Autonomous Truck Success

[Convicted One]

tree68

Sensor issues notwithstanding

I'm not sure if I understand your intent with that.  But here any excuse along the lines of "gee officer, my speedometer says I was only doing 50"  will get you a speeding ticket PLUS a fix-a-ticket requiring you to furnish proof that a licenced repairshop has calibrated your speedometer.

Hope you are right about speed limit compliance being a "likely" imperative. I  anticipate opportunists willing to try and tilt the playing field in their favor for the sake of "enterprise".

[tree68]

Convicted One

I'm not sure if I understand your intent with that.

I was referring less to law enforcement and more to all trucks having a consistent speed.  If they are all running at the posted speed limit, and their speed sensing equipment is properly calibrated, then there should be no trucks passing other trucks on the open road - mechanical/power issues notwithstanding.

We've all been there.  Truck A is doing 65 and Truck B passes it, doing 65.5.  And takes ten minutes to complete said pass, while vehicles pile up behind them.

[greyhounds]

Backshop

PS-Who's going to hook up the air hoses, etc.  I know the answer.  It's always the same.  Some poor, underpaid *** who should be happy that he has a job.

I don't know. Maybe some high school guy who wants a few dollars so he can take a girl out on a date? 

It's not exactly a high skill task. 

Or maybe a robot?   

[zugmann]

Sounds like a great plan to serve local customers created by someone that never had the job of serving local customers. 

Be nice if everything was as easy as (1) take train to track next to customer. (2) Let customer unload train in very timely manner. (3) Go home super fast afterwards. Wouldn't even need to automate that.  

[Ulrich]

Euclid

 

 

Ulrich

People tend to confuse autonomous with driverless...the two are not the same.

 

 

Can you please define those terms?  I thought the term Autonomous means nobody driving and nobody onboard for backup.  So the vehicle is completely self-driving according to a designated route, and vehicle senses and properly responds to everything of any significance within the field of the route way.  

 

I do know that there is significant difference between Tesla's term Autopilot, and their term Autonomous, which Elon says is fully self-driving.  Autopilot does allow drivers to take a nap while cruising down a freeway, although it is strictly forbidden and is considered to be unsafe due to some limitations. 

 

Nevertheless, it appears that drivers have so much admiration for their Tesla vehicles that they rationalize that they are fully capable of driving on their own, just as the basic marketing promises at some point in the future.  I conclude that the Tesla term Autopilot is dangerously misleading.

 

Autonomous in certain situations. We already have the technology to have a vehicle guide itself along a clear highway in good weather conditions. But autonomy falls off when conditions are not ideal and when the task to be performed becomes more complex. Almost anyone can guide a truck down a highway with almost no training; however, blindside backing that truck off of a busy street.. down a narrow alley.. along a path that isn't level... that's a whole different kettle of fish. And that's what's required every day of the week when delivering in just about any city anywhere in the world.  And that's why I'm less bullish on the prospect of driverless vehicles than most are. Videos that show vehicles driving themselves along a quiet highway don't impress me that much.. an untrained 10 year old would have no trouble accomplishing the same task. 

[Paul of Covington]

zugmann

Sounds like a great plan to serve local customers created by someone that never had the job of serving local customers. 

Be nice if everything was as easy as (1) take train to track next to customer. (2) Let customer unload train in very timely manner. (3) Go home super fast afterwards. Wouldn't even need to automate that.  

 

   Sounds like you're letting reality interfere with technology.

[NittanyLion]

Ulrich

And that's why I'm less bullish on the prospect of driverless vehicles than most are.

They can't even build a self-taxiing airliner and that isn't even a complex system.  The pill robot at the hospital is already doing that.  If they can't make a multi-million dollar robot (an airliner is already a robot) follow a simple set of lines in an ultra-controlled system, I'm super-duper skeptical we're getting anything more sophisicated than lane monitoring, distance keeping, and speed control out of motor vehicles any time soon.

Also: aviation has been doing the "the robot drives and the human is there to do things when the robot can't handle the exceptions" thing for 30+ years now.  I don't understand why people see this as such an exotic concept for a road vehicle that is capable of automated lane position, following distance, brake application, and speed control.  Turned out the robot is way better than humans at the flying game too.

