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Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

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Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#251

Post by bmat »

For every tragedy, there are tragedies avoided. I can attest to a few. In the last 10,000 miles, Autopilot has: safely swerved to avoid a car that would have sideswiped me, preemptively braked after detecting the 2nd car ahead (not visible to me) had slammed on its brakes, and avoided colliding with a completely stopped vehicle in the center lane of the freeway.

And FWIW I've never felt misled about Autopilot's capabilities. I started off skeptical and it's since earned my partial trust in limited scenarios. Ironically its hiccups actually make me more attentive since, ya know, I don't want it to kill me.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#252

Post by capkutay »

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

Yeah I have a similar feeling...but I am willing to try it. Just aware that there are probably corner cases it can't handle and generally curious about what the behavior is.

For instance, I was driving on autopilot on a section of 101 where they repainted the lanes. I let autopilot do its thing...but I closely observed and kept my hand on the wheel and foot on the brakes. Lo and behold...the car positioned itself right in the shoulder and was driving towards no-man's land. If someone wasn't paying attention in this situation, it would have been catastrophic.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#253

Post by thdrdt »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #239
thdrdt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Current self-driving might be safer than the avarage driver, but what most people forget is how unsafe it is when it fails. It fails harder than most avarage drivers and even bad drivers. In my eyes self-driving should still be called driving-assistance.

Can you cite any sources that AI fails harder? I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to.

Well for example all the YouTube videos that show how Tesla drivers take over the wheel in case of a failure.

Those failures include driving straight into barriers.

Other systems like OpenPilot show the same.

When it fails you better take control of the wheel or you will crash hard.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#254

Post by freeqaz »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #239
thdrdt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Current self-driving might be safer than the avarage driver, but what most people forget is how unsafe it is when it fails. It fails harder than most avarage drivers and even bad drivers. In my eyes self-driving should still be called driving-assistance.

Can you cite any sources that AI fails harder? I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to.

I believe he's alluding to the nature of the accidents. They're high intensity events which are more likely to be fatal (speeds were ~70mph). They're not fender benders when the autopilot fails.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#255

Post by bananabreakfast »

salimmadjd wrote: post #12

This is sad and tragic. I remember going with a friend on a Tesla test drive. He was eager to try the Autopilot system. And within a few minutes we got freaked out with what seem to us as unpredictable action and we turned it off. I think the engineer should have never relied on it. Especially if he had concerns with the system. At the same time, "Autopilot" is misleading and Tesla does own responsibility here. Even…

"Autopilot" is not misleading. You just don't know what autopilot means.

Autopilot on planes does not mean the plane is self-flying and the pilot doesn't have to pay attention anymore to take over at a moment's notice. Why would you think it's suddenly different in a car?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#256

Post by hvidgaard »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #239
thdrdt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Current self-driving might be safer than the avarage driver, but what most people forget is how unsafe it is when it fails. It fails harder than most avarage drivers and even bad drivers. In my eyes self-driving should still be called driving-assistance.

Can you cite any sources that AI fails harder? I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to.

Not classifying a fire truck stopped on the highway, as something you need to avoid, is a good example.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/297901-ntsb-autopilot-de...

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#257

Post by hvidgaard »

bmat wrote: post #251

For every tragedy, there are tragedies avoided. I can attest to a few. In the last 10,000 miles, Autopilot has: safely swerved to avoid a car that would have sideswiped me, preemptively braked after detecting the 2nd car ahead (not visible to me) had slammed on its brakes, and avoided colliding with a completely stopped vehicle in the center lane of the freeway. And FWIW I've never felt misled about Autopilot's capab…

That squarely puts Autopilot in the "Driver Aid" category. That is fine, just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#258

Post by bananabreakfast »

liability wrote: post #198
PopeRigby wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think self driving cars are a ridiculous solution to a problem we created and doesn't need to exist. The US building out the country for cars wasn't a good way to do transportation. If we just had trains going from city to city and subways in the cities, we wouldn't even need self driving cars.

The 'problem' doesn't even exist; non-autonomous cars work fine in America. Autonomy is a luxury product.

lol, there is a serious car accident in America every 3 seconds. People die every day in car accidents. Is that what you consider "working fine"?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#259

Post by Jasper_ »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #165
Jasper_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single time this is posted, I have to remind people that the video posted on Tesla's own Autopilot website [0] says this RIGHT at the beginning: "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself" They are not saying "use with caution, autopilot is an assistance feature", they are saying "The car is driving itself". [0] https://www.tesla.com/aut…

I don't know when that went up there, but that's not demonstrating autopilot - that's demonstrating Full-Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities. Less than 10 seconds in it's demonstrating functionality that Autopilot does not have - turning from one road onto another, stopping at intersections, etc.

Internet Archive suggests it's been up since late 2016, with the video, and only minor changes to copy since then.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161213042716/https://www.tesla...

> Less than 10 seconds in it's demonstrating functionality that Autopilot does not have

It's on a page called "Autopilot", as the hero video. It's not very clear that this is functionality that Autopilot does not have, and it helps add to the confusion about what Autopilot is and what it is not, something seem keen to take advantage of.

They have had 4 years to possibly push that video down the page, perhaps add a title or a disclaimer saying that this is not Autopilot, perhaps clear up the confusion. Whether it's intentionally like this, or just plain old incompetence, either way it's not a great look for Tesla.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#260

Post by fxtentacle »

allovernow wrote: post #217
fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

I don't know where you got these papers but you clearly got an awful sampling and I don't think you're giving computer vision a fair evaluation. Granted, we're not quite ready for self driving, but there's no question that the neural network subfield of ML has absolutely exploded in the last 5-10 years and is bursting with productionizable, application ready architectures that are already solving real world problems.

BTW, I would very much like to see progress in optical flow because I could really use it for one of my projects.

If you know any good paper that tries a novel approach and doesn't just recycle the old SSIM+pyramid loss, please post the title or DOI :)

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