# Latest to Quit Google’s Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist NYT 8/5



## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

*Latest to Quit Google's Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist*
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkacz...-opportunity?utm_term=.wmRzDy4zdm#.nq3On6ZORY
NY Times - Aug 5

*Robo-Car CTO Goes Footloose on Google*
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330270
EE Times - 8/7/2016
*CTO of Google Car Project quits. The first two obvious questions are: Why now, and why step down at all?*

Chris Urmson, CTO of Google's self-driving car project, has resigned abruptly without making clear whether it was just Google he quit, or the idea of autonomous cars altogether.

Urmson announced his departure Friday afternoon, and described his "journey with self-driving cars" in a post published on Medium. He wrote:

_Now, 1.8 million miles of autonomous driving later, I've decided the time is right to step down and find my next adventure. Today will be my last day on the project as CTO. After leading our cars through the human equivalent of 150 years of driving and helping our project make the leap from pure research to developing a product that we hope someday anyone will be able to use, I am ready for a fresh challenge._​
The first two obvious questions that come to everyone's mind are: Why now, and why step down at all? Urmson offered no hint in his blog post.

We tried to reach out to him, but he isn't responding.

When it comes to self-driving cars, Urmson is, bar none, the most visible face and qualified voice to discuss what Google's autonomous cars have learned. For us reporters whose beat includes autonomous cars, this is a pretty devastating development. It's been our business to hear him talk at conferences, parse out clues in his testimony at Senate hearings and read between the lines in his blog posts.

A New York Times' story provides two suggestions for what might have triggered Urmson to disengage.

First, Urmson "has been unhappy with the direction of the car project under the leadership of John Krafcik." Google last year hired Krafcik, former president of Hyundai America, to quarterback the car project.

Second, Urmson, reportedly, quarreled privately several months ago with Larry Page over where [Google car] was headed.

Down the road or up the creek?

Either way, we all understand a thing or two about not getting along with a new boss.

Even absent the big egos and turf battles that could create a schism between two top dogs, Google car is after all Urmson's baby, which he and his team have brought up over the last seven and a half years. It's human nature for Urmson to chafe under new leadership.

More alarming, though, are the apparent diverging paths Page and Urmson have independently chosen for the next phase of Google's self-driving car project.

It's well known that Google's X research group faces growing pressure to show it can generate a huge financial reward for its parent, Alphabet. Despite the 1.8 million miles Google's autonomous cars have already logged, the goal of complete Level 5 - hands-off - driving is still years away, according to most experts.

Urmson rejects the idea of keeping human drivers in the middle - for good reason. Instead of Level 3 or Level 4, Google car wants to go straight to Level 5 driving. Did Urmson's insistence on this point get little support from Page?

Did the two disagree over terms and conditions of potential licensing agreements on autonomous car technologies with car companies? Or does one of them simply reject the idea of licensing right off the bat?

Or were the two at odds over the roll-out timing for autonomous cars in the commercial market?

Right now, this is all a matter of educated speculation.

But most likely, Urmson did not jump ship because he didn't like the new captain. If Urmson were truly obsessed about developing self-driving technologies and he found it genuinely "a privilege and honor to be part of a team," as he put it, now would absolutely not be the time to bail.


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## heynow321 (Sep 3, 2015)

Years away....lol keeping drivers in the middle would be a disaster as has already been proven by airlines and trains. People will not pay attention unless they're actively piloting the car. If they're not, they're going to be netflixing, facebooking, porning, pokemoning, or some combination thereof.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Level 5 - hands-off - driving is still years away, according to most experts.


Obviously, these experts do not know anything. We have an "expert" here who will tell you that Level Five will be here yesterday. If he insists on it, which he does, it must be true. He is, after all, an expert and an expert in all fields--a self proclaimed expert, that is.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

He'll announce that he's joined Uber in the next couple weeks.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

Self driving will never work, they should call it what is and what it always will be, driver-assist.


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## Taxi Driver in Arizona (Mar 18, 2015)

The guy probably cashed in his stock options and is going to retire for a while.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> *Latest to Quit Google's Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist*
> https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkacz...-opportunity?utm_term=.wmRzDy4zdm#.nq3On6ZORY
> NY Times - Aug 5
> 
> ...


