Uber Knows...

[Lex DeVille]

Uber Begins Its Endgame: Replacing Humans

We thought it was Uber vs. taxis but it was Uber vs. humans all along.

This isn't just one company.

If you're building a startup and plan to compete you HAVE to think like this.

Automation is NOT going away. It's going to be all there is.

Uber used humans to get a foot in the door.

They built capital they can use to fund the real company, an automated fleet.

Those who own robots win. But I'm sure it's still too far in the future to think about for your startup...

 

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[Fox]

To me that shit is so prone to error it should be relegated to face detection on your camera and joke apps on your phone.

I will take my chances with the robots over the guy working a 16 hour shift while going through his second divorce.

True story: My girlfriend and I took a taxi here (Colombia) a few weeks ago. The driver kept nodding off and was having micro sleeps. We hit a patch of slow moving traffic and he just fell asleep. We thought it was funny so we just left him to see what happened. Other cars just drove around him and no one beeped. He slept for a good 30 seconds, woke up and just went back to driving. I don't think he even knew it had happened.

 

[Lex DeVille]

How are they gonna make it hacker proof? HOW?

That's for them to figure out. Or maybe for you if you need a business idea.

Fear of what might happen won't stop technology or automation. If it did we wouldn't have computers.

It's pretty clear that most vehicles will be automated over the next 10 years.

Most people will spend time finding reasons (read excuses) why it's bad.

Meanwhile Uber will rake in billions of dollars because they took action to make the inevitable real.

To me that shit is so prone to error

Not as prone as humans.

 

[Vigilante]

We'll see about that. ONE catastrophe is all it takes to derail the automation movement.
Just like when the Hindenburg crashed and burned in jersey which destroyed the zeppelin industry and changed the course of history.

yes the computer is not as error prone as a human, but when it does error out it'll cause a 150 mile per hour collision compared to a human error 50 mph collision. You're going to see crashes with ~0% survival chance.

leave the automation for nonhuman transport, i can see the appeal of that.

I don't think a fatality will derail anything.

A kid was decapitated at a theme park a few weeks ago. It closed that ride. Not even that park. Not every park.

I think society will accept a predicted mortality rate in exchange for technology advancement.

There's fatality rates today every time you get into your vehicle. Drivers are playing probability games.

Society is sick as F*ck. We'll accept a few fatalities on the way towards progress, just like the Space Shuttle Challenger.

 

[mrarcher]

Why would anyone want a car to drive itself?

People are willing to give up control if it means they have to do less.

 

[Lex DeVille]

We'll see about that. ONE catastrophe is all it takes to derail the automation movement.
Just like when the Hindenburg crashed and burned in jersey which destroyed the zeppelin industry and changed the course of history.

yes the computer is not as error prone as a human, but when it does error out it'll cause a 150 mile per hour collision compared to a human error 50 mph collision. You're going to see crashes with ~0% survival chance.

leave the automation for nonhuman transport, i can see the appeal of that.

Self-driving cars have already crashed. Yet the industry moves forward.

Thousands of planes have crashed. Yet new planes are built every day.

Multiple spacecraft have blown up. Yet SpaceX is still going.

And since Lockheed Martin is launching a zeppelin in 2018...

One catastrophe will not stop automation or technology.

 

[IGP]

We'll see about that. ONE catastrophe is all it takes to derail the automation movement.
Just like when the Hindenburg crashed and burned in jersey which destroyed the zeppelin industry and changed the course of history.

yes the computer is not as error prone as a human, but when it does error out it'll cause a 150 mile per hour collision compared to a human error 50 mph collision. You're going to see crashes with ~0% survival chance.

leave the automation for nonhuman transport, i can see the appeal of that.

Some will argue that is actually safer... Right now, the odds are 1 in 113 that your cause of death will be from a car crash. (http://www.nsc.org/learn/safety-knowledge/Pages/injury-facts-chart.aspx)

Remove drunk drivers? Check
Remove texting while driving? Check
Remove putting on make up? Check
Remove falling asleep at the wheel? Check
Remove....

The list goes on and on. Any time you can remove the human element from something, things get safer. Sure, there will be bumps along the way.

I am already long (MBLY) in my IRA, but check them out. Now is great time to buy this stock and just forget about it!

 

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[luniac]

How are they gonna make it hacker proof? HOW?

