I didn't know absolutely driverless cars are so close to be released, meaning no humans inside? Directed from far like a drone?

Indeed the day has arrived, albeit in a very small zone but still, these are public streets. https://www.denverpost.com/2018/12/18/driverless-grocery-delivery-underway-kroger/

I believe I read somewhere else these will be co-piloted remotely to some degree or another. Or at least should issues arise. Welcome to the future!!

In our neighborhood, fully driverless cars from Waymo have been legal for a few months.

Waymo gets green light for robot cars in California; no humans neededWaymo is the first company in California allowed to test robot cars on public roads with no human driver behind the steering wheel, it said Tuesday. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has given Waymo a permit for up to 40 fully autonomous cars to drive both day and night on city streets, rural highways and highways with posted speeds up to 65 mph.www.sfchronicle.com

But Google doesn't seem to have rolled any out because I think they're working on community angst of people. Tesla has a few in practice. Every now and then you see a Tesla on the freeway with the driver watching the news or a movie and just trusting the car.

Waymo has been holding town halls and from what some people are saying, they're still afraid. I have the same feeling as Elon Musk, that when we can show the safety record of driverless is lower than driver cars, people will settle down.

I think the difference with the driverless cars in Scottsdale is the fact they don't have a driver on board at all. I guess the vehicle doesn't even have a steering wheel. That is going to be an odd sight to see. I know the area they are deploying these in so I will have to go check it out.

Last July, MIT researchers released a report about Tesla driving over a billion miles on autopilot, over two orders of magnitude more than Waymo, with 3 fatalities. That would make it 4x safer than human drivers.

And here's the thing: it flies in the face of what Waymo is doing and what Ben Evans suggests. Unlike Waymo and the other autonomous cars, they aren't being driven in a restricted area, they don't have a professional safety driver behind the wheel, and they aren't being monitored remotely. It simply feels that their training set is 1000x Google's.

Tesla's fleet has accumulated over 1.2 billion miles on Autopilot and even more in 'shadow mode', report says - ElectrekAutomakers and tech companies are rushing to bring autonomous driving systems to market and accumulating mileage with their test vehicles. Tesla is taking a different approach by accumulating mileage with its customer fleet through its Autopilot driver assist program. A new report now estimates that Tesla has accumulated over 1.2 billion miles on Autopilot and more [...]electrek.co

I wonder whether it's possible for companies to pool their training data. While a few might have to give up some competitive advantage, the possible overall improvement in reliability and safety might outweigh the difference. There could be technical reasons that make this impractical for now, I guess, but maybe a standards body could be created to facilitate data sharing. Just a thought.

I wonder what the conversations are like between Elon Musk and Larry Page, two best friends and mutual admirers. The two of them have the largest data sets by far. Both must be thinking they have the most R&D power of any companies, they have the most at stake and both face fierce competition from China.

Maybe they consider themselves to be fierce competitors, like Google and Apple, with different competing models. Elon wants his stuff to sell his own cars; Page wants various car brands to buy his stuff.

I just drove over 5300 miles last week and I want an autonomous vehicle now. Driving sucks.