The line scan photo of the Shinkansen train is amazing!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Line_scan_photo_of_S... (If you're confused by that page, then so was I. It contains the full photo but it's so long that it gets compressed into a line a few pixels high.)

How are Google allowed to get Zeekr? Are they pre tariff or they have some loophole being corporate?

How did you get in?

I don't think the goal is indolence. The goal is freedom. We want a post-need society propped up by automation. That doesn't mean that we should spend our reclaimed time idling, though, but certainly we could.

Looks like it's GAIA by Marco Cochrane, I remember seeing it out in the desert. It looks like it might not be related to Waymo and just on the adjacent property

Reminds me of the half-buried in the sands of time sculptures in Blade Runner 2049; the surrounding self-driving auto depot only adds to the resemblance to some far off future.

It makes me think that we need more representations of humans on and in our cities, to remind us about who they are for. We can shift a small amount of architectural scale towards the human.

I had to look up indolence. At least for the time being im not indolent enough not to look up such things I suppose.

Couldn't hear it over the sound of Jethro Tull playing in my ears.

Thank you, I was about to start searching for it :) !

The same way they get cleaned. You can see the workers in high-vis are coming out to service them.

> If you scale this over the next years, "manual driving is over" :-D

I ride a motorcycle. Unless you make this illegal, then no, "manual driving" is not over anytime soon. Some people actually _like_ driving, although, none of them appear to frequent hacker news.

> there is nothing that can stop this?

We learned the lesson of over automation in aviation very quickly. The best solution is very often, turn off autopilot and autothrottles, then hand fly the plane. You don't want pilots with their heads down in a computer making changes when they can, and should, just fly the plane. It also tends to reduce over all competence and harms safety particularly during equipment failures.

> and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents

The utility of these statistics are harmed by the fact that "self-driving" does not occur in all the circumstances that "manual driving" does today. They're barely past the foundation stage, in a limited operational scope (cabs), and in a limited operational area (where it never snows).

> Lets come back in 10 years! :-)

I think this technology will eventually be prevalent. I think hacker news constantly gets the time lines wrong. You're going to need 25, minimum, and possibly more like 50.

>If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents (90% or so I read days ago?), and the tech is really new & "not 100% reliable" and you believe that this tech will be rolled out - one day you will start lobbying politicans that manual driving needs to be forbidden, except some rare cases.

Why would insurance companies lobby for that? 90% reduction in accidents means 90% reduction in premiums, which means 90% reduction in profits.

Do insurance companies have a history of lobbying for safety regulations?

Unless it comes down massively in price, it's not going to displace manual driving for anything other than Uber/taxi. It's far cheaper to drive your own car in most of the us. If parking lots disappear and the parking that remains becomes similar in price to that of major cities and insurance rates skyrocket, then maybe that will change, but only by increasing the overall cost of transportation.

> If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents

Insurance companies don't really care that much if accidents are more or less likely, what they care about is that they can be underwritten effectively.

The most interesting shift here as it pertains to insurance is the fact that losses might be correlated in brand new ways. Today there's no simple way for 100,000 cars to all crash a few minutes apart, worldwide, for the same reason. In the future that may in fact be plausible.

I'm sure that an insurance company would reject larger premiums and make itself obsolete, assuming that claims you make are true.

Hint: Normies outside the tech world are not hell bent on making themselves unemployed. That phenomenon only exists among software engineers.

I got the same vibe.

That would drive me insane, they have my sympathy.

They know how to boil a frog.

Can you explain more why you think this? As I see it, cars in general remain very highly negative-externality, and self-driving doesn't change it much.

Regular ICE cars: - air pollution from tire wear and brake dust - air pollution from exhaust - embodied carbon - noise - endangering other road users - traffic congestion - land use (sprawl) - long term health impacts (encouraging sedentary lifestyle)

Switch to all-electric and you lose a bit of noise and all the tailpipe emissions, but gain whatever emissions generated the power (sometimes solar, great, but sometimes lignite, boo), whatever environmental damage resulted from the battery materials, and probably marginal worsening of safety as the same ranger requires a heavier vehicle

Switch to self-driving and you may increase safety (feels like Waymo basically yes, Tesla probably no based on their track record with stat manipulation), but also vastly increase use, worsening congestion and land-use. The others stay the same.

So I don't understand why you're saying the externality ratio is good. From my perspective self-driving cars don't really move the needle.

You could build 1000 units of housing in the lot where these cars are kept. The bigger picture isn't exactly clear.

Having ridden a few of them in the area, I think they're worth it.

Waymos are 100% reliable. If you book it and it says it's coming at X time, it will definitely actually show up at X time. No more of, driver cancelled at the last minute because they don't actually want to drive to destination Y but Uber etc gave it to them anyways and they get dinged if they just cancel instead of claiming not to be able to find the rider etc. Or driver got lost or stopped for food or gas or something so is late.

It also gets to the destination exactly when it says it will. No weird routes because of the driver's whim or driving too fast or too slow. And no chance of bad music, loud conversation in some foreign language, annoying commentary, etc.

And I want them to be profitable to run too, so they have plenty of incentive to expand the program.

the jaguar ipace base vehicle is uber black eligible in some markets, compared to the shitty check engine light hoopties you could risk with uberx

No need to make small-talk with someone is a positive for many people. That might make it worth it?

The novelty premium?

It reminds me a bit of a very small scale version of a robotic harbor, which very much exists in many places across the world already.

I once toured the one in Hamburg, which is highly recommended if you ever get the chance.

Nothing else has quite given me that feeling of being tiny next to this giant city-scale robot since.

Robots and technology have been replacing humans for many decades. It's a positive thing and change is a natural part of life. It's hardly depressing, it's progress.

It's not like humans are somehow put on this earth only to do certain jobs or the same job forever. Contrary to 100+ plus years of predictions, humans will never become obsolete.

I would make a movie about UBI recipients wearing shock collars that are supervised by Optimus robots and pluck almonds or apples.

Perhaps we need a euphemism for UBI: Let's call it "level-1 rich".

Probably because their CEOs are focusing on their job and not fooling around.

Tesla is so dead LOL

Example?

Most of it is not drone, but you have to think a bit about the angle and duration to realize this. Merry Christmas

Could you please review and follow the site guidelines? "Oh, who cares." is not an ok way to respond to someone's work on HN, and is particularly bad when a thread is just getting underway.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(of course I understand that it's disappointing when you're hoping for certain content and end up with something else, but still - please don't express that in a hostile way)

I actually quite liked it, was somehow soothing, especially the car park that was used as a temporary location during the night.

It isn't what you were expecting-- but it's really good. Give it another look with no expectations.

I think the risk to safety was just existing in SF at night.