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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • Each row in the figure is a probability distribution over possible outputs (x-axis labels). The more yellow, the more likely (see the colour map on the right). With a small temperature (e.g., last row), all the probability mass is on 42. This is a low entropy distribution because if you sample from it you’ll constantly get 42, so no randomness whatsoever (think entropy as a measure of randomness/chaos). As temperature increases (rows closer to the first/topmost one), 42 is still the most likely output, but the probability mass gets dispersed to other possible outputs too (other outputs get a bit more yellow), resulting in higher entropy distributions. Sampling from such distribution gives you more random outputs (42 would still be frequent, but you’d get 37 or others too occasionally). Hopefully this is clearer.

    Someone in another reply uses the word “creativity” to describe the effect of temperature scaling. The more commonly used term in the literature is “diversity”.











  • I agree with what you said about price fixing and competition. But why do you think multiple robotaxi companies will survive in the (long) future? We know that’s not what happened with Uber/Airbnb that killed their competitors with predatory pricing. How do you know this time it would be different?

    Thanks for the detailed cost breakdown. You seem to have thought about this deeply. But I don’t see labour cost (e.g., engineers) in the breakdown. Why did you not include it?

    I agree that the battery cost (and thus operating cost) would go down, but again I’m not convinced it would mean lower fare because that’s not what usually happens. I also agree these companies know how much money will be made on self-driving systems, which is exactly why I think they would aim for a monopoly, and the one surviving would charge passengers as high as it can.

    In you and your wife’s case, is using a normal taxi 5-6 times not cheaper than the second vehicle cost?

    Anyway, from what you wrote, it seems the biggest issue here is cost/fare. In that case, public transit, which we already have and benefits all people (including both the elderly and people with disabilities), would be a better solution than any taxi.


  • If the operating cost is as low as you said, why do you think these robotaxi companies wouldn’t eventually charge similar fare to normal taxis given that (1) the market can bear such fare now and (2) the reduced operating cost would give them higher profit margins?

    Frankly, I’m not convinced yet that the operating cost is that much lower. Covering more areas and operating almost 24 hours a day sound like more fleet and more frequent maintenance to me. Wouldn’t these increase the operating cost, and thus, fare? Not to mention paying the engineers to maintain the software/AI system. I assume engineers are much more expensive than drivers.








  • Many people literally die each year because of car-centric infrastructure, and you’re basically telling us to calm down? No fucking way.

    Before cars, there used to be a massive amount of infrastructure for trains and streetcars, not to mention walkable neighbourhood, but they all get demolished for cars. So yes, we do operate like that.

    And did I mention that car-centricity kills people each year? So yes, eliminate all cars if we have to. But honestly, I don’t think anyone wants to eliminate all cars, just those we don’t need (which is most of them).