Live data from Hacker News

Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

tesla.com

161–170 of 658 posts

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're driving in a place known for courtesy like Canada or Hawaii ಠ_ಠ... People often stop late and won't move until you go first...

My father taught me this trick -- if you're going to arrive simultaneously, just make sure you stop clearly second (especially if the other car is on your right). I find it is usually pretty efficient and have yet to notice someone doing the same to me at the same time.

I do exactly the same - not with 4-way stops as we don't have those in Germany, but with areas where a two-lane road is intentionally narrowed to one lane for a very short piece of road, which we sometimes have in order to slow down traffic around pedestrian crossings. If I see someone approaching from the other side and we are about to arrive roughly at the same time, I slow down just enough so the other person hopefully realizes she can go first. If I see the other person doing the same I add light flashing, which is typically understood as "You go first". But it is rarely necessary, because if I start going slow early enough, the other person realizes he/she is a tiny bit closer to the narrow part, so they slightly speed up in order to ensure they are first and thus get the right to come through before me, which is exactly the reaction that I want, because my interest usually isn't to get through first, but to be able to roll through the narrow part without coming to a full stop.

When I was road tripping in the US, I also attempted to prevent unclear situations at 4-way stops by intentionally slowing down just a bit so it is clear that I'm not first to drive. Since I couldn't prevent the stop anyway I was usually much more comfortable with letting other people drive first, or at least with having a clear order and knowing about my position in that order.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#162
post #70

Awesome! Now do it again and when it passes one set of parked cars on the side, have someone roll a soccer ball in front of the Tesla. Will the car assume a child will follow from in between the cars or not?

A neural network needs to be taught this and then all cars with that training will respond correctly forever. Every individual human would need to learn this separately from experience, which would require far more soccer balls (and children).

I've yet to meet a human that needs to observe enormous numbers of balls and children against a number of different backdrops before they grasp the concept that they're different from the background environments, never mind potentially linked to unsafe road use.

The conclusion that a neural network classifies stuff 'correctly forever' is also not one supported by the current state of computer vision.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#164

What's the FPS rate of the algorithm? It says on the OSD: `13.3 FPS`, which seems very low: 50mph = 73 feet per second / 13 frames per second = 5 feet per frame. This still way faster than a human I'm guessing, but seems very slow.

There are some odd things that happen with sharp turns and this latency in the current version. It will cross centerline because it's chasing a frame that doesn't contain the steps in the turn to not cross.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#165
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two issues, first: I thought fully autonomous driving was meant to be done by now? Second, don't Tesla & SpaceX have a reputation for being a terrible place to work, with Musk expecting everyone to be working as hard (or harder) than him, and firing people in weird and capricious ways.

- I thought fully autonomous driving was meant to be done by now? One thing that Elon did is gathering lots of video data instead of perfecting LIDAR, and at this point it seems that he was right: until detecting objects in 3D from video data is completely solved, self driving can't work. After it's solved, LIDAR is not needed. - Tesla & SpaceX have a reputation for being a terrible place to work When I'm looking for…

> When I'm looking for jobs, my main criteria is market cap / number of employees, and Tesla (as most startups/small companies) was very bad before the stock price went up. Now with high stock prices Tesla can afford to pay market rates (even if it's in stock).

You don't care about the work culture at all?

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proper rules[1] of a 4 way stop are probably pretty straightforward to encode, and probably easier for a computer to apply than a human, but the real issue is that you can't trust the other drivers (or AIs) to understand/follow them consistently. So the interesting part is how these kinds of systems can almost instantly react when another driver starts to go, and let them go. In NYC, where I live now, the de fact…

Wouldn't the data decide what the rule is? I'm guessing if in NYC, a more aggressive driving style is the norm - the models and the pipeline should be capable of adjusting to that.

> Wouldn't the data decide what the rule is?

Lawyers will define what the rules are for a manufacturers self driving cars. After all, any accident at a 4-way stop will immediately result in blaming and then suing the manufacturer. And what are they gonna have for a defense? "Sorry, your honor, we use machine learning to decide how our car drives--as a result there is no real way to truly understand how our car will react to every situation it encounters".

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#167
post #140

It still strikes me why so many people are still against a future with self driving cars. Sure, people throughout history are scared of change & new tech. But if you look at this video and compare the amount of stuff the camera catches AND processes, with the things you are seeing & processing, it's really hard for me to see me being better at it than a computer. The reality of driving (as a human) is that most of it…

It surprised me how long it took it to realize the road was wet.

I was pulling up to an intersection on a wet road and realized I was seeing reflections of oncoming cars underneath the parked cars. Additionally I was seeing oncoming cars through the windows of some of the parked cars.

I realized that no AI has any understanding of these things. Sure it knows not to pull out from other methods. But I knew it wasn't even safe to look.

Note - our roads are a bit tighter than most. You have to pull car lengths beyond the stop signs to know if it is safe to proceed.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#169
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two issues, first: I thought fully autonomous driving was meant to be done by now? Second, don't Tesla & SpaceX have a reputation for being a terrible place to work, with Musk expecting everyone to be working as hard (or harder) than him, and firing people in weird and capricious ways.

>I thought fully autonomous driving was meant to be done by now? Musk was bullshitting when he made that prediction. Maybe he did it because he had bought his own bullshit. Personally I think what's more likely is that he was cynically conning people. In reality, I think no-one is anywhere close to fully self driving cars. I would be surprised if we saw fully self driving cars any time in the next 50 years. The whole…

I think 50 years is being overly pessimistic. Self-driving in temperate climates is probably pretty close ([1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/16/waymos-robotaxi-pilot-surp...

[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/10/20907901/waymo-driverles...

Post reply on HN