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Google's Self-Driving Cars: Fun Facts — Parallax Forums

Google's Self-Driving Cars: Fun Facts

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  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-06-15 12:13
    It has a face. But why the glum look? Reminds me of Marvin:

    "Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and you ask me to take you to the mall. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't."
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2015-06-15 16:33
    The only thing worse than an AI with a bad attitude is one with too positive an attitude. Witness Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf:
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2015-06-15 17:02
    It looks like it is worried it might rain.

    If you looked at the car and thought the Google engineers purposefully made it look like it had a face, you were right. Their intention was both to make it cute to spiritually disarm other drivers.

    I'm guessing you have to see it running you over in a parking lot to fully understand how the flat mouth and droopy eyes are disarming.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2015-06-15 18:54
    Here's how driverless cars of the real future will actually work. After all, each of us will sometime in our lives be chased by a crazed lunatic with an automatic pistol.

    (caution: Arnie bad language humor ahead)
  • TtailspinTtailspin Posts: 1,326
    edited 2015-06-15 22:03
    So you would be just a passenger? Can you actually stop the car? or does it just keep driving to the destination its given?
    What happens if i accidentally drop my cell phone out the window and have to jump out of the car to pick it up, will the car just drive away when the light turns green?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-06-16 01:56
    Good question, what happens if you open the door when the thing is moving? Will it let you open the door? Is there a big red emergency stop switch somewhere?
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,244
    edited 2015-06-16 06:58
    Doors? Windows? You guys are funny. Didn't you see Wall-E? In the future we lay on pods and the robots load us into nacelles. There are no doors. There are no windows. Only happiness, peace, efficiency and compliance.

    Are we there yet?
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,244
    A well-written article on the reality (difficulty) of driverless cars. It's from LinkedIn, but I think everyone can view the article. Please advise if otherwise.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-driverless-cars-might-hit-road-so-fast-scott-nyquist
  • My car (not driverless) has what amounts to an RFID tag in the key fob, so it knows when I'm in the car, and it's a 2008 model. Given al the problems autonomous cars will have to solve, "is there a passenger?" seems like a pretty easy one.

    On the flip-side, a computer doesn't get distracted, can look more than one direction at once, can "see" in infra-red and radar, and can have millisecond reaction times. I'd be more inclined to trust one than the average driver.
  • JasonDorie wrote: »
    My car (not driverless) has what amounts to an RFID tag in the key fob, so it knows when I'm in the car, and it's a 2008 model. Given al the problems autonomous cars will have to solve, "is there a passenger?" seems like a pretty easy one.

    On the flip-side, a computer doesn't get distracted, can look more than one direction at once, can "see" in infra-red and radar, and can have millisecond reaction times. I'd be more inclined to trust one than the average driver.
    Yeah but do you trust the programmer who wrote the software for the self-driving car?

  • No doubt the cars will be linked to a central computer sending back data to head office to 'improve the driver experience in future products'. What a wonderful target for foreign hackers to plant a virus to have all cars go wild on a certain day at a certain time.

    Dave
  • >>but do you trust the programmer...?

    They're probably paying more attention than the average driver, and NHTSA is all over this stuff. Driverless cars won't hit the road until they meet a fairly high safety bar in closed testing, then real-world testing, so yes, actually I do.
  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    edited 2017-08-03 18:00
    erco wrote: »
    Doors? Windows? You guys are funny. Didn't you see Wall-E? In the future we lay on pods and the robots load us into nacelles. There are no doors. There are no windows. Only happiness, peace, efficiency and compliance.

    Are we there yet?


    I'm not crazy about an elevator taking control.
    Something here just looks like it cheapens the human, to have a robotic vehicle cart a large group of people around.

    But a capsule and a tube to travel in, was a dream of mine as a kid though.

    Elon Musk is doing that in Dubai:

  • I don't trust the weather, QA issues, and most of all, hackers.
  • JasonDorie wrote: »
    >>but do you trust the programmer...?

    They're probably paying more attention than the average driver, and NHTSA is all over this stuff. Driverless cars won't hit the road until they meet a fairly high safety bar in closed testing, then real-world testing, so yes, actually I do.
    It's good to hear there be such high standards applied.

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,244
    tritonium wrote: »
    What a wonderful target for foreign hackers to plant a virus to have all cars go wild on a certain day at a certain time.

    You guys worry too much!



