# Self driving cars are still decades away **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499 "2017-10-10T17:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 59
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1163 "2023-06-11T22:07:49Z")
I was in downtown San Francisco on Friday and saw at least six [Cruise](https://www.getcruise.com/) driverless “taxis”, I guess you could call them. In the little time I watched I didn’t see them making any mistakes. They seemed a bit cautious, slowing down if anything was remotely close. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2023, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1164 "2023-06-25T01:47:12Z")
SFFD Chief is not a fan. > **[San Francisco's fire chief is fed up with robotaxis that mess with her...](https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-06-22/san-francisco-robotaxis-interfere-with-firetrucks-los-angeles-is-next)** > > As robotaxi companies plan to provide service in Los Angeles, San Francisco officials battle with state regulators over robotaxi safety. > The Fire Department incidents include reports of robotaxis: - Running through yellow emergency tape and ignoring warning signs to enter a street strewn with storm-damaged electrical wires, then driving past emergency vehicles with some of those wires snarled around rooftop lidar sensors. - Twice blocking firehouse driveways, requiring another firehouse to dispatch an ambulance to a medical emergency. - Sitting motionless on a one-way street and forcing a firetruck to back up and take another route to a blazing building. - Pulling up behind a firetruck that was flashing its emergency lights and parking there, interfering with firefighters unloading ladders. - Entering an active fire scene, then parking with one of its tires on top of a fire hose. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1165 "2023-07-11T16:18:12Z")
There was a guerilla protest of autonomous taxis last week in San Francisco, where activists placed traffic cones on the hoods of self-driving cars to immobilize them. There are some amusing pictures and videos in the linked article. > **[The Brilliance of Disabling Self-Driving Cars With a Traffic Cone](https://slate.com/business/2023/07/autonomous-vehicles-traffic-cones-san-francisco-cruise-waymo-cpuc.html)** > > "Coning" autonomous vehicles is part of a long tradition of tactical urbanism. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1166 "2023-07-11T18:59:14Z")
NO LONGER DECADES AWAY!!! > **[Musk's Bold Prediction: Tesla FSD To Reach Level 4 or Higher This Year](https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1508/musk-s-bold-prediction-tesla-fsd-to-reach-level-4-or-higher-this-year)** > > Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, asserts that Tesla will reach full self-driving capability by year-end. This latest prediction sparks both skepticism and anticipation d ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1167 "2023-07-11T19:14:17Z")
For unusually large values of “this”. But it might put a useful pop in the TSLA stock price. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1168 "2023-07-11T19:20:41Z")
I have a Tesla and the cruise control doesn’t work right and one almost caused a major accident. [Here is a thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-software-not-ready-for-prime-time/983803) I started on software issues on my 2023 Tesla Y. There is no way I would trust a self-driving Tesla anytime in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1169 "2023-07-11T19:49:44Z")
Musk says this _every_ year. One year he’ll be right 🙂 . They are legitimately making significant progress. It’s just that the problem keeps turning out to be more difficult than anticipated. Some guys did a Tesla vs. Waymo vs. Cruise “race” in San Francisco: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6xUmZXoqaDQ/maxresdefault.jpg "The Great Self-Driving Race: Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla FSD Beta Race Across San Francisco") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xUmZXoqaDQ) Short version: the Tesla won, by a lot. In large part because it could use the freeway and go faster than 35 mph. No significant safety issues. The Tesla is not using LIDAR or hi-def maps. Of course, there was a person in the front seat of the Tesla, and not the others (though they still have a remote control). The Waymo and Cruise are clearly not ready to operate outside their little geofenced area or without a remote backup, and the Tesla needs a monitor. But it’s operating at a vastly higher level than it was a year ago, and the year before that, and so on. So… maybe they are actually getting pretty close. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1170 "2023-07-11T20:30:12Z")
Level four has always been a weird one for me. My friends in Austin live in a gated community that basically consists of one big loop road. Why can’t we take your Tesla, assuming it’s FSD, geofence it to only that neighborhood, and say level four has been achieved? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1171 "2023-07-11T20:56:57Z")
