Google's Self-Driving Car Gets Mixed Reviews

http://www.ktvz.com/automotive/31083190/detail.html

by mhb • 14 years ago

30 53 14 years ago

ktvz.com

revelation3• 14 years ago

The first will be allowing the car to stray from routes that it has been specifically trained to drive.

I think the author is hugely overstating the importance of this.

antonioevans• 14 years ago

I live in NYC and the best use-case for this is taxis. Taxi do not take the same route twice. Traffic is a nightmare during different seasonal, temporal, or accident events. So like a Garmin device it should be able to "remap" the trip.

In our lifetimes this will be possible but maybe not in next 1-3 years. (I hope I am wrong)

MaxGabriel• 14 years ago

The car already doesn't need to be on planned routes, it remaps the trip as needed. That was done back during the DARPA Challenges.

They're just limiting the car here for the media.

revelation3• 14 years ago

Google has covered large parts of the (populated) world with Street View. Pictures [1] indicate that the cars were equipped with laser sensors. So Google probably has enough data to have the cars drive new routes.

But thats not the point. Most of peoples daily driving routine is the same routes over and over, commuting to and from work.

Going even further: I'd imagine that you could train the car on a specific route by driving it manually. Such information could be crowdsourced, much as Google already does with its traffic data on Maps.

[1] http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/streetviewca.jp...

falcolas• 14 years ago

I agree 100%. My commute is over the same route, every day, some 260 days a year. The value of freeing me up to do something else for that hour each day can't be understated.

benmccann• 14 years ago

You might be surprised. It's a bit more than having to just program in new GPS coordinates. Imagine the car drives the route once collecting tons of data with the laser range finder and other sensors on the car. Now they let the car sit for a few days while they process all the data. Finally the car can drive the route. There's still some pretty hard challenges to solve in making those offline algorithms realtime. Maybe some of it is just waiting a couple years for faster processors, but I'm guessing they might have some pretty intense engineering challenges ahead.

nolok• 14 years ago

I don't think he meant doing it was an easy task, but rather that a large majority of the time when you take your car you go on a route you've already taken in the past, and if the car can self train its routes when in manual mode then you only need to drive it once / the first few times to go to work/groceries/school/...

jessriedel• 14 years ago

> Disappointing because it's clearly not going to be ready for public use for years and years.

> That step still seems -- to me -- many years off

Than you, KTVZ reporter. I will take your expert opinion into account.

rallison• 14 years ago

FTA: For now, at least, the car only drives routes it's been trained to drive. My ride in Washington DC was along a route that Google engineers had driven with the car earlier. Google refused to allow the car to be driven anywhere beyond this well-studied environment, at least not with the media tagging along.

Reporter, did you even ask the Google engineers about that? For a media demo, it is not at all surprising that they would use an already driven route. The reporting here was a bit disappointing.

alain94040• 14 years ago

Reporter, did you even ask the Google engineers about that? For a media demo, it is not at all surprising that they would use an already driven route. The reporting here was a bit disappointing.

Actually, no, this limitation has been well documented (but cleverly brushed aside). The car doesn't see and understand the road ahead, it follows an invisible line on the ground, and can stop if it detects danger. It doesn't read signs.

So yes, demos are impressive, but slightly misleading.

eco• 14 years ago

CNN Auto writer, actually. The article is just reprinted on KTVZ's website.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

The lack of a turn signal made me chuckle.

That is such a software development moment :) Probably too easy to implement, that's why they forgot it.

But the fact that the car often needs the human to intervene is a bit more interesting. Why would a human better know if there is enough space for two cars to pass each other in a narrow street?

christiangenco• 14 years ago

If I was google I'd be erring on the side of extreme caution. The first public accident that happens with one of these cars is going to get plastered over every media outlet in the world.

That they had the car in "super safe driving" mode for a media event seems entirely reasonable, even if the car probably could've navigated the narrow street with 95% confidence. The obvious path of attack is targeting the safety of an automated driver. Lose voter confidence and the whole thing comes crumbling down to be delayed another decade of legislation.

That's my guess, anyway.

jrockway• 14 years ago

The first public accident that happens with one of these cars is going to get plastered over every media outlet in the world.

There's already been an accident, the car hit another car from behind. But supposedly this was in manual mode.

Qworg3• 14 years ago

The system likely has a bubble of safety around it to allow for sudden changes close to the car. This makes the "car" far larger than it would actually be.

mertd• 14 years ago

Probably depends on the accuracy of positioning and real time 3d modeling of the environment. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't down to the centimeter level yet.

to3m2• 14 years ago

The lack of turn signals makes me highly suspicious. There is more to this omission than meets the eye, I am quite sure of it. As you say, adding turn signals in should be straightforward. The computer presumably has its turns planned far enough in advance. So why doesn't it?