  • From NHTSA's website: 35,092 people died on U.S. roadways in 2015. 94 percent of crashes can be tied to a human choice or error.

    The current generation of self-driving cars tends to be safer than human driven cars:
    https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/29/crash-data-for-self-driving-cars-may-not-tell-whole-story.html

    They were involved in more accidents than people were, but not a single one was deemed their fault. Another study suggests that because they're more conservative than a typical driver, aggressive humans expect them to, for example, run a yellow light, and rear-end them, at twice the rate of human drivers. If you want to make driving safer, unless the human is Mario Andretti, they shouldn't be in control. :-)

    Don't get me wrong - I really *like* driving, but watching other people in traffic (and myself) has made me decide that we can't really be trusted any more. We're too inattentive.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    JasonDorie wrote: »
    My car (not driverless) has what amounts to an RFID tag in the key fob, so it knows when I'm in the car, and it's a 2008 model. Given al the problems autonomous cars will have to solve, "is there a passenger?" seems like a pretty easy one.

    On the flip-side, a computer doesn't get distracted, can look more than one direction at once, can "see" in infra-red and radar, and can have millisecond reaction times. I'd be more inclined to trust one than the average driver.

    +1
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,066
    +1
  • Does the Google car still have LIDAR on top? That's a non-starter (cost wise) for anything affordable by consumers.
  • It's too bad we can't resolve the distracted driving issue without autonomous cars. There goes another chunk of humanity.
  • xanadu wrote: »
    It's too bad we can't resolve the distracted driving issue without autonomous cars. There goes another chunk of humanity.

    If it wasn't for distracted drivers being responsible for taking out the non-distracted drivers, I'd just say survival of the fittest :D

    But alas, I have to side with the autonomous cars here too. But I agree that the security of these things needs to be watched as closely if not MORE closely than the driving algorithms. You'd like to think that big companies have the money and resources to ensure their cars are secure, but it seems they jumped into the tech world way too soon in some cases.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2017-09-14 18:12
    I was very happy to see today that at least one guy has rooted his Tesla and can now commune with the Linux operating system underneath.

    A Tesla of course likes to call home. But now his Tesla calls to a server in his home.

    What is that server? A Raspberry Pi !

    Riding the famous Wreckla :



  • erco wrote: »

    They say these new Veolodyne units will be $500 in 2018 (about $6500 cheaper than what they've been using on experimental cars), and $50-100 by 2023. At these prices, you'll be able to put one on your bike, and convert it to self-peddling!

    In other news, I heard today of a company moving forward with plans for WiFi between self-driving cars, and possibly between cars and intersections. I'm reminded a bit of the tattle-tell taxi Corbin Dallas drives in The Fifth Element, but I suppose all this is inevitable. At the intersections cars will get a secondary birds-eye-view via the cameras and Lidars mounted there. The lives that alone could save might be worth the intrusions everywhere else.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,244
    ... you'll be able to put one on your bike, and convert it to self-peddling!

    There's peddling and there's pedaling; I've done plenty of both. Pedaling my bike by day and peddling my Chinese Ebay deals by night.

    I could do both simultaneously if I start selling some of the bikes and parts that's filling the OTHER half of my garage.

  • Yes, but self-peddling is funny. No yuks in self-pedaling (that's just an electric bike, after all, and what's funny about them?).

    There's nothing like a good joke, I always say. And that was nothing like a good joke. (Uncle Albert, Mary Poppins, 1964.)

    While we're on the subject of bikes, and in the interest of keeping this related to electronics: The other week I saw a man on a electric bike-like bicycle treadmill. It moved as he walked on a conveyor-like belt. That belt was connected to what I imagine was a generator and battery, and the whole thing zipped down the road at more than 20-25 MPH.

    Is this a thing now? I have to get out more often.
  • While we're on the subject of bikes, and in the interest of keeping this related to electronics: The other week I saw a man on a electric bike-like bicycle treadmill. It moved as he walked on a conveyor-like belt. That belt was connected to what I imagine was a generator and battery, and the whole thing zipped down the road at more than 20-25 MPH.

    Is this a thing now? I have to get out more often.

    Yep.

    https://lopifitaustralia.com.au/single-post/2016/06/27/The-Lopifit-Treadmill-Bike-WalkRide-Your-Way-To-Better-Health
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    I do believe the human race has gone insane.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    Heater. wrote: »
    I do believe the human race has gone insane.

    No argument from me on that.
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