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Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

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Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#141

Post by ghaff »

notlob wrote: post #137
ghaff wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a well-researched area, in addition to being pretty obvious to everyone. Personally, I stopped using cruise control years ago. If I have to pay attention, I'm better off driving. This isn't just a matter for Tesla. The auto industry is rapidly heading for much better assistive driving systems. There's no way that the people heads-down in their cell phones are going to do this less once they realize they don't…

I’ve long wondered if people who extensively use advanced assist systems will see deterioration in manual driving aptitude, and if that deterioration will be restricted to the operating domain for the assist systems or be more general.

That's a well-documented concern in aviation. Hard to imagine it will be less prevalent in a population that doesn't even need to get re-certified now and then. General skills deterioration is probably not the issue that having to take over very quickly is, but it is one.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#142

Post by redler »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #27

Since we're finally getting some refutations to Self-Driving Hype, let me drop some quotes here: “I tell adult audiences not to expect it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students” "Merely dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions is immensely complicated. The software requirements are extremely daunting. Nobody even has the ability to verify and validate the software…

The easy part is relatively easy, but it's hard to conceive how the hard part will be solved.

Just driving around New York City for a while makes me think that generalized autonomous driving, as a problem, is essentially "solving" strong AI. Consider the case of approaching a complex intersection during rush hour. There's a traffic cop in the intersection waving his hands around. You reach the intersection, the light is green, you want to proceed straight, but cars are blocking the way because they're backed up into the intersection on the cross street. The cop points directly at you, making eye contact, blows a whistle, and shouts at you, pointing and yelling "right right right". You're uncertain whether he means you should try to weave around the blocking cars, but he blows the whistle again and it becomes clear he is telling you you cannot go straight, and you must divert and make a right turn right at the intersection. He gestures again, indicating that he wants you to turn into the nearest lane on the cross street, then points to the car behind you and indicates that it should also turn, but into the center lane. You nod, and he looks away to another car.

This happened. So a self-driving car would presumably have to understand and interpret shouted commands, realize that they are the one being shouted at by someone with the right authority, recognize gestures, somehow be able to engage in the equivalent of recognized eye contact, be able to make an OK gesture, and have some sort of theory-of-mind about the traffic cop as well as the drivers of other cars.

Not easy.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#143

Post by notheguyouthink »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124
nostrademons wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that in L2, the bar for the system as a whole is set by the low bar for humans, specifically their reactions in an emergency. If the computer safely drives itself 99% of the time but in that 1% when the human needs to take control, the human fucks up, the occupants of the vehicle are still dead. And what people are saying here is that L2 automation increases the risk that the human will fuck up in that…

> If the computer safely drives itself 99% of the time but in that 1% when the human needs to take control, the human fucks up, the occupants of the vehicle are still dead. And what people are saying here is that L2 automation increases the risk that the human will fuck up in that 1%, by decreasing their situational awareness in the remainder of time. Humans regularly mess up in supposedly-safe scenarios. Consider a…

You make an important point. This is something I see a lot of people gloss over in these discussions.

It's a question that both sides of the discussion claim answers to, and both sound reasonable. The only real answer is data.

As you've said, killing 100% of the time in the 1% scenarios may very well be better than humans driving all the time. Better, as defined by less human life lost / injuries.

Though, one minor addition to that - is human perception. Even if numerically I've got a better chance to survive, not be injured, etc - in a 99% perfect auto-car, I'm not sure I'd buy it. Knowing that if I hear that buzzer I'm very likely to die is.. a bit unsettling.

Personally I'm just hoping for more advanced cruise control with radar identifying 2+ cars ahead of me knowing about upcoming stops/etc. It's a nice middle ground for me, until we get the Lvl5 thing.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#144

Post by flavor8 »

albertop wrote: post #121
empath75 wrote: post #8

The level-2 driving that Tesla is pushing seems like a worst case scenario to me. Requiring the driver to be awake and alert while not requiring them to actually do anything for long stretches of time is a recipe for disaster. Neither the driver nor the car manufacturer will have clear responsibility when there is an accident. The driver will blame the system for failing and the manufacturer will blame the driver for…

If you never driven Tesla you do not know what a joy is to use the auto pilot in stop and go traffic. I see 2-3 accidents daily caused by your "alert" drivers rear ending cars. Your statement may be true for long haul rides, but I pretty sure the numbers will come ahead for the auto steerer for the normal commute.

> I see 2-3 accidents daily caused by your "alert" drivers rear ending cars.

Remind me not to drive in your neighborhood. (This appears to be hyperbole.)

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#145

Post by nolemurs »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124
nostrademons wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that in L2, the bar for the system as a whole is set by the low bar for humans, specifically their reactions in an emergency. If the computer safely drives itself 99% of the time but in that 1% when the human needs to take control, the human fucks up, the occupants of the vehicle are still dead. And what people are saying here is that L2 automation increases the risk that the human will fuck up in that…

> If the computer safely drives itself 99% of the time but in that 1% when the human needs to take control, the human fucks up, the occupants of the vehicle are still dead. And what people are saying here is that L2 automation increases the risk that the human will fuck up in that 1%, by decreasing their situational awareness in the remainder of time. Humans regularly mess up in supposedly-safe scenarios. Consider a…

> I'd hypothesise that a machine that kills everyone in those 1% edge cases (which are actually less frequent than 1%) but drives perfectly 99% of the time would still outperform humans.

Well, no.