Parachutes before the plane crash.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Another Uber Driver said:


> Obviously, these experts do not know anything. We have an "expert" here who will tell you that Level Five will be here yesterday. If he insists on it, which he does, it must be true. He is, after all, an expert and an expert in all fields--a self proclaimed expert, that is.


It's level 4, no one uses the alternate ratings, and it was achieved and went live in May, not yesterday.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Self driving will never work, they should call it what is and what it always will be, driver-assist.


It already works and is on the roads serving passengers. No driver or controls. So that prediction was a clean miss.


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## ChortlingCrison (Mar 30, 2016)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Self driving will never work, they should call it what is and what it always will be, driver-assist.


Exactly! and even if it did evenually work, who's going to foot the expenses and insurance, the cars themselves? PMSL


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Meh, Chris Urmson has probably reached the end of his most important contributions and, rumor has it, he's forming his own self-driving project. Google is transitioning from R&D to an actual business model, hence the hiring of John Krafcik. This probably means nothing to the project.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ChortlingCrison said:


> Exactly! and even if it did evenually work, who's going to foot the expenses and insurance, the cars themselves? PMSL


The expenses and insurance? What are you talking about?

SDCs will almost certainly be introduced as TNCs, so the answer to your questions is Uber and the car manufacturers like GM. They are planning on doing fleets of SDCs as TNCs. If the cars are as safe as expected, they will probably just self insure.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

RamzFanz said:


> It already works and is on the roads serving passengers. No driver or controls. So that prediction was a clean miss.


Wrong. It has not and will never work for rideshare. And nobody wants to be in one of these cars when something/anything goes wrong.

I'd hate even more to be in one of these when it approaches an intersection that a traffic cop is directing.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> I'd hate even more to be in one of these when it approaches an intersection that a traffic cop is directing.


You would hope that the Police would have a zapper in his hand that could stop the thing. It is not impossible. Here, they allow the commuter busses to use the Dulles Airport Road to dodge traffic on the Dulles Toll Road. There are gates that allow the busses to get back onto the Toll Road when their exit is close. The bus driver points and clicks his zapper, which opens the gates.

Further, some of the fire departments in the Virginia suburbs have these zappers. At certain controlled intersections, the firemen can zap the lights to change to an aspect more favourable to the movement of the fire engines and ambulances.

It is not an unaddressable problem.


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

I'm guessing it's just like the article says, Urmson realizes after working on the technology for seven years that is still got a ways to go. The other guy, his new boss, was brought in to get it to market as fast as possible because investors want to see a profit now.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Wrong. It has not and will never work for rideshare. And nobody wants to be in one of these cars when something/anything goes wrong.
> 
> I'd hate even more to be in one of these when it approaches an intersection that a traffic cop is directing.


They already read traffic cop hand signals and bike riders too. Like I said, they are already on the road, so it's too late for your predictions.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Flarpy said:


> I'm guessing it's just like the article says, Urmson realizes after working on the technology for seven years that is still got a ways to go. The other guy, his new boss, was brought in to get it to market as fast as possible because investors want to see a profit now.


Except, of course, the article doesn't say that.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

RamzFanz said:


> They already read traffic cop hand signals and bike riders too


My gosh how you love to spin. Does Uber have you on their payroll ? I want you to prove that they can hand each and every single traffic cop hand signal that comes their way right now and bike riders too. Document it in detail. After you try to do this I will post all articles I have just now bookmarked that state the absolutely numerous instances that self-driving cars can't handle and it is enormous.



RamzFanz said:


> Like I said, they are already on the road, so it's too late for your predictions.


And it's really funny how you spin this one. Yes, we know self driving cars are on the road, but it is very sparingly and only in those rare instances and areas where it can actually handle the small amount of test roads it has been prepared for.

So, as I said, they will never EVER be able to drive themselves on the road and handle everything that comes their way, let alone handle a rideshare scenario. Ever. Period. End of story.

