[jajko]

World doesn't end at SF borders, nor does it revolve around it.

I can come up with tons of corner cases where I simply won't risk life of me and my whole family just because some tech bro said so on the internet. And you know, tons of corner cases that I sometimes experience all over the world sum up into some major percentage.

By all means be a betatester, but don't force it down the throats of unsuspecting non-tech users who often trust what manufacturers claim.

[Ukv]

> [...] I simply won't risk life of me and my whole family just because some tech bro said so on the internet.

There isn't the option to take no risk - there are over a million deaths a year[0] from regular road traffic crashes.

Region-restricted automated taxi services like Waymo are already looking pretty safe compared to human drivers, though there is a lot of selection bias (good conditions, well-mapped US cities, ...).

[0]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...

[JoeAltmaier]

I se 30K on the interweb (US). Where did the million come from?

[Ukv]

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...

> Every year the lives of approximately 1.19 million people are cut short as a result of a road traffic crash. Between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability.

(for disclosure, if anyone is confused about JoeAltmaier's reply: the above link wasn't initially in my original comment - I had edited it in shortly before refreshing and seeing their reply)

[JoeAltmaier]

Ah I was looking at US fatalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

[JoeAltmaier]

Further, those two stats are irreconcilable? There are not enough countries in the world to add up to nearly 2M deaths per year, given that the top rates are in the US and Russia. Who else has as many cars? Even China and India can't contribute much because of the dearth of cars.

[Ukv]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

China and India do contribute a fair amount.

[tensor]

This sort of risk analysis is always baffling to me. I live in a big city. It feels like there is some near miss collision to me almost every week. 99.99% of the time it's because of human drivers, not automated systems.

It's virtually guaranteed that in your lifetime you'll have a collision or near miss with a human. And no, it doesn't take "special conditions", it could be a perfectly sunny day and a clear road and someone will do something crazy.

So that's what we put up with on a daily basis, deep threats to human life by human drivers, our safety standards on letting humans drive so low as to be utterly comical. And yet all the handwringing is done over incredibly rare situations where an AI system screws up and its human driver also screws up at oversight.

[jajko]

You don't understand human psychology, nor few simple facts per se.

I choose how I behave in various situations. I know I am way above average driver with most kms driven in real wheel drive bmw, keep my distances, do defensive driving etc. I pick scenarios, I choose how I do the 'battles'. If somebody else does something stupid and 'unique', I trust myself way way more than some 'ai' being in beta test, its not just reaction time but experience, massive amount of anticipation where I see bad drivers and I overtake them before they do something stupid etc.

Maybe its emotional, but I am highly logical person and don't let emotions interfere with decisions much. Still, no. I kept saying "in 10 years" but this goalpost is basically moving as time moves, so I understood its in "maybe in my retirement" category and stopped expecting mass adoption earlier.

Surprise me world, I would love that. But I am being realistic, not bullish just because it would be so nice to have robo cars and taxis.

[flutas]

> World doesn't end at SF borders, nor does it revolve around it.

Funnily enough his "they just work" mentality does end at SF borders though...as recent as 2 weeks ago.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/17/seven-waymo-robotaxis-bloc...

> Six Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic moving onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. (...) While routing back to Waymo’s city depot that evening, the first robotaxi in the lineup came across a road closure with traffic cones. The only other path available to the vehicles was to take the freeway, according to a Waymo spokesperson. (...) the company is still only testing on freeways with a human driver in the front seat. (...) After hitting the road closure, the first Waymo vehicle in the lineup then pulled over out of the traffic lane that was blocked by cones, followed by six other Waymo robotaxis.

Also gotta point out, the article uses such a disingenuous way to put it. The Waymo didn't "pull[ed] over out of the traffic lane that was blocked by cones" the car stopped in the lane of travel and put it's flashers on as evidenced by the video at the top of the article.