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Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

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Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#201

Post by lisper »

dancek wrote: post #165
lisper wrote: post #122

Here is my armchair diagnosis: right before the car veers towards the barrier it drives through a stretch of road where the only visible lane marker is on the left. Then the right lane marker comes into view at about the point where the lane starts to widen out for the lane split. The lines that will become the right and left lane markers of the split left and right lanes respectively are right next to the van in fro…

> It's not possible to engineer an autonomous system that never fails, but it is possible to engineer one in such a way that it never fails to detect that it has failed. This is a very good point: just like a human driver should slow down if they can't observe the road ahead well enough, an AI should slow down when it's not confident enough of its surroundings. This is probably very difficult to do, and I'm skeptical…

> if a simple explanation exists, I'd love to hear it

Basically it's a matter of having multiple redundant sensors and sounding the alarm if they don't all agree on what is going on, and also checking if what they think is going on is in the realm of reasonable possibility based on some a priori model (e.g. if suddenly all of your sensors tell you that you are 100 miles from where you were one second ago, that's probably a mistake even if all the sensors agree). That's a serious oversimplification, but that's the gist.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#203

Post by danso »

slivym wrote: post #66
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's exactly what makes Tesla PR so disingenuous, they know better than anybody what updates they did and how often their updated software passed that point and yet they will happily cite numbers they know to be wrong. So, now regarding that previous crash: did that driver (or should I say occupant) get lulled into a false sense of security because he'd been through there many times in the past and it worked un…

I've got to take issue with you there. Tesla Engineering knows better than anybody what updates they did and how often they update etc. Tesla PR knows nothing about what updates the engineering team did. At least some people in Tesla PR probably don't even know the cars update their software regularly. It's bad practice for them to speak out of turn, but I can absolutely see the PR team not having a good grasp of wha…

The entire point of a PR department is to gather that information before releasing it. Yes, they wrangle it to put the company in the best light, but that doesn't mean they should be operating in ignorance. They have access to Tesla employees that outside reporters do not (or at least, should not) have.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#204

Post by xiphias »

DSingularity wrote: post #182
dancek wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not possible to engineer an autonomous system that never fails, but it is possible to engineer one in such a way that it never fails to detect that it has failed. This is a very good point: just like a human driver should slow down if they can't observe the road ahead well enough, an AI should slow down when it's not confident enough of its surroundings. This is probably very difficult to do, and I'm skeptical…

I feel that’s the problem. Techniques like SVM can provide reasonable definitions of confidence. Reinforcement Learning.. DNN... the mechanisms behind autonomous cars... are they able to do this??

Neural networks are just non-linear functions that give probabilities to classes, so yes, it can be definitely done (and is done). As Tesla's computer vision system is not as good as Waymo's, it has to choose between comfort and safety more often.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#205

Post by jijojv »

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/apples-steve-wozniak-doesnt-... "Man you have got to be ready — it makes mistakes, it loses track of the lane lines. You have to be on your toes all the time," says Wozniak.

"All Tesla did is say, 'It is beta so we are not responsible. It doesn't necessarily work, so you have to be in control.' "Well you that is kinda a cheap way out of it."

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#206

Post by lisper »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #197
lisper wrote: post #122

Here is my armchair diagnosis: right before the car veers towards the barrier it drives through a stretch of road where the only visible lane marker is on the left. Then the right lane marker comes into view at about the point where the lane starts to widen out for the lane split. The lines that will become the right and left lane markers of the split left and right lanes respectively are right next to the van in fro…

>This is actually the most serious aspect of all of these crashes: the system does not seem to be aware when it is getting things wrong. Although serious, this is working as designed. Level II self-driving doesn't have automation that makes guarantees about recognizing scenarios it cannot handle. At level III, the driver can safely close their eyes until the car sounds the alarm that it needs emergency help. Audi pla…

> level II is probably the most dangerous automation

I'll go further and say that level II is worse than useless. It's "autonomy theatre" to borrow a phrase from the security world. It gives the appearance that the car is safely driving itself when in fact it is not, but this isn't evident until you crash.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#207

Post by niftich »

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

Cruise control is great where there's long stretches of open road, light traffic (LOS A or B [1]), and little need for frequent braking.

