George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’ • Hacker News Board

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#81

Post by tptacek » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #77

tptacek wrote: post #29

Here's what the Special Order demanded: 1. Describe in detail how the comma one is installed in a vehicle and provide a copy of installation instructions for the comma one. 2. Describe in detail the advanced driver assistance features of the comma one, including how those features differ from the existing features of the vehicles in which the comma one is intended to be installed. 3. Describe in detail how a vehicle…

1-4 is simply providing them with a copy of the instructions. 5, 6, 8 and 9 are incredibly obvious questions that should have been answered during the development. 7 is surely something you know just from the business end of things. I have no idea what FMVSS is but that there are regulations here should be obvious, no doubt this would be something you'd become aware of after a little bit of research. As a consequence…

I think the subtext of the FMVSS stuff is that the comma one is thought to be replacing the rear view mirror on the car, which is apparently illegal in some states and also prohibited by regulation in cars shipping in the US.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#82

Post by karlshea » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #76

pdog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe the nerve of some of these Silicon Valley randroids. If they're so great, why do they think a little bit of regulation is going to kill them?

At a guess the list of questions showed Hotz just how far away he really was from having a shippable product and since the 'fun' bit was over it caused him to throw in the towel. Prototyping stuff and proof of concepts are fun, productizing much less so. Moving to China will not really change that.

And, the list of requests in the special order are not ridiculous at all. They are a bunch of basic questions that I would hope someone making driver-assist hardware would be able to answer.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#83

Post by bpicolo » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

csours wrote: post #54

hangonhn wrote: post #25

Wow. If he really moves his project to China to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment even though he couldn't pass the scrutiny in the US, he's being very immoral and cavalier about people's lives in China. I don't understand how a startup like Cruise can get past this regulatory hurlde in the US but Hotz can't.

Programming a neural network to learn to drive is fun; dealing with lawyers is not. I don't think it is a matter of passing the regulatory hurdle; it's a matter of not wanting to deal with it.

That's absurd. You hire people to work on regulatory concerns, then.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#84

Post by akehrer » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #62

tptacek wrote: post #29

Here's what the Special Order demanded: 1. Describe in detail how the comma one is installed in a vehicle and provide a copy of installation instructions for the comma one. 2. Describe in detail the advanced driver assistance features of the comma one, including how those features differ from the existing features of the vehicles in which the comma one is intended to be installed. 3. Describe in detail how a vehicle…

Wow. I guess the first thing I'd do is file a FOIA request to see any Special Orders they may have sent to Apple, Uber, Google, Tesla, GM, Ford, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Audi, Nissan, Toyota, BMW, and Volvo, and for copies of any documentation received from those companies that would be responsive to the demands in their own order or the order to comma.ai . Then I'd also request an extension in the time to respond…

Why do that when you could just get the information directly from the NHTSA [1]? I expect all those companies have been in communication with regulators from the beginning and produced plenty of documentation. Besides, they can't do the same thing the large players did since they aren't in control of developing the entire vehicle.

[1] http://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/av/av-policy.html

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#85

Post by DasIch » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #81

DasIch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1-4 is simply providing them with a copy of the instructions. 5, 6, 8 and 9 are incredibly obvious questions that should have been answered during the development. 7 is surely something you know just from the business end of things. I have no idea what FMVSS is but that there are regulations here should be obvious, no doubt this would be something you'd become aware of after a little bit of research. As a consequence…

I think the subtext of the FMVSS stuff is that the comma one is thought to be replacing the rear view mirror on the car, which is apparently illegal in some states and also prohibited by regulation in cars shipping in the US.

I find it hard to believe that anyone of reasonable intelligence, certainly someone intelligent enough to work on self-driving car tech, could miss something so incredibly obvious.

Modifying a car is one thing but directly interfering with parts critical to safety?

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#86

Post by tmalsburg2 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

csours wrote: post #54

hangonhn wrote: post #25

Wow. If he really moves his project to China to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment even though he couldn't pass the scrutiny in the US, he's being very immoral and cavalier about people's lives in China. I don't understand how a startup like Cruise can get past this regulatory hurlde in the US but Hotz can't.

Programming a neural network to learn to drive is fun; dealing with lawyers is not. I don't think it is a matter of passing the regulatory hurdle; it's a matter of not wanting to deal with it.

So did he naively expect that he would not have to deal with the legal issues?

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#87

Post by mikeash » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #62

tptacek wrote: post #29

Here's what the Special Order demanded: 1. Describe in detail how the comma one is installed in a vehicle and provide a copy of installation instructions for the comma one. 2. Describe in detail the advanced driver assistance features of the comma one, including how those features differ from the existing features of the vehicles in which the comma one is intended to be installed. 3. Describe in detail how a vehicle…

Wow. I guess the first thing I'd do is file a FOIA request to see any Special Orders they may have sent to Apple, Uber, Google, Tesla, GM, Ford, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Audi, Nissan, Toyota, BMW, and Volvo, and for copies of any documentation received from those companies that would be responsive to the demands in their own order or the order to comma.ai . Then I'd also request an extension in the time to respond…

Something tells me that serious companies involved in this space never received any Special Orders because they reached out to and worked with the NHTSA from the start, rather than trying to fly under the radar and then being shocked! Shocked! When the government actually noticed them.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#88

Post by DasIch » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

ohitsdom wrote: post #26

brianbreslin wrote: post #22

Something seems fishy to me. Cruise which GM bought for $1B a few months back was working on similar tech. Having only raised $3M he could have EASILY sold his tech/team to Chrysler or Ford or Hyundai, or any other car company for $100M and made his investors super happy and himself very rich. So why "quit" when the feds ask you to deal with regulations that involve passenger safety. Its not like he had to spend $20M…

Yeah this seems like an easy out that allows him to save face.

Unless he tried this already and anyone who took a serious look saw that he had nothing of value.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#89

Post by patcheudor » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #59

Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

I tweeted a joke yesterday that the Engineering Society had changed it's slogan to 'Move fast and kill people', I'm pretty happy that NHTSA has its feet solidly planted on terra firma and requires a bit of process around releasing something as important as self driving vehicles. The more software becomes mission critical the more we will need level headedness and quality rather than tantrums.

Not mission critical, rather life critical. I've worked on several life critical systems as a security researcher, helping to develop controls in tightly controlled environments to keep people safe. Work on software controlled switches in industrial machines mostly.

As I've followed these developments and those of Google and Tesla I've been wondering at times if I live in some alternate universe. The level of diligence and care that must go into systems which have the potential to maim an kill are nothing to laugh at. They require serious engineering which takes time. You can find the best and smartest humans on the planet and they'll still fail at building reasonable controls for life critical systems in controlled environments. When you are building these controls for life critical systems which will operate in the diversity of our roadways, honestly the task gets very hard.

I'm not against progress and I do think that self-driving cars are the future. However, it may be wise for those trying to march towards that future at breakneck speeds to take a step back and consider that these systems should first be implemented as backups to humans. Develop the solutions through preemptive braking and accident avoidance where humans are still very much engaged in the driving activities or focus on building expertise in controlled environments. On that note, kudos to Google for doing just that. Their first phase has focused on low speed situations and have been restricted very much to lab work whereby they have paid employee's serving as observers and backup.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#90

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

hangonhn wrote: post #25

Wow. If he really moves his project to China to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment even though he couldn't pass the scrutiny in the US, he's being very immoral and cavalier about people's lives in China. I don't understand how a startup like Cruise can get past this regulatory hurlde in the US but Hotz can't.

Tell that to the millions of people who have already died because self driving car technology isn't here yet, because the government is stopping it.