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Comment by olivercameron | Hacker News Reader

Hello everyone! Former YC founder here (S11) who now works at Udacity on this team. I'd love to answer any questions on this project or our autonomous vehicles curriculum, and welcome you to our enthusiasts Slack team (http://nd013.udacity.com).

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Why do it if "it isn’t the core focus of Udacity’s business" as the founder, Sebastian Thrun, said?

Seems like creating free and open source simulator would be of more value than trying to get students to build hardware based vehicles?

DARPA, YC, and other have taken this approach for various reasons in some projects - and it seems if the intent is to teach, learn, share, etc. - it'd be a better investment.

Great question! My 2 cents: our core mission is to democratize education, and although the car itself won't make or break Udacity, I think it can contribute dramatically to our core mission.

How so? We have students all around the world (almost every country is represented in our DAU) who will never have access to a car outfitted with hardware and sensors (easy $125k), never mind the costs needed to get a permit to get on the road ($50k!). Being able to contribute code and see the results run in real environments (ask Sebastian what he thinks about simulation!) could be a huge advantage to students around the world in their quest to jump into this industry and get credibility.

Speaking of credibility, we want to prove to the world we really know what we're doing, and that our curriculum is truly legit.

tl;dr: We hope that by open sourcing our car that we can give opportunities to students around the world who otherwise wouldn't have it.

>> "ask Sebastian what he thinks about simulation"

Thanks, appreciate you addressing the questions.

If you wanted to ping Sebastian and let him know about the AMA, I'm sure there would be a lot of interest beyond just me getting an answer to my questions from him; I truly am curious to hear his take, since as you say, the barrier to rendering the software in hardware would likely be beyond the reach of an individual student or even likely a group of students in closes proximity to each other.

Let me work on that!

A simulator is indeed more practical. A live application will allow exposure in a way the simulator cannot. Its about theory and practice (and marketing, in this case).

I did simulations before doing anything in practice. Benefits were many because there is nothing like the real thing.

Edit: Removed presumptuous comment about myself

Maybe Thrun doesn't feel like launching separate companies for each of his interests.

Hi Oliver. There are thousands of applications for 250 seats per cohort, and it sounds like one cohort will start per month. Is there a rhyme and reason for how admission to a cohort will work?

Hello! You can check out this FAQ for info: https://www.udacity.com/drive/faq

We're taking a lot of learnings from our Georgia Tech OMS program to find amazing students from around the world.

Hi. Simple question, what's the tech stack that will be used for the opensource software that will run the self-driving? (I imagine static and safe programming language?)

I am currently working full time as a scientific developer with substantial background in statistics and control theory, and I want to attend, but I am not sure about the expected course load. Could you discuss average hours a student is expected to spend on this? And whether this is like a full-time student course load or a part-time course load?

We optimize our curriculum for those who are unable to spend all of their time on education. 10hrs/week is our recommended amount of learning.

Will ethics (e.g., the collection and storage of personal information, or professional responsibilities in regulated industries) be given any treatment?

Could you go into a little more detail here? Thanks!

It isn't just ethics; in Europe, at least, it's regulatory. (See GDPR and it predecessors).

The response from Udacity suggests not.

Thinking of training data sets as an example: they contain a lot of personal information (faces, license plates, times, locations, speeds, etc.). Depends on jurisdiction, but there likely aren't legal issues in amassing and using this data when it is collected in plain view from public areas; I envision possible ethical issues though. Could you release training data for public use, without obscuring identifying information? There may not be legal issues in releasing raw data, but keeping in mind that the information is sensitive and recorded without consent, and that an engineer's first duty is to the public health, safety, and well-being, might there be a professional obligation to sanitize the data?

My example might be a bit contrived, but I think there are going to be many valid (and far better!) questions in this discipline that should be asked and considered, and I think your graduates need to be equipped to do so.

Hey! Great question. We strongly believe that it's important to understand the ethical implications of such technology. However, we don't believe we are experts or authorities on the ethical implications and as such will provide recommended readings but not cover it ourselves.

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