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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

#151

Post by bluthru »

Animats wrote: post #78

Tesla's system doesn't have enough sensors. Musk forced his engineers to try to do this almost entirely with vision processing, and that was a terrible decision. Vision processing isn't that good yet. Everybody else uses LIDAR. I've been saying for years that the right approach was to take the technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts' flash LIDAR and get the cost down. I first saw that demonstrated in 2004 on an…

>Tesla's system doesn't have enough sensors. Musk forced his engineers to try to do this almost entirely with vision processing, and that was a terrible decision. Vision processing isn't that good yet. Everybody else uses LIDAR.

I think I agree with this, but is LIDAR expected to work in the rain?

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

#152

Post by coldtea »

Cshelton wrote: post #125
martin_bech wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Tesla with this and i LOVE it.. everyone I know on the teslaforums etc. loves it aswell. Please do yourself a favor, and try it out for a roadtrip duration or similar. Its a gamechanger.

Same. I love reading opinions about how dangerous or bad the Tesla "autopilot" is, or that it dosen't work, from people who have never owned or driven in a Tesla with autopilot. I've probably gone about 8,000 miles on autopilot in mine (AP1) and it is truly amazing. After a road trip stint of ~200 miles, I feel much more energized and less fatigued in the Tesla with autopilot 99% of the way than I do in previous non-…

>Same. I love reading opinions about how dangerous or bad the Tesla "autopilot" is, or that it dosen't work, from people who have never owned or driven in a Tesla with autopilot.

Would you say the same after if you happen to get involved in a serious autopilot accident though? That's the question.

It's very easy to be all roses before one sees any issues.

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

#153

Post by sbierwagen »

pitaj wrote: post #119
sbierwagen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk's argument is that we know for certain that the entire road system can be navigated by visual cues We know for certain that human brains can be assembled out of regular atoms, but raising funds for a company that manufactures brains would be getting rather ahead of our current level of technology. The same might be true of computer vision and autonomous vehicles.

Please don't quote with code blocks. It messes with formatting on both mobile and desktop.

  It messes with formatting on both mobile
HN has never been mobile friendly, (element spacing, upvote button size) so I'm not terribly worried about that. If YC wanted HN to work on phones, they would fix their CSS.

  and desktop
Oh?

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

#154

Post by enobrev »

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…

The statement at the end of your comment made me wonder if there will be a time in the future where you cannot disengage the automation in the car you're currently in unless you have some sort of advanced license; Something like the layman's version of the CDL.

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

#155

Post by ugh123 »

haberman wrote: post #106
Animats wrote: post #78

Tesla's system doesn't have enough sensors. Musk forced his engineers to try to do this almost entirely with vision processing, and that was a terrible decision. Vision processing isn't that good yet. Everybody else uses LIDAR. I've been saying for years that the right approach was to take the technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts' flash LIDAR and get the cost down. I first saw that demonstrated in 2004 on an…

You seem to be assuming that the limiting factor is cost and parts. To me it appears the limiting factor is software. AIUI no one has the software to do level 4 autonomous driving, at any price. So why would a parts supplier end up "ruling" automatic driving?

I don't think thats what he said. Parts and hardware aren't a limiting factor, but they are an enablement for better software to be created (note Tesla in his example).

Without good hardware then you're stuck jumping through hoops to do all the processing software-side which leaves less time to react quickly and accurately.

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

#156

Post by mahyarm »

ghaff wrote: post #108
Animats wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Everybody who's looked at this seriously agrees. The aviation industry has looked hard at that issue for a long time. Watch "Children of the Magenta".[1] This is a chief pilot of American Airlines talking to pilots about automation dependency in 1997. Watch this if you have…

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…

For me cruise control is just giving my gas pedal foot a break on long drives. I still have to constantly adjust the speed with my hands and the brake itself. I'm also steering and watching what I'm doing.

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

#157

Post by delinka »

flavor8 wrote: post #144
albertop wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

"neighborhood"? Who commutes across a neighborhood as the full extent of their commute? I suspect it's within a rounding error. Driving across a city, however, I definitely see this. Daily. And "accident" I expect to mean everything from a light tap rear-ending to a full fledged crash.

People rear-end each other in my city every day. On my commute, I'll come across two a day. Wet days, a few more. The other five directions headed into the city I would expect to see similar statistics to my experience. Just listening to traffic radio, there's going to be at least five crashes around the city; almost always more. They don't report on fender benders.

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

#158

Post by nilkn »

ghaff wrote: post #108
Animats wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Everybody who's looked at this seriously agrees. The aviation industry has looked hard at that issue for a long time. Watch "Children of the Magenta".[1] This is a chief pilot of American Airlines talking to pilots about automation dependency in 1997. Watch this if you have…

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…

> 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 really need to pay attention.

The counter-argument is that they do this without Autopilot anyway. Given that they're already not paying attention, adding in Autopilot seems like a net gain.

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

#159

Post by enobrev »

sumeno wrote: post #95
tyrw wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you're optimizing for. Others using LIDAR are optimizing for speed to market, while potentially sacrificing ability to solve the problem as fully. Musk's argument is that we know for certain that the entire road system can be navigated by visual cues, because that's how humans do it. We do not know for certain that this is possible with LIDAR.

Humans are pretty bad at driving though, so I'm not sure that basing self driving technology on us is a good idea.

As far as we know, humans are better drivers than every other species in the universe.

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

#160

Post by andrewjw »

Cshelton wrote: post #125
martin_bech wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Tesla with this and i LOVE it.. everyone I know on the teslaforums etc. loves it aswell. Please do yourself a favor, and try it out for a roadtrip duration or similar. Its a gamechanger.

Same. I love reading opinions about how dangerous or bad the Tesla "autopilot" is, or that it dosen't work, from people who have never owned or driven in a Tesla with autopilot. I've probably gone about 8,000 miles on autopilot in mine (AP1) and it is truly amazing. After a road trip stint of ~200 miles, I feel much more energized and less fatigued in the Tesla with autopilot 99% of the way than I do in previous non-…

Just curious - have you driven one in situations that became emergencies in which autopilot disengaged? What was that experience like and how does it compare to emergencies you have experienced without autopilot available?
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