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by gruez 132 days ago
>They have remote safety drivers. Not fully autonomous. "Fully autonomous" is their aspiration marketing, but not their current reality.

1. They're not "safety drivers" in the sense that most people understand, ie. someone dedicated to watching the car

2. What's with the fixation on defining "fully autonomous" to mean 0% human intervention ever? If a vending machine works 99% of the time, and 1% of the time needs some technician to come to get a drink unstuck does it make sense to get up and arms about how it's not "fully automated" or whatever? In all contexts why people would care (eg. unit economics, safety, customer experience), there's no meaningful difference between 99% autonomous and 100% autonomous.
2 comments
YeGoblynQueenne 131 days ago
>> What's with the fixation on defining "fully autonomous" to mean 0% human intervention ever?

Yeah, good point. If Waymo were honest they'd say their system is "autonomous". Fully autonomous implies 100% autonomy. Otherwise, how is it "fully"?

But, hey, don't ask me. Write a paper with robot that is 99% autonomous but a human has to take control every once in a while and see how easy you can get that past any reviewer in robotics or AI.

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senordevnyc 132 days ago
Come on, you know what the fixation is. Nothing riles up the Tesla fanboys like the clear unambiguous fact that Waymo is doing 1000x better at “full self driving” than Tesla ever has.
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YeGoblynQueenne 131 days ago
Oh dear. You sussed me out, didn't you?

It's like that time with Facebook and MySpace. A while ago now. I was in a student group at uni and this student, call her Alice, asked me for my Facebook. I said I don't have one, I don't like Facebook, and the conversation continued. Later another student came in, call him Bob. Alice told Bob "Where were you, we just had a big fight about Facebook over Myspace". I asked when that happened since I was there and didn't remember it and Alice said "that was me and you. We had a big fight about it. Did you forget?". I said, nonplussed, that I didn't think we had a fight. "But you said you don't like Facebook. So you like MySpace". Said Alice. Oh Alice.

From that I understand that you, like Alice, must be a very astute observer of human behaviour. No hidden motive stays hidden for long, with you, does it? Well done. You got me. I'm a Tesla fanboi. That's what I am, through and through.

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