I ride the new york subway every single day and at the high speeds the train travels i take comfort in the automated train emergency brakes and the live operator following the color lights along the tunnel.

What safety precautions and emergency brake systems will there be in automated road vehicles? and will they be enough to prevent casualties in a high speed safety situation. After all the big selling point of automated cars is SPEED, and its obviously exponentially more complex to automate countless cars on city streets and highways vs train tracks.

I am afraid.

edit:
scratch the automatic braking part.... goddamn it lol...
http://gothamist.com/2015/05/21/mta_braking.php

 

[OldFaithful]

It's pretty clear that most vehicles will be automated over the next 10 years

Having worked with automation & engineering, I'd say 10 years is overly optimistic, even if just from an industrial/development perspective. I'd guess it will take 50 years or so.

Do you know how long it took for electronic fuel injection to take hold in automobiles? 40 years.
How about direct injection? 50 years.
How long did it take for turbochargers to reach the domestic auto market? 60 years.

Something this "game changing" will likely require a new generation of users to find acceptance. We "old fogies" that grew up with human driven vehicles will generally resist automated vehicles, but the next generation will accept them more readily.

 

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[Raoul Duke]

Autonomy
As the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability, meaning that any given system in the car could break and your car will still drive itself safely. It is important to emphasize that refinement and validation of the software will take much longer than putting in place the cameras, radar, sonar and computing hardware.

Even once the software is highly refined and far better than the average human driver, there will still be a significant time gap, varying widely by jurisdiction, before true self-driving is approved by regulators. We expect that worldwide regulatory approval will require something on the order of 6 billion miles (10 billion km). Current fleet learning is happening at just over 3 million miles (5 million km) per day.

I should add a note here to explain why Tesla is deploying partial autonomy now, rather than waiting until some point in the future. The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability.

According to the recently released 2015 NHTSA report, automotive fatalities increased by 8% to one death every 89 million miles. Autopilot miles will soon exceed twice that number and the system gets better every day. It would no more make sense to disable Tesla's Autopilot, as some have called for, than it would to disable autopilot in aircraft, after which our system is named.

It is also important to explain why we refer to Autopilot as "beta". This is not beta software in any normal sense of the word. Every release goes through extensive internal validation before it reaches any customers. It is called beta in order to decrease complacency and indicate that it will continue to improve (Autopilot is always off by default). Once we get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the US vehicle average, the beta label will be removed.

Sharing
When true self-driving is approved by regulators, it will mean that you will be able to summon your Tesla from pretty much anywhere. Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else enroute to your destination.

You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you're at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla. Since most cars are only in use by their owner for 5% to 10% of the day, the fundamental economic utility of a true self-driving car is likely to be several times that of a car which is not.

In cities where demand exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Tesla will operate its own fleet, ensuring you can always hail a ride from us no matter where you are.





https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Uber knows...

And here I thought this was going to be a thread filled with rap videos and pending Bugatti pictures.

Whew!

 

[Andy Black]

People are willing to give up control if it means they have to do less.

[HASHTAG]#GoldPost[/HASHTAG]. Rep+

This is literally the only post I've read in this thread, and it applies to EVERYTHING.

 

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[GSF]

Rise of the machines: Robots will replace half of global workforce
https://www.rt.com/news/332522-robots-replace-global-workforce/

 

[GSF]

I think society will accept a predicted mortality rate in exchange for technology advancement.

especially if it means a cheaper, statistically safer, more efficient and faster service.

 

[Alxander]

I can't wait till everything on earth is automated and we can all go full side-walk till the end

 

[JAJT]

People are overly worried and concerned with automation and death. It's a ridiculous argument (IMHO).

Yes, it needs to be safe, but the bar for making it safer than humans is pretty darn low - look at the off-the-cuff list Lex posted. There are dozens more, easily. Near-zero braking reaction time alone is HUGE. Elimination of hazardous tailgating is another.

And what about those fringe scenarios where it saves lives? There was a story a few weeks back where a guy having a heart attack (or some other emergency) told his tesla auto-pilot to go to the hospital while he experienced a fit that would have made traditional driving impossible.

Honestly, as someone who thinks most people on the road are out for murder/suicide, I can't wait until these become common place, warts and all.

 

[devine]

probably communism.

