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

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

#171

Post by ghaff » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #158

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…

> 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.

Hence my comment that maybe accident rates improve anyway. Although it's hard to predict the delta between distracted driving/no automation and oblivious driving/imperfect automation. It's at least plausible that you have fewer but worse accidents when someone's watching a YouTube video and the car suddenly panics.

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

#172

Post by archagon » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

redler wrote: post #142

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…

Even worse: I've been on several mountain roads with stretches of one-way traffic, where either an officer has to signal a switch in lane direction every few minutes (which might not be clear otherwise, especially around a bend), or cars have to occasionally reverse to let opposing traffic through. Don't think I'll ever be letting an AI do that!

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

#173

Post by Nomentatus » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

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…

What about tossing in tests every twenty minutes or so where you are required to "drive" for one minute (but the car remains in charge) and your driving is scored vs the A.I.? Maybe if you fail badly enough, you're scored drunk and have to pull over.

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

#174

Post by tehlike » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #164

flavor8 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Just take any job that requires a significant highway commute, you'll see more than that. Whenever you get full speed traffic occasionally interrupted by traffic jams (from whatever cause, other accident, tolls, weather, low angle sunlight, construction, etc.), you'll get a higher incidence of rear-enders. Especially when the tail of the slow/stopped traffic is at a point just past a hill or curve. I got rear-ended m…

rapid slowing is fairly common in 280. I find it safest to be on the left-most lane, where you can use shoulder to get you a safe stop. rapid slowing is one reason i'd probably get level-2 autonomous car.

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

#175

Post by stevenwoo » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:13 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #38

abalone wrote: post #6

> In May 2015, Eric Meadows, then a Tesla engineer, engaged Autopilot on a drive in a Model S from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Cruising along Highway 1, the car jerked left toward oncoming traffic. He yelped and steered back on course, according to his account and a video of the incident. Is this video online?

This isn't exactly an isolated incident, YouTube has lots of videos of autopilot steering wildly off course. The biggest problem is that Tesla allows turning on autopilot on roads that are not a highway and feature significant turns and hills obscuring "perfect lane vision", and the system is not prepared to handle that at all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBaolsFyD9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOnuKrzCLYc

Wow, if I were a passenger in the second video, I would insist on taking over if a human were driving. I don't know anything about the technical issues, but this is so not ready for prime time, it seems from that test autopilot drive to be super amateurish.

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

#176

Post by gervase » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

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 think the mapping between rail and motor vehicle transportation is not necessarily a direct one. Rail (excluding public transit like subway) is more infrastructural and largely unseen, and cars are basically a daily experience for the majority of the population; this fundamentally changes people's perceptions of each.

> Nobody will ride a driverless vehicle provided the explanation that it is, you know, "already an improvement when compared to a typical driver".

I don't necessarily think this is true (perhaps age-correlated?). Let's set aside the issue of whether or not we can do it, for now, and assume that we have a scenario where self-driving cars are safer than human drivers.

In this context, I can easily imagine a political campaign à la "Think of the children!" that paints human drivers as fundamentally unsafe, advocating for a self-driving mandate in urban areas. Perhaps with a Cash-for-Clunkers type of deal to aid the transition. I am not saying this is desirable, merely plausible; it has all the elements of good politics: an easily-grasped bright-line dichotomy, emotional manipulation, and massive corporate benefits (for vehicle manufacturers, self-driving software vendors, and transportation providers like Uber).

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

#177

Post by abalone » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #112

abalone wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding the data and the concern. Currently, Tesla Autopilot frequently disengages as part of its expected operation, handing control back to the driver. Thus, the human driver remains an attentive and competent partner to the autopilot system. That data is based on today's effective partnership between human and computer. The concern is that as level 2 autopilot gets better and disengagements go down…

Why not just mix in consensus-control, artificially generated disengagements? Even if the system has high confidence in its ability to handle a situation, if sufficient time has passed, request the driver resume control. Then fusion the driver's inputs w/ the system's for either additional training data or backseat safety driving (e.g. system monitoring human driver).

I like your creative thinking, but that wouldn't work. An immediate problem is it would only train the driver to pay attention when they hear a disengagement chime. L2 depends on the driver to monitor the autopilot continuously.

More productively, Tesla currently senses hands on the wheel. Perhaps they could extend that with an interior camera that visually analyzes the driver's face to ensure their eyes are on the the road.

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

#178

Post by abalone » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:19 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #104

abalone wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness to Tesla that is probably why they are pushing for level 4/5 so hard. It's true that if level 2 drives perfectly for a month, yet a alone a year, the human backup system is going to degrade markedly. We're not there yet, but it's coming. That's got to open up some liability questions. You can bet when people die it will be tested in court. You could make a case that Tesla's going to be liable for many lev…

I have been under the impression that because TESLA dispensed with the idea of LIDAR that their solution would never be workable. I am still surprised at their ability to avoid liability for the incidents attributed to the "Autopilot"

I don't see how you'd draw that conclusion. It seems possible to have a workable, purely optical solution. Our workable solution today relies purely on optical (human drivers).

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

#179

Post by jgtrosh » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:19 PM UTC

tyrw wrote: post #132

crocal wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd disagree here too. Trains and planes have extremely catastrophic failure modes, while cars do not. Cars have the added benefit of being able to quickly come to a stop in most situations. An even bigger driving factor (pun intended) will be that the cost of a driver relative to operation is much, much higher in a car. A solution that is better on both safety and cost will be quickly adopted.

Maybe autobuses would be the difficult medium — disastrous consequence of failure with at least the same operational complexity as cars.

However I don't see how the fears of an industry that needed to have extremely good results immediately need to be extended to one in which all signs point to progressive improvement. The danger being that the general public is fast to jump on blind trust, but to be compared with a vastly different ratio of number of people who are / can be in control to number of people affected, at least for cars and trucks which as far as I know are the first POIs in this industry. Autobuses might get automation slower than the rest of the fleet (no source, just from the top of my head).

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

#180

Post by kbenson » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #150

kbenson wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

That sounds at least somewhat workable. The Accord seemed to drop out of cruise control if the speed dropped below 15-20 Mph, so it was entirely useless in stop-and-go, and even slow-and-go.