A Tragic Loss • Hacker News Board

Re: A Tragic Loss

#451

Post by iofj » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #286

loceng wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel 'A Tragic Loss' sets the tone for the remaining highly technical overview, instead of the technical breakdown seeming tone-deaf, it added tone until getting to the concluding paragraph. Unfortunately, fortunately, Tesla is having to educate people and being very clear to not allow room for panic and unwarranted fear mongering. I would say it is as to the point as it can be, and that it is heartfelt.

All that matters is, did the technology fail. I don't care about crash rates in other cars, if the impact had been different, the only fact that matters in this case is, did the tech fail. If so then is it safe to leave on or should it be disabled across the board until it cannot fail this scenario again. one failure and they will take a minor publicity and money hit, two and its going to devastating

For one thing, it lookslike the car kept driving after the crash, hit 2 fences and a pole, then tried to get back on the road before it shut down. Sounds like pretty big screwup.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2016/0...

Re: A Tragic Loss

#452

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:48 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #306

johansch wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volvo agrees with you: http://jalopnik.com/volvo-engineer-calls-out-tesla-for-dange...

Wow, that is some very damning criticism: "The distinction is that a Level 3 [Tesla] autonomous system still relinquishes the controls back to the driver in the event of extreme conditions the computer can no longer manage, which Victor (and Volvo) finds extremely dangerous."

[deleted]

Re: A Tragic Loss

#453

Post by rasz_pl » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:50 AM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #437

rasz_pl wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant the opposite, its immensely easier guessing shapes on a moving platform with multiple cameras providing 3d reconstruction than guessing exact name of an object from one random photo. Car system doesnt need to know the name of a dog breed, all it needs is a shape on a collision course. You can do stereo 3d reconstruction on a 10 year old laptop in real time. You can even do 3d reconstruction with one camera in…

You definitely need to know more than just "3d blob at position x" because your expectations and avoidance will be different for car, truck, motorcycle, road sign, human and especially for things like "grocery sack" vs "cinder block". Less relevant on the hwy, but it definitely isn't simply an "easier" visual task. It is convoluted with things that make it easier (multiple cameras) and things that make it more diffic…

I dont think so. Walk before you run. There is no difference between a human, bale of hay or a deer when it comes to objects entering your trajectory. Braking in front of all 3d elements obstructing the way is preferable over Tesla decapitation(TM).

Real time is not difficult, we got there 10 years ago for primitive 3d reconstruction at 30Hz on ordinary laptop, today its doable on a phone. It would definitely be better than single camera + pattern matching (current mobileye).

Re: A Tragic Loss

#454

Post by tlrobinson » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:52 AM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #413

imh wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we let a doctor murder a random healthy person to harvest organs to save ten lives? When we talk about weighing alternatives, it's like you say: It won't save lives in all cases, but it will decrease the loss of innocent lives overall.

That introduces an imminent death that wasn't there before. Doing so with a deliberate decision changes the whole thing. This is more like vaccines. They protect a great many lives from events not deliberately introduced at the cost of a small number of bad reactions. Is that number more than zero? Yes. Does it feel small if it's someone you love? No. Is humanity as a whole better off for polio vaccines? Yes, absolut…

It's kind of like a reverse firing squad: we won't choose to kill 1 person with 100% certainty, but we will choose to kill 1,000,000 people with a probability of 0.000001 each.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#455

Post by barefootcoder » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

tr1ck5t3r wrote: post #324

mozumder wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IIHS compares car model fatality rates: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates If you want to do the numbers to compare the Tesla to other cars, where they measure driver fatalities per million registered years, do this: 130,000,000 miles / 12,000 average miles per year per car = 10,833 years. That's 10,833 registered years for the Model S. The IIHS site normalizes to deaths per million registered yea…

When these automated cars can complete a journey __without__ handing back to the human, only then can those journey miles be added to the miles driven under autopilot claim. Until such time, consider all automated cars a considerable risk to other road users.

How are you defining automated? No truly autonomous cars are available yet, so they're all some form of driver assist. How are these a risk to other road users, and at which point do they become a risk and not a safety benefit?

Auto-pilot is semi-autonomous... I gather you consider that a risk...

What about Subaru EyeSight? It can autonomously brake. I can drive for hours on the freeway without ever hitting the brake nor gas, even in stop and go traffic. It has warned me multiple times of a sudden slowdown just as I noticed it. It hasn't yet saved me from anything, but if any of those circumstances I'd been distracted (even for a legit reason) it could have. It once warned me of a motorcycle in my path on a very dark night when the dim tail-light of the motorcycle was overwhelmed by the much brighter tail-lights of the cars to its left and right. I would have seen it soon enough, but the car saw it first. Is that a risk to other road-users? Yet, it's automated by some definition.

What about various other manufacturer's lane keeping features? That automation to some degree.

What about ABS? Stability control? Again... automation to some degree.

