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

#281

Post by schiffern » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 12:53 AM 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…

>This kind of rapid-slowing situation in tight-fast traffic will likely even get out of hand even for automated cars, unless there is car-to-car communication. This is because of the slight delay for each successive slowing car in the accordion-effect accumulates to the point where eventually the required reaction time decreases and required deceleration rate increases past the performance envelope. At that point, a crash is inevitable.

Is this really true?

It seems like, as long as the following delay between cars is greater than that reaction delay, there should be no such "accordion effect."

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

#282

Post by boznz » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 12:56 AM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #224

cr0sh wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to say when the code I recently turned in (and passed) for the path planning project of term 3 in Udacity's Self-Driving Car Engineer works better at changing lanes than Tesla's system: https://github.com/andrew-ayers/udacity-sdc/blob/master/Term... Then again, it does have a failure mode where occasionally, for some reason, it will direct the car to change lanes into the path of a much faster movin…

The problem Tesla has is that their system only has ~ 40 meters visibility to back or front. That means if you're on the Autobahn, at say 130km/h in the right lane, and a Porsche is coming from behind at 300km/h, the Tesla will not be able to see it, and consider the lane free.

Remind me never to drive on a German Autobahn.

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

#283

Post by bsder » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 12:58 AM UTC

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.)

Yes, if you can stay out of Los Angeles, I highly recommend it.

2 is average for about a 60 mile drive during slightly off-rush. I suspect rush is higher.

And certain areas just seem to attract idiots.

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

#284

Post by rsync » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:00 AM UTC

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…

"Of course, you won't have 100% death in the edge cases. Either way, making the majority of travel safe in exchange for making edge cases more deadly to untrained drivers has a simple solution: a higher bar for licensing human drivers."

The part that really bothers me (for some reason) is that those edge cases are frequently extremely mundane, uninteresting driving situations that even a child could resolve. They simply confuse the computer, for whatever reason.

I'm genuinely interested to see how consumers react to a reality wherein their overall driving safety is higher, but their odds of being killed (or killing others) are spread evenly across all driving environments.

Imagine the consumer (and driving habits) response to the first occasion wherein a self-driving car nicely drives itself through a 25MPH neighborhood, comes to a nice stop at a stop sign, and then drives right over the kid in the crosswalk that you're smiling and waving at. Turns out the kids coat was shimmering weirdly against the sunlight. Or whatever.

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

#285

Post by alexanderstears » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:04 AM UTC

onewhonknocks wrote: post #73

alexanderstears wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a norm of competence in airline pilots. We can't say the same for automobile drivers.

Can't we? (about the vast majority of automobile drivers)

Depending on where you set your standards, sure. But we have an expectation in the United States safety technology has to accommodate darn near everyone.

We have a law that airbags have to accommodate unbelted passengers: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/35/6/1

Now sure, a passenger can be different than the driver but it's the same philosophy.

The amount of illegal maneuvers I see every day on my commute is astonishing - not using blinkers, intruding on cross walks, not moving over for emergency vehicles, following too closely, etc. It doesn't help that the only traffic law enforcement is really around speeding / running red lights / DUIs.

The problem with autonomous cars isn't the autonomous cars - it's accommodating non-autonomous actors. It only takes one google car hitting an old lady who's chasing a duck on the street to become CNN breaking news for the next 3 months a la that airliner that disappeared.

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

#286

Post by rohit2412 » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:19 AM UTC

johansch wrote: post #118

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…

Elon's goal is to get humanity to another planet. The Tesla thing is just a way to get money to do that. I thought this stuff was commonly known? I do agree with his goal. And maybe its worth some percentage of Tesla buyer's lives? Let's not talk too much about this, okay?

I think you are being sarcastic, and people don't get it.

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

#287

Post by Sophistifunk » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:19 AM UTC

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…

Personally I use cruise control almost constantly, for the exact same reason. When you're watching the speedo, you're not watching the road.

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

#288

Post by dingo_bat » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:22 AM UTC

anindha wrote: post #245

abalone wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Cameras don't have the same dynamic range of the human eye. A more fair test would be giving someone remote control of a Tesla with only access to the video footage. I think cameras will hit parity with the human eye, but the question is will it happen before or after Lidar becomes more affordable and compact.

The best cameras nowadays have more dynamic range than human eyes. Although I'm sure Tesla is not using this in its cars.

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

#289

Post by snaily » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:51 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #271

abalone wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making the majority of travel safe in exchange for making edge cases more deadly to untrained drivers has a simple solution: a higher bar for licensing human drivers. You are still misunderstanding the concern. The problem is not poorly trained drivers. The problem is that humans become less attentive after an extended period of problem-free automated operation. I hear you trying to make a Trolley Problem argument,…

> You are still misunderstanding the concern. The problem is not poorly trained drivers. The problem is that humans become less attentive after an extended period of problem-free automated operation. I understand the concern. I am saying the problem of slow return from periods of extended inattention is not significant in comparison to general human ineptitude. Level 2 systems may rely on "humans serving as a reliabl…

If you actually look at the SAE J3016_201609 standard, your goalpost-moving takes you beyond level 2. "Giving ample warning" puts you in level 3, whereas "pulling over as a default action" puts you in level 4.

The original point - that level 2 is a terrible development goal for the average human driver - still stands.

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

#290

Post by dheera » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 2:09 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

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…

> The level-2 driving that Tesla is pushing seems like a worst case scenario to me What are you measuring? The current autopilot already appears to be materially safer, in certain circumstances, than human drivers [1]. It seems probable Level 2 systems will be better still. A refrain I hear, and used to believe, is that machine accidents will cause public uproar in a way human-mediated accidents don't. Yet Tesla's au…

> The current autopilot already appears to be materially safer, in certain circumstances

It depends on how you measure this. We always talk about humans being bad at driving. Humans are actually amazingly good drivers conditioned upon being alert, awake, and sober. Unfortunately a good fraction of people are in fact not alert. If you don't condition on this, than yes, humans suck.

(Put another way, the culture we, including companies such as Tesla, foster of working people overtime is probably more responsible for car accident deaths than anything else.)

The FAA takes pilot rest time seriously. Considering car accident deaths exceed airplane deaths by a few orders of magnitude, it's about time the rest of the world take rest equally seriously as well.