Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier • Hacker News Board

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#91

Post by iainmerrick » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

Naritai wrote: post #87

iainmerrick wrote: post #54

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

To directly answer your question: people buy autopilot so they can check their phone while commuting down the freeway to work. I was talking to a group of people about the difficulties of commuting in the Santa Clara Valley, and one guy shrugged and said, "just get a Tesla, move to the left lane, and manage email until you get to work".

Yikes! I really hope that's a joke...

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#92

Post by damon_c » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

I assume they have a test suite that allows them to run 1000s of situations on the latest version of software to see if it crashes/almost crashes on any of them.

If so, it seems like it would be fairly easy to add this situation to the corpus... especially if they are recording data from their cars live.

They should have 100 people going out there and recording this lane split situation into their test data ASAP.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#93

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

e1ven wrote: post #67

> Previous autopilot versions didn't do this. 10.4 and 12 do this 90% of the time. I didn't post it until I got .12 and it did it a few times in case it was a bug in 10.4. This is why the idea of self-updating cars terrifies me. I'd never allow autopatching on a production server - Why would I allow it on hardware I'm betting my life on?

It adds a whole new level of frightening to the term breaking change.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#94

Post by bufferoverflow » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

gormz wrote: post #40

You can pry the steering wheel out of my cold dead hands. Might be true that on paper these things cause less accidents and less deaths, but I want to be in control of my life. If I die in a car I don't want it to be because of a software bug.

Most modern cars are drive-by-wire, entirely relying on computers and the software. And their software is huge blobs of proprietary compiled code. It's guaranteed to have bugs.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#95

Post by huffmsa » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

lafar6502 wrote: post #85

huffmsa wrote: post #58

Go to Washington DC, head West on Congressional, cross the Roosevelt bridge and take the exit for the GW. If there isn't a car smashed into the middle of the north/south Y junction, you'll get the chance to count the skid marks at that Y junction from humans making this exact same error. Tl dr; humans make the same mistake, at a higher frequency, which is why the accordian barrier exists.

humans at least are aware that they made a mistake and can avoid collision. Tesla makes no mistake, tesla has no idea whats going on so you cannot call it a mistake. Its not a bug, its a feature.

Except it gets reported back to HQ and like with airline accidents, the systems are updated across-the-board so that the risk of future occurrences is greatly reduced.

So instead of a single human learning "gee, shouldn't do that again", 100k+ vehicles learn about it.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#96

Post by astura » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

gormz wrote: post #40

You can pry the steering wheel out of my cold dead hands. Might be true that on paper these things cause less accidents and less deaths, but I want to be in control of my life. If I die in a car I don't want it to be because of a software bug.

You already don't have control over any of the other drivers on the road, some of which are unlicensed, impaired or even homicidal or suicidal.

Not to mention your car already has software that can kill you, even if it doesn't steer.

Even ignoring software, hardware can have "bugs" in it too that kill you. I'm not sure why you think engineering mistakes are "worse" when they are in the software vs the hardware.

Basically, no matter what it "feels" like, you are subjected to many many many forces outside your personal control.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#97

Post by iainmerrick » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #86

iainmerrick wrote: post #54

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

Personally I hate cruise control. I prefer to be actively engaged when driving. Either I am driving 100% or I am not at all, there is absolutely no middle ground in my opinion

I can understand that. I like cruise control because it lets me focus 100% on steering and watching the road around me.

Trying to maintain a steady speed and conserve gas is a fun challenge, but a bit pointless, because a) it's a distraction from more important tasks, and b) the computer can usually do it better than I can.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#98

Post by swiley » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

GoToRO wrote: post #8

ProblemFactory wrote: post #4

If Tesla autopilot relies on good quality road markings, then it's not yet usable in 80% of the world.

It's not usable anywhere. What if I draw a fake line on the road? will it follow it? what if you have wet paint and another vehicle smudges it diagonally to the lane?

If you draw fake markings on the road people will follow them, especially if the sun rises parallel to the road.

I have personally watched this happen, last year (I think?) the where repainting the lines on interstate 64 near shortpump and for ~ a week that summer my commute there was insane, just a bunch of cars going 70MPH with no real lanes.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#99

Post by carlmr » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #86

iainmerrick wrote: post #54

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

Personally I hate cruise control. I prefer to be actively engaged when driving. Either I am driving 100% or I am not at all, there is absolutely no middle ground in my opinion

I like it when driving through areas with strictly enforced speed limits. Otherwise I'd collect way too many tickets.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#100

Post by bufferoverflow » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

lafar6502 wrote: post #64

ha ha i dont see how this is supposed to improve safety. Maybe it's safer than having no driver at all but if we're talking about being better than typical human then the safest thing to do is to switch this thing off.

It still could be safer than most human drivers. We only have a few examples of their AI misbehaving. If it consistently crashed into the barriers, we would have thousands of deaths per day.