Uber's First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month (bloomberg.com) 133
Ride-hailing app Uber will introduce self-driving cars in Pittsburgh as soon as this month, Bloomberg reports citing many officials and engineers at the company. The move is the first part of a pilot program to explore the future of the technology, the report added. The company plans to test 100 Volvo XC90s outfitted to drive themselves. Still, the cars will be accompanied by two humans: an engineer who can take control of the vehicle when needed and a co-pilot who takes note. Bloomberg reports: The Volvo deal isn't exclusive; Uber plans to partner with other automakers as it races to recruit more engineers. In July the company reached an agreement to buy Otto, a 91-employee driverless truck startup that was founded earlier this year and includes engineers from a number of high-profile tech companies attempting to bring driverless cars to market, including Google, Apple, and Tesla. Uber declined to disclose the terms of the arrangement, but a person familiar with the deal says that if targets are met, it would be worth 1percent of Uber's most recent valuation.
"Sharing" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, they are totally not a taxi company but just two people sharing a ride because they're going the same way.
Even when the cars have no drivers.
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To me, half the fun of taking Uber has been meeting the people driving the cars....like talking to and meeting your neighbors, because it turns out, most of my rides lately HAVE been from people living in my general neighborhood area, that I'd not have met otherwise....
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If you like meeting totally random people that much, why not just walk up to someone on the street and introduce yourself?
Doing that disturbs people; they assume you have some unpleasant ulterior motive. It might work in a bar, though.
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Actually I do, but usually at bars, etc....
But if out and about anywhere, especially if it is a cute girl, I have no problem at all striking up a conversation with someone I see in public.
Why do you imply that speaking to others in public is something that is difficult or uncommon?
Do you just trudge through life with your head down and avoid eye contact with everyone in fear of havin
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so you like talking to people who are paid to be polite to you.
Re:"Sharing" (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah they can try that bullshit all they want, but governments seem to finally be stopping it which is good. They're a taxi company, and that means they can pay on the same qualification that a regular taxi driver/company does. Mandatory CPR, mandatory inspections, mandatory safeties, and mandatory insurance.
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but governments seem to finally be stopping it which is good
No its not good. Its interference in the free market place by government, where it isn't needed and simply curtails freedom of individuals. The taxi industry should simply be deregulated. If someone wants the protection and safety afforded by a company that has vetted drivers, commercial insurance, vehicles subject to additional safety inspections etc, fine they can pay for that. If I am cool jumping in a car driven by "some guy" in "a car" and depending on my own medical coverage (which dear old uncle
third party victims is why they need insurance! (Score:2)
Do you want to be the guy all banged up with bills racking up while the courts are dealing with who should pay?
Why should your health insurance pay you where hit by a car we are going after them! The drivers insurance says uber? not covered! Uber says on the app but not on a ride not covered!
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In terms of being afraid of strangers... dude, you need to get out more, or get some help. Most people aren't that scary.
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Re:"Sharing" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, it totally has nothing to do with getting the most basic checks that the guy whose car you get into isn't a serial rapist and/or murderer.
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And what assurances do you have that the Taxi Driver in the Cab you ordered isn't a serial rapist or murderer, or just plain nuts. At the end of the day you take your chances.. Taxi companies have more incentive to "eliminate" people because they have a limited number of slots with a large number of applicants.. Uber (and other ride sharing apps) don't exactly suffer from saturation of resources.. so their checks are nominal (they do background checks, do they ID verification).. So its quite a bit more secu
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You're confusing laws against corporations and laws written by and for corporations. These pro-taxi laws are there for monopolistic reasons.
Yes as we all know, those taxi companies wanted all those regulations in the first place. The insurance, licenses, inspections, and so on all came into being because there had been people killed and seriously injured by taxi drives and there were large outcries in print media and over the radio. Keep in mind that many of these regulations came into force before the middle of the 1920's. And the people who owned the companies and even the drivers fought tooth and nail against them saying how it was going
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You start going down that road, and quickly you can point out that most laws are interference to the free market. Does this mean there should be no laws against any corporation ever? Just because you don't see the particular point of a given law, it doesn't make them less important to enforce.
Next thing you'll expect him to admit is that other corporations interfere with the free market. Most of the reason we have regulations is because companies have regularly abused people and situations to lock out competitors.
However you'll never get a Libertarian to admit anything could possibly interfere with the all mighty free market even when evidence is staring them in the face.
