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Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#71

Post by ScottBurson »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #31

What this shows is that Tesla isn’t even on the path to self-driving technology. It sounds like “Autopilot” has no world model (or an extremely basic one)—it ignores stationary objects because it can’t tell whether it’s approaching something on the side of a road that curves away versus an obstacle in the lane. It can’t tell because it doesn’t know what the car is going to do and what the lane is going to do. That’s…

>> It sounds like “Autopilot” has no world model (or an extremely basic one) It should be noted that no AI system has anything like that. A model of the entire world is beyond current technological capabilities.

I believe the meaning in this context is just a model saying what objects are nearby, where they are, how large they are, and what their velocity vectors are, and maybe guesses as to what kind of object (car, truck, pedestrian, lamppost, etc.) they are.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#72

Post by rcthompson »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #68
rcthompson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing the difference is important because in one case, you need to fix a bug, and in the other case, you need to design a new system (or decide that the problem is unfixable and give up).

How do you un-kill a dead driver with a software release or a new design spec? A person is dead mainly due to the presence of a driver-assist system, this is unquestionable.

Who was questioning it? Who was suggesting that it was possible to undo a death that has already happened? I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

All I'm saying is that the distinction is important from the perspective of someone who wants to prevent this from happening again, and the perspective of someone who is in charge of making the laws and regulations to prevent this from happening again, and the perspective of the people voting for those lawmakers.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#73

Post by paulie_a »

danso wrote: post #64
atomical wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure all the seniors love riding public transit.

Lots of us younger folk are cool with it too. The point is that having it as an option, rather than being stuck at home unable to drive, is a big quality of life issue.

I am still relatively younger and I work in an office literally located in a train station. I still avoid public transit as much as possible. The only exception is Amtrak.

Public transportation sucks.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#74

Post by kjksf »

paulie_a wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #31

What this shows is that Tesla isn’t even on the path to self-driving technology. It sounds like “Autopilot” has no world model (or an extremely basic one)—it ignores stationary objects because it can’t tell whether it’s approaching something on the side of a road that curves away versus an obstacle in the lane. It can’t tell because it doesn’t know what the car is going to do and what the lane is going to do. That’s…

Let's be honest, actual mass deployed self driving tech is probably 20 years away at minimum. I personally might be able to enjoy it just before I retire.

What is definition of "mass"?

Waymo almost certainly will launch this year a fully self driving service, accessible to anyone, "within parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area, including Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert" (https://waymo.com/apply/faq/) which is where their pilot program has been running for several months now.

See e.g. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/it-sure-looks-like-waym...

They already have at least 600 cars in that area and already announced plans to buy 80k cars.

So if by "mass" you mean "millions of cars available world wide" then yeah, maybe not 20 years but it'll take a decade to scale this world-wide.

But to me "self driving works in practice" will be validated within months of Waymo launching in Arizona and then they'll enter a phase of dazzling scale up to other cities.

For comparison it took Uber 7 years to outgrow taxis and I expect self driving to grow a bit faster.

Once the technology works it's just a matter of capital expenditure and physical limits of how fast you can scale car manufacturing.

It'll take many years to deploy this world-wide but I don't think this is the standard most people use when they determine if self driving technology works or not.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#75

Post by simion314 »

pishpash wrote: post #50

Let's just come out and say it: Tesla Autopilot is shit. If it's not, I challenge anyone to trust it.

We can say is not autopilot where autopilot means what we think it means, because Tesla and the fanboys are pulling out some other definitions that mean something different, while marketing and Elon share/promote images and videos of people not using their hands when using autopilot.,

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#76

Post by jacobush »

smogcutter wrote: post #60
dchichkov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be even worse than that. They likely think that they are on the path, because they are running a massive data-collection campaign on the sensor suite installed on the fleet. But the reality might be different. Running a data collection campaign is easy. Engineering products with machine learning is hard. Most of the teams don't even know what they need to know, to do it right. And so they engage into classic…

I mean, I'm also pessimistic about self driving cars, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Tesla engineers are aware that machine learning is hard.

Depends on how many are fired by angry managers. If you are unlucky, only the wood carving ones are left.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#77

Post by sib »

stevenwoo wrote: post #25
tracer4201 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't hit me that way. Sounds more like we as consumers misinterpret what the technology is and trust it too much... of course, there's a feedback loop where companies like Tesla call everything autonomous and hype the marketing to mislead consumers.

It seems like the radar/camera system Toyota uses for its Pre Collision System has the same weaknesses as Tesla's sensor suite but the list of exceptions in the Toyota manual is pretty brutally honest about the issues. Just for pedestrians it warns: Some pedestrians such as the following may not be detected by the radar sensor and camera sensor, preventing the system from operating properly: • Pedestrians shorter tha…

I'm trying to figure out whether there are actually a meaningful fraction of pedestrians who would be detected...

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#78

Post by jayd16 »

rayiner wrote: post #31

What this shows is that Tesla isn’t even on the path to self-driving technology. It sounds like “Autopilot” has no world model (or an extremely basic one)—it ignores stationary objects because it can’t tell whether it’s approaching something on the side of a road that curves away versus an obstacle in the lane. It can’t tell because it doesn’t know what the car is going to do and what the lane is going to do. That’s…

It's not necessary that the current stay in your lane tech has to be the core of anything else they add.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#80

Post by School-Cotton »

kjksf wrote: post #74
paulie_a wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, actual mass deployed self driving tech is probably 20 years away at minimum. I personally might be able to enjoy it just before I retire.

What is definition of "mass"? Waymo almost certainly will launch this year a fully self driving service, accessible to anyone, "within parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area, including Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert" ( https://waymo.com/apply/faq/ ) which is where their pilot program has been running for several months now. See e.g. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/it-sure-looks-like-waym... They already have…

What makes you think "works in Phoenix" is anywhere near "works in most places" ?

I think the difficulty of driving in Phoenix suburbs is maybe 1% of the difficulty of driving in urban areas, anywhere with snow and rain, etc.

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