Yeah, the levels don’t make much sense to me. Tesla already has “summon” for parking lots, where it’ll come to you without a driver. Is that Level 4? Obviously not. At what point on the spectrum between a car that can pull out of a parking space vs. one that can drive anywhere but a few dirt roads do we call something level 4? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1172 "2023-07-11T23:39:31Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > At what point on the spectrum between a car that can pull out of a parking space vs. one that can drive anywhere but a few dirt roads do we call something level 4? Actually dirt roads may not be the problem; instead it may be winter snowstorms on icy roads… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2023, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1173 "2023-07-11T23:57:10Z")
Well, it’s just an example. The point is that your geofence can cover 0.001% of the roads or 99.999%. Calling all of that “level 4” makes the levels fairly useless. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1174 "2023-07-12T00:58:22Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > There was a guerilla protest of autonomous taxis last week in San Francisco, where activists placed traffic cones on the hoods of self-driving cars to immobilize them. Y’see, had they, instead of San Fran attempted to do their experiment with robocars in, say, Philadelphia, the solution would have been not as elegant but quite more final. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1175 "2023-07-12T01:10:14Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > They are legitimately making significant progress. It’s just that the problem keeps turning out to be more difficult than anticipated. They are legitimately making significant progress. It’s just that the problem keeps turning out to be more difficult than _they’re willing to publicly admit_. I’m convinced that the actual engineers working in this are aware of every single issue and blocker that’s been raised in this thread, and quite possibly more we haven’t even thought of. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > So… maybe they are actually getting pretty close. For normal, non-tricky, non-weird situations there is still one major bug that causes probably 75% of my FSD disengagements. The car frequently makes incorrect lane decisions. - it will move into turning lanes when the route does not have a turn - it will try to move into the left lane for just normal cruising, on both freeways and surface streets - it will **not** move into the appropriate lane in anticipation of an upcoming turn If they can get those things fixed, it would probably double the number of complete FSD trips I could make. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1176 "2023-07-12T01:30:12Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > It’s just that the problem keeps turning out to be more difficult than _they’re willing to publicly admit_. Sure, there’s certainly plenty of that. But they aren’t the _only_ ones to blow past their deadlines. And even among the engineers, I’m sure there is a huge amount of uncertainty about _how_ to fix the problems. At a certain level, it just comes down to “AI will fix it eventually.” But it’s unknown how much more training or hardware that will require. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1177 "2023-07-12T01:50:40Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Y’see, had they, instead of San Fran attempted to do their experiment with robocars in, say, Philadelphia, the solution would have been not as elegant but quite more final. Hehe, in Dallas I’m not sure anyone would have waited for a protest. They’d probably all just disappear one by one. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1178 "2023-07-12T18:46:56Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Sure, there’s certainly plenty of that. But they aren’t the _only_ ones to blow past their deadlines. And even among the engineers, This is a characteristic of complex systems. Confusing ‘complex’ for ‘complicated’ is a common failing, even among engineers. A brief digression: A watch movement is complicated. It’s even called a ‘complication’. Complicated items look intricate and difficult, but can be understood through reduction - breaking it down into its constituent parts until you understand what each piece does. Reductionism is a very powerful way of understanding complicated things. Complexity is different. Complex systems are those where the interactions between the parts are as important or more important than the parts themselves. Complex things can look simple at first glance, and gets more difficult as you drill down. You learn very little from reductionism, because the parts of a complex system behave differently on their own vs when they are part of the system. Some things are both complicated and complex. Trying to understand them as just complicated things will lead you down a bad path. You have to be able to know when you entering zones of complexity rather than just complication. Complexity has been the bane of software engineering for a long time. We’ve tried to manage it by function point analysis, agile