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The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

thedrive.com

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Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#61

Post by walrus01 »

LeanderK wrote: post #13

> Hotz's initial tweets suggested his move was in response to an inquiry from NHTSA, stating that he "would much rather spend life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers," well, this is not some stupid web-app that can't harm anyone even if it tried (except from maybe overheating your smartphone). This can kill people, i can't seriously buy dangerous stuff from somebody that says something lik…

> Producing food without following proper hygiene regulations?

Soylent, disrupting my rectum since mid 2016.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#62

Post by jimmydddd »

snickerbockers wrote: post #60

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can't apply Silicon Valley disruption to every industry because most software has a failure-rate that would be considered appalling in any real engineering discipline. And building a control system that can follow a perfectly black asphalt road with bright yellow and white lines between the lanes isn't even 1% as difficult as building a system that can actually be relied…

Reminds me of that old joke from the '80s(?) about what if MS built cars? You would get the blue screen of death while driving on the highway, and have to stop your car and restart it, you would get cryptic error messages when you were running out of gas, etc....

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#63

Post by Aloha »

M_Grey wrote: post #46
djrogers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no indication that those were related to not following existing food production regulations...

There's no indication, period, but it would be one of the safer assumptions.

Food Allergy seems to be a much more likely cause to me.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#64

Post by prawn »

LeanderK wrote: post #13

> Hotz's initial tweets suggested his move was in response to an inquiry from NHTSA, stating that he "would much rather spend life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers," well, this is not some stupid web-app that can't harm anyone even if it tried (except from maybe overheating your smartphone). This can kill people, i can't seriously buy dangerous stuff from somebody that says something lik…

Even ignoring the safety aspect, people buying any remotely major product will have the expectation that it will ideally be supported for some time to come. e.g., buy a car and have the manufacturer around for long enough to help out with servicing, parts, etc.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#65

Post by _abak_ »

Animats wrote: post #18

We don't need another crap Level 2 system. Lane keeping plus auto braking just isn't enough. (Crap auto braking, as with Tesla, is even worse. Four collisions with big, obvious stationary vehicles so far.) The NHTSA, Google, and Volvo have it right. Systems where the driver has to back up the automation will not work in practice.

The thing is that you evaluate "big" and "obvious" with the sensors that you have. They obviously werent obstacles for the algo that was driving.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#66

Post by stale2002 »

bertiewhykovich wrote: post #59

What this article tries its damnedest to elide is the narrative-wrecking fact that Holtz, confronted with a standard request to demonstrate that his product meets regulatory standards, took his ball and went home. /Exactly/ why he threw a tantrum is anyone's guess -- but there doesn't seem to be any real good possibility. Either his product couldn't meet standards and this is an attempt to obfuscate that inconvenient…

Well, maybe the reason is that these regulator requests costs tons of money to fulfill because no, you cannot you give simple laymans answers to the questions, you need a team of lawyers to do this work, because everything you say in these "simple" requests can and will be used against you.

And perhaps there are better uses of their time, and better regulatory environments where they can release their product.

Maybe in a couple months we are going to hear about the imminent release of the Comma Two in Not-America. I seriously doubt they've gone home. There are tons of places where they could starting selling right NOW.

America's loss, other countries' gain.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#67

Post by EpicEng »

stale2002 wrote: post #66
bertiewhykovich wrote: post #59

What this article tries its damnedest to elide is the narrative-wrecking fact that Holtz, confronted with a standard request to demonstrate that his product meets regulatory standards, took his ball and went home. /Exactly/ why he threw a tantrum is anyone's guess -- but there doesn't seem to be any real good possibility. Either his product couldn't meet standards and this is an attempt to obfuscate that inconvenient…

Well, maybe the reason is that these regulator requests costs tons of money to fulfill because no, you cannot you give simple laymans answers to the questions, you need a team of lawyers to do this work, because everything you say in these "simple" requests can and will be used against you. And perhaps there are better uses of their time, and better regulatory environments where they can release their product. Maybe…

>Well, maybe the reason is that these regulator requests costs tons of money to fulfill because no, you cannot you give simple laymans answers to the questions, you need a team of lawyers to do this work, because everything you say in these "simple" requests can and will be used against you

No, what you need is to have followed a sufficient quality process to begin with. Lawyers aren't involved heavily in this sort of thing; your quality group is (well, it may take more lawyering for them at this point.)

This guy obviously didn't have a clue when he set out to build this thing and now his ignorance is biting him in the ass. I've worked on FDA regulated devices my entire career. You don't get to just throw things that represent a substantial safety risk onto the market without oversight, and that's a good thing.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#68

Post by agildehaus »

bertiewhykovich wrote: post #59

What this article tries its damnedest to elide is the narrative-wrecking fact that Holtz, confronted with a standard request to demonstrate that his product meets regulatory standards, took his ball and went home. /Exactly/ why he threw a tantrum is anyone's guess -- but there doesn't seem to be any real good possibility. Either his product couldn't meet standards and this is an attempt to obfuscate that inconvenient…

There were major problems with every demo I saw of the product. In one video, the camera lost tracking of the road due to lighting conditions not being favorable for contrast. In another, Hotz seemed far too amazed that the car properly took a gentle bend in the highway.

Confidence is not something I would assign to his product. Or any product that is a camera-only lane-follower.

That Holtz caves at the slightest thought of a regulator looking at his work easily shows how immature he is as an engineer.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#69

Post by objclxt »

dilemma wrote: post #57
stale2002 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they'd rather just start selling their product immediately in China?

China has the same level of regulation as other industrialized countries. If it doesn't pass in the US it won't pass in China either.

> China has the same level of regulation as other industrialized countries.

I have to assume you've never driven or been driven in a major Chinese city, because while this may be technically true in practice it is very much not. Cars on the road in China are often lacking in terms of safety.

It is something of a moot point, because I don't see how any self driving car system could perform in Beijing traffic conditions. Basic concepts like lanes frequently go out the window.

Re: The Cancelled Comma One Would Have Embarrassed the Car Industry

#70

Post by hash-set »

M_Grey wrote: post #41
krschultz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only this would be worse. Someone can choose to buy Soylent or use Theranos for themselves and no one else gets hurt. If you a person buys a crappy self driving car system it could kill me, a totally unrelated person. I don't care how much of a libertarian you are, that's exactly the reason why we have regulations.

I agree with you, I'm just pointing out that we're already in the age of profitable, harmful bullshit. As for me, I'm not one of those deluded fools who believes in the law of jungle, and that I wouldn't be dog food in that jungle.

The law of the jungle is fine, but it won't preclude a shitty self-driving car from crashing through your living room and killing one of your kids. It's one thing to suffer harm to yourself, it is quite another to go through losing a child to something like that. I know, randomness, blah blah blah.
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