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While I hope you are being sarcastic, I am sure you understand that the risks caused by "unprofessional" drivers acting in a professional (for-hire) capacity extend beyond yourself. I have had close calls with Uber drivers on at least 4 occasions during the summer where they nearly ran into me on my bicycle, because they could not handle the multi-tasking and situational awareness that is needed to drive a car for hire.
Uber generally does more than just displace taxis; it also displaces people driving them
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Uber and Lyft are in no way representative of free market principles.
In a free market, I need a ride somewhere, I put out a bid for what I'm willing to pay for that ride. If a driver likes my offer, they can accept it or counter. That's free market ride sharing.
Uber is simply a market for rides regulated by Uber, just as taxi services are markets for rides regulated by governments. You, as the rider, are completely at their mercy for setting your fare. Drivers are also completely at Uber's mercy for setting
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That's free market ride sharing.
It's actually not ride sharing, it's transportation services. Only if the driver was going where you were going (or the vicinity of) can you call it sharing. If the driver is going someplace only because you're paying him to do so, it's a service. It isn't a "ride" for him. For him it's a paycheck.
But yes, a totally free-market transportation service would be between you and the operator (who may be the driver, or the driver's employer) and nobody else. It doesn't stop being a free market just because an e
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I agree the term "ride sharing" is wrong, but I've giving up pushing that point when discussing Uber. Using the term "Transportation Network Company" (a more accurate term that most cities are adopting when drafting regulations to differentiate them from Taxi companies) just confuses people.
While an employer doesn't prevent a free market, what Uber does is in no way a free market service. The riders and drivers have no say over the rates. There's nothing free about that market. It's a tightly regulated mark
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You realize that the main reason that all of these regulations started in the first place was because people were using their home vehicles as a taxi service right? Welcome to the early 1900's where every country here in the west has already been down this road. Those mandatory regulations exist because: People were using taxi's in high numbers in large cities. There were people killed and seriously injured by taxi's requiring insurance and the same for mandatory inspections of the vehicles. It's the sa
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Mandatory CPR
I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of cabbies I've had who I would want to perform CPR on me. Probably still could after an amputation or two. This seems like no great loss.
But in any event, I've looked around a bit and see no suggestion at all of a widespread CPR requirement for cab drivers. Have a source?
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I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of cabbies I've had who I would want to perform CPR on me.
I can count on the fingers of no hands the number of cabbies I would want to need to perform CPR on me. If I've had a heart attack in someone's cab the number of cabbies I would want to perform CPR goes way up.
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To each their own -- hopefully the cabbie cartels where you live also mandate face shields [first-aid-product.com]. I think I'd rather everyone just stick with their core competency and have the driver (who is already presumably rolling down the road with me in the car) reroute to someone who does life-saving measures for a living and has the proper equipment. Particularly given the questionable effectiveness [jems.com] of CPR in the first place.
But on a higher level, there seems to me to be a lot of airspace between preferring that some
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I think I'd rather everyone just stick with their core competency and have the driver (who is already presumably rolling down the road with me in the car) reroute to someone who does life-saving measures for a living and has the proper equipment.
From your link: "One simple reason for such gloomy results may be the logistic impossibility of responding to a broadly disseminated, quasirandom event that causes death within minutes." I'd rather the cabbie have training to recognize cardiac arrest and be able to do more than just honk the horn at other cars blocking his access to a hospital or fire station.
And from your link: "At best, CPR represents a placeholder." Yes, that's true. I think most trained people understand that. That's why we're trained
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I see you were very careful not to quote or allude to the very first words from my post: "To each their own." Hopefully your sarcastic little rant about my own personal preferences made you feel better, morally superior, or whatever it is that keeps you ticking. In any case, I find your response rather ironic in the context of the broader discussion about what decisions government should universally make for people (you know, the part you flatly ignored). Happy trails, friend.
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I see you were very careful not to quote or allude to the very first words from my post: "To each their own."
I actually initially wrote those words into my response, in the part about you being free to refuse medical treatment from anyone who you didn't think was working in their "core competency", but it appears I edited them out as extraneous (which they were in your post, too.) It doesn't matter whether the cabbie has CPR/AED training, you can refuse his help -- an implicit "to each his own".
Hopefully your sarcastic little rant about my own personal preferences made you feel better, morally superior, or whatever it is that keeps you ticking.
