I Attended a Self-Driving Car Conference in L.A., and Here’s Why Human Drivers Aren’t Going Anywhere Soon

Ride AI organized its inaugural autonomous vehicle conference in Los Angeles, which included prominent figures from the AV industry.
Firms such as Waymo have showcased the practical uses of AI and self-driving technology in real-life scenarios.
However, human drivers remain significantly involved, at least for the coming several decades. The reasons are as follows.

I began my day at an autonomous vehicle conference in Los Angeles with a ride in a manually driven car. Uber .

On a Wednesday morning, Waymo mentioned that it would require at least 15 minutes to secure a car for a brief, five-minute journey to NeueHouse Hollywood. This venue was hosting the inaugural autonomous vehicle summit organized by Ride AI, which brought together many key figures from within the industry.

I didn’t really have a rush, but similar to many folks, I wouldn’t contact a rideshare driver much earlier than 30 minutes or so before leaving for my destination.

Exit app. Open Uber.

One could argue that, for the time being, the contest between human-driven vehicles and those operated by robots continues unabated.

Stephen Hayes, who serves as the Vice President of Autonomous Operations at Lyft, along with Ryan Green, the Chief Executive Officer of Gridwise—a tool designed to help rideshare drivers monitor their income—both indicated during the conference that the future landscape of ride-sharing services will likely feature a mixed marketplace combining human-driven and autonomous vehicles. robot drivers .

Green reckoned this will likely hold true for at least the coming 10 to 15 years.

It could be Hayes' and Green's right to assert such a point. However, this perspective was entirely logical to me — despite my background as someone who has experienced excellent encounters with Waymo —and seemed to echo across the entire summit.

A hybrid future

Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt kicked off the event as the initial speaker, asserting that it’s a “misconception that we require autonomy to assist with humans’ poor driving skills.”

Human beings are quite safe and effective as drivers; statistically, accidents occur only once per hundred million miles driven," explained Avinash Balachandran, who leads the Human Interaction Driving department at TRI. "The true advantage of autonomous technology lies in assisting drivers when they typically face challenges.

At a conference solely focused on the future of autonomous mobility, I was astonished that many leading figures in the AV industry didn’t present optimistic scenarios or predictions about when self-driving cars would dominate our streets and urban thoroughfares.

Tesla, with a leader who has made outlandish forecasts such as one million autonomous taxis by 2020, Was notably missing from the conference but still surfaced during panel discussions.

Rather than focusing solely on this, representatives from different sectors within the autonomous driving industry—including ride-sharing companies and original equipment manufacturers providing related software—addressed the difficulties involved in achieving flawless fully automated driving tech. They also highlighted ongoing lucrative prospects within the realm of vehicles requiring human drivers.

Amnon Shashua, the CEO of Mobileye, discussed the issue of "imprecise" AI, which arises largely due to the necessity of refining redundancy implementation and insufficient data availability.

Over at Wayve In an interview with a UK-based autonomous vehicle software firm, Kaity Fischer, who serves as the Vice President of Commercial Operations, discussed the substantial unexplored potential within the market for level two and level three advanced driver-assistance systems designed for everyday cars.

Both tiers still require human drivers, but they involve different amounts of driver intervention.

"When I asked her about the appearance of city streets several decades from now, Fisher explained that for the near future, we can expect an extended phase during which various degrees of autonomous vehicles will coexist alongside traditional car ownership models,” as quoted by me. “Therefore, stages two, three, and four must learn to occupy shared spaces on roads and function securely together.”

Christoph Lütge, an economist and AI ethics specialist from the Technical University of Munich, mentioned to me that in Germany, where robotaxis are currently limited to testing phases, Level 3 automation has yet to be broadly adopted.

Related Post

He mentioned that it was supposed to occur earlier, yet it isn’t actually taking place.

Riding the hype cycle

This should not diminish the advancements people in San Francisco and other areas have witnessed personally. A key reason all those individuals convened in Los Angeles for an autonomous vehicle symposium is likely due to Waymo’s influence.

As Sophia Tung, who transitioned from engineering to becoming an AV-centric content creator, explained to me, we have witnessed an autonomous vehicle craze before — but this instance has some distinct differences.

Timothy B. Lee, a moderator for Ride AI and formerly a transport journalist at Ars Technica where he launched his own Substack called "Understanding AI," highlighted this observation: Gartner hype cycle Technological innovation initially witnesses a surge in so-called peak "overhyped expectations" before plummeting into a "valley of disappointment." It later ascends steadily along an "illumination incline" and eventually reaches a "zone of efficiency."

Lee informed me that the height of the inflated expectations phase occurred around 2016 or '17, prior to this point. An Uber self-driving car struck and killed a woman. In Tempe, Arizona, in 2018.

There was a span of about three or four years, roughly between 2018 and 2022, during which things went quite poorly for these businesses," he stated. "Uber discontinued their initiative, as did Lyft. Ford had Argo (AI) that shut down. That was a bad time to be in the industry and not as much fun to cover. And then, the last two years I would say it's been on the upswing pretty much since Waymo started expanding to San Francisco."

According to Lee's prediction, the widespread replacement of human drivers will unfold progressively. Over the coming two decades and beyond, urban roadways will witness a decline in the number of human-driven vehicles until they eventually become obsolete.

For instance, he pointed out the many years it took for automatic elevators to render human elevator operators unnecessary.

"It will involve a lengthy procedure," he stated.

My day in Los Angeles concluded with another person-operated rideshare service arriving as quickly as it took me to bid farewell to my friends, slip into my shoes, and leave their flat.

The nearest Waymo was 13 minutes distant.

Exit app. Open Uber.

If you liked this tale, make sure to follow Business Insider on MSN.