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

#341

Post by crocal » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:09 AM UTC

maxcan wrote: post #332

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…

You think the rail industry understands what safety means? Trains have literally one degree of freedom in their controls - speed up and slow down. In spite of the simplicity we still see high fatality train crashes with regularity. Some how sticking people in a paper thin aluminum tube 6 miles up going 600mph can be done with zero fatalities but we can't get trains to stop killing people. I'm ranting here, but you're…

No problem at all, I was half expecting such reaction.

http://www.uitp.org/sites/default/files/Metro%20automation%2...

There has been 1 accident in 30 years attributed to driverless rail mass transit control system, despite millions of kilometers travelled and a constant worldwide growth. Yes, rail has understood what driverless safety means. You may call it a high horse but driverless /is/ a high horse. That's my point.

In a way, your comment confirms this success. You think it is easy because you are used to it at an instinctive level. And that is the goal, precisely.

But it is not as simple as what you imagine. For instance, trains have multiple degree of freedoms. As an illustration, train builders calculate carefully the dynamic enveloppe of the cars (e.g. its worst lateral deformation due to bogie flexibility) and check against the tunnel walls geometry.

http://www.railsystem.net/structure-gauge-and-kinematic-enve...

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

#342

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:12 AM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #161

sbierwagen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Block quoting can screw up desktop rendering on HN if the quoted line is too long. Say you put a 1000 character line in a literal quote: 1.......1000 The whole page would render at the length of that line. So this text that I'm writing now, it'd normally wrap once or twice depending on your window's width. Instead, it'll only wrap after approximately 1000 characters. This is why when I block quote, I put in a line br…

On desktop long block quotes go in a scrolling box. One that's pretty wide, so it doesn't usually cause a hassle to have to scroll it. But not so wide it breaks anything.

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

#343

Post by crocal » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:13 AM UTC

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #322

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…

All due respect to your experience with the rail industry and its impressively high bar for safety, in the auto industry, if they can get the death rate down to 48 people killed every day in the US, that will be twice as safe as we are currently.

Sure, and this goal can be reached without driverless. I am really supportive of driver assistance. The point I try to make is that bringing driverless on top is a challenge that seems to be underestimated.

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

#344

Post by coldtea » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

wooter wrote: post #204

coldtea wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

could say the same about people "feeling safer" when driving themselves. which is what all the opposing side clings to. (sure isn't statistics)

>could say the same about people "feeling safer" when driving themselves. which is what all the opposing side clings to

Only people have been driving themselves for a century, and have a pretty good idea of how safe it is, including how safe it is for them and their skills / city / etc, as opposed to some "one size fits all" average.

>(sure isn't statistics)

Well, it can't be statistics because all we've got is the BS "statistics" from the self-driving car companies. Only a sucker for new technology would accept those, as there are tons of differences between regular driving. They take the cars out at optimal conditions (not rain, snow etc), they drive specific routes (not all over the US), they often have supplementary humans on board to check (do they count the times when humans had to take control and saved the day as "self-driving accidents" or not?), and tons of other things besides.

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

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Post by AlexCoventry » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:15 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…

> I stopped using cruise control years ago. If I have to pay attention, I'm better off driving.

I view cruise control as a safety feature. I can keep my foot hovering over the brake pedal instead of on the accelerator, reducing reaction time in a crisis. Maintaining attention on the road has never been a problem for me, though I suppose the hovering-foot posture helps.

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

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Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:17 AM UTC

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…

> just facts

> You are willing to take the risk, but society as a whole will not.

What are you talking about? People very objectively ride planes that are not completely safe. Airlines that are nowhere near completely safe still get tons of customers.

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

#347

Post by AlexCoventry » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:22 AM UTC

speakingmachine wrote: post #232

aetherson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 driv…

You drove 30 miles up 880 twice a week and never saw a rear-end accident? You should play the lottery. I don't know if I see three every day, but I do see one every week. This week's was some clown in the #2 lane, _staring_ down at his phone, rear-end into a stopped car at ~20 MPH. His car was completely totaled with one of the wheels spinning off to the shoulder. A few months ago I saw a guy, face-down in his phone,…

How do you have the bandwidth to look at other drivers' postures while driving?

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

#348

Post by crocal » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:25 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #346

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…

> just facts > You are willing to take the risk, but society as a whole will not. What are you talking about? People very objectively ride planes that are not completely safe. Airlines that are nowhere near completely safe still get tons of customers.

Planes are not driverless. This is what I am talking about.

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

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Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:25 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #308

castle-bravo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I would be more worried about someone dying using a system that I had a hand in than whatever effect it might have on my career.

> Last thing I'd want is my bug being responsible for someone dying. Is exactly what was written above.

In the context of a lawsuit. Which is different from not wanting it for its own sake.

But quitting doesn't retroactively remove your hand from the system if that's your main worry...

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

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Post by gambiting » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:33 AM UTC

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #35

gambiting wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely disagree. It can't be better than humans. It needs to be flawless. Any problems where people get killed will delay public acceptance of the technology by decades, even if "statistically it's safer than humans". People don't give a damn about statistics, they give a damn about tabloids shouting "self driving cars kill another innocent person!!!". We literally can't afford that.

If the aim is to have a technology that's 100% fail-safe, we can stop pursuing self-driving cars now. We can in fact stop pursuing any kind of technology because the economic cost of making anything completely fail-safe are usually prohibitive. Also, isn't history ripe with counter examples to your argument? Planes have crashed, people died, tabloid headlines were written about it, and people still fly, probably beca…

Yes, and every time there's a plane crash while on autopilot, Boeing/Airbus will order that every single plane of that type is grounded until the fix is found. For airlines it's not a huge deal since they have insurance for that kind of thing and they can always use other planes they have or rent them to subsitute in their schedules. Now imagine if there are hundreds of thousands of say self-driving Teslas(or any other brand) and your national safety regulator orders that they are all disabled until a fix is found after a particularly nasty crash. If you get up in the morning and can't use your car because it has been remotely disabled for whatever reason, you will be furious - or at least I know I would be. I'd sell it and buy a normal manual car the same day.

My point is, that all of this affects the public perception of self-driving cars - and if we want them to succeed, we need to make absolutely sure that that perception is good. We can't have the nonsense Tesla is trying to pull off at the moment, where they call their system "autopilot" but they know the system cannot detect obstacles at around pillar-height and it gets blinded by the sun and can swerve into the oncoming lane before just switching off. These are not theoretical problems - both happen in cars that are out there, right now. And if it happens to a regular Joe Smith, then Mr. Smith will think the technology is crap, and we can't let that happen.