put the paddles to this thread is autonomous by that definition.  Certainly a tweak in order...but it's probably already been done.

 

What hasn't been mentioned is the huge lawsuit that's almost certainly coming.  It will be a landmark.  No question the guy didn't use the car as directed, but that didn't prevent the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit either. 

 

Some people insist on ignoring instructions.  I don't.  If I had a Tesla I'd run it in full auto pilot but with eyes on the road.  I have faith in the current technology, but it isn't proven yet. 

 

Dave

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Autonomous individual cars would be the ultimate in public transportation.

 

This is what Uber is all about.  But the first big thing will be autonomous trucks.  Biggest thing since the railroads.  If I were 25 I'd be working towards establishing a transcontinental truck line using Tesla battery and autonomous technology with battery exchange stations every 250 miles.  Trucks would run 24/7.  Incredible profit potential, and if dumb dave can think of it I am sure it's being worked on.  From what I've read autonomous trucks are well along and actually already in use in limited areas like open pit mines.

 

Dave

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The definition(s) are universally accepted nationwide, and worldwide, among engineers, automakers, lawmakers and pretty much all stake holders.

Pick your number between 0 and 6. If 2 is "autonomous" you are there. If it is 3 or above, you are going to have to wait.

The "common" definition of autonomous is a 5 or above.

Here is one obstical discussed by the guy from Berkeley that hasn't been mentio ed yet:

You have to improve on a system and vehicle safety standard that is already pretty good relatively speaking.

"Consider the issue of safety, given the number of cars on the road, said Steven Shladover, a research engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. "[self-driving car] technology can't be less good than today's traffic safety, and in the United States, there are 3.3 million vehicle-hours per fatal accident and 64,400 vehicle-hours per injury," he explained. Developing fully autonomous vehicles that can achieve similar traffic-safety levels is "not a hard problem," he said, "that's a superhard problem."

Edited by dwilawyer
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It's an easier problem if you segregate the two. Then, make a DL as rigorous as getting a German DL. Those that can't will have to use the public autonomous option.

That is one of the big issues pending, who will train and certify, the automaker or the state government.

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The Apollo computers were 20 MHz 16 bit processors that used 64k of magnetic core memory.

Nope. The Apollo computers were the most advanced general purpose computers in the known universe and saved the day from the one you described above which was trying to land them on a boulder.

Dave

I don't think they were that fast, less than 1mhz, 4 or 8 bit. The core memory was made by women with nimble fingers for Raytheon who was contracted to build the MIT design.

They were not the most advanced computers of the day, and they were very limited purpose (navigation) they were lightweight.

NASA used the IBM 360 for general purpose comouter and Saturn system, that wasn't even the most advanced of the day, not by a longshot.

The story about the nav computer saving the day is more legend than fact, it went the way it was supposed to go with Neil to determine a precise landing spot when they got to a certain altitude, that's why the LEM had windows, because it was expected that Neil would have to land it with Buzz's help. The hype was all about an error code and whether to abort or not. A Raytheon engineer said it was ok and Neil continued the decent and selection of landing spot, exactly as planned.

NASA didn't get state of the art Supercomputer until the 1980s when they bought a CRAY 2. That was used for design and simulations at AMES I think.

EDIT: The program was on read only rope memory that was woven by the women. The read wrote was core memory.

It was in fact 16 bit and just above 1mhz. However, the architecture was extremely robust.

Edited by dwilawyer
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Here is the accepted standard everyone is working with.

 

Fully agreed.  I have a copy.  But it isn't what the PUBLIC is working with.  Tesla is at L3...the guy should have been fully engaged watching what was happening.  He was operating an L3 car in L4 mode.  His death will help it get to L4 and serve as a warning to those who get too complacent too fast.  Tesla has all the L4 elements in place, EXCEPT field proven software.  That will come swiftly. 

 

Given the irrationality of much of the public about this technology I still have fears this death will set it back more than it should.  Operated properly the Tesla in autopilot has all the basics of the car that will reduce accidents 90%.  My "guess" would be that with human intervention like he should have been ready to provide the car is likely already at least 70% safer than any human operated vehicle.

 

Dave

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A moonshot is a walk in the park, computationally, by comparison. The Apollo computers were 20 MHz 16 bit processors that used 64k of magnetic core memory. That's it . 64 kilobytes of memory, total. No bulk storage. 3 of them onboard for redundancy.

 

There was no traffic or pedestrians to contend with up there either.

 

That didn't sound right, so I went and looked up the statistics. Guidance computer 2Mhz. Memory final from MIT was 2KB RAM and was 32KB ROM. It's cycle time, which I take to mean bus speed, was 1MHz.

 

I had an IBM PC AT in 1984 with a 6MHz 80286 which I overclocked to 8MHz, and that was pushing it's limits. 

 

In 1986, Intel released the 80386DX which operated at the low end at 16MHz. Of course I had one of those as soon as it came out. Computers were my weakness in those days just like Klipsch and muscle cars are now.   :P

Edited by mustang guy
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Here is the accepted standard everyone is working with.

Fully agreed. I have a copy. But it isn't what the PUBLIC is working with. Tesla is at L3...the guy should have been fully engaged watching what was happening. He was operating an L3 car in L4 mode. His death will help it get to L4 and serve as a warning to those who get too complacent too fast. Tesla has all the L4 elements in place, EXCEPT field proven software. That will come swiftly.

Given the irrationality of much of the public about this technology I still have fears this death will set it back more than it should. Operated properly the Tesla in autopilot has all the basics of the car that will reduce accidents 90%. My "guess" would be that with human intervention like he should have been ready to provide the car is likely already at least 70% safer than any human operated vehicle.

Dave

Tesla say they are an L2. Ford CEO says autopilot is L3.

I think the consensus is the guy was using an L2 car as an L4. However, the consensus is also that the software won't come swiftly because of the variables. It would cone swiftly if there was a willingness to provide highway infrastructure which there isn't. So instead you have to program things like a metalic happy birthday ballon, a pothole filled with water, and a million other things.

Volvo says that an L3 is more dangerous than an L1 or L2 and they claim their Beta car will be L4.

Here is the article with the Volvo engineer quoted, which came out a week or two before the fatal Tesla crash.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11518826/volvo-tesla-autopilot-autonomous-self-driving-car

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It's clear to me it meets this definition, but the driver treated it as L4: 

 

3.  Conditional Automation: the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene.

 

I am not going to debate that as I expect it's a matter of opinion, even though in MY opinion the definition fits like a glove.  I treat "dynamic driving task" as lane control, braking, lane changing.  I don't blame Tesla or any maker from keeping expectations down at this point. 

 

Dave

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  • 9 months later...

Well, enough time and much more happening.  Tesla's autonomous electric truck is nearing completion, and he recently said "...Tesla is “still on track for being able to go cross country from LA to NY by the end of the year, fully autonomous” with one of its cars, “from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York, no controls touched at any point during that journey.”

 

All still well within my roundly poopooed prediction.  Musk is on to stuff you can REALLY poopoo, but with so far a 100% success record in every area he's worked in, go ahead and buy Apple anyway.  https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/1/15500202/elon-musk-interview-ted-talk-boring-tesla-video

 

Dave

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