I don't care about how physically complex something is. You didn't tell me how I'd tell the self driving car which spot to park in or which person on the corner is my friend. If you think this detail is minor, trivial or doesn't matter.... you are sadly mistaken.
> If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way.
So you are telling me your $70,000 self driving car can't take me through one of the hundreds of thousands of drive thru's out there? That sounds pretty shitty.
> You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit
You are telling me that this self-driving taxi will just stop at whatever place it feels like? How will I tell it precisely where to let me out? Remember it is pouring down rain / I am physically disabled and cannot walk very far / I am not entirely sure where I need to be dropped off until I get there.
So seriously, how will I command this self-driving car? Nobody seems to be able to answer this or even thought about it in any amount of detail at all. Probably because we are so far away from an actual self driving car that a realistic answer doesn't really matter at all.
And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. Guess what... edge cases matter. Your edge case is my important case. You add up all these edge cases that "don't matter" and you've excluded almost your entire market.
> I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype.
Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all?
> And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter.
I think you are you spot-on with that analysis. Way too much hand-waving going on.
But that is a constant problem in tech, the entire area is susceptible to hypes and fads, with hands waving and waving at record speed. Like I said, maybe it's just not all geniuses and such...
>
> I don't understand why so many smart "tech people" fall for the hype.
Maybe it's just that some of these "tech people" are not that smart at all?
The crux of the problem is you have people who although may well be cabable of driving to work--they are by no means cabable of understanding driving at its essence. They will never, not ever; be able to create a car that can also interact with human drivers because they don't understand driving. Period... end of story.
A comment which is nothing but posturing. Why would you expect everybody discussing self-driving cars, in every situation to, be a genius, and to be using their maximum effort even on trivia questions about what UI you would use to tell a car that doesn't exist yet how to drive to McDonalds, under the questionable assumptions that a) it must work exactly the same way as a traditional car and you won't accept otherwise, and b) there will be only one self-driving car full stop, so there will be one answer and it must be perfect for every possible use case first time?
That's the easiest problem to solve... if the car is capable of driving itself then you have both hands free to operate your phone or a touchscreen.
You can enter the location to stop at, and in this imaginary world where the car is capable of driving safely, then it should also be able to find the nearest safe location to stop at.
The actual part where the car is able to drive itself is clearly nothing but unfounded hype though.
Honestly, I think I'm fine piloting a Tesla through a drive-through if it means I can eat on the road. I'll take 80% of possible performance / [aptitude?] now (heck, even 50-60%, as long as it's safe enough) versus 100% of possible scenarios being covered at some far-off point, especia)y if my enjoying 50-60% of capability actively gets the remaining % closer.
I did answer. Quite possibly you won't have control. Your entire complaint is a "you can't precisely manage memory in a garbage collected language? Then nobody will use them." style complaint. And that's demonstrated wrong by history over and over - take people's choice away and do it for them, people like it.
Self-driving car, is the hard bit. "Who will design the smartphone app which lets me tap "go to the nearest mcdonalds drive thru"?" is the easy bit. Almost anyone on any $5/hour microconsulting web developer site could do that bit.
"Oh but who would buy an iPhone if it can't let me control the filesystem? You can't answer, nobody can tell me, it's impossible, the tech can't exist, everybody is stupid" - nope, it sold by the hundreds of millions.
Where will it stop? It will stop wherever there is a space. Maybe you can mash your finger on your app for "closest space right now" or maybe you'll get bored of doing that because it already does "closest available space to the chosen destination" because that makes sense.
"One disabled person will get wet in the rain so the tech can't exist" - most tech ignores disabled people completely, and sells in large numbers.
"I can't voice control tell it to go through a drive through so nobody will use it" - if it matters that much to people in general, mctakeout will partner with car company, let you drive up in your fancy car, and they will walk the food out to you. I'm more worried that the cars will come with a "take me to the nearest McDonalds" physical dashboard button, than that no cars have any way to instruct them to go anywhere off-route ever.
"your $70,000 self driving car" - I don't think most self-driving cars will be owned by individuals, but what does price have to do with it? People buy supercars which can't drive through narrow, bumpy, steep, city areas, there is a market for them. Why do you think there will be only a single self-driving car design which has a binary appeal to everybody or nobody, and therefore must be a single answer to how you will control it, and that there's no room for iteration so it must be conclusively decided and locked in several years before any such car even exists or its capabilities are understood and settled?
"So seriously, how will I command this self-driving car?" - so, seriously, driving two tons of machine around a busy unpredictable space is something you're fine with, but having some buttons is what you think the impossibly dealbreaker is? Touchscreens are an appalling human interface, and having almost every control in a touchscreen hasn't stopped Tesla customers.
"Nobody seems to be able to answer this or even thought about it in any amount of detail at all. Probably because we are so far away from an actual self driving car that a realistic answer doesn't really matter at all." - Yes, good point. Nobody has settled on the trivia, because the trivia is not a dealbreaker compared to whether the car can exist at all. It's like you're obsessing over what font the Dragon space capsule will use on its readout displays, and saying that human spaceflight is all hype because "nobody has thought about it in detail".
But no, surely everyone involved is just stupid for not prioritising shovelling burgers into your face over getting you from A to B without killing you or anyone around you.
"Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important" - you asked about details, I gave plausible answers (you won't have the level of control you demand) - you completely ignored my answers because you don't want that (you can't answer! ya boo sucks you can't answer!) and then whine that nobody will give you answers.
"You add up all these edge cases that "don't matter" and you've excluded almost your entire market." - I am still boggled that you are putting "can drive through a drive thru" as if that was a thing people actually do enough to influence their choice of car purchase. Can commute to work? Is affordable? Is safe? Is reliable? Has reasonable maintenance and insurance costs? Is big enough for all the people? Can carry enough luggage? Looks OK? All way more important after the dominating "can actually self drive".
I don't care about how physically complex something is. You didn't tell me how I'd tell the self driving car which spot to park in or which person on the corner is my friend. If you think this detail is minor, trivial or doesn't matter.... you are sadly mistaken.
> If burgers were that important, the burger company would partner with the self driving car company and find a way.
So you are telling me your $70,000 self driving car can't take me through one of the hundreds of thousands of drive thru's out there? That sounds pretty shitty.
> You don't choose the parking spot anymore than you chose the lane or the highway exit
You are telling me that this self-driving taxi will just stop at whatever place it feels like? How will I tell it precisely where to let me out? Remember it is pouring down rain / I am physically disabled and cannot walk very far / I am not entirely sure where I need to be dropped off until I get there.
So seriously, how will I command this self-driving car? Nobody seems to be able to answer this or even thought about it in any amount of detail at all. Probably because we are so far away from an actual self driving car that a realistic answer doesn't really matter at all.
And that is the problem with self-driving hype. Every time you ask about a specific detail it gets hand waved away as not important or some kind of edge case that doesn't matter. Guess what... edge cases matter. Your edge case is my important case. You add up all these edge cases that "don't matter" and you've excluded almost your entire market.