I am actually even less inclined to trust these so-called "self"-driving cars now. Not like I even trust the human-driven variety all that much...

elsurudo4• 14 years ago

The lack of "support" for turn signals is probably a way to ensure that a human is always present and aware during operation.

It's a really clever, simple solution. They've turned the absence of a feature into a feature.

I don't know why the Google engineer would lie about it, though.

haakon6663• 14 years ago

If the turn signals are not on the CAN bus it could be annoying to implement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus

nooneelse• 14 years ago

Turn signals are a small subset of the "signal knowledge and intent" lights/outputs that a self-driving car might want to use to communicate with the humans and, some day, other self-driving cars around. The team might be working in the direction of a more general implementation of such things rather than hooking up a temporary system for just two sets of dumb on-or-off lights.

ajays• 14 years ago

FTA: "But the biggest step will be to create a car that will let me just sit in the back seat with no-one at all in the driver's seat. . . . If Google can get there before a major automaker beats them to it, I'll be really impressed."

A major automaker has as much chance of beating Google as a 350lb man has of beating Usain Bolt at the 100m dash. The automakers aren't really known for doing cutting-edge software, you know.

sanderjd• 14 years ago

That part made me grin. Most non-technical people I've talked to have expressed surprise that Google is the company furthest along with this technology. They see the problem as one of vehicular design rather than large-scale data analysis. Automakers are pretty good at the former, but nobody has proved themselves to be better at the latter than Google.

elsurudo4• 14 years ago

Absolutely. Google must realize that its supremacy in search/ads will eventually come to an end, so they're making a really smart, long-term investment here.

Self-driving cars would be awesomely useful, and Google has exactly the right resources (top AI engineers) to make this happen.

One day, we'll all likely have cars with AI powered by Google.

haakon6663• 14 years ago

Or you could view it that they are trying to extract an extra hour or two of eyeball time per person per day. Since you no longer have to drive the car, you could be using your android tablet on the commute to work....

Morg2• 14 years ago

Cars with AI, yes. Powered by Google, I sure hope not.

You have to remember that they're an american company, and thus required to comply to their govt's every whim, like all others.

Goes without saying I'd much prefer a product NOT related to the US's internal and external policies.

simulate• 14 years ago

No major automaker will produce self-driving cars because self-driving cars greatly reduce the need for private car ownership. A two-car family might be able to manage with a single car if that car can drive itself to pick up individuals. Groups could pool their money to buy a single car the same way that fractional ownership of jets happens today but on a mass scale. The number of cars parked unused could go down substantially. Self-driving cars are a huge benefit for society and cities especially but a disaster for car companies.

adamjernst• 14 years ago

I'd watch out for the Jevons paradox though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

msg• 14 years ago

Today's driving scenarios will be served by a small pocket of tomorrow's automated power, granted.

If we have self driving cars, fast switching and routing, we may find ourselves in possession of a packet switched human transportation network. I think we'd need a lot of cars in that world. They might become commoditized like the PC was, but still a profitable business.

mikeash• 14 years ago

They may be a disaster for the car companies, but they'd be a huge success for the only car company to have one, if only one car company had one. Thus is how competition can drive adopting new technologies even when they make their industry less profitable.

nthitz• 14 years ago

No turn signals? How could they have not put those in yet?! Next you will tell me it won't tune the radio to my top songs on google music!

samineru• 14 years ago

> The data from each situation would be ingested and analyzed so the car could learn what to do in the future. Those lessons could, hopefully, be applied to a broad range of driving conundrums.

This is huge. Maybe a handful of cars are learning there way around slowly, but if they have legitimate automatic learning systems, imagine two or three thousand cars all learning together.

CognitiveLens• 14 years ago

This is a major piece in the overall puzzle that the article doesn't really explore. Google's greatest strategic advantage is networked systems - each additional driverless car is a mobile, sensor-packed learning system for all other driverless cars. I strongly doubt that the plan is for each car to 'learn' how to handle each new driving situation independently - as soon as one car learns a behavior, they all learn that behavior.