methods, etc. But you almost always find issues that the design didn’t take into account once you start building, blowing out budgets and schedules. It’s easy to think that you’re ‘99% of the way there’, only to find out that the 1% left expands into 50 other things once you really tackle it, and any one of those 50 things could lead you down another rabbit hole. Self Driving is probably the most complex computing we’ve ever tried to build. I’ve been saying for decades on this board that full self=driving is a long, long way away, becxause I think you need an AGI or something close to it to really do it, and until last year I didn’t see any AI research that was leading there. Now I’m not so sure. My guess is that FSD will ultimately require something like an Large Language Model AI fine-tuned by lots and lots of driving. But we don’t have any that could possibly respond in real time to sub-second issues, so we’re probably a few hardware generations away from that still. But maybe there are techniques to add real-time responses to an LLM that I don’t know about. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1179 "2023-07-12T19:16:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But we don’t have any that could possibly respond in real time to sub-second issues Humans don’t make intelligent decisions on a sub-second timescale. We barely have _reflex_ responses at that timescale. If some incident requires action beyond slamming on the brakes on a sub-second level, the human will already fail. We might need LLMs in self-driving systems to decide, say, how to interpret a road sign, or figure out the best course of action if there’s something unusual happening like a firetruck in the road. But those can happen over multiple seconds. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1180 "2023-07-12T20:11:20Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > If some incident requires action beyond slamming on the brakes on a sub-second level, the human will already fail. Ehh, not really. Mark Higgins does a lot more than slam on the brakes in this clip. I’ve done similar things in competition, but not at those speeds, and not with that price if I don’t pull it off. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9jSYiU-JdRw/maxresdefault.jpg "POV Rally Champion Mark Higgins Near Crash at 150 mph @ 2011 Isle of Man TT | Raod and Track") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jSYiU-JdRw) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1181 "2023-07-12T20:26:03Z")
I hope it’s obvious that I’m talking about _typical_ humans and not people at the top of their game and that have practiced thousands of hours at their craft. And your clip still shows someone who is reacting instinctively, and not engaging in an intellectual process (it’s just that “instinct” covers a lot more ground than average due to training). For typical drivers, many locales use \>2 seconds as their standard reaction time: > **[Braking Factors](https://copradar.com/redlight/factors/index.html)** > > Factors, variables, used to determine braking for a yellow light, including driver reaction time, yellow light duration, vehicle speed and length, road grade, and intersection threshold line (clear line). > A few states, including California, have adopted a _standard_ driver reaction time of **2.5 seconds**. The **United Kingdom’s** _Highway Code_ and the Association of Chief Police Officers _ACPO Code of Practice for Operational Use of Road Policing Enforcement Technology_ use **3.0 seconds** for driver reaction time. The **National Safety Council (NSC)** recommends 3 seconds minimum spacing (3 second reaction time) between vehicles traveling in the same lane. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2023, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/1182 "2023-07-12T21:51:26Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > For typical drivers, many locales use \>2 seconds as their standard reaction time They are using those readtion times to account for the reality that people look at their phones, adjust the radio, talk to passengers, and do other things that take their mind and eyes off the road. It’s an ‘assume the worst’ kind of number. When paying attention, human reaction time is regularly found to be around 300 milliseconds. With training, as low as 150-200. If I am driving and paying attention to the road and something runs out in front of me, I guarantee I’m not taking 2-3 seconds to brake. It’ll be well under a second, including the time my foot takes to get to the brake pedal. J.D. Power says that the average reaction time from perception of an incident to application of braking is more like .75 seconds on average. But because so many people are distracted, it’s common to use 1.5-3 seconds. I don’t want my AI judged by the standards of distracted drivers, so it had better be able t9 respond to situations at least as fast as I can. As I said, sub-second. And the LLM will have to be involved in those decisions, because that’s where it gets complex. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499.md?page=58) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499.md?page=60)