I pointed out the danger TO YOU and the poor logic of your position. Many people's lives are saved by people who are acti
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Good grief, bro. You know what I find even more ironic? Your unhealthy obsession with trying to prove me wrong [xkcd.com] is over an opinion I expressed about a completely hypothetical scenario. Ever notice how the OP didn't respond to my very polite request for support that there's actually a widespread requirement for cabbies to be CPR certified? That smelled like bullshit from the beginning, and apparently it is.
Your DNR straw man you keep trying to shove down my throat is bullshit as well. You sound like a re
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Re:"Sharing" (Score:4, Insightful)
But the cut that is no longer going to the drivers can easily be turned into a bonus for the CEO
Fixed that for you, it was a common typo to make.
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Yeah, they are totally not a taxi company but just two people sharing a ride because they're going the same way. Even when the cars have no drivers.
Oh, you missed the funniest part of this article. These "driverless" vehicles will actually have TWO drivers -- one to take over when (not if) the car gets into trouble, and one to take notes. When a Pittsburgh Uber car shows up to give you a ride, the slogan will be "move to the back of the car", the front seats are for Uber employees.
So:
Yeah, they are totally not a taxi company but just three people sharing a ride
FTFY.
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1099 or w2 employees? (Score:2)
For liability issues it better be w2 ones or 3rd party victims may be left holding the bag.
Free rides in Pittsburgh (Score:4, Funny)
At least for now. I suppose one negative is - you have to share a vehicle with an engineer. /ducks
Re:Free rides in Pittsburgh (Score:5, Funny)
Pittsburgh? Good choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
Pittsburgh's roads are... actually, a surprisingly complex test bed for this kind of thing. Between bridges, bridges over streets, bridges over bridges over streets, bridges over bridges over tunnels, the "Pittsburgh Left", potholes, the lower deck of the Penn Bridge, and intersections like this one [tumblr.com], Uber will have plenty of good edge cases to test their AI on. ...though, you might not want to drive while the AI is being tested. Just sayin'.
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Ah, yes. When I said "Penn bridge" I actually meant the Fort Pitt bridge. Just goes to show what you forget after a few years away. #blackandgoldforever
Re: Pittsburgh? Good choice. (Score:2)
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Uh, Pennsylvania has no mountains. They have some mole hills.
Like Mt. Davis? http://images.summitpost.org/o... [summitpost.org]
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Plus all that rust and industrial decay will give the test that Mad-Max je-ne-sais-quoi feeling... Maybe you'll be allowed to pay for your ride with a can of dog food, or you can order a gyrocopter instead of a car.
Must be confident (Score:2)
My guess is it's a belated apology for absconding with CMU's robotics talent.
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Volvo is the confident one, they had a truck fleet drive itself across Europe a couple of months back. I suspect they are getting ahead of Google and the rest quietly and carefully in that laid-back Swedish way.
Re: Must be confident (Score:2)
Map based solutions? (Score:3)
TFA implies that Uber will be using a map based systems plus GPS to identify where the car is and I guess under what parameters it should be driving. This is OK for a reasonably static environment. But that raises questions some questions for me:
1. How do these type of systems know when the traffic lights change? (or even identify which lights they should respond to?)
2. How are they meant to cope when cop/worker directs that you have to take a detour around a transient event (EG car crash)?
3. How does the systems know when a temporary speed limit has been erected?
4. In VA at least, if there is a cop car on the side of a two lane the road you are required to move over when passing them. So how does the system spot that?
I know that this is really early times for driverless cars, but to me the map based systems can't deal with the above scenarios, and they are transient enough that by the time such a situation has been reported to a central mapping location the event could easily have already disappeared.
Re:Map based solutions? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Driverless vehicles are classified in 4 (or 5) levels. Level 4 is completely autonomous vehicles. Some define level 5 as being fully autonomous without even driver controls. Google's driverless car is barely level 4, possibly a high level 3 since it still requires driver assis
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4. In VA at least, if there is a cop car on the side of a two lane the road you are required to move over when passing them. So how does the system spot that?
Its a little worse than that even, see that rule is actually suffixed with "if it is safe to do so" or similar language. IE if you have cut 2' in front of someone's bumper in traffic at speed to do so, you should not actually do it. There is a lot of subjective decision making in driving. What I just described might not be safe at 70mph on the interstate or it might be if that person has acknowledged you and is waving you in. The mixture of automated drivers and humans is going to prove interesting.