That level of networked learning system is probably not fully mature, but it's certainly not far from reality.

doubleconfess• 14 years ago

Wow, this reporter was horrible. He reminds me of those clients who when you show them the early stages of their site after a few weeks of work, point out everything that doesn't work as a huge the-sky-is-falling catastrophic event that is proof of the project's eventual demise. This reporter got to sit in a car that is doing things that a few years ago still seemed like science fiction and yet he had these niggling complaints:

For now, at least, the car only drives routes it's been trained to drive.

Google is pretty good at mapping things.

Since the Google car only just got its learner's permit, it drives accordingly

I think this is meant as a literal statement. The car is able to drive of its own accord, but needs an adult present who can take over if needed. But did you just say that the GOOGLE CAR HAS A LEARNER'S PERMIT?? That's amazing!

Then there was the jerking halt on a side street caused by a car that stopped a little abruptly almost two car lengths ahead.

If you don't think the software is going to err on the side of caution for YEARS after widespread usage, you are mistaken. Eventually we will be so used to trusting these cars that we will probably be napping on the way to work, so who cares that the car hits the brakes a few more times than it should?

And eventually I'm sure these cars will be a model of efficiency, with fast moving currents of cars zipping here and there. One step at a time.

Surprisingly, one thing the car can't do all on its own is use the turn signals.

Hey, how come when I click this button on my site does nothing happen??? THIS PROJECT IS A COMPLETE FAILURE!!!

If Google can get there before a major automaker beats them to it, I'll be really impressed.

The most preposterous statement of all. Please get the reporter on the line and let me place a bet of Google vs all the automakers combined on who will release this technology is first. Assuming that Google hasn't locked up all of the pertinent technologies, this wouldn't be a fair fight.

ColinWright3• 14 years ago

I'm really disappointed to see this as the top voted reply. Of course the reporter is wrong, of course his article can be ripped apart, of course this is a momentous achievement and the reporter is just too ignorant to know that, and we're all clever enough to see how amazing this is.

You're missing the point and the lesson:

    This is how normals think.

I've written more here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4018684

Don't just laugh at the ignorance, learn from it.

robterrell• 14 years ago

The reporter is right, and we're wrong. The question the article is answering is "Are Google's self-driving cars ready?" The article explains in general-interest terms why they're not.

You or I might be tempted to buy that exact car today as a beta, knowing that we'd have to tweak a lot of things, but (a) I don't want to drive in a world where your beta car with your rooted ROMs is driving around (and you definitely don't want to drive on the same streets as my inexperly-rooted ROMS, trust me); (b) the grandparent comment is underestimating the work involved in micro-mapping all of the possible routes, let alone the vast array of possible interactions between other vehicles, humans, animals, new road hazards, weather, etc. all mixed together.

I'm sure it's going to be a few years. Maybe more than a few. But that's okay with me. The stakes are pretty high for two-ton hunks of metal moving at 60 mph. This is something we all definitely want them to get as close to correct as humanly possible before it's available to consumers.

semanticist• 14 years ago

On a slightly meta note, HN comments are weighted by the average karma score of the person leaving the comment, not just the number of up-votes that specific comment received.

So this comment being at the top could easily be down to the poster's karma/average karma.

Morg2• 14 years ago

It seemed like science-fiction to short-sighted ignorants a few years ago, maybe.

ColinWright3• 14 years ago

So many of the comments here are pointing out the flaws in the reporter's account and, quite rightly, scoffing at their ignorance.

But there's a lesson to learn: he's an ordinary person, and this is what he thinks about the demo!

So don't just dismiss it as completely missing the point. Learn and understand that this is how the normals think. This is an important lesson for we who write code.

This really is how the normals think.

Dismiss and ignore it at your peril and loss.

rangibaby• 14 years ago

This won't be the last critical review that Google gets. History has shown that people are incredibly quick to dismiss and attack things they don't understand.

A good (recent!) tech example would be the iPhone: back in 2008; it's kind of funny now, but my first impression of it was "huh, where's the stylus?" and I wasn't alone. The amount of "No stylus, so it's hard to use" FUD being spread around was incredible.

Now my two year-old son tries to swipe on my computer dumbscreen to go to the next photo. The "People of the land.... morons" opinion curve is probably going to follow the same trajectory; they will dismiss and criticize until they can't remember how crappy driving a car really was.

drbawb• 14 years ago

First thing I'm going to do w/ my Google Car is put a label that says: "PRESS IN CASE OF SKYNET!" under the kill switch.

lumberjack• 14 years ago

Can the lack of automatic turn signal be due to some legal implications? Like for example, the car falling in the same position as other car with assisted driving technologies.

Or perhaps it's just a quick way to change the car's route?

Google's Self-Driving Car Gets Mixed Reviews

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