A Tragic Loss • Hacker News Board

Re: A Tragic Loss

#251

Post by Vik1ng » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:35 PM UTC

spenvo wrote: post #232

The top comment in another comment thread, which has been "duped"[0] pointed out how marking a feature in cars as "beta" is irresponsible. What's beyond the pale IMO is that when auto-pilot was first demonstrated (at the unveil event) - "hands on the wheel" was not part of the story. Journalists and (what appeared to be) Tesla employees were using the feature without hands on the wheel. It looked like Tesla cashing-i…

> but they can't include sensors to ensure customers have hands on the wheel?

They can and the car already does that. It just do not check very frequently compared to some of the competitors.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#252

Post by fdsaaf » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

I'm really not looking forward to the moralistic haranguing that's going to happen over the next few days. One commentator complained that the tech community is adapting an "acceptable losses" posture. I don't see a problem with this attitude --- anything else is unrealistic and is an argument against technological progress.

If our ancestors had adopted the attitude that we could do nothing not perfectly safe, we'd have never left the damn savanna. We'd have certainly never allowed aircraft to fly.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#253

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

neurotech1 wrote: post #215

ghaff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty well established that humans (e.g. [1]) that humans have a lot of trouble paying when they don't need to be actively engaged most of the time and also have trouble taking back control. In a consumer driving context, I have zero doubt that, as systems like these develop, people will start watching videos and reading absent draconian monitoring systems to ensure they keep their eyes on the road. I'm not sur…

Its worth pointing out that Prof. Missy Cummings, who authored the paper, is a former F/A-18 pilot who specializes in human-machine interaction research. One option is the Tesla autopilot should have an indication when it approaches "low confidence" areas without disengaging, so the driver is not startled if they have to take back manual control.

Yep. I saw her speak at an event a couple years ago. She's also done a fair bit of research around humans splitting their attention across multiple vehicles--mostly drones.

I agree there can be handoffs but they mostly need to be in the vein of: I'm slowing down and turning over control in 30 seconds because there's something I don't understand coming up

Re: A Tragic Loss

#254

Post by jgalt212 » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #229

xiphias wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the same fatality statistic was not enough for Google to bring autonomous driving into production. Many people think that it should be at least an order of magnitude safer than manual driving

Sure. The problem with this is statistics: you need to have your autonomous cars travel at least 100 billion miles before you can confidently say they're an order of magnitude safer. A normal car drives about 100 000 miles in 10 years. You then need one million autonomous cars driving around for a decade before you even know whether they're safer!

That's very true, but if you know your product well enough, and you perform well conducted experiments, you can come up with a good estimate for this without actually having your cars travel 100 billion miles.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#255

Post by mempko » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #97

jackpirate wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement is also disengenuous: This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. The wording implies that these numbers are directly comparable, but they are not. I would guess that Autopilot is much more likely to be activate…

Also, the US fatal accident rate is one death per 108 million miles, which includes motorcycles and teens and drunk people. Not only that, you'd expect drivers in the higher-income demographic of US auto customers to have less fatal accidents. The real comparison should between a model S and cars like the Mercedes S-Class, since this is all about car marketing anyways.

Looks like there are some cars with zero recorded deaths. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/29/record-9-models-have-zero-hig...

Telsa isn't one of them...

Re: A Tragic Loss

#256

Post by fdsaaf » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

gordon_freeman wrote: post #150

Nobody is talking about whether it is safe to put Beta software of such an advanced autopilot system in real world? I mean they are giving choice to people to turn on this Autopilot functionality as if it were just another driver assistance safety feature like 'Honda Sensing' but in reality it is much more advanced system and it seems Tesla is doing this to use the data to feed to it's upcoming autonomous technology.…

Exactly what standard do you hold beta features before release? For the sake of the future of humanity, we can't get into a situation where nothing new is allowed so long as someone, somewhere might get hurt.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#257

Post by amalag » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

cameldrv wrote: post #243

sago wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla autopilot drove the vehicle full-speed into a tractor-trailer The tractor trailer drove across the divided highway without seeing an oncoming car. I've seen this accident happen in front of me with a fatality, no auto-pilot involved. A vehicle moves in front of you when you're sufficiently close and you've no time to react. Anything (like glare) that makes such a vehicle harder to spot reduces your available…

It is essentially AI kills driver. The truck was making a left turn in front of the Tesla, which was in the right lane of a 4 lane divided highway. The truck would have had to accelerate in the left turn lane, cross the divider, cross the left lane, then drive further so that the middle of the trailer was in the right lane. This takes at least 5-6 seconds for a semi, and if the semi were detected, there would have be…

Yeah i can't believe this is not bigger news. The Tesla AI was almost good enough to replace an attentive driver. But almost is not good enough.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#258

Post by zarriak » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #203

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…

Seems odd to me that the autopilot doesn't use them together, as it would seem that the autopilot would easily be able to see with the camera whether it was a sign, as at least in the United States they seem a somewhat uniform green.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#259

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #177

mdorazio wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some PR firm-level explaining. First, autopilot is not just lane assist, it's lane assist + adaptive cruise control + additional features (it can change lanes if you tell it to). Other OEMs have purposely shied away from enabling an autopilot-like feature set together, even though it's technically possible, because they are absolutely terrified of something exactly like this situation happening. Second, you're…

This autopilot is very new and fairly experimental technology. You're basically demanding that this not be true somehow.

[deleted]

Re: A Tragic Loss

#260

Post by sampo » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #36

TaylorGood wrote: post #14

As most of you have already seen, Autopilot has detected similar situations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X-5fKzmy38

I don't know if autopilot really "saved the day" there. Maybe for an incompetent driver (which is most, so this is a net positive for safety). But as a human driver, I would have taken human psychology into account and guessed the turning car was going to take advantage of that gap, thus causing me to approach much more cautiously. I don't know how fast that tesla was going, but I don't think I'd be doing more than 5…

There were lots of lights and reflections, and it was night, and the turning car was black. Watching the video the first time, I didn't see the car before it was already in front of the camera. Watching the video second time and knowing what to expect, then I of course see the car in advance.