A Tragic Loss • Hacker News Board

Re: A Tragic Loss

#201

Post by semi-extrinsic » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

iraphael wrote: post #191

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Notice how quick they are to bring up "this is the first fatality in 130 million miles", but AFAICT, traffic fatalities in the US occur at a frequency of around 10 per billion miles [1], which is the same. So even though this is just one data point, it's spot on the current average for fatality frequency in normal cars. Furthermore, to gather enough statistics to be able to say with confidence "semi-autonomous…

Is there a statistical difference in accident rate between high and low income populations? If so, do we know what the fatality/miles rate is in the group that would be able to afford a tesla? When I read the blog post, I couldn't help but think that while tesla's rate might be smaller than the national average, it is also not a fair comparison to draw conclusions from.

IDK about statistical difference, but the mechanical difference between a brand new high-end full-size car and a twenty year old Honda Civic is going to be massive. Just look at the downward slope of that curve of fatalities per billion miles in each year. Also remember that those numbers are averages over the entire car population in each year, so most cars in the 2015 data are quite a bit older than 2015.

If we had data for the "high end modern full-size car" category, it would most definitely be lower than 10 fatalities per billion miles.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#202

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

uola wrote: post #195

alkonaut wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like if you make a car that does 0-60mph in 3 seconds or does 200mph you encourage doing that. The fact that the autopilot is so good that it "almost" works as a driver is an issue for Tesla as we can see here. I realize autopilot has a nice ring to it, but it's not a chauffeur... Tesla sure has balls to pick the name "Autopilot" when it really should be called "CoPilot" and that would have saved a lot of troubl…

> The fact that the autopilot is so good that it "almost" works as a driver is an issue for Tesla as we can see here. If only someone could have foreseen these issues... http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11518826/volvo-tesla-autop... http://www.thedrive.com/news/3753/former-google-exec-and-ai-... http://www.thedrive.com/tech/3909/volvo-rd-chief-teslas-auto...

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Re: A Tragic Loss

#203

Post by daveguy » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

A direct reply from Elon Musk on twitter about why radar did not recognize the white side of a trailer across the road when the camera missed it:

"Radar tunes out what looks like an overhead road sign to avoid false braking events"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748620607105839104

EDIT:

When the "overhead sign" comes down below overhead clearance of the vehicle the signal should not be masked. There should have been some braking action in this case. If there was not then the tesla autopilot is unsafe. This is the same blind spot discussed a few months ago that caused a tesla to run into a parked trailer using summon mode:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11677760

This seems like a serious flaw in autopilot functionality. Trailers are not that rare.

I would be interested if "autobrake/autofollow" functions of other car companies have similar problems.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#204

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #167

derekp7 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "autopilot" with "cruise control" -- would you have the same situation? Autopilot is basically advanced cruise control plus steering assist. From what I make of this story, this same accident would have happened with any other car with cruise control turned on.

I disagree. In a car with normal or even advanced cruise control, the driver would still be paying attention to the road and ostensibly would have seen the truck ahead and applied the brakes. Autopilot makes it very easy to not pay attention at all and let the car drive itself for minutes at a time. I'm sure you'll say, "yes but that's a driver attention problem, not a technology problem", but to me they're the same…

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Re: A Tragic Loss

#205

Post by emp_zealoth » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

snuxoll wrote: post #73

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

Press Releases like this are for investors and media outlets, not for general consumers. Of course they are going to focus on damage control, because if they didn't focus on the safety features of autopilot and the hands-on requirement some media outlet would contort the situation and say "What safety features does this car to prevent an accident like this in the future? Is this technology actually ready to be used o…

I would not call a sentence in a manual a "requirement" A requirement would be when the autopilot didn't work unless one has at least one hand on the steering wheel. (Just like other manufactures do that) Tesla knows people are not going to use autopilot hands-on (especially after the novelty wears off)

Re: A Tragic Loss

#206

Post by mozumder » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

twinkletwinkle wrote: post #146

mozumder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can afford cars with stronger safety features.

They can also afford cars with stronger danger features, like turbochargers. They also might be more sheltered from the consequences of their actions and likely to be reckless while driving. Your assumption may even be correct, but I don't think it's obvious.

Rich people are also older, and older people have low accident rates.

In the end, the accident rate comparison to the global population is completely wrong.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#207

Post by neurotech1 » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #94

This is why driving AI is 'all or nothing' for me. Assisted systems will lead to drivers paying less attention as the systems get better. The figures quoted by Tesla seem impressive but you have to assume the majority of the drivers is still paying attention all the time . As auto-pilots get better you'll see them paying attention less and then the accident rate will go up, not down for a while at least until the bug…

In the aviation community, there is the major concerns over pilots becoming over-reliant cockpit automation instead of flying the jet.

Asiana 214 [0] is a classic example of crashing a perfectly good airliner into a seawall on landing.

In the Boeing 777, one example of the (auto)pilot interface showing safety critical information is the stall speed indication on the cockpit display [1], warning the pilot if they are are approaching that stall speed.

Hopefully Tesla will optimize the autopilot interface to minimize driver inattention, without becoming annoying.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214

[1] http://imgur.com/bGsFTCG

Re: A Tragic Loss

#208

Post by davidw » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

I'm not particularly a Tesla fan and have no skin in that game, but I think people can both be defensive of the technology and genuinely, humanly sad about the loss of life. I don't see this as being cynical.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#209

Post by bdamm » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #186

angusb wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that just based on the fact that they've been developing it for less time than Google, or is there a more in depth case for that somewhere? I would be very interested to read about that if there is.

1. Tesla makes it clear that Autopilot is a beta. 2. From the rest of this thread, it sounds like their long-range cameras/radar has very limited FOV.

The "white truck against the bright sky" seems to imply that the exposure depth and dynamic range of the camera may also have played a role.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#210

Post by jdmichal » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #120

curiousgal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would an infrared camera have picked up the trailer?

Good question. I wouldn't be surprised if the existing hardware already incorporated some infrared, but I really have no idea.

The range of most, if not all, digital camera sensors ranges into the infrared spectrum. I don't know if it's a useful part of the spectrum for this purpose, nor whether Tesla uses image processors that maintain the full sensor data. Would definitely be an interesting thing to work with, from a tech point of view.