Because you can't program common sense or human awareness into a robot.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Except, of course, the article doesn't say that.


kinda of amusing how your WAGs and 'probably's' have merit in your mind, but you dismiss other's out of hand.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

In my completely worthless opinion on the matter...
Autonomous cars cars will be great - but they will not be able to exist on the same road at the same time with humanoid drivers unless all cars are outfitted to communicate with each other and wrest control from the human driver as necessary to avoid collisions and keep traffic moving.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> prove that they can hand each and every single traffic cop hand signal that comes their way right now and bike riders too.


In the City, here, they now use civilian Traffic Directors. They wear a uniform, safety vests and have gloves. The gloves have red stripes on the palm and green on the back. The City has issued a pair of those gloves to every police officer, as well. Conceivably, the scanner on the self driving vehicle could recognise something on the uniforms of either the Traffic Directors and the Police as well as the stripes on the gloves and respond accordingly.
The problem develops when there is an emergency situation (in the root sense of the word as well as its current meaning), such as a fire, a really nasty collision a shooting or the like. When something like that happens, a patrolling occifer often arrives at the scene, gets out of his car and starts to direct traffic around the trouble spot. As this emergency just emerged, he might not have time to fumble in the glove box for his gloves. Will the scanner in the self-driving vehicle recognise a bare hand signal?

If the bicycle is of recent manufacture, there could be something on it that a self-drive will recognise. What will happen when one of those things approaches my 2009 re-issue of a 1953 Schwinn heavywieght three speed? Would there be available a transponder that I can bolt onto the handlebars next to my headlight that will make the self-drive aware of my presence?

..................questions that merit an answer.....................



Michael - Cleveland said:


> In my completely worthless opinion on the matter...


Your opinions on any matter, Sir, are anything but worthless, partially or completely; even the several with which I have disagreed.


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## jonhjax (Jun 24, 2016)

if someone owns a self driving car, will they need any insurance other than comprehensive?


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

the purpose of self-driving cars as it relates to Uber is that obviously nobody will be driving these "self-driving" cars, but as I've said before, this will never happen for rideshare

and it wouldn't be beneficial for either drivers or Uber for a driver to be using a self driving car, drivers would still have to be paid, and the technology likely would be less profitable for drivers since it would be a more expensive vehicle, in essense, making it pointless


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> The expenses and insurance? What are you talking about?
> 
> SDCs will almost certainly be introduced as TNCs, so the answer to your questions is Uber and the car manufacturers like GM. They are planning on doing fleets of SDCs as TNCs. If the cars are as safe as expected, they will probably just self insure.


and they will self clean, self refuel, and self repair too or are they just going to get the CSRs to do that?


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Wrong. It has not and will never work for rideshare. And nobody wants to be in one of these cars when something/anything goes wrong.
> 
> I'd hate even more to be in one of these when it approaches an intersection that a traffic cop is directing.


or when the painted lane lines go away. I driven on many a country road with nothing but a barely visible center line or nothing at all. Not to mention dirt roads. I wonder if they will have mud hole avoidance tech in version uno.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Sounds like Page is putting the pressure on the team to step up progress. I suspect they have decided there will be nothing to license if they get beat to market with a level 4 system, sorta like how VHS beat Beta despite the obvious lower quality.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

DriverX said:


> and they will self clean, self refuel, and self repair too or are they just going to get the CSRs to do that?


Yes, they could self clean. It's not hard. Same with refuel with electric cars. Repairs are nothing compared to internal combustion.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Another Uber Driver said:


> If the bicycle is of recent manufacture, there could be something on it that a self-drive will recognise. What will happen when one of those things approaches my 2009 re-issue of a 1953 Schwinn heavywieght three speed? Would there be available a transponder that I can bolt onto the handlebars next to my headlight that will make the self-drive aware of my presence?
> 
> ..................questions that merit an answer.....................
> .


It isn't driverless tech if it requires objects to make themselves known. A driver doesn't need to be told by a bicyclist that it's there. A driver sees the obstacle, recognizes it, and avoids it, no need for the biker to have a man made device sending out a signal warning of its presence. And if we lower the bar to this standard it will never succeed, because there is no guarantee that an obstacle will have a functioning transponder. What if the thing ran out of batteries in the middle of the freeway at rush hour?


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