[tree68]

Things like bird strikes and off-course private planes notwithstanding, aircraft don't have to worry about errant lane changers, potholes, lane closures (as already discussed) and other such anomolies.

When GM built the circular track at their Michigan Proving Grounds back in the 1960's, they included in one lane a wire down the center of the lane.  In theory, a sensor below the front bumper would keep the car centered on the wire - like a slot car without the slot.  That idea died a quiet death.

[NYC-Ohio]

BEAUSABRE

How many railfans journeyed to see Muskingum Electric o

I did, many times, but I also live in Muskingum County and it was 1/2 hour away.

 

[SD60MAC9500]

Hyundai's betting big on CAV's. However the "drone" is some years off. Some of you may not know. Hyundai builds domestic 53' trailers for our market under the label Hyundai Translead. They're manufactured in Tijuana, Baja California. One application I can see happening for AV's are supplier to plant shorthaul. In my area we have multiple tier 1-3 automotive suppliers that are only on average 15 miles from final assembly plants. There's definitely a market there for this to be the first market AV's penetrate.

[Backshop]

NittanyLion

   Turned out the robot is way better than humans at the flying game too.

Wrong.  Autopilots take the strain off the pilots during cruise.  When something goes wrong, the humans do a better job. The pilots aren't just sitting up there twiddling their thumbs when autopilot is on, either.  They are constantly monitoring radio communications, fuel burn, alternate airfields for emergencies, weather reports, etc., etc.

[rdamon]

Backshop

 

 

NittanyLion

   Turned out the robot is way better than humans at the flying game too.

 

 

 

Wrong.  Autopilots take the strain off the pilots during cruise.  When something goes wrong, the humans do a better job. The pilots aren't just sitting up there twiddling their thumbs when autopilot is on, either.  They are constantly monitoring radio communications, fuel burn, alternate airfields for emergencies, weather reports, etc., etc.

 

 

But when they can't  ....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyYxbiZ1FCQ

[NittanyLion]

Backshop

 

 

NittanyLion

   Turned out the robot is way better than humans at the flying game too.

 

 

 

Wrong.  Autopilots take the strain off the pilots during cruise.  When something goes wrong, the humans do a better job. The pilots aren't just sitting up there twiddling their thumbs when autopilot is on, either.  They are constantly monitoring radio communications, fuel burn, alternate airfields for emergencies, weather reports, etc., etc.

 

 

I'm fully aware of all of that.  I'm referring to pilot error induced by sensory illusions.  Humans aren't built to fly.  I (as a passenger) suffer greatly from the leans.  A gryoscope doesn't.

[tree68]

NittanyLion

I'm referring to pilot error induced by sensory illusions. 

Case in point (it's been surmised)  - JFK Jr.

[Backshop]

tree68

 

 

NittanyLion

I'm referring to pilot error induced by sensory illusions. 

 

 

Case in point (it's been surmised)  - JFK Jr.

 

That was the airplane equivelant of a 16 year old getting a Ferrari for his birthday. He thought that because the plane was capable of something, that he was too.  Nope, it doesn't work that way.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

tree68

 

 

NittanyLion

I'm referring to pilot error induced by sensory illusions. 

 

 

Case in point (it's been surmised)  - JFK Jr.

 

I won't comment about JFK Jr but that is what killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.  The pilot was barely qualified to fly in CAVU but hoped to make a buck flying in conditions that would challenge experienced pilots.

[MJ4562]

Tee hee!  Maybe in 30+ years or so. Trains and airliners will become automated long before public road going vehicles.  Too many variables involved, too much liability.  

[blue streak 1]

Engineers have many variables to deal with.  Every trip is different.  Not only must he understand the dynamics of the present train but has to be aware of outside happenings.  I wonder if the airplane hit Would the robot even know it happened.  Or what if a small piece of iron on track might derail the next train?  Or his train goes over a cracked rail and passes it but reports same., etc,etc,etc

A pilot uses the auto pilot but has to constantly update the autopilot. Too many changes happen when enroute or sudden weather or even a vvolano? No auto pilot has ever been able to handle gusty weather especially in cross wind conditions. 

