[hnav]

Even though the gulf between Waymo and the next runner up is huge, it too isn't quite ready for primetime IMO. Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity. As much as I appreciate the safety-first approach (table stakes really, they'd get their license pulled if they ever caused a fatality) I am frequently frustrated as both a cyclist and driver whenever I have to share a lane with a Waymo. The equivalent of a Waymo radiologist would be a model that has a high false-positive and infinitesimal false-negative rate which would act as a first line of screening and reduce the burden on humans.

[code_biologist]

I've seen a lot of young people (teens especially) cross active streets or cross in front of Waymos on scooters knowing that they'll stop. I try not to do anything too egregious, but I myself have begun using Waymo's conservative behavior as a good way to merge into ultra high density traffic when I'm in a car, or to cross busy streets when they only have a "yield to pedestrian" crosswalk rather than a full crosswalk. The way you blip a Waymo to pay attention and yield is beginning to move into the intersection, lol.

I always wonder if honking at a Waymo does anything. A Waymo stopped for a (very slow) pickup on a very busy one lane street near me, and it could have pulled out of traffic if it had gone about 100 feet further. The 50-ish year old lady behind it laid on her horn for about 30 seconds. Surreal experience, and I'm still not sure if her honking made a difference.

I like Waymos though. Uber is in trouble.

[hnav]

Simultaneously, Waymo is adopting more human-like behavior like creeping at red lights and cutting in front of timid drivers as it jockeys for position.

I still think that Google isn't capable of scaling a rideshare program because it sucks at interfacing with customers. I suspect that Uber's long-term strategy of "take the money out of investors' and drivers' pockets to capture the market until automation gets there" might still come to fruition (see Austin and Atlanta), just perhaps not with Uber's ownership of the technology.

On the other hand Google has been hard at work trying to make its way into cars via Android automotive so I totally see it resigning to just providing a reference sensor-suite and a car "Operating System" to manufacturers who want a turnkey smart-car with L3 self-driving

[potato3732842]

>Simultaneously, Waymo is adopting more human-like behavior like creeping at red lights and cutting in front of timid drivers as it jockeys for position.

So before it was a 16yo in a driver's ed car. Now it's an 18yo with a license.

I'm gonna be so proud of them when it does something flagrantly illegal but any "decent driver who gets it" would have done in context.

[nebula8804]

I honestly don't think we will have a clear answer to this question anytime soon. People will be in their camps and thats that.

Just to clarify, have you ridden in a Waymo? It didn't seem entirely clear if you just experienced living with Waymo or have ridden in it.

I tried it a few times in LA. What an amazing magical experience. I do agree with most of your assertions. It is just a super careful driver but it does not have the full common sense that a driver in a hectic city like LA has. Sometimes you gotta be more 'human' and that means having the intuition to discard the rules in the heat of the moment (ex. being conscious of how cyclists think instead of just blindly following the rules carefully, this is cultural and computers dont do 'culture').

[hnav]

Waymo has replaced my (infrequent) use of Uber/Lyft in 80% of cases ever since they opened to the public via waitlist. The product is pretty good most of the time, I just think the odd long-tail behaviors become a guarantee as you scale up.

[nutjob2]

You have to consider that the AVs have their every move recorded. Even a human wouldn't drive more aggressively under those circumstances.

Probably what will happen in the longer term is that rules of the road will be slightly different for AVs to allow for their different performance.

[bsder]

> Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity.

As do most of the ridesharing drivers I interact with nowadays, sadly.

The difference is that Waymo has a trajectory that is getting better while human rideshare drivers have a trajectory that is getting worse.

[captainkrtek]

Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”, whereas humans we just shrug.

I think the theme of this extends to all areas where we are placing technology to make decisions, but also where no human is accountable for the decision.

[bsder]

> Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc.

There are a horde of bicyclists and pedestrians who disagree with you and are hoping that automated cars take over because humans are so terrible.

There are a horde of insurance companies who disagree with you and are waiting to throw money to prove their point.

When automated driving gets objectively better than humans, there will be a bunch of groups who actively benefit and will help push it forward.

[JumpCrisscross]

> there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”

This doesn’t seem to be happening. One, there are shockingly few fatalities. Two, we’ve sort of accepted the tradeoff.

[captainkrtek]

It does happen:

https://sfist.com/2024/05/14/waymo-now-under-federal-investi...

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-closes-probe-int...

Similarly for Cruise: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-16/woman-ge...

[JumpCrisscross]

Sure. It happened. Folks moved on. Car companies are constantly being sued and investigated.

Cruise was outrageous because it fucked up in a way a human never would. (More germane: GM doesn’t have Google’s cash flow.)

[nebula8804]

Society only cares about the individual and no one else. If Uber/Lyft continue to enshittify with drivers driving garbage broken down cars, drivers with no standards (ie. having just smoked weed) and ever rising rates, eventually people will prefer the Waymos.