[twmahna]

Just a few months ago, I recall many skeptics on HN claiming that full driverless technology was 10-20 years away.

Do those people still think that it's going to take 10-20 years for this tech to reach say, New York, now that it's live in Phoenix?

[chubot]

Yes, because this announcement is a lot like their previous announcements -- fudging the language to make it sound like it's more available than it is.

It's not even generally available in Phoenix yet. I'm sure someone on HN lives in Phoenix, and has never used Waymo before. Tell us if you can get a driverless ride.

It's got a long way to go before it's something like Uber in Phoenix. It's got even longer to go before it's something like Uber in NYC (10-20 years still sounds right).

----

The funny thing is that the pandemic should have been HUGE for self-driving cars... Most people I know haven't taken rideshare in 6+ months because they don't want to ride with somebody, and I only did so in the last few weeeks.

But it was a non-event. I didn't hear anyone talking about self-driving in the last 6 months. If it really worked, and was really available, then there would be certainly some people who would pay 2-5x the price of Lyft/Uber for no driver. (Not most people, but some people.)

[pb7]

I don't see the relationship between COVID and increased demand for self-driving. You're still sharing the same vehicle with potentially hundreds of people a day that are touching all the same surfaces. The driver is only a vector if they become infected. Other than that, the highest risk is touching doors and such.

[RivieraKid]

Will you cease to be a skeptic once Waymo One is open to anyone?

[pb7]

It might actually. Phoenix suburbs are different than the densest city in the US in a region that sees the worst of weather. Saying this as someone that hopes Waymo succeeds.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Well, I don't know who "these people" are and what exactly they thought, but I don't see why they wouldn't still be skeptical. The announcement promises that "in the near term" all Waymo's rides will be "fully driverless" but in the immediate term they are modifying their cars to go back to rides with a safety driver. So the "near term" will be fully driverless, but right now it's even less drivereless then before.

For myself, I would trust this announcement a lot more if it claimed some new technological breakthrough that enables Waymo to do now something that wasn't possible half a year, or 5 or 10 years ago (specifically, this "something" is level-3 self-driving, as poorly as this is unfortunately defined). I don't see any such claims. The announcement instead reads as so much marketing copy to me, and it is not saying anything that has any practical implications for the technological capabilities of Waymo's cars.

[air7]

Imo not even in 20. Driving occasionally requires an AGI level understanding of humans and physics which is out of reach currently.