Visual clues help in these conditions both for engineers and pilots.  Robots do not see that well.

[tree68]

blue streak 1

Visual clues help in these conditions both for engineers and pilots. 

Don't forget good old seat of the pants...

[blue streak 1]

tree68

Absolutely!!!

 

 

blue streak 1

Visual clues help in these conditions both for engineers and pilots. 

 

 

Don't forget good old seat of the pants...

 

[daveklepper]

Related discussion (MIT Senior-House graduates forum

John r	o)
tu

 

 

 

Jon, Azamat, and everybody else,

 .

 

Following are some excerpts from the article by GM.

 

John

 

--------------------------------------

 

Turns out Tesla staged their famous 2016 driverless car demo, with the
famous tagline “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for
legal reasons.  He is not doing anything.  The car is driving
itself.”.  What they showed, it seems, was aspirational, not real, not
a single, unedited run taken by a single car.  Roughly $100 billion in
investment went in, partly on the strength of that demo and the
excitement it generated, in part on Musk’s say so; in the subsequent
six years, no car has yet achieved what Elon Musk promised would soon
arrive.

 

OpenAI turns out to have been using sweatshops behind the scenes.  You
might think that the ChatGPT is just a regular old massive neural
network that soaks up a massive amount of training data from the web,
but you’d only be partly correct.  There is in fact a massive,
massively trained large model behind the scenes, but it’s accompanied
by a massive amount of human labor, built to filter our bad stuff.  A
bunch of that work was done by poorly paid labor in Kenya, paid less
than $2/hour to evaluate (e.g.) graphic descriptions of sexual
situations involving children and animals that I prefer not to
describe in detail.

 

Riley Goodside, one of the people who best knows what large language
models can and can’t do, put Claude, the latest large model to the
test; the focus on this model is on alignment.  You can read his
detailed comparison for yourself, but one of the things that popped
out to me is that the system still quickly lands in the land of
hallucination that has so haunted ChatGPT.

 

CNET became the first casualty of the recently fashionable tendency to
put too much faith in ChatGPT.  Without making a big deal of it, they
started posting ChatGPT-written stories.  Mistakes were made.  A lot
of them.  Oops.

 

The coup de grace?  The musician Nick Cave got a listen to ChatGPT
riffs on his music.  If you can believe it, he was even more scathing
than I am.

_________________________________________________

 

 

 

Nona	7:05 AM (5 hours ago)
to [e-mail], [e-mail]

john, good read, thanks

so lucky to have you all share with us these gems informed by your

expertise.

John F Sowa via mitalumprod.onmicrosoft.com	6:52 AM (5 hours ago)
to Ontolog, [e-mail]

Jon, Azamat, and everybody else,

 

Jon, Thanks for that reference:  

\https://open.substack.com/pub/garymarcus/p/24-seriously-embarrassing-hours-for

 

That article by Gary Marcus digs into the sordid underbelly of some of the

most hyped AI technology. 

I have been working on AI-related projects for over 40 years. 

There has been a solid amount of good R & D. 

But there has also been a huge amount of hyping impressive,

but half-baked AI projects. 

That hype has created a frustrating series of boom & bust funding

for AI projects for the past 60 years.

 

Azamat, I suggest that you read more of Gary M's bubble-piercing

reports instead of that nonsense about

a singularity bubble that will magically pop up in 2030.

 

Following are some excerpts from the article by GM.

 

John

 

--------------------------------------

 

Turns out Tesla staged their famous 2016 driverless car demo, with the
famous tagline “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for
legal reasons.  He is not doing anything.  The car is driving
itself.”.  What they showed, it seems, was aspirational, not real, not
a single, unedited run taken by a single car.  Roughly $100 billion in
investment went in, partly on the strength of that demo and the
excitement it generated, in part on Musk’s say so; in the subsequent
six years, no car has yet achieved what Elon Musk promised would soon
arrive.