All of these have their detractors, yet I think statistics clearly show an improvement with each level of driver assist.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#456

Post by saulrh » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #395

saulrh wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

asdf

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To the people downvoting the parent of this comment: yeah, I should have put something like [deleted] in there instead of just hacking in random characters. You can stop now. It's no longer useful.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#457

Post by manicdee » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:24 AM UTC

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #449

viraptor wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least it doesn't lead the driver to think he can take his hands off the wheel and not pay attention Tesla reiterates every time and makes you confirm you understand that this is not the case. If the driver did it, that's completely on them being irresponsible.

It's called Autopilot™.

The autopilot in planes works the same way: pilot is strongly recommended to keep hands on the controls, autopilot will release control if any conditions fall outside the autopilot's functional envelope.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#458

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:41 AM UTC

macintux wrote: post #233

alkonaut wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry, but that's a cop-out. What's the point of an autopilot if you have to avoid every single obstacle and react to every single thing as if the auto-pilot didn't exist? You don't have to react - you have to supervise it though. It lets the driver monitor a system that micromanages steering, brakes and throttle, instead of doing that micromanagement himself. It requires the same attention but is less work. >…

The problem to me seems to be: at highway speeds, you have to decide very quickly whether or not it's something that the system can't handle. If you're constantly responding to every change in conditions, what's the point of the autopilot? So you don't respond every time, and then something comes up that the autopilot doesn't recognize, and you don't know that until it's too late.

> If you're constantly responding to every change in conditions, what's the point of the autopilot?

The same as a cruise control - you are supervising rather than micromanaging because micromanagement is more work than supervision. A distance-keeping cruisecontrol may be changing the throttle level dozens of times per minute. A driver supervising that system can keep an eye out for stalled cars on the side of the road, wildlife etc., withput using most of the attention on keeping a constant distance to the vehicle ahead. This complements the driver and increases safety because the drivers cognition can be used to what it's best at, and simple tasks like keeping a constant speed or constant distance can be done by a computer.

The problem with this "Level 2.5" autopilot is twofold:

1) It's called "AutoPilot", even though that shouldn't be the name of it until it's feature complete (level 4 autonomy) simply because people seem to assume that AutoPilot means something that drives by itself.

2) It appears good enough to allow the driver to not pay attention, while still requiring the driver to pay attention. The disclaimers that the driver can never be distracted for a short momet (i.e. use it like a pilot uses an autopilot) don't seem to help.

A lot of the comments here seem to indicate "if I can't text/sleep/whatever then what's the point of an AutoPilot" - clearly misunderstanding the current capability of the system!

Re: A Tragic Loss

#459

Post by ec109685 » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:43 AM UTC

rasz_pl wrote: post #370

mevile wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition it had important information for how other Tesla drivers can use the auto-pilot feature more safely. The article combines condolences and helpful safety information to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Also, you don't see GM making a blog post every time someone passes away in a car they make.

> auto-pilot feature there is no such feature, there is a MobilEye _lane following_ system Tesla repackaged under Autopilot(TM) brand. Say it out loud - lane following. Mercedes sold this same tech almost 10 years ago, difference is Tesla felt pressure and started believing their own marketing lies about autonomous driving.

The hardware might be the same but the compute has evolved.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#460

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #332

alkonaut wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry, but that's a cop-out. What's the point of an autopilot if you have to avoid every single obstacle and react to every single thing as if the auto-pilot didn't exist? You don't have to react - you have to supervise it though. It lets the driver monitor a system that micromanages steering, brakes and throttle, instead of doing that micromanagement himself. It requires the same attention but is less work. >…

Calling it 'autopilot' is a very bad thing, then, because 'autopilot' means 'runs automatically' to the general public. And even though actual autopilots in planes are monitored by meatpilots, meatpilots can still take their attention away for a short time. The autopilot keeps the plane flying straight and level, and doesn't take on any navigational role (in most cases). Unless your roads are dead straight and there'…

> Calling it 'autopilot' is a very bad thing, then, because 'autopilot' means 'runs automatically' to the general public.

Indeed. Tesla wanted to use that name now even though it's the proper name for a feature not yet complete. They have to use a ton of warnings and disclaimers to do it. We'll see if authorities find that sufficient. If I were tesla I'd rename it to something with "assist" for the time being.

> And even though actual autopilots in planes are monitored by meatpilots, meatpilots can still take their attention away for a short time.

So does Teslas autopilot, but the time you can safeley take your attention away on a highway may be perhaps a second or two if you are on a clear straight with wildlife barriers. The autopilot will ensure the car runs straight while you fiddle with the radio.

The same time in an airplane may be ten minutes. THAT is the difference. In an airplane theare are controllers making sure there is no traffic one in front, and there is no risk of a deer or a child stepping in front of the plane. Basically the AutoPilot will have the meatpilot respond to anything it can't handle too - which in an airplane is mostly tecnical issues.