Some quick googling suggests that the fatality rate right now is roughly 1 per 100 million miles. So, for certain fatality in the case of human control to be an improvement, it would have to happen only about once in the lifespan of about every 500 million cars. In other words, the car would, for all practical purposes, have to be self driving.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#146

Post by dkonofalski »

jedberg wrote: post #123
dkonofalski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the third or 4th time I've heard that story repeated and the details change each time Meadows tells it, in my opinion. The date and viability of the system changes when I've read it and that leads me to believe that his motivation may not be altruistic but vengeful instead. He probably did get fired from Tesla for performance issues and so he feels the need to fire back at them by noting an incident that happ…

> We treated test pilots with the highest regard because they were separated from the technology/machinery itself. There was no personal stake in it for them other than making it out alive and exposing issues with the systems being tested. I think this is an extremely salient and important point, and I've never thought of it before! Test pilots only care about a good product, not success or failure of the product. Th…

Exactly. I would love to see a "test pilot core" but that's never going to happen as long as the major players involved in these technologies are companies that are looking to make the most profit possible. A "test pilot" that has access to all the different self-driving programs is a prime point of weakness for any kind of confidentiality or security that might be in place for these programs.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#147

Post by petra »

crocal wrote: post #98
tyrw wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're taking your own opinion as a universal truth. There are many people (myself included) who will happily ride in a well-tested autonomous vehicle, particularly if the alternative is a taxi, uber, or bus driver who is just going through the motions. 5x safer is still an improvement in my eyes, even if it's still short of the gold standard for aviation.

No personal opinion here. It's just facts from the only ones around who have done this before. Your argument is flawed. We have also been there. Here is the catch. You are willing to take the risk, but society as a whole will not. As soon as you release /total/ control to a machine, public authorities having authorized this become responsible for your life and those your car may threaten. Requirements for said author…

A 5x reduction in accident rate(plus the convenience of self-driving) , advertised and lobbied in the right way, can be translated to a huge political power. That could, with time, convince authorities, And that wasn't the case in the other systems you mention.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#148

Post by otakucode »

pmoriarty wrote: post #102
otakucode wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is the worst case scenario. Also, it's the best you're gonna get. Toyota already got the nod from the courts to kill people via technology bugs in their cars (see the 'unintended acceleration' controversy that killed someone (maybe 2? I forget) a few years ago due to absolutely preventable bugs if they'd splashed out and spent a couple grand on static analysis tools), so if you think companies are going to br…

"People will be afraid of them as they are of flying." This is a great analogy, because at the dawn of flight, many people were really, really really afraid of flying -- for very good reasons: the airplanes of the day were incredibly dangerous. Yet people still flew, and flew more and more, despite many very public disasters in which hundreds of people died, and the airline industry grew and flourished. Now most peop…

Sure, planes were introduced at a time when people were willing to step back and tell themselves 'OK, I don't feel great about this but that's just my emotions running away with themselves, I really shouldn't be scared so I should just do it'. Those times are over. Suggesting people should question, much less actively resist, their most primitive impulses is seen as a direct threat to their person. It simply isn't done.

When a mom is saying 'I'm not putting my children in one of those killmobiles' and someone says 'well actually ma'am its much safer and you're endangering your childs life significantly by taking the wheel', that person gets punched in the face and lambasted on social media as an insensitive creep. That's just how it goes.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#149

Post by RoyTyrell »

crocal wrote: post #81

The only industry to have produced truly driverless public transportation systems is the rail industry. Not aeronautics. Rail systems happens to be my business and what I read here makes me very worried. I don't think the majority understands what safety means in mass transportation. It's not about running miles and miles without accidents and basically saying "see"? It's about demonstrating /by design/ that the /com…

I'm not saying you're wrong, because I have absolutely no authority in the subject, but apart from knowing some terminology how do we know you have any expertise either?

> If you substitute, you have to do much much much better. Nobody will ride a driverless vehicle provided the explanation that it is, you know, "already an improvement when compared to a typical driver". Is it fair? Maybe not, but that's the whole point for entrusting lives to a machine.

I've heard Elon mention this and while I don't know exactly it's measured, he claimed that fully autonomous cars would have to be 10x "better" at driving than a human before they would be allowed. I'm paraphrasing when I say "better" but I'm sure I could find the video of him talking about it.

At any rate, your comment is interesting.

Re: Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among Its Engineers

#150

Post by int_19h »

kbenson wrote: post #116
ghaff wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a well-researched area, in addition to being pretty obvious to everyone. Personally, I stopped using cruise control years ago. If I have to pay attention, I'm better off driving. This isn't just a matter for Tesla. The auto industry is rapidly heading for much better assistive driving systems. There's no way that the people heads-down in their cell phones are going to do this less once they realize they don't…

I recently drove an Accord with lane-following and speed adaptive cruise-control recently. It completely failed (but thankfully by refusing to try) in the one instance that I wanted to use it (stop-and-go traffic), but it was nerve wracking when it was on as it kept losing the lane. People naturally alter the throttle and speed when going around corners and up slight inclines. It feels alien when that doesn't happen.

I have a Subaru with lane-following and adaptive cruise. Lane follow fails miserably because it keeps losing the lane boundaries, even on clearly marked roads. But adaptive cruise control works extremely well, and particularly shines in stop-and-go traffic.

One catch there is that it'll stop automatically, but it won't ever go if it came to a full stop - you need to tap the gas to reactivate cruise. If the car in front of you starts moving, but you don't move, it'll make a noise (both audio, and visual on the dashboard) to remind you that you're supposed to do that. I suppose that's a kind of a safeguard to keep the human alert?

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