I think there is a higher chance of people getting slaughtered in one way or another, because there will be no reason to keep all those people on an overpopulated planet.
No matter how people feel about it, one snap and human rights are history.

 

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[GuestUser450]

Uber doesn't make a profit. Tesla doesn't make a profit. Why would one buy the other

This makes sense, as a metaphysical question. I mean ultimately, what is there? Nothing, really.

But if you're narrow-minded and concern yourself with reality, at least within our shared lifetime, I'd argue that there's value in

a) an infinitely scalable company whose market is the world's population (uber)

and

b) a company who's growing at 25% selling 100k products with zero traditional marketing or commissioned sales reps (tesla).

Don't ignore the bottom line, but look past it long enough to focus on their brand advocates. Acquisition costs and lifetime value for both are extraordinary.

A company can suck at many most things and still thrive if the market shows up to buy.

 

[Jake]

Why would anyone want a car to drive itself?

Because driving in traffic sucks and time can be better spent reading / working / enjoying the ride instead of focusing on avoiding motorbikes and moronic drivers

 

[ApparentHorizon]

They built capital they can use to fund the real company, an automated fleet.

There will still be opportunities during the transition period. Like people renting out their automated cars when not in use.

It could be cheaper than buying and maintaining a fleet.

Car dealerships in large cities - that will be an interesting shake up as well.

 

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[7.62x51]

Thanks for making this thread, I was thinking about this too.

I think this type of disruption is where new opportunities are born.

For example:

Fully autonomous pickup truck + Wifi Controlled Drone = Mobile Inspection Unit

So instead of sending an employee to the site, you can send the pickup truck and then control the drone when it gets there.

Also, notice how this type of technology will likely decrease the overall demand for personal vehicles, So why do the major automotive brands seem to be pushing towards this as well? Probably because they realize that it's inevitable, it's coming soon and properly re-positioning yourself now is the key to not becoming obsolete in the future.

 

[OldFaithful]

Notwithstanding, gov't regulation of course.

This might be the biggest hurdle of all...

 

[Lex DeVille]

probably communism.

That seems to be the general consensus among many Transhumanists.

Not sure how I feel about it. Not sure it matters how I feel either.

Not sure we can discuss it much further without getting into restricted topics.

I think there is a higher chance of people getting slaughtered in one way or another, because there will be no reason to keep all those people on an overpopulated planet.
No matter how people feel about it, one snap and human rights are history.

There is a high chance of existential threats as technology moves forward. Another of many issues humans have barely bothered with. Basically there's a 50/50 chance we'll either be exterminated or live forever in the long run.

That said, the planet is already overpopulated and we're working on expanding to mars.

The real issue happens when someone makes a machine that self-learns & self-improves and then surpasses humans on such a magnitude (the official term is an "intelligence explosion") that we can't stop it from carrying out its processes even if we wanted to. We're talking a machine capable of processing information in ways humans can't even conceptualize. Not 10 steps ahead, but 10 trillion.

Then our existence is up to the machine. Keep in mind I'm not talking about a humanesque machine, but a computer that simply does it's job better and better and better. If it finds humans a likely threat to its ability to carry out whatever task it started with, then it could wipe out humanity in order to continue processing to the best of it's ability.

This is why Elon Musk, Kurzweil and others are pushing so hard for humans to merge with machines. The only suggested way to overcome this that I'm aware of is by merging with machines so we aren't left in the dust.

Here's the epic Wait But Why article that explores this idea in depth.

 

[nradam123]

A lot of people are underestimating technology in this thread.

You guys should all read "Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom" and then come back to reply to this thread

I mean, if you doubt that automated Uber cars will not work out it just means that you have to go practice the visionary part of your brain. Its the same part of the brain that helped people like Tony Hsieh and Mark Cuban create billion dollar companies.

 

[7.62x51]

I think this is where we should be paying attention when it comes to AI,

The moneky neocortex is about the size of a postage stamp. At this size, they are able to learn basic motor controls but have a limited understanding of higher level concepts.

The human neocortex is about the size of a dinner napkin. This allows them to understand abstract concepts and form societies. However, just as with monkeys, they also have a limit in terms of what they can comprehend.

As we continue to build our towers of knowledge, we are literally approaching the limits of human comprehension. Limited life span + biological baggage means that we each only process a small fragment of the total knowledge available.

