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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

#321

Post by leereeves »

sebcat wrote: post #314
keanzu wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dead Uber pedestrian Elaine Herzberg was in dark clothing crossing a dark street well away from any crosswalk or street lighting. Would a human driver have performed better? From the footage I saw she was nearly invisible, I would have hit her too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufNNuafuU7M This was not a hard fail for the AI.

The exposure time and the dynamic range of the sensor affects the visibility of the person in that video - it is very likely that a non-distracted human would have performed better. The vehicle was equipped with both radar and lidar. The victim was detected as an unknown object six seconds prior to impact, and at 1.3 seconds prior to impact when the victim entered the road the system determined that emergency braking…

> the system determined that emergency braking by the driver was required, however the (distracted) driver was not alerted of this.

Why would the system notify the driver that emergency braking was required instead of simply braking?

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

#322

Post by mistahenry »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #241
cmroanirgo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember an engineering class at uni in the early 90's discussing how cruise control worked, and was borderline horrified at the childish simplicity of the design. In all this time, I've probably used it 1/2 dozen times, because my trust level is very low. Just the other day I was a passenger in a Peugot and it was raining very heavily. Cruise control automatically disabled when one of the tyres suddenly bogged dow…

Sorry but using cruise control in heavy rain is just simply a bad idea. It's supposed to be used when conditions are ideal, not when they as bad as can be. That is human error, in my opinion.

In my driver’s education course back in the early 2000s, they explicitly told us that Cruise Control can dangerously malfunction in rain and should only be used on dry roads.

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

#323

Post by spartanscrub »

truncate wrote: post #207
throwaway5752 wrote: post #166

There are going to be Autopilot crashes and people should disable it if they uncomfortable with putting their lives in the hands of Tesla's software. I would be. But I see no reason to not believe to not believe what they have on https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport It shows Teslas have much fewer accidents than the average car, and that Teslas with autopilot enabled are substantially safe per mile than with aut…

I do believe autopilot has the potential to be safer than driving manually. But I'm not sure what to take out of that safety report. (1) Comparison against all other cars in US (and across all states) just introduces lots of sampling bias. Teslas are like much more common in states like CA, than say Tennessee. Tennessee accounts for much more accidents in general than California and that adds up in overall stats, but…

I can’t remember if it was just for fires (comparing ICE to electric), but I believe the rates are much closer when you compare to newer cars. Tesla’s are obviously newer and the report does not take this into consideration.

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

#324

Post by Traster »

crca wrote: post #172

Tesla publishes their safety numbers in terms of accidents per x millions of miles driven. If you believe their numbers then Autopilot in its current configuration is clearly safer than a purely human operated vehicle. Having driven on Autopilot for about 85% of the total time I’ve spent in a Tesla, its been a life changer. But obviously YMMV. It really sucks that this specific interchange has cost so many lives - an…

> If you believe their numbers then Autopilot in its current configuration is clearly safer than a purely human operated vehicle.

And you shouldn't, because their numbers don't adjust for demographics, type of road use, or driving conditions.

Do Ford Focus drivers have more accidents than Tesla Model S owners? Yes. Is it that down to the fact that Tesla owners are primarily middle-aged nad Ford Focus's are owned by spotty teenagers? Who knows.

There are fewer crashes when you're on autopilot. Is that because Autopilot is better than humans or is it because Autopilot only gets enabled when its safe? Who knows.

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

#325

Post by jacobush »

denkmoon wrote: post #138
jacobush wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if Tesla had

Nobody at Tesla claims that this is a failsafe system. In fact, they specifically tell you to be ready to take over at any time. That is not a system I would rely upon, personally. Are companies bound to only selling failsafe products? Of course not, we'd never get anything done. I do find it somewhat immoral that Tesla are using their customers as beta testers for this, but nobody has been forced into this. Nobody i…

I think something about responsibility changes at scale.

If a Tesla was a bespoke machine, I'd have no issues. But they know that if they position a feature and posture just-so-and-so, a certain fraction of their customers will get it "the wrong way". What did they do to alleviate this?

Nothing, in my not so humble opinion.

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

#326

Post by zaroth »

keanzu wrote: post #19
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…

GM calls theirs Super Cruise which is true hands-free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxeK0F-D3gg

GM claims "over 5,000,000 miles of hands free miles driven and counting."

Current estimates of AutoPilot miles driven is ~ 2 billion miles. [1]

That's 400x the number of miles driven under AutoPilot. I think it mainly comes down to number of vehicles. SuperCruise is only availble on CT6 which sells about 1,000 vehicles a quarter, and not all trims even have SuperCruise. The CT5 is supposed to be offered with SuperCruise eventually in 2020, but that just went on-sale without SuperCruise, and sales figures seem to indicate it is selling extremely slowly.

If you look on YouTube it's virtually impossible to find a SuperCruise video of just an owner taking it for a drive offering their thoughts. There are dealer demos, or pro car reviewer demos, but nothing remotely like the thousands of AutoPilot videos.

You'll encounter an AP driving Tesla multiple times a day in major cities. You may never have driven along side SuperCruise. We'll see if Cadillac can deploy the feature more widely. They promised all vehicles in 2020 will offer it as an option but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

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

#327

Post by michaelt »

keanzu wrote: post #291
fxtentacle wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dead Uber pedestrian where the AI dismissed the data as faulty and did not slow down at all. I think every human would slow down if they see things that they cannot explain. An AI will not. It's basically the same problem as when an image recognition AI is 99% sure that the photo of your cat shows guacamole. Current AIs do not have a concept of absolute confidence, they only produce an estimate relative to the ot…

> dead Uber pedestrian Elaine Herzberg was in dark clothing crossing a dark street well away from any crosswalk or street lighting. Would a human driver have performed better? From the footage I saw she was nearly invisible, I would have hit her too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufNNuafuU7M This was not a hard fail for the AI.

LIDAR would have picked that up dead easily.

Just like LIDAR would have picked up https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/297901-ntsb-autopilot-de...

And just like LIDAR would have picked up https://youtu.be/-2ml6sjk_8c?t=17

And just like LIDAR would have picked up https://youtu.be/fKyUqZDYwrU

And just like LIDAR would have picked up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50713716

These accidents are 100% due to the decision to use a janky vision system to avoid spending $2000 on lidar; and that janky vision system failing.

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

#328

Post by holstvoogd »

My god the endless stream of 'tEslA BAd!' itt.. You all just mad you didn't buy stock?

This man already knew autopilot would have trouble in this spot and yet choose to play on his phone. He is an idiot.

And to those who way 'they shouldn't call it autopilot if it can't do full self driving!' I suggest you go read up on auto pilot. Direct from the definition: 'Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the vehicle.'

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

#329

Post by holstvoogd »

zyang wrote: post #137
spookthesunset wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love how quick Tesla is to throw their customers under the bus using telemetry data the customer cannot access on their own..

Calling it autopilot, full self driving is borderline criminal.

Wikipedia: 'Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the vehicle'

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

#330

Post by mng2 »

I spent some time looking through the NTSB docket today. I was a little surprised that Apple was willing to provide logs from a development model iPhone. Evidence seems to point to the victim playing a game while commuting -- in my opinion this is a major indictment of Tesla's approach to self-driving, where the user is lulled into a false sense of security.

Another docket was updated today, a Tesla crash in Florida eerily similar to the one a few years ago: semi turning across the highway, Tesla goes under the trailer. Not a great failure mode.

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