Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:07 AM UTC

WA wrote: post #423

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted. No one does. Literally no one. No owner, not Tesla themselves, not their website, not their sellers. Why do people keep bringing this up. Everybody knows it is not full self-driving, yes we all know, yes and? Where does this zealotry come from?

From the hundreds of YouTube videos where people sleep at the wheel of their Tesla or do something else.

Are you making Tesla inc responsible for videos that some other people put up on the internet? How would you even propose to police this, to make it illegal to use a car in a video unless the usage is somehow approved by the car manufacturer?

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

#482

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #385

eloisant wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is true that Americans rely a bit too much on their cars, and have built infrastructure based on it instead of public transportation, it's hard to envision a world where individual transportation is no longer needed. Look at Japan, they have a great train network but still use cars a lot. Because while train works well in cities, you still need people living in the country side to grow your food.

There a massive gap between “all cars should be banned”, which you seem to be replying to, and “some urban areas should be allowed to densify and operate without cars if their citizens want that”.

That's true but it seems like the people advocating for policy on both ends don't understand the difference in density and therefore transportation needs between Boston and Boise. Everyone wants policy to be a state or federal level cudgel these days and quite frankly that is stupid.

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

#483

Post by keanzu » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

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…

SAE Level 5 is completely transformative, it will utterly change the market and the use of cars. Once you can conveniently call up an automated Uber the need, at least in cities, to buy your own car will effectively vanish.

This is Uber's endgame - get humans out of the loop. As long as cars still need human drivers this cost savings can't be realized.

> Forget better braking systems that apply themselves automatically.

This already exists: Mercedes, for example, first rolled out "Active Brake Assist" to a production model in 1996. Moreover any fully self driving vehicle will definitely need to be able to apply the brakes.

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

#484

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:17 AM UTC

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.

How is it any more idiotic than maintaining that speed manually?

I'm struggling to think of any combination of hardware/software that isn't asinine on first glance (e.g. feed the cruise control off only the rear wheel speed sensors on a FWD vehicle) where cruise control would be any different than a driver manually holding the same speed by putting their foot on the gas.

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

#485

Post by lb1lf » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

-The cynic in me suggests we need autopilot as a testbed on the way to the holy grail of Level 5 autonomous vehicles.

The engineer in me fears that problem may be a tad too difficult to solve given existing infrastructure - that is, we'd probably need to retrofit all sorts of sensors and beacons and whatnot to roads in order to help the vehicles