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Its a little worse than that even, see that rule is actually suffixed with "if it is safe to do so" or similar language.
And in Oregon it is further suffixed with "or slow down". The amount to slow down, is, IIRC, a matter for the judgement of the officer who pulls you over for "not enough". Safest to pull over.
or it might be if that person has acknowledged you and is waving you in.
It is NEVER safe to base your driving decisions on "someone waving you in." If someone else has the right of way, you let them have it. About the first time someone waves you ahead and then tries running into you because you are failing to yield them the right of way, you'll learn to never trust such "generous" offers.
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The waving in rules vary from state to state as well. I can't give you a list of which but in some parts of the country if you wave someone YOU take responsibility for it being safe for them to proceed.
ime someone waves you ahead and then tries running into you because you are failing to yield them the right of way
In some places the accident would be considered their fault at least if you could find a whiteness to say, "he waved that guy"
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In some places the accident would be considered their fault at least if you could find a whiteness to say, "he waved that guy"
I do not want to gamble my money and/or life on finding a witness who would support my claim, if there even was one. I often don't see the tiny waving gestures and I'm looking at them. The glare on their windshield, or it's just a small wiggle of the fingers of a hand still holding the wheel. I never see anyone sticking their arm out the window making an overt gesture.
I have considered actually getting out of the car and making a grand sweeping bow to show the "generous" time wasters that they ought to ob
Re: Map based solutions? (Score:2)
Re: Map based solutions? (Score:2)
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3. For proper signs it OCRs them, that's the same as European road cars today that read the road signs and warn you if you're speeding.
Oh, the fun to be had with a stencil and a spray can...
35? It's now 85!
Progress (Score:4, Interesting)
Objective: Eliminate the need for drivers from our livery service to obtain cost savings and reduce personnel overhead utilizing automation technology.
Proposed solution: The self driving solution will operate the vehicle however requires and engineer to be present and able to take over driving and operation of key systems as required. Additional a co-pilot shall be present to record events and assist the engineer as required.
Progress!
*I get the presence of the engineer and co-pilot are temporary its still kinda funny though, they have replaced a low skill driver with an engineer, and probably someone with similar training/qualification as the former driver to be co-pilot.
Re:Progress (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it really is a joke. Even the Google car only operates in autonomous mode a bit over half the time, the rest of the time being piloted by a real person. That's about the same percentage of time you can text, eat, change the radio, etc. as a person and not pay attention to the road. So what we're really being told is that we've finally gotten a computer to be able to do what a human can do with spare background cycles.
Whoo-hoo!
Although if we're being truthfully honest about all AI and all autonomous cars and all this hype, the real story is:
Objective: Eliminate humans. Eliminate the human experience, eliminate the human element and turn the world into one big machine.
But that's the elephant in the room that no one will admit, that the entire agenda is one that's anti-humanity, period. Too bad the computers will NEVER be able to reliably make the kinds of judgment calls that humans can and the entire AI borg system is going to come crashing down sooner or later, so we really won't have to worry about the anti-humanist ilk ever really doing much of anything to worry about.
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> Too bad the computers will NEVER be able to reliably make the kinds of judgment calls that humans can and the entire AI borg system is going to come crashing down sooner or later, so we really won't have to worry about the anti-humanist ilk ever really doing much of anything to worry about.
This may be the dumbest comment I've ever read on Slashdot, and I've been here for a while. The whole point of self driving cars is that they will have *better* judgement than us slow, panicky humans. There are somet
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Too bad the computers will NEVER be able to reliably make the kinds of judgment calls that humans can and the entire AI borg system is going to come crashing down sooner or later, so we really won't have to worry about the anti-humanist ilk ever really doing much of anything to worry about.
Yeh cool, but also computers will NEVER be able to make the kinds of terrible judgement calls that many humans make when, for example, behind the wheel of a car.
A computer isn't going to have 6 beers and then decide it's OK to drive. They're not going to drive at twice the speed limit at 4am because while tired because they want to get home faster. They're not going to have casual lapses in attention while reaching for a coffee or checking out a cute girl on the side of the road.
I don't like driving, I don
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I'd love to take a road trip with my friends where we can all have a beer and play cards or something.
So that none of you would be able to take control when a system failure hands control of the vehicle off to the human.
The answer to your problem does not require autonomous vehicles and the promises of performance that are required to make the system work. His name is "Arther", and he's a chauffeur. Or it's a train or bus. How many such trips do you make today?