 

OpenAI turns out to have been using sweatshops behind the scenes.  You
might think that the ChatGPT is just a regular old massive neural
network that soaks up a massive amount of training data from the web,
but you’d only be partly correct.  There is in fact a massive,
massively trained large model behind the scenes, but it’s accompanied
by a massive amount of human labor, built to filter our bad stuff.  A
bunch of that work was done by poorly paid labor in Kenya, paid less
than $2/hour to evaluate (e.g.) graphic descriptions of sexual
situations involving children and animals that I prefer not to
describe in detail.

 

Riley Goodside, one of the people who best knows what large language
models can and can’t do, put Claude, the latest large model to the
test; the focus on this model is on alignment.  You can read his
detailed comparison for yourself, but one of the things that popped
out to me is that the system still quickly lands in the land of
hallucination that has so haunted ChatGPT.

 

CNET became the first casualty of the recently fashionable tendency to
put too much faith in ChatGPT.  Without making a big deal of it, they
started posting ChatGPT-written stories.  Mistakes were made.  A lot
of them.  Oops.

 

The coup de grace?  The musician Nick Cave got a listen to ChatGPT
riffs on his music.  If you can believe it, he was even more scathing
than I am.

__________________________________________________


 

 

 

 

 

Nona	o)

john, good read, thanks

 

so lucky to have you all share with us these gems informed by your expertise

 

[daveklepper]

Comments appreciated.

Apologies for duplications.  In this case I seem to lack the necessary skill to remove duplications without some needed text removed as well.

t

[charlie hebdo]

Small pilotless cargo planes to be based in Dallas 

https://www.fox7austin.com/news/ups-fedex-partner-airline-agrees-to-buy-20-pilotless-cargo-planes-in-134m-deal

 

[Overmod]

Mr. Klepper, it's not as bad as that makes it sound.

Many of the 'true' advantages of level 4 autonomy that are at all cost-effective are currently achievable -- platooned operation terminal-to-terminal over interstates; automated parking assistance at docks; yard unloading and loading on flats with tractors fitting under trailer noses.  (See Shadow's owner's comments from early last year; those activities are well within reasonable programming and don't suffer from extreme or emergent traffic or weather difficulties.)

And you will see aviation use of autonomous operation long before you see it on roads -- or on railroads, for that matter.  One best use of "AI" is in predictive extension of TCAS out to greater range, with following of a large number of relatively labile tracks.  Integrate steerable BRS foils with GPS/GIS for 'optimized touchdown' in emergent conditions.  It has been my opinion for some time that this, not 'autonomous buses' or widespread dependence on level 4 "owned vehicles", is the most practical solution for regional transport that lacks the pure volume for HrSR.

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

Small pilotless cargo planes to be based in Dallas...

Not that small; 3.8-ton nominal payload, three engines.  The company says they have a 460+ backlog with 6.8B committed.

Here's the contact information if interested:

https://natilus.co/contact/

I for one would like to hear Backshop's brother's take on this, in detail.

[Erik_Mag]

Based on their headquarters, I wonder how many of the people there are former GA employees? I also wonder how many are familiar with the events of Sep 25, 1978?

FWIW, autonomous aircraft go back a long way, with the V-1 and many airliners are capable of taking off, flying and landing without the pilots needing to touch their controls. Pilots are still required for taking over when problems occur (flying into a flock of birds) and avoiding other traffic and obstructions.

[Overmod]

Erik_Mag

I also wonder how many are familiar with the events of Sep 25, 1978?

As I said, mandatory longer-range intelligent TCAS, combined with autonomous oversight of all traffic.

(I made the mistake of listening to the PSA flight audio.  If you haven't... don't.)

[charlie hebdo]

Erik_Mag

the V-1 and many airliners are capable of taking off, flying and landing without the pilots needing to touch their controls.

Not sure about V-1s landing without damage.

[charlie hebdo]

Railroad mainlines would be the most logical and easiest to safely automate if it weren't for labor contracts.

[tree68]

charlie hebdo

Not sure about V-1s landing without damage.

True, but they landed without a pilot, if you can consider falling out of the sky "landing..."