Lots of people manage to drive in poor visibility without radar, lidar, etc. If that's safe and normal for people, the principle that self driving should work with just cameras isn't such a strange one.
I wouldn't call things like radar and lidar unnecessary but in principle a good AI vision system should be able to operate at the same level as a human eventually. Of course if you don't have such an AI just yet, you need a stop gap solution. But I wouldn't bet against AI getting there eventually. Probably not on Mr. Musk's accelerated and optimistic schedule though. But give it another five to ten years and things might look a bit differently.
What Waymo is doing now with much less than perfect AI is of course completely pragmatic and very impressive. I'm kind of eager to see them start operating self driving outside a few restricted zones in the US and for example in European cities. I live in Berlin, so probably we'll have to wait quite a bit for people to finally let go of their fax machines though apparently there are some trials with self driving buses about to kick off here now.
Just vision is a very reductive way of describing how we drive. We use sound to hear if something else is coming and where from, or if we're losing traction on the road, or if the road surface has changed. We can judge acceleration and deceleration in all directions using our inner ears. We can feel if the car's performing differently to usual indicating an issue with the car or different conditions. In addition when we are using our vision, if it gets obscured (i.e. snow covers the windscreen) we know how to get it off with wipers, and most importantly we're very adaptable to new conditions in a way that computers aren't, if we experience something completely new to us, chances are we'll make a reasonable in the moment decision.
> Lots of people manage to drive in poor visibility without radar, lidar, etc. If that's safe and normal for people, the principle that self driving should work with just cameras isn't such a strange one.
No camera system comes close to the capabilities of human eyes, combined with general intelligence.
I am one of those who drive in bad weather from time to time. I'm 'good at it' - but I cannot honestly call myself safe. I've been in the ditch. I've spun a 360 and only didn't hit someone else in the process because it happened nobody was there.
i grew up where bad weather was common enough that we cosidered it not worth shutting down for bad weather so we risked driving in it - but it was always a risk and many do die from taking that risk.
I wouldn't call things like radar and lidar unnecessary but in principle a good AI vision system should be able to operate at the same level as a human eventually. Of course if you don't have such an AI just yet, you need a stop gap solution. But I wouldn't bet against AI getting there eventually. Probably not on Mr. Musk's accelerated and optimistic schedule though. But give it another five to ten years and things might look a bit differently.
What Waymo is doing now with much less than perfect AI is of course completely pragmatic and very impressive. I'm kind of eager to see them start operating self driving outside a few restricted zones in the US and for example in European cities. I live in Berlin, so probably we'll have to wait quite a bit for people to finally let go of their fax machines though apparently there are some trials with self driving buses about to kick off here now.