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Comment by arconis987 | Hacker News Reader

I live in SF, and I take it daily. It's cheaper than paying for the parking garage near the office. And it's cheaper than Uber: the base rate is similar to Uber's, but there is no need to add a tip.

Waymo sometimes does weird, unexpected things - but safely. Once it seemed to change its mind about the optimal route a few times over the course of 10 seconds, switching safely between two lanes back and forth a few times before committing. It used its turn signal fine, and the lanes were clear, so it wasn't a problem, but this isn't something humans do.

Sometimes it behaves oddly, but I have developed confidence that it will do those odd things safely.

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>Once it seemed to change its mind about the optimal route a few times over the course of 10 seconds, switching safely between two lanes back and forth a few times before committing. It used its turn signal fine, and the lanes were clear, so it wasn't a problem, but this isn't something humans do.

Oh, I disagree, this is something I observe and in fact do myself quite a lot. We all run it through our minds which route might be the quickest spending on certain factors. The difference is Waymo (or any tech) will base this on actual data (i.e., getting there quicker) vs humans who will be more emotionally driven (i.e., frustration at the driver in front, wanting to take the more scenic route, being undecided about stopping at that cafe halfway).

I'm all for self driving in highly populated areas. In a perfect world I'd like to see it integrated into all vehicles, and when entering specific areas you are told your car will enter self-driving mode. Arguably this makes the most business sense for Waymo, licence the underlying tech to manufacturers that already have capacity to produce vehicles vs compete.

Agreed on this - think wayve is attempting this - building out the tech to license to manufacturers. Honestly makes the most sense and love the idea that all cars can have this and take over driving in specific areas.

Yes, but switching back and forth multiple times? I admit to having done even this before too, but I certainly didn't feel proud of myself after. A really good human driver would avoid this kind of conduct by having a (just slight) bias towards decision "stickiness" to avoid looking silly. This isn't purely aesthetic-- looking silly or bizarre, even if technically safe and legal and effecient, in your driving behavior can attract police attention (not a concern for self driving I suppose).

That said I admit if these are the kinds of complaints we are discussing, as opposed to the kinds Uber attracted (like running a woman over in Nevada), Waymo must be doing pretty well. These are nitpicks to gradually address, not fundamental issues. Kudos to waymo, it was always obvious they were nearly the only player seriously trying

> We all run it through our minds which route might be the quickest spending on certain factors. The difference is Waymo (or any tech) will base this on actual data (i.e., getting there quicker) vs humans who will be more emotionally driven [...]

I expect that robot taxis will be both consumers and producers of that actual data. They will likely report the traffic conditions they experience back to the company that runs the robot taxi service, and that will become input to the rest of the fleet.

If the time it takes for observations from a given robot taxi to be incorporated into the data received by other robot taxis is short enough it might be possible to get interesting feedback loops. It may even be possible to get oscillations.

Yes! I dream of traffic that moves and integrates seamlessly almost like a school of fish, because of near-instant communication between vehicles - an automotive hive mind. Imagine not needing traffic lights because each car at the intersection knows when it is their turn...but I know we'll f it up somehow.

Still, a person can dream.

This tracks with how the messaging about Waymo has changed.

Early on, they had those concept cars that looked like they belonged at Disneyland or in a Chevron commercial. Then, they started modding off-the-shelf cars at talking up the Waymo Driver. I think at some point they decided their core competence would be self-driving specifically, leaving the "car of the future" bit to traditional car companies.

I have video from my dashcam of a Waymo taxi doing a sudden three lane change, in moderately heavy traffic, to do a left turn to enter a freeway. This was a month or so ago. I really hope a human was involved in that. If not, there’s no way I would consider riding in one. If an officer had seen it, they would likely have written a ticket to a human.

Human drivers cross multiple lanes if heavy traffic all the time and certainly aren’t ticketed.

why are we tipping uber drivers?

Because they are humans who need to eat.

that argument applies to literally every single person to ever exist. do you tip every one you interact with on a daily basis? coffee server, bus driver, lunch server, office cleaner, hairdresser, grocery assistant...

maybe it's a cultural difference

I agree with your sentiment, but traditionally (in the United States) cab drivers are one of the few service providers that one is culturally expected to tip.

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