Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

Actually these Uber Volvo self driving cars have been picking up passengers using UberX in San Francisco for weeks. They're easy to spot because they have a huge lidar contraption on the roof and a lot of camera's mounted on the roof, rear vision mirrors, and the rear tailgate of the vehicle. The depot they use is on Harrison and 3rd so you see a lot of them driving around the area just south of Market Street, which has a lot of traffic obstacles, construction, and pedestrians. They go very slow and stop often out of an abundance of caution, much to the consternation of impatient SF drivers behind them.

Uber&#x27;s product is the company&#x27;s stock. All of their &quot;AI&quot; and &quot;self-driving&quot; stunts so far have been transparent hype fuel that anyone with the slightest domain knowledge knows have no practical significance.<p>Their PR department are, as can be expected, top notch though. I especially like how they put a populist spin on their announcements, like the beer delivery (yay, beer!) and now picking up passengers with their proof-of-concept vehicles, to make it look like self-driving cars are already part of their business.

How is this going to combat people who make a mess inside the vehicle after going 100 percent without human drivers&#x2F;test engineers? If it picks up a drunk person at 3 AM who then throws up inside the car, is it vomit-aware and knows it needs a cleaning before picking up the next passenger?

They describe this as a third-generation vehicle, but it still requires multiple human-driver interventions over a single journey. How many more generations to reach reliable true autonomy?

I ride a motorcycle in SF daily and frequently &quot;split lanes&quot;. I saw one of the Ubers all decked out with spinning radar and wondered how it would react as I passed through at 10-15mph. There was a person at the steering wheel, I am not sure who was in control. Thankfully it was uneventful. I thought the car might brake or veer away from me.

Just saw this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;electrek.co&#x2F;2016&#x2F;12&#x2F;14&#x2F;uber-autonomous-rides-california&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;electrek.co&#x2F;2016&#x2F;12&#x2F;14&#x2F;uber-autonomous-rides-califor...</a><p>I am confused do they require a permit or is uber changing the claim&#x2F;capabilities of the car to evade getting a permit?

I wonder if everything you say &amp; do is recorded in these? The car has all those cameras covering the outside of the vehicle, it would be little effort to add another inside, and I doubt Uber will be able to resist.<p>Uber could claim they need to record passengers in order to spot damage or dirtying of the cab. (Otherwise passengers could blame any damage on the previous occupant.)

As a Canadian, I wonder how anyone in this industry can create an autonomous vehicle that can safely drive during winter?

Bit of a conspiracy theory sort of question, but... is there any reason to believe that maybe self-driving car technology is being backed by the military-industrial complex as a way to run R&amp;D for military automation and related technologies? That could explain why there was a sudden spike in interest in this technology several years ago, and it could also explain why enormous amounts of hype are continually being generated for a technology that is probably still quite far away from being approved for fully automated road use.

Will a Self-Driving Car be available for ride service by the end of 2018? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.metaculus.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;181&#x2F;will-a-self-driving-car-be-available-for-ride-service-by-the-end-of-2018&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.metaculus.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;181&#x2F;will-a-self-driving-c...</a>

&gt; “a blade architecture, a whole bunch of CPUs and GPUs that we can swap out under there,” though he wouldn’t speak to who’s supplying those components specifically.<p>Does anyone have more info or speculation on the tech stack sitting in the trunk?

Is this a voluntary thing? Do I get a discount to sit in those? I would at the very least want to know in advance that an autonomous car is going to pick me up so if I want I can reject it if I want to and not waste time.

One thing that&#x27;s still not clear to me is how autonomous these truly are. There&#x27;s still a human in the driver&#x27;s seat, but how much intervention is required from them?

Does anybody know what the chance of getting a self driving car is? I could try to use uberX instead of pool for a while, if there&#x27;s a sufficient chance of getting one.

There is an amazing amount of hand waiving and conjecture in this discussion.

I have more expectation about self drive Bus and Trucks than cars.

No thanks.

and never letting them go.