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Comment by carbocation | Hacker News Reader

This is just anecdote, but having taken trips in both Waymo and Cruise in SF, I feel very comfortable in Waymo: it drives carefully but confidently. It alerts me when cyclists are near when I'm getting out. It navigates coned-off work areas. Cruise required a lot of (remote) human intervention during my trips.

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Does Cruise have a screen like Waymo that shows you what the car "sees"?

Context: When sitting in the backseat of a Waymo, there is a tablet-sized screen that shows you all the cars nearby. And humans! On one of my first trips (at night), it took me a while to figure out what the white circles were. And then I looked over and saw people in the shadows! It was honestly kinda spooky that the car was much more aware of nearby humans then I was...

Disclosure: Googler, and a big fan of Waymo

yes

They do have screens in the back, but it doesn’t show any visualization like Waymo does. It just shows a map.

I haven't taken a Cruise, but I've used Waymo several times and my experience mirrors yours. I've seen Cruise cars on the street get confused and back up traffic enough times not to trust them.

I have a friend who interviewed at Waymo to be a safety driver. He told me they have a human at command central monitoring the car and the safety driver, talking back and forth. I see no reason why they would remove the human monitor after no longer using safety drivers. For liability reasons at least. My point is I'm not sure Waymo cars can actually be considered self- driving since they have a remote human standing by to take over.

Any actually-deployed driverless car has the same setup with remote operators - Cruise, Waymo, Zoox (if they've managed to deploy yet).

Seems like Cruise doesn't actually have this. If so, why aren't we hearing a report from the remote driver? Why did the remote driver let the car drag a woman? Why do remote drivers let Cruise cars screw up over and over again, block emergency vehicles, etc...

If I'm right, then Cruise will have to add remote drivers and then we can call them remotely operated cars instead of driver-less cars.

They have this, by their own admission and from my personal experiences in the car. A detail you might be mistaken on - they’re not really fully driving the car remotely. They’re basically sitting in a call center answering questions for the car or plotting a course, or giving it the all clear to proceed if things are uncertain. And generally this only happens if the situation is one where the car can ‘safely’ stop and wait for a response. In situations like the one discussed here, the car doesn’t have time to wait for a response from a human operator, so it just does what it thinks is best locally.

I've seen Zoox cars around Seattle recently while walking around. Can't tell if there's a safety driver in the car, but haven't looked that hard.

I don't think any operator has a 1:1 correspondence between vehicles and remote operators. Remote operation is intended to be used when a vehicle has realised it can't handle the current situation it's in and needs external assistance.

the passengers in the cruise were never in danger. The pedestrian dragged by the cruise, unfortunately, cannot say the same.

We were sold self-driving cars as safer than humans.

And snake oil salesmen exist everywhere, not sure what your point is.

Are you saying that they should all be equally safe? If so that would require a level of oversight and control (plus knowledge share?) not typically seen in US government, no?

I agree in principle, I’m not defending them at all. However this is exactly what much of the US wants, given how much de regulation and reduced “red tape” is often argued for.

Until then, we’re going to get some companies that put everyone’s lives at risk. Hell Tesla alone has over promised to insane degrees (the Full in FSD). I don’t see companies having less power any time soon.

No one was sold anything yet. These things don't go from 0 to 100 overnight. We've assumed that self-driving cars will be safer than humans in the future, though that's yet to be determined. And even if their safety record is better than humans, they will be more dangerous in different ways than human drivers, much like this recent incident where the woman was dragged and pinned.

LOL, what?

Musk has repeatedly stated that Teslas on FSD/AP are safer than humans, now.

You can take issue with the veracity of his claims (and I certainly do, on several levels), but let's not pretend like "no-one is selling this, yet" - let's also not forget, "The driver is only in the seat for legal reasons. The car is driving itself" - that was six years ago now.

Tesla's Full Self Driving is driver assistance software and is not an autonomous vehicle[1].

There are rules governing autonomous vehicles in California. They must report all accidents involving their self driving vehicles[2], miles driven, disengagements,... Tesla's FSD does not follow these rules.

Tesla's marketing may imply that FSD is an autonomous vehicle. However, today, in California, these are driver assistance programs and not self driving cars.

[1]https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2023/02/17/2022-disen...

[2]https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...

What a low bar to pass.

Given the DMV’s wording I’m waiting to see if anything in the official statement doesn’t hold up, but from Cruise’s statement, this incident is absolutely not a good vindication of human drivers, either:

> The [human-driven] Nissan Sentra then tragically struck and propelled the pedestrian into the path of the AV. The AV biased rightward before braking aggressively, but still made contact with the pedestrian. The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet. The driver of the Nissan Sentra fled the scene after the collision.

This action is about one specific brand, not the entire product category.

They are. Not one has ever tried to harm me, and I encounter them daily. I can think offhand of a dozen human drivers, motorcyclists and cyclist who have.

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