Veritasium
10 HN mentions · mentioned in 5 months, 2021–2022
18:08 · 3.5M views · Jul 23, 2021
A Veritasium video, sponsored by Waymo, that rides in a fully driverless car in Chandler, Arizona and argues for putting autonomous vehicles on roads based on safety data.
HN mostly cites it as a ride-along example of driverless cars while many criticize it as sponsored content that understates limitations.
10 comments from Hacker News
> Where I get uneasy is how quickly SmarterEveryDay seems to have > switched from a YouTube channel about explaining things into a > YouTube channel about stoking "Big Tech" fears as a way to sell > apps. The latest video is title "Is Your Privacy An Illusion? > (Taking on Big Tech) - Smarter Every Day 263". This has been a trend with YouTube science communicators and educators for a while now. They're getting hired by companies to basically produce an ad in the style of their regular videos. Physics Girl did a video in cooperation with Toyota praising Toyota's hydrogen powered test car, telling her audience that hydrogen as a passenger car fuel has a future while ignoring the fact that every car manufacturer including Toyota has given up on it and favoring Lithium battery packs instead. [LINK] It was an odd move from her to hype Hydrpgen cars but her audience caught on to it quickly in the comments. Which prompted her to make a follow up video: [LINK] where she's trying to save what's left to save for the hydrogen cause. Veritasium did it too. In which Derek Muller created nothing short of a propaganda piece for driverless cars and not even just an ad for the Waymo service in particular. this video This gives me the same vibe as those doctors promoting cigarettes smoking against coughs in the 1950s and 1960s: Here's a professional often someone who is highly regarded as being objective and impartial who is basically leaving out crucial information to push something either a pro
> We haven't automated driving Yeah, we pretty much have... it just hasn't been widely adopted yet. this video And honestly, from a business perspective, most people really don't care about the skills ordinary people have. Look at the wine industry for example. Top shelf wine is hand-picked, for exactly the reasons you outline, and some people are willing to pay top dollar for that end product. But the vast majority of grapes are harvested by very simple machines, because scale and profit, and most people just want a $10 bottle of decent-ish wine. We absolutely can automate cooking a fucking hamburger, and as soon as it's cheaper than the cheapest labour, McDonald's, Burger King, etc, WILL automate cooking a fucking hamburger. Will it be as good as a "hand made" burger? Maybe.. maybe not? Will the people paying a few bucks for a burger care? Nope. This isn't an issue with "computer people"... this is an issue with economics.
>plane autopilots mostly just help flying straight, the pilot still flies the plane Mostly, as in that's what they are doing most of the time, then yes. But autopilots can fly a predefined routes. Most commercial aircraft can fly themselves except for take off and the last few hundred feet of landing (thanks to instrument landing systems). I would be quite happy with a car that could take over once I get to a highway. Getting to the highway is like taking off and getting from the highway to my destination is like landing. >"Full self driving" is a lie, plain and simple. Maybe for Tesla, but here's Veritasium[1] taking a ride in a car with no driver at all. It's still limited to where it can go, but I think this will be more prevalent sooner rather than later. [1] this video
If you are referring to Veritasium's Waymo video, it says it is sponsored content in the description above the fold and it has the standard paid promotion notice right on top of the video as soon as you open it. As far as I can tell the "controversy" over the video is merely that one dedicated critic - so dedicated he made an hour-long response to a 20-minute video - is committed to the idea that machines won't ever be able to drive, and is irrationally angry over the fact that machines can and do drive, and do it well. this video
Worth mentioning that, while this video is very great and informative, Veritasium has made videos hyping up far-from-market technologies for money in the past[1]. Similar to the linked video, this talks about extremely promising tech not by asking experts in the field, but instead going to startups with an extreme incentive to hype up the technology (complete with VC bait "metaverse applications" of the tech). It's still a great video, but this should be kept in mind. [1] this video