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Comment by tambourine_man | Hacker News Reader

It’s amazing how fast and radically the narrative shifts.

An year or so ago self driving cars would be here anytime now.

Now it’s almost consensus that it’s not for going to happen in the next decade.

I can't imagine there are many experienced software developers that maintained bullish perspectives on self-driving cars.

If you hear a consensus now, I suspect it's because the din of noise coming from the bulls has finally quieted down and you're able to hear the moderates and bears a little better.

The barriers preventing self-driving cars from taking off right now aren't software related though, they're fundamentally related to the limitations of neural networks that people didn't think would be an issue 1 or 2 years back. Our understanding of the capabilities and limitations is constantly changing, which is why many (including myself) thought full self-driving cars would be available in the next several years.

Are there non-software neural networks being produced yet? I was still under the impression that all the hardware neural networks testing the plasticity of circuits were still either theoretical or at least early in development.

That's correct, but what I mean is that this isnt a traditional software problem, it is a problem related to the workings of NNs themselves, whether they are embedded in software or in pure hardware.

so more of a theoretical problem rather than an implementation problem?

Maybe your memory is not perfect. In November last year Waymo announced that they will launch this year a commercial service. They are already testing on the roads with members of the public without safety driver. Before their announcement the consensus was at best in 2020. Can you please show me how today the consensus can be for the 2030s when we have already cars without safety drivers on the road?

Aren't they all in locations with perfect weather and perfect wireless connectivity due to low construction density? I think it's differing expectations as to what IRL meant.

They seem to have solved the snow problem, at least having a viable solution for it.

https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=5936

I think it was mainly lead by companies trying to get funding. People who understood the technology were not saying that. Good lesson to remember for next time there's a cool new technology.

I think there will be a realization soon that the AI hype in general is not going to solve all the problems CEOs and companies are trying to raise money for.

I don't think that's the case at all. At Google I/O they announced that Waymo has been doing fully autonomous driving in a limited fashion with real people in Phoenix for ~6 months.

Counterpoint, it's happening now with Waymo.

Waymo's initial commercial deployment is imminent but is now a good 6 months behind their initial announcement last November. Waymo is still using safety drivers most of the time, and the commercial deployment will likely be confined to members of their EZ rider guinea pigs. It's very exciting seeing how far they've come, but for every new region they hope to roll out in there's going to be a ton of work. AI can interpolate but it cannot generalize.

We're past peak hype and sliding into the trough of disillusionment.

Why is 6 months behind if they said that they will launch a commercial service this year?

Last November Krafcik said "In a few months". A few months later in March it was changed to "Later this year." Rumours circulated that they had planned for this month, August, which were corroborated by a big Bloomberg puff piece and a ballyhooed partnership announcement with the Valley transit authority, that came out late July, but still no deployment. They're hung up on something.

Right, right. Any moment now, and with flying cars, too. I am not holding my breath.

funnily enough self driving flying cars would be likely in a better shape to become a reality ai wise, because there are less human there and one can work within the framework of exclusion zones with governments to let them share the sky safely.

Except for the other part, i.e. failing to fly well. Which is sort of the point: "it's just around the corner, except there's always this one tiny inconvenience, but it will be completely awesome once we do something about it, so let's just handwave it off for now." (Yeah, yeah, I know that somebody made a render of a flying taxi this year. And last year, and the one before that, and the one before that, all the way to Kitty Hawk.)

The narrative is a function of a loud group with time and energy to spare, and downvoting power. A year ago you can still find the same issues raised today being raised, they’ll just be gray at the bottom of the page with a lot of angry replies like, “well human drivers kill a lot of people!”

Yandex Taxi looks really close. https://youtu.be/BbGEGDx59ZI

780 km (11 hours) at 99% autonomous. https://youtu.be/zljaMjLFqfI

> 99% autonomous

IMO the danger only increases as the autopiloted car approaches 100% coverage asymptotically.

As long as there's an expectation for the human to be able to take control I consider the technology worse than useless.

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