Re:Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
by forgetfreeman on Thursday June 27, 2024 @08:13PM
(#40816563)
I'm not splitting hairs. The difference between L4 and L5 autonomy is enormous. I submit that you cannot get enhanced safety outcomes out of a system that cannot perform the task at hand at least as well as a mediocre human, and realistically not until you're routinely out-performing the bulk of human operators. And if you think not crashing into random shit in a perfectly chaotic environment is an easily solved problem please explain to me why store PoS tech (orders of magnitude smaller problem space) has been a roiling dumpster fire for decades now. Software doesn't have an amazing track record at solving problems. It has proven to be absolutely phenomenal at shifting problem spaces in weird ways and introducing spectacularly stupid unplanned side effects however.
As for people that recently got their drivers license. I'm pretty sure that demographic is over-represented in the statistics of who drives the least safely, traffic fatalities, etc. Also insurers and rental car agencies have policies that reflect those cold, hard statistics. It will be interesting to see what they do when level 5 starts happening (probably sooner rather than later). My guess is that they'll charge people extra for the privilege of taking control of the car as they are far more likely to damage the vehicle and otherwise cause trouble.
And obviously one of the points Waymo is trying to make with their press release is that they are already safer. It's a press release of course and not the same as cold hard facts. And you make a fair point about self reporting. But it suggests the obvious notion that computers are getting pretty good at not crashing into stuff (or people). I find that entirely unsurprising, BTW. It does not seem like a particularly hard problem.