I think big players also have significant risk exposure during black swan events and the timeline of their operations makes those incidents not entirely unlikely to occur. It's sort of like insurance - most of the time they just get to extort rent, but sometimes they get crushed, too.
Check the 5-year on Hudson Pacific. They're down 96% and dropping. They own a significant number of downtown commercial properties in SF and LA. They're completely underwater, their spaces are barely half full, and they can't lower rents without violating their bank loan covenants.
Of course, if the commercial landscape hadn't shifted in a way nobody could predict then, yes, they'd likely have continued to print money for the foreseeable future. Instead, they're left holding a very heavy bag and will take it to the grave.
I don't even know what areas of the United States I would consider "walkable". I live in San Francisco, don't own a car, we have "pretty good" public transit, and it's still absolutely miserable getting around. It takes me 40 minutes to go from Outer Sunset to downtown by muni. There are many locations in this city that I can physically jog to faster than public transit.
I can appreciate this technology might negatively impact other countries more heavily, but, for me, it's easily the most exciting tech I interact with and I'm rooting for it whole-heartedly. I'm at around 1000 miles logged on Waymo and am part of their beta tester program for freeway usage.
I also think that post-Covid remote work has probably damaged incentives for increasing the density of cities more so than anything autonomous vehicles will do. San Francisco is actively cutting bus routes, bus density, and threatening to significantly cut BART stops due to budget constraints and reduction in ridership.
It's odd because I do get where you're coming from, and I feel like I should be your target audience, but, for me, the ship sailed so long ago that I struggle to relate to your position.
I think this thread conflating between walkable and having good transit. A walkable city means almost everything you need is within walking distance. That doesn’t mean there are buses or trains to take you out of this area. I live in a walkable part of the city. Within a 15-minute walk, there are three supermarkets, perhaps twenty restaurants with different cuisines, four pharmacies, one each of USPS/UPS/FedEx for shipping, four different banks, three dry cleaners… you get the idea. The only transportation tool I need is my two legs.
Now of course sometimes I’m not content staying within this 15-minute circle. Then I simply choose the fastest method of transport to get there. Is BART or Muni faster than the Waymo trip? Then yes I’ll take pubic transportation. That’s what good transit is for.
I read the whole thing, but, idk, surprised they didn't include a picture or clarify if this is strictly hardware, or hardware + software changes (with the software changes maybe back propagating to existing Drivers)
"Because we are focused on building a Driver and not a vehicle, we’ve designed a versatile, integrated autonomous driving system that can be adapted to various platforms and use cases over time. Our versatile hardware approach allows us to reconfigure our sensors and generalize our AI to meet each platform's unique needs—whether it is the Ojai or the Hyundai IONIQ 5—providing the Waymo Driver an optimal view of its surroundings while streamlining for efficiency."
ie this is a sensor+software package for any vehicle that they install on.
My understanding of the text is that, to get this to run on the existing fleet, they'd need to go into the shop for sensor/computer replacement, but the text isn't explicit about that.
Ultimately there will have to be some sort of new models regardless, given the vast majority of the fleet is Jaguar I-Paces, a car which ended production with no successor in 2024. Waymo bought the final 2000 cars to come off the line.
They already have a partnership with Geely to make their peeople carrier type thing and Hyundai for Ioniqs. I think what they're really saying here is they're standardizing on this so they could theoretically in future put it in any car - or atleast any car manufacturer could adopt it.
They've already talked about this new hardware many times, this is just announcing that said new models are starting fully driverless operations.
Waymo announcements tend to be very incremental, each one is only a small change from a prior known state. They seem to operate an attitude of least possible surprise, probably to avoid spooking anyone about scary robocars.
The zeekr vehicle mentioned here is made in an almost entirely dark factory in China. It has very few humans on the floor and spits out 800 cars per day. It’s literally dark in there.
Oh cmon, at least try to signal like you're interested in a good-faith debate by posting with your main account. Intentionally ignoring the rules of HN only ensures nobody will get closer to your belief system.
I mean his rage is somewhat warranted, there is a comment a few threads up of a guy asking what model comparable to Opus 4.6 can be run on 16 gb VRAM...
Supporters and haters alike, its getting pretty stupid out there.
For the millionth time, it seems learning basics and fundamentals of software engineering is more important than anything else.
Yeah I've spent way too much time reading this "guy's" posts here, Academia profile, etc. Huge waste of time. AI has managed to amplify a crank 100x. This is only going get worse.
I've seen for myself how much tunnel vision these models will get when collaborating scientifically/mathematically. When working around unfamiliar domains I have to do extensive grounding on my own. Curious to see how this changes over the next two years as the industry goes after scientific collaboration.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HPP/
Check the 5-year on Hudson Pacific. They're down 96% and dropping. They own a significant number of downtown commercial properties in SF and LA. They're completely underwater, their spaces are barely half full, and they can't lower rents without violating their bank loan covenants.
Of course, if the commercial landscape hadn't shifted in a way nobody could predict then, yes, they'd likely have continued to print money for the foreseeable future. Instead, they're left holding a very heavy bag and will take it to the grave.
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