Google is testing a single self-driving commercial truck on a private track in California. The company may be looking to compete with Otto, a self-driving truck company that Uber acquired in August:
Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Alphabet Inc., is testing a self-driving truck. The company, formerly known as Google's autonomous car venture, has installed its self-driving technology on a single Class 8 Peterbilt truck. Waymo has begun tests at a private track in California and plans road tests in Arizona later in the year. For now, it is keeping a driver behind the wheel at all times.
The company, which has millions of miles of on-road experience with autonomous cars, wants to learn how self-driving technology works in larger vehicles. Trucks in the heaviest Class 8 weight segment handle differently than passenger cars. They accelerate and brake more slowly. Their turning radius is far larger. They have giant blind spots. All of this requires that the sensors that provide data to the computer systems driving the truck be positioned differently than where they would be on a car.
"Self-driving technology can transport people and things much more safely than we do today and reduce the thousands of trucking-related deaths each year," Waymo said in a statement. "We're taking our eight years of experience in building self-driving hardware and software and conducting a technical exploration into how our technology can integrate into a truck."
Also at Reuters, TechCrunch, The Verge, and CNET.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday June 04 2017, @02:40AM (4 children)
Wrong, humans have gigantic blind spots on a truck. But computer systems can have multiple camera and sensors just about anywhere. Human bigotry.
Can, won't :p
Because people, because death by MBA, because insufficient software engineering as of now etc.
There are just to many uncertainties. And code can't be predicted with linear models, they can work fine and then throw all the shit and more right at your face. It will likely take quantum computers and the ability to use them good before there's any reasonable capability. Until then it's a driver aid not a replacement. If replacement is wanted, use tracks..
The autonomous driving industry gives a impression of sanity on par with Homer Simpson on nuclear management.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:14AM (2 children)
Let's recontextualize your quote:
What possessed you to take a quote out of context and then accuse the author of being bigoted?
And bigoted against ... computers? Is that the kind of bigotry that gets you worked up enough to go full-snowflake over?
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:57AM (1 child)
OP probably read the summary?
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @06:31PM
lolwut?
The entire quote was in the summary.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rigrig on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:05AM
Then again,
There are just to many uncertainties. And humans can't be predicted with linear models, they can work fine and then throw all the shit and more right at your face.
Right now self-driving cars aren't perfect, and humans drivers aren't perfect either.
But I already know some people who could make the road a safer place by trading in their license for a self-driving car, and the cars are still improving, they aren't.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:29AM
Life was a road that you traveled on
There was one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bent, sometimes you stood
Sometimes you turned your back to the wind
There was a world outside every darkened door
Where blues wouldn't haunt you anymore
Where the brave were free and lovers soared
Came rode with me to the distant shore
We didn't hesitate broke down the garden gate
There's not much left today
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long
Through all the cities and all those towns
It was in my blood and it was all around
I love you now like I loved you then
That was the road and these were the hands
From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver's lights
Knocked me down got back up again
You were in my blood now I'm a lonely man
There's no load I can hold
Road was rough this I know
I was there when the light came in
Tell 'em we were survivors
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long, hmm
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long
There is a distance between you and I
A misunderstanding once but now
We look it in the eye
Oh
Ooh
There's no load, I can hold
Road was rough this I know
I was there when the light came in
Tell 'em we were survivors
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long, yeah yeah yeah
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long, yeah yeah
(Gimme gimme gimme gimme yeah)
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long
(Gimme gimme gimme gimme yeah)
Life was a highway
I used to ride it all night long, yeah
If you were going my way
I used to drive it all night long, ooh
(Gimme gimme gimme gimme yeah)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:35AM (8 children)
Car 1/4 mile in front of me does something stupid like have a blowout, big rig next lane over has sensors to react, I don't see anything and I get a big rig in my passenger seat.
Speaking as a Californian, can we keep these test drives in Arizona? Please? Maybe in 5-10 years I'll feel comfortable with them on my road, but now? How about no.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:40AM
LUDDITE !
(Score: 2) by mendax on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:41AM (4 children)
I don't think I will ever be comfortable with a self-driving truck on the road. Not ever. I'm not comfortable with self-driving cars either. I'm not convinced that the AI will ever be good enough to make it a practical technology. Humans make mistakes for sure, but I'm far more comfortable with a human driver behind the wheel than a computer.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:50AM (2 children)
Yeah I know what you mean. I don't trust automatic elevators because you never know if it will stop at the floor of the button you pushed, and you never know if it will just open the doors between floors, and you never know when you call it whether the doors will open to an empty shaft. Without a genuine human elevator operator you never know what the computer will do. Bring back human elevator operators because those talking robot elevators are super creepy with the disembodied announcer voice to tell you which floor you might be on if the computer isn't malfunctioning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @04:12AM
Nightmare fuel. Up and Out [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:37AM
There was one elevator operator left when I went to college. He was near retirement and I guess there was enough money to do the nice thing and keep him on staff. If you asked him about life, he would usually answer, "It has it's ups and downs."
The next year he retired, and the elevator was converted to automatic. He was a lot smarter about scheduling than the auto elevator was...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday June 04 2017, @07:43PM
"I'm not convinced that the AI will ever be good enough to make it a practical technology. Humans make mistakes for sure, but I'm far more comfortable with a human driver behind the wheel than a computer."
I'm convinced of the opposite. Given another decade or two, the debate will be over whether or not humans should be trusted to have direct control of vehicles. At that time the statistics will be overwhelming, tens of thousands of deaths, injuries and property damage, caused by human drivers every year, vs. the dozen or so caused by errant algorithms. The insurance companies will respond by making human driving relatively unaffordable.
The bigger problem is ... with that level of AI available, it won't just be drivers whose jobs are eliminated. Will we be going to a system of universal basic income to address the mass unemployment, or just turning ever increasing numbers of the working class into outcasts, or what?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:51AM (1 child)
Speaking also as a Californian, a Self-Driving Truck doing the speed limit is going to cause traffic jams because everyone else is doing 90mph in a 65mph zone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:56AM
Don't you idiot Californicators have truck lanes?