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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

#471

Post by jerome-jh »

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…

The pilot's name is: marketing. Tesla is well known for rushing engineering and cultivate market cap. Seeing a pattern? Boeing, Uber, ...

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

#472

Post by DeedsMoraine »

scirocco wrote: post #409
fxtentacle wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like an NVIDIA salesperson trying to sell me on a $3000 Titan ;) There is no doubt in my mind that an AI with billions of parameters will be excellent at memorizing stuff. I also have no doubt that research activity has exploded, which might be related to the generous hardware grants being handed out... But all that research has produced surprisingly little progress over algorithms from 2004 in the field of…

I wonder how many solutions within the AI field could just be categorized as "Automation"

All of them. That's how AI works. Not by making smarter machines, but by destroying intelligence by smashing it into machine-digestible bits.

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

#473

Post by _-___________-_ »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #468
_-___________-_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of rental cars I've used in Italy have this lane assist feature. Italian roads often have... inconsistent or incomplete... markings. After the first day driving I had to Google how to switch it off, because it tried to crash the car several times. I don't understand how these features can be launched in this state.

Anecdotally to the contrary, in California where the lane markings are quite good in most areas, the Tesla AP works great.

It would seem sensible for the "autopilot" to have knowledge of where the lane markings are known to be reliable, and only enable itself there. The vast majority of the world's roads have lane markings that absolutely cannot be relied upon.

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

#474

Post by sedgjh23 »

michaelt wrote: post #327
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.

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 decis…

It’s $75,000 USD for the LIDAR sensor, a far cry from $2,000.

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

#475

Post by thorin »

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…

Response makes sense, I've never thought about it before but I don't like gadgets at all (EE and programmer for 25 years). I like simple things, don't have home assistant, don't have tablet anymore, rarely use computer at home, like simple things in my musical instrument and tv setup, no games consoles (used to love games as a kid but not anymore). It's less to worry about and I feel I get more done.

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

#476

Post by skat20phys »

lb1lf wrote: post #377
neor wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. Were not at the self-driving level of kicking back the seat and watching netflix on your phone yet. I doubt we will ever get there; there will always be edge cases which are difficult for a computer to grasp. Faded lane markin…

> I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. -This is the scariest bit, IMHO. Basically, autopilot is well enough developed to mostly work under normal conditions; humans aren't very good at staying alert for extended periods of time just monitoring something which mos…

This "driver aid" model itself is starting to sound like a problem to me. You either have safe, autonomous driving or you don't.

A model where a driver is assumed to disengage attention, etc but then be expected to rengage in a fraction of a second to respond to an anomalous event is fundamentally at its core flawed I think. It's like asking a human to drive and not drive at the same time. Most driving laws assume a driver should be alert and at the wheel; this is what...? Assuming you're not alert and at the wheel?

As you're pointing out, this leads to a convenient out legally for the manufacturer, who can just say "you weren't using it correctly."

I fail to see the point of autopilot at all if you're supposed to be able to correct it at any instant in real-world driving conditions.

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

#477

Post by Galaxeblaffer »

mcrae wrote: post #470
ailideex wrote: post #462

Maybe there is something wrong with the coffee I have had today but I utterly fail to see the novelty or notoriety in the title as a whole or any subset of it. Can someone maybe point it out to me? People complain a lot. Engineers are people. People still do things they complain about. People die in crashes. Cars crash. Teslas are cars. What am I missing?

I mean like, he had previously complained about the car swerving towards a barrier on the 101. He later crashed his car into the same barrier while on Autopilot which took his life. I think the intuition is that like, if a piece of technology repeatedly shows itself to drive your car into a concrete barrier, maybe don't play video games while passing that same concrete barrier.

... while using the same auto pilot that earlier steered your car towards certain doom

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

#478

Post by mcv »

Alupis wrote: post #388
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…

This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. It's followers see no other possible solution as acceptable. Instead of putting our heads together to make really good driver assistance technologies and being satisfied, the darn thing needs to also drive itself everywhere otherwise we're leaving something on the table! Untill we have zero deaths, we cannot stop demanding…

I'm very excited about the possibility of self-driving cars. Let the car drive while I take a nap or read a book.

But I have a hard time believing that the technology is anywhere close to being mature. You need a lot of contextual knowledge to drive safely in unusual circumstances. I totally believe that within well-defined limits, AI already outperforms humans, but traffic has no well-defined limits. Anything can happen.

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

#479

Post by Retric »

coldtea wrote: post #432
sam_goody wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, flying cars will eventually arrive. Perhaps it will be limited to specific "lanes" (it will be much more palatable to the masses if it must (like cars) keep to a limited area). But it will not need to recognize pedestrians and bikers and human driven cars, and some standard will be introduced to allow all them self driving cars to talk to each other. At that point, Level 5 will be much easier, even obvious. All…

> IMO, flying cars will eventually arrive. Not so sure. I saw specific designs hyped in the 80s and 90s, and know of efforts hyped in the 70s as well. The reason they always fail is because constraints of designing a car to go on land and the constraints of designing a flying machine are different. You can sorta kinda build something that does both, and people have, time and again, but it will be good at neither of t…

> To cite only one of many examples, a car engine needs torque to handle hills and provide traction at slow speeds, an airplane engine needs high speed to maximize propeller efficiency, and torque and speed are opposites

You can get around that by using an electric transmission. A turbine drives an alternator which drives 2 sets of electric motors one for the wheels and one for the propellors. As to the rest of the post it’s attacking a straw man. I don’t think people want a highway capable car that can also fly. If you can fly why drive on the highway?

A 50k to 100k VTL ‘flying car’ with maximum cruse speed of 80 MPH, maximum altitude of 10,000 feet, a range of 500 miles, room for 2+ people, and a cargo capacity of 1,000lb including people fits most people’s definitions of a flying car. Being able to move around on the ground at say 15 to 25MPH without giant spinning blades would also be a great feature.

Oddly enough I think we already have something close to flying motorcycles in autogyros, but the closest thing to a flying car is a vanilla small flying airplane and those run you 250k new.

PS: There is even something of a jet pack alternative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpwd-T2Qvbk

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

#480

Post by Piskvorrr »

skat20phys wrote: post #476
lb1lf wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. -This is the scariest bit, IMHO. Basically, autopilot is well enough developed to mostly work under normal conditions; humans aren't very good at staying alert for extended periods of time just monitoring something which mos…

This "driver aid" model itself is starting to sound like a problem to me. You either have safe, autonomous driving or you don't. A model where a driver is assumed to disengage attention, etc but then be expected to rengage in a fraction of a second to respond to an anomalous event is fundamentally at its core flawed I think. It's like asking a human to drive and not drive at the same time. Most driving laws assume a…

It's only a problem if you believe in driverless cars, then it becomes a Hard Problem: "it works in situations where it's irrelevant", but so does plain old not holding the wheel: look, it's self-driving!* (in ideal conditions)
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