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Junko Yoshida's avatar

I love the simplicity of the idea. If there is one voice I trust in self-driving, that's Alex Roy.

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Ronald Drabkin's avatar

Yesterday I saw a Waymo in Tokyo. I guess it was a test vehicle?

I wonder some of the Tokyo streets are very narrow that must be a different challenge than in the USA.

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Richard M Marshall's avatar

I think you have oversimplified here, it needs to say "Can you sleep in it safely while it is driving?" or better "Can all the occupants sleep in it safely while it is driving?" You can sleep in any vehicle if it is parked in a safe place.

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Alex Roy's avatar

Yes, it is deliberately oversimplified :-)

I'm not sure about the "safely" part.

I think PERCEIVED safety will trump safety, which is a vague term (and a moving target), but this sounds like another essay is in order!

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Richard M Marshall's avatar

I look forward to reading it! Safety is almost always perceived rather than real. Something can almost always go horribly wrong. My concern with your razor is that it needs context to make sense which blunts its sharpness.

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NickH's avatar

Asking your mom to trade a manual Porsche in for a Tesla??? Heresy.

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Alex Roy's avatar

Her driving skills were in decline 😞

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Brad Templeton's avatar

The difficulty is that this applies to a car that is remote driven, or even full time remote supervised, presuming these are done to the level required. But we would generally never call these self-driving.

And of course you can sleep in an Uber. And in your text above you didn't block out an Uber, though you do mention a taxi as something to be considered different. So the test is instead "It doesn't need human attention to get around." Though you then have to decide do you mean full time human attention, or is partial human attention OK and how much. After all, today's commonly referred to as self-driving cars have partial human attention requirements, and will for a long time. Even Tesla's prayed for June Austin vehicles.

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