Note di Matteo

Waymo (Alphabet) ha iniziato a usare scenari generati da un modello AI chiamato Waymo World Model, basato su Genie 3 di Google, per testare situazioni rare:

By leveraging Genie’s immense world knowledge, it can simulate exceedingly rare events—from a tornado to a casual encounter with an elephant—that are almost impossible to capture at scale in reality. [...] Notably, the Waymo World Model generates high-fidelity, multi-sensor outputs that include both camera and lidar data.

Nei video di esempio si vedono appunto nevicate, tornado, strade interrotte da alberi, incendi, alluvioni, elefanti, auto contromano, auto ferme in mezzo alla strada e molto altro.

Incidente Waymo, un bambino è spuntato all'improvviso ed è stato investito a 10 km/h:

The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made.

Waymo dice che un umano avrebbe fatto molto peggio:

To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.

Waymo con la neve, questo inverno è quello decisivo e i taxi sono attrezzati:

In addition to better data, Waymo is exploring other solutions to help its robotaxis navigate slicker, slushier streets. For example, tiny mechanical wipers have been installed to help clear snow off the vehicle’s rooftop lidar sensor. More powerful heaters are also included to help defrost all the sensors. Waymo’s current system is already trained on icy road conditions and can handle challenges like black ice.

I taxi comunicano tra loro per comunicare situazioni di pericolo:

Each vehicle in its fleet records this data while out on the road, like a mobile weather station, he said. “Let’s say the vehicle encounters a slippery patch,” Chen said. “It’ll actually send that information to the rest of the fleet and now other other vehicles in the fleet know that that particular location is slippery.”