I don't like driving, I don't like being driven - I just don't like being in cars.
Yes, I get that. So if you don't like being in one, why would you get in one tomorrow?
a risky grind in which the casual inattention of others could result in my messy death.
But you'll be happy when relying on the promises of computer
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But that's the elephant in the room that no one will admit, that the entire agenda is one that's anti-humanity, period.
No, we had this argument already in the 18th century...
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I get the presence of the engineer and co-pilot are temporary its still kinda funny though
No, it isn't. Any other way to introduce this technology would be stupid and reckless.
They also haven't replaced the driver with an engineer and co-pilot. They (will) have replaced the driver with self-driving software. That is the 'proposed solution'. Whether or not they'll pull it off with this experiment is a different story. I'm actually quite skeptical of that.
Totally understandable.. (Score:2)
Re: Totally understandable.. (Score:2)
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Should be a dog and an "engineer" (Score:4, Funny)
The dog is there to bite the "engineer" should he attempt to touch the controls.
The "engineer" is there to feed the dog.
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Genius! Test cars like you test drivers! (Score:1)
" Maybe we should be vetting them first, huh?"
Some sort of test to check they can drive? That's a brilliant idea! Maybe test their eyes too and even their reflexes! Sarcasm aside, maybe you're onto something there. If you think of the learner driver test, maybe that's the level that needs to be reached for the car to take over. If a human driver can't go on the road unless they can steer around bends, then why should a car?
The more I think about it, the more that makes sense. Take it on the road test the sa
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Thats exactly the point however. It's not that the machine is safe, its that the machine has to deal with humans that are unsafe. Thats the problem you don't see in the news with driverless cars.
Snow? (Score:2)
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Self driving cars is the future, but IMHO, I think the only way it will be safe if there are automation only lanes. .
The biggest challenge with self driving cars is not navigation, turns, keeping it between the lines, etc. It is interaction with human drivers. If you could start from scratch and build a road and navigation infrastructure for 100% autonomous vehicles, it would be rather simple. We already have the tech to accomplish that. But merging an autonomous driving technology into today's starting point is a monumentally hard task. Driving with people involved experience and anticipation, sometimes even looking anot
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Best post yet. +1
More SELF-DRIVING CARS!!!!1* Hype (Score:2)
OMG Uber is testing SELF DRIVING CARS!!!!!!! *
*Self driving only under ideal, open conditions, human operator at the controls about half the time.
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In 10 years, there will be very few humans driving around multi-ton chunks of metal at very high speeds very close to other people.
More like 50. And the reason won't be self-driving cars, it will be the well-deserved death of the personal automobile (self-driving or otherwise) and the ridiculous practice of transporting individuals across 10s of miles per day to do their work on a networked computer.
Start loving the idea of high density communities with good public transport and ubiquitous "telecommuting".
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So all the cars on the road today and being sold today will just... what... vanish? Switch your 10 years to 60 and I might agree with out.
shabby streets (Score:2)
The last time Volvo had a big self-driving rollout, it didn't, you know, work out so well. But it was totally because of shabby roads and Americans' inability to paint white lines and in no way the fault of the technology.
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
Cut Out The Middle Man (Score:1)
Soon, Uber will launch an entire fleet of driverless cars in every state.
That means they will no longer need human drivers, and take the profit all for themselves.
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I know how they can get some testers (Score:1)
Just have a contest of some kind to get some test subjects. First prize: a one week trip to Pittsburgh.
Second prize: a two week trip to Pittsburgh.
as a user of uber, I'd like to opt out (Score:1)
I'm a frequent user of uber, but would pass on the auto driving option, and would not take a self driving car. I take uber a bit in downtown Boston and the UK. I just did this week. I found traffic bad near my destination, how do I tell uber 'pull me over here, traffic is bad, I'll just cut through this alley here'. My experience with non-local drivers in Boston isn't great. They blindly follow gps, and it gets confused easily with the one ways, and lots of buildings. Was picked up by an uber Tues nigh
Serious question (Score:2)
Volvo; this is going to be good (Score:2)
Uber is not the one that will succeed (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
OK, but will they be able to do the most basic thing a taxi driver can, like: "Follow that car!"
Looks up how to hotwire self-driving cars (Score:2)
Level 3 to level 4 needs about 8 more levels (Score:2)
I love how it goes from some functions are automated all the way to full automation in one level. Just flip the switch! Good luck with that.