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Comment by kiratp | Hacker News Reader

Literally making their own AI training chips with novel architecture doesn’t count as participating in research?

Google has tried and failed at commercializing similar technology in other verticals (like building environmental automation from their DC tech). The reason is actual incumbents (rightly) see the value of their position while Google comes at it as “our AI is the value, you just make dumb things”.

I expect the automakers to ship mediocre stacks that are put together by existing players like Bosch.

As an ex-Googler I would be floored if Waymo actually lands a sell-into deal with an automaker. A fully vertical taxi service is their path today because they tried and failed to sign any partnerships.

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they have several now

august 2020, tesla friendly blog: "Waymo Has Partnerships With Fiat Chrysler, Jaguar, Nissan, Renault, Volvo, & Magna"

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/10/waymo-has-partnerships-...

Announcing partnerships is the easiest thing to do. The proof is in the pudding. Right now Waymo is paying carmakers for the vehicles, not the other way around.

I don't understand why this is relevant to the ongoing discussion. What are the implications of this statement, what is your point?

Quoting you: > To make this even more clear, let's make it concrete with one plausible future: In 2032, Waymo (or Didi, whoever) achieves true 'level 4' fully-self driving with proprietary technology. Their tech is seen in trucks, busses, taxis, as well as being equipped to a few thousand private vehicles.

I see no possibility where existing large automakers will let Google (Waymo) own the FSD stack (and thus own the data and huge piece of value chain) and be relegated to a mere maker of a dumb car.

And if GM is not going to buy Waymo tech, Tesla will definitely not.

To be clear, (1) we are discussing a hypothetical about the future, where things are different than how they are today, and (2) the hypothetical is only a clarification and the further argument does not rely on it.

So, I still have difficulty reading your comment and extracting a meaningful point from it. Any reply to you would be regurgitating things that have already been said.

More importantly, I've been trying to interpret your comments as made in good faith, but I don't think you're arguing with the contiguity of the thread in mind. It really seems like you're here to defend Tesla, and that "Tesla might buy Waymo tech" might sound like an insult to Tesla? (To this extent, I'm worried this might actually be another proxy Musk argument, which I really have no interest in.)

With all this, out of courtesy, I don't get HN notifications and I won't be navigating back to this comment thread to check for further replies.

Don't get me wrong: Trawling the floodhose of AI publications, taking them together, and synthesizing them into a coherent and useful tool is serious, difficult, and creative work. This is R&D, and the people at Tesla working on autopilot are smart. The rift between "publication ready" work and "commercial ready" work is a vast one.

R&D for commercialization is a very difficult and very profitable task! But one would not expect this to advance the field of autonomous vehicles, nor would it require participating in the research.

(Also, I thought Waymo had partnerships, but I'm not close to Google. I don't know a lot about Waymo as a business, only as a research entity.)

You seem to imply that for progress to be classified as “R&D” it MYST be published.

A huge amount of R&D is never published. Eg: lithography tech at ASML.

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