The bitter lesson is finally coming for the self-driving cars. The vision stack, 3D maps, lane selection grammar, occupancy networks, it’s maybe all about to give way to a single GPT looking at camera feeds and predicting the next steering wheel adjustment.
It’s mostly a latency problem at this point. The models are too big to run locally, but given that open-weight models like Qwen already exist, an open-weight, low latency equivalent to Astra can’t be too far out.
Yeah cause every car needs 8xH200 pulling 10kW to run a VLM at realtime speeds. Would be unfortunate if 4G dropped out under some trees while using the API after all.
Steady 10KW load means 40 less miles after an hour of driving if your EV gets 4mi/kwh. That kind of draw would use up nearly 1/6th of my EV's battery in an hour.
At the same time it's pretty crazy to look at my Ford E-Transit's power draw while on the interstate and think about just how many electronics I could power with the 20-60KW of power draw it takes to maintain 65mph on a relatively flat stretch of highway.
valine · · focus · HN ↗
It’s mostly a latency problem at this point. The models are too big to run locally, but given that open-weight models like Qwen already exist, an open-weight, low latency equivalent to Astra can’t be too far out.
moffkalast · · focus · HN ↗
post-it · · focus · HN ↗
AlphaSite · · focus · HN ↗
And the disinclination of these companies to push the weights of their cutting edge models into people’s cars where they can be dumped.
officeplant · · focus · HN ↗
post-it · · focus · HN ↗
officeplant · · focus · HN ↗