The star usecase is to set cruise to be very near the speed limit, such that after acceleration events like overtaking, you coast back to highway speed.

It's a low-effort way of ensuring that one will be compliant with speed laws most of the time, yet maintaining a steady pace. I too prefer to be 'actively engaged' while driving, but in my opinion the reduction of constant acceleration input is a welcome convenience.

'Adaptive' cruise control, on the other hand, feels to me like riding on a tenuous rollercoaster. It's intended to let cruise control be usable in packed traffic, but it requires one to cede a lot of trust and control to the machine in ways that physically make me uneasy -- and it doesn't help that the exact behavior differs between models and manufacturers, so that trust doesn't automatically transplant into a different car.

Part of the problem is, again, with terminology. Ever since Adaptive Cruise Control proliferated as a term, it drew a parallel to classic 'Cruise Control', which I think is a mistake. Classic Cruise Control is a fire-and-forget, non-safety feature that's simple to reason about: do I want the car to gun it at a constant 70 mph, or no? You can run a quick mental judgement call and decide whether to engage it or leave it off.

'Adaptive' cruise control fundamentally about maintaining following distance, i.e. tailgating restriction. It's a safety feature. It's a button to "proceed forward not exceeding target speed", but if it gets disengaged for any reason then you can easily overrun into the car ahead. It's a safety feature with the UI/UX of a non-safety feature, so it's always opt-in (!) -- which is simply horrific.

All safety features in vehicles should be either always-on, or opt-out, and NEVER opt-in. On a modern car, tailgate restriction should be on by default, with a button unlocking the car into free-throttle mode. Braking -- alone -- should never disable a safety feature.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_service

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#208

Post by rayiner »

jacquesm wrote: post #193
ams6110 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint, my Lenovo tablet running google maps often seems to get confused about lanes. E.g. it will think I'm taking an exit ramp when I am still on the main road. Once the ramp and the road diverge enough it will recover, but not before going into it's "rerouting" mode and sometimes even starting directions to get back on the road I'm already on.

That sounds pretty bad if that's the thing you rely on to get you where you're going. Here in NL interchanges are often complex enough that without the navigator picking the right lane you'd end up taking the wrong exit. I don't use Google maps for driving but I know plenty of people that do and having been in the car with them on occasion has made me even happier with my dedicated navigation system. The voice prompt…

Here in D.C. Google maps will regularly get confused about whether you're on the main road or a ramp; whether you're on an overhead highway or the street underneath it, whether you're on a main road or the access road next to it.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#209

Post by TaylorAlexander »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #197
lisper wrote: post #122

Here is my armchair diagnosis: right before the car veers towards the barrier it drives through a stretch of road where the only visible lane marker is on the left. Then the right lane marker comes into view at about the point where the lane starts to widen out for the lane split. The lines that will become the right and left lane markers of the split left and right lanes respectively are right next to the van in fro…

>This is actually the most serious aspect of all of these crashes: the system does not seem to be aware when it is getting things wrong. Although serious, this is working as designed. Level II self-driving doesn't have automation that makes guarantees about recognizing scenarios it cannot handle. At level III, the driver can safely close their eyes until the car sounds the alarm that it needs emergency help. Audi pla…

I disagree. It’s not as though level II is a hard and fast definition - Tesla wants level 4 and claims the cars possess the hardware for that already. So you’d think their level II would still be smart enough to detect these problems to some degree. It’s not a fixed system but one they keep upgrading. I would expect this nominally level II system to have more smarts than a system that is designed never to exceed level II.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#210

Post by vkou »

deelowe wrote: post #162
iainmerrick wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What else would people be using it for? It's a "drive my car for me while I send this text" mode that allows you to take your attention off the road every few seconds. Otherwise, the system makes no sense at all.

Once you're engrossed in your phone, you're not taking attention off the road for a 'few seconds'. You're essentially letting autopilot drive for you. Which Tesla explicitly says you're not supposed to do.
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