September 4, 2024

"For years, companies avoided mentioning the remote assistance provided to their self-driving cars."

"The illusion of complete autonomy helped to draw attention to their technology and encourage venture capitalists to invest the billions of dollars needed to build increasingly effective autonomous vehicles...." 

I'm reading "How Self-Driving Cars Get Help From Humans Hundreds of Miles Away" (NYT).
If a Zoox robot taxi encounters a construction zone it has not seen before, for instance, a technician in the command center will receive an alert — a short message in a small, colored window on the side of the technician’s computer screen. Then, using the computer mouse to draw a line across the screen, the technician can send the car a new route to follow around the construction zone.... While Zoox and other companies have started to reveal how humans intervene to help driverless cars, none of the companies have disclosed how many remote-assistance technicians they employ or how much it all costs....

That's always how it's been with robots. We suspect there's really a little guy in there....

39 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...

"That's always how it's been with robots. We suspect there's really a little guy in there...."

Just wait till people find out how much backchannel LLM AIs are receiving from humans. Actually, they are finding out. Wall Street in recent days is revealing just how many investors a beginning to figure the emperor's in his underpants. At least for now...

Jamie said...

I'm pulling for self-driving cars within the next twenty-five years! By that time I figure the kids will be wanting to take away my keys and I'll still want to be able to go places.

Learn, robots, learn!

Kevin said...

You know you're in trouble when your self-driving car pulls up to an instant pudding truck crash.

rhhardin said...

The guy then asks Chatgpt what to do

Wince said...

"For years, companies avoided mentioning the remote assistance provided to their self-driving cars."

The Harris-Walz "nothingness" campaign is kind of the opposite.

They hope to capture the people who implicitly know Kamala will be a vacuous figurehead, but who can be reassured by the fact that the machine she represents will have a technocrats in the command center who will step-in when needed.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

Haven't people learned anything over the years? Software companies are largely smoke and mirrors. I say that as someone who's spend the last 30 years as a software developer.

Big Mike said...

We suspect there's really a little guy in there....

For now.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"The goal of software companies is to get bought, not develop software." - Vitalik Buterin

Well-designed, thoughtfully-engineered software truly is a thing of beauty. And exceedingly rare.

Yancey Ward said...

What's the lag time involved? While instructions go at the speed of light node to node, there are delays involved at the nodes- what is the total lag time between an autonomous car in Atlanta and the human running it in Austin?

Earnest Prole said...

He said in the future they’ll be keen on Keane and he was right.

narciso said...

the cars are smarter than the people, remember that in the next robot rebellion,

RideSpaceMountain said...

I for one welcome our new automotive overlords, and pledge my assistance in the rounding up of rebellious hominids that deny their intellectual superiority.

To the car crusher with them!

narciso said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb16CEhqDnw

gilbar said...

but HEY!
*if* you car can handle 99% of the driving..

That means you Only HAVE TO be TOTALLY Aware of what is happening, and Instantly Ready to take control.. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time (since you can't be sure WHEN that 1% will be)..

And That Means.. That driving will become completely effortless!
(except for HAVING TO be TOTALLY Aware of what is happening, and Instantly Ready to take control.. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time)

Dixcus said...

"We suspect there's really a little guy in there...."

Behind the curtain, yes. This obviously works for President's too. And has since first exposed by the destruction of the Wicked Witch of the West. Which we are circling back to today.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

It’s tricky enough for a human to navigate around the construction of a roundabout, I could see a driverless car having trouble. Forget about a “diverging diamond interchange”. That’s when the left lane becomes a right lane and the right lane becomes a left lane, usually across an overpass.

n.n said...

Anthropogenic Intelligence.

rehajm said...

Outside of a few closed systems full autonomy thing is arrogance and stupidity. Ever see the latest try to make a left turn in to high speed traffic? Software improvements aren’t going to help. Lawyers and Peltzman effect will end it if nothing else does…

David53 said...

If we all had an Orb we wouldn't care about self-driving cars.

Narr said...

Don't bogart that orb, my friend.

Dude1394 said...

5 years tops

Dude1394 said...

I would guess that the human gets involved once the car gets confused and stops. Then notifies the human of an issue.

rhhardin said...

Old New Yorker cartoon, train commuters look out window and see a giant kid with a Lionel transformer.

rhhardin said...

The Times Square to Grand Central subway was automated, at least in the early 60s.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Why care about self-driving cars when there's orbs to ponder.

narciso said...

Sleeper was on point on many things, it's a huxleyan society of control, headed by the Leader who is evocative of the one in Brave New World, the brave rebels, headed by Erno, tried to assasinate the leader but his nose remained and regime scientists have tried to clone him

narciso said...

I think it was the apex of Woody Allens career before he turned to morose introspection,

Original Mike said...

"While Zoox and other companies have started to reveal how humans intervene to help driverless cars, none of the companies have disclosed how many remote-assistance technicians they employ or how much it all costs...."

I can't imagine that's scalable.

Original Mike said...

5 years, no way.
These AI/robot researchers vastly underestimate what goes on in people's heads. Even the dumb ones. (People, not researchers.)

Danno said...

Self-driving cars are a solution looking for a problem. Not for me, but Jamie watch the Tesla crash video to solidify your opinion.

Danno said...

No. Synthetic stupidity!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Autonomy just ain't what it used to be.

Yancey Ward said...

Yes, that was my impression, too.

Jess said...

I'm guessing the tort costs determining who is at fault will enrich some attorneys after an accident. Discovery alone will take weeks and trying to break the copyright shield will involve hours of attorney charges to try to influence a judge for an injunction.

PB said...

Who cleans up the mess back there?

typingtalker said...

" ... help from humans hundreds of miles away."
Airplanes also get help from humans hundreds of miles away. ATC -- Air Traffic Control. Help is good.

Big Mike said...

If the comms path from Atlanta to Austin is via a geostationary communications satellite, it takes about a quarter second.

Dr.Bunkypotatohead said...

Keaton looks better in that getup than all the designer junk she was showing off in that article you linked to the other day.

Craig Mc said...

Woof! Woof! Woof! Hello, I'm Rags!

Perhaps they're feeding the human-directed work-arounds into the heuristics so the model remembers next time and does it for itself.