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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

#191

Post by cortesoft »

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…

Yeah, I stopped using cruise control years ago too - I moved to Los Angeles.

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

#192

Post by cortesoft »

gambiting wrote: post #45
a13n wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying we should let more people die (via human driving) to avoid people getting upset over tabloids ignoring statistics?

We are already "letting more people die" for economic reasons. We could mandate that all cars on the road should have the most modern 15+ airbag systems, but it's too costly. We could mandate that the speed limit should be 30mph and limited in hardware, but it's too costly economically, yet I don't think anyone can argue that it wouldn't save lives. We make these exact choices all the time. I am saying we should "let…

Right? Every single economic decision we make could be framed as a 'letting people die' choice.

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

#193

Post by toss1 »

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…

NO, a higher licensing bar for human drivers will NOT solve the problem, it would only exacerbate it (and I'm ALL FOR setting a higher licensing bar for humans for other reasons).

The problem here is NOT the untrained driver -- it is the attention span and loss of context.

I've undergone extensive higher training levels and passed much higher licensing tests to get my Road Racing license.

I can tell you from direct experience of both that the requirements of high-performance driving are basically the same as the requirements to successfully drive out of an emergency situation: you must 1)have complete command of the vehicle, 2) understand the grip and power situation at all the wheels, AND 3) have a full situational awareness and understand A) all the threats and their relative damage potential (oncoming truck vs tree, vs ditch, vs grass), and B) all the potential escape routes and their potential to mitigate damage (can I fit through that narrowing gap, can I handbrake & back into that wall, do I have the grip to turn into that side road... ?).

Training will improve #1 a lot.

For #2, situational awareness, and #3, understanding the threats and escapes, there is no substitute for being alert and aware IN THE SITUATION AHEAD OF TIME.

When driving at the limit, either racing or in an emergency, even getting a few tenths of a second behind can mean big trouble.

When you are actively driving and engaged, you HAVE CURRENT AWARENESS of road, conditions, traffic, grip, etc. You at least have a chance to stay on top of it.

With autopilot, even with the skills of Lewis Hamilton, you are already so far behind as to be doomed. 60 mph=88 feet/sec. It'll be a minimum of two seconds from when the autopilot alarms before you can even begin to get the situation and the wheel in hand. You're now 50 yards downrange, if you haven't already hit something.

Even with skills tested to exceed the next random 10,000 drivers on the road, the potential for this situation to occur would terrify me.

I might use such a partial system in low-risk situations like slow traffic where its annoying and the energies involved are fender-bender level. Otherwise, no way. Human vigilance and context siwtching is just not that good.

I can't wait for fully-capable autodriving technology, but this is asking for trouble.

Quit cargo-culting technology. There is a big valley of death between assist technologies and full-time automation.

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

#194

Post by chc »

abalone wrote: post #177
ethbro wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

They actually have a driver-facing camera in the Model 3, which is presumably coming to their other cars in a future refresh.

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

#195

Post by eclipxe »

kuschku wrote: post #135
aerovistae wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely do not use it. I am one of the biggest Tesla fans out there. I fucking love the company. But Autopilot in its current form is nothing short of dangerous. I took a test drive in a Model S a couple months ago and enabled Autopilot at the Tesla rep's encouragement while on a straight stretch of route 90 near Boston. We were going 70mph, a safe speed. The car came to a point where the highway curved, and a sli…

It gets worse, if your Tesla is following a car in front of you, and they switch lanes, but you can’t switch lanes because another car is coming from behind in that lane, the Autopilot will switch nonetheless. This almost killed a tester from the German federal motor vehicle approval agency. Their overall report is devastating, and shows the Tesla autopilot is little more than a glorified cruise control, marketed in…

This is not true at all. Tesla's do not use the car in front to switch lanes.

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

#196

Post by chc »

batmansmk wrote: post #66
slg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that level 2 isn't an ideal position, but it has also proven to be better than human drivers in preventing fatalities. In all the miles that Tesla's level 2 cars have driven there has been what 1 fatality? In that instance there was the exact question of responsibility that you suggested, but that still seems preferable to the status quo if lives are saved.

We need independent numbers on this. Comparing with the same population, the same price range of vehicles, the same road sections. Age, level of education, price of the vehicle, absence of hands-free cell interface, lack of seat-belt alarm seem to be way better predictors in USA of fatalities than having autopilot. Comparing autopilot Tesla fatalities versus average fatality rate on one road section is dishonest.

It's not as precise as I'd like, but there has been an independent investigation of the safety of Autopilot. After the first fatality while on Autopilot, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wanted to determine whether (as many fear) Autopilot posed a danger to drivers, and found that Autopilot was safe enough to keep on the roads and that Autopilot led to a 40% reduction in crashes: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/19/nhtsas-full-final-investig...

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

#197

Post by eclipxe »

aerovistae wrote: post #138
Cshelton wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is 100% false. I've owned a Tesla for over a year. I take several curves on a daily basis with the speed set to around 82 mph. Going into the curve, the car slows down to about 65 mph, which is the speed every other car on the road takes that curve. It's even stated in the AP documentation and release notes. Go ask other Tesla owners as well. I've never heard of a Tesla being "swung" out of a lane on a cur…

I am glad to hear this. But it is not 100% false that the Tesla I test drove functioned this way. It is, in fact, 100% true. This happened last month.

Are you sure auto steer was engaged? I also had a Tesla for a couple of years and AP absolutely slows down in curves consistently.

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

#198

Post by crocal »

gervase wrote: post #176
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…

Driverless trains so far are only used in mass transit so... I am afraid these are daily experience.

For the second part of your argument, there are multiple problems, again backed by examples in the railway world.

First, a politician will think twice before casting a devilish image of drivers. Having all the professional drivers against you is essentially a political hara-kiri. There is a reason why it took 10 years to migrate Paris Line 1 to driverless, and it is not technology.

Second, you would not believe how difficult it is to reach consensus on the fact that drivers are unsafe compared to a machine. Still today, even after decades of operations with no incident, there are still people in the industry that argue otherwise... The most telling example is the high speed derailment in Santiago de Compostela, essentially due to the fact that the driver is considered a good enough guarantee to drive a high speed passenger train up to 200 KPH... Sigh.

EDIT: References [1] https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/978184564494... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derai...

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

#199

Post by mulmen »

ghaff wrote: post #141
notlob wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how much more the average driver's skill can degrade. We never re-train so isn't there a natural degradation already? Will automation make that worse or will it not be significant?

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

#200

Post by aetherson »

delinka wrote: post #157
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.)

"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 dire…

About six years ago, I would drive from San Mateo to Oakland at least twice a week, after work, to meet my then-girlfriend. So that's down 92, across the bridge, and up to Oakland. It's about 30 miles, all on freeway, and at that time of day all in heavy (though not all stop-and-go) traffic.

I don't think I ever saw three separate rear-ends in a single drive. I can't say for certain that I ever saw two. I didn't drive it every day, but I probably did 100 such commutes.

You sound either like you're massively exaggerating or live someplace with apocalyptic traffic.

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