If going from a postage stamp to a dinner napkins is the difference between a monkey and a human, what happens if you go from a dinner napkin to a football field? What type of things could you learn then?

After we build an artificial neocortex no longer constrained by biology, it will transcend the limits of our comprehension. By definition, that means we have no idea where that's going to take us.

However, I would bet that by that time, employment will be the least of our concern.

 

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[7.62x51]

You can have a large but smooth neocortex that's terribly connected and it wouldn't result in higher cognitive functions.

For example, Einstein had additional folds and stronger connections between his hemispheres, but the "size" was the same.

You hit the nail on the head in the next part.



As well as having strong connections between them.

It goes to the thinking we have in biz: take 2 seemingly unrelated ideas and combine them into a product/service.

The folds are what allow a larger neocortex to fit into the same sized brain. The ones which appear smooth are already stretched out. A larger neocortex generally means more neurons (ie long-finned pilot whales have more neurons than humans) although it's not the whole picture. How they're wired definitely matters (ie humans have 6 cortical layers whereas whales have 4).

Size is a rough measure and it's totally possible that intelligence scales with size/neuron-count up to a certain point. Even so, that would be okay. The main point is that Intelligence is a finite resource and if we can understand how it works, we can hack it and scale the hell out of it.

 

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[Green Destiny]

This makes sense, as a metaphysical question. I mean ultimately, what is there? Nothing, really.

But if you're narrow-minded and concern yourself with reality, at least within our shared lifetime, I'd argue that there's value in

a) an infinitely scalable company whose market is the world's population (uber)

and

b) a company who's growing at 25% selling 100k products with zero traditional marketing or commissioned sales reps (tesla).

Don't ignore the bottom line, but look past it long enough to focus on their brand advocates. Acquisition costs and lifetime value for both are extraordinary.

A company can suck at many most things and still thrive if the market shows up to buy.

Also if you look at the Tesla site, their plan is to eventually have fully automated, solar powered vehicles. (Hence the solarcity merger, although many will say solarcity deal was cause they would have gone bust without it.) Owners can lend their vehicles out to other users when not being personally utilised and earn money from them and in areas where there is a greater demand Tesla will run their own fleet of automated vehicles.

If he pulls this off Elon Musk will probably become the richest guy on the planet. Got to admire his balls.

 

[RHL]

A kid was decapitated at a theme park a few weeks ago. It closed that ride. Not even that park. Not every park.

Also, consider:

Theme park=useless amusement.

Car=Essential for life as we know it.

That's why, for example, after one shooting death there is talk of banning guns (even though they are essential for parts of our society, and enshrined in our constitution), but after 30,000 automotive fatalities a year, many involving little kids, there is never a peep about banning cars. Because cars are indispensable, guns are not. The same will govern self-driving cars. It will take mass casualties to daunt the industry.

in 2030, manual driving cars will be like horses today: Weekend amusements of the rich who own them in addition to 2-3 "normal" vehicles.

 

[RHL]

My question is, what else?

What other industries are reaching semi-auto or even full automation levels?

Almost everything.

I'd say the last to go are going to be industries which address extremely unpredictable and diverse problems routinely. I've designed computer image recognition software before, it is maddeningly difficult to account for position, shape, and size-based changes in things you want the robot or camera system to log and manipulate, to, for example, produce software that could recognize a woman's uterus during surgery if it was retroverted, or compensate and find its bearings if she'd had a hysterectomy, or recognize that the 20 different shapes and sizes of control arms used on BMWs (to say nothing of other cars) are all in fact one part with one basic function, and that while the most basic problem is usually the rubber bushings that wear out, that it may be possible that the noise the customer is complaining about is coming from a crack in the metal itself. A computer has a lot of difficulty communicating with humans-something we do instinctively. They're even worse at it if humans are distressed or confused.

Now, I'm no fool; we'll get there too, but I highly doubt we'll have fully automated surgeons, mechanics, architects, etc. in our working lifetime (I'm hoping to retire at 40-45 or so). They'll be doing basic and routine jobs, but humans will still be needed for the most complex and ponderous problems of a certain sort: The sort other humans (programmers) are not good at anticipating.

 

[RHL]

Why would anyone want a car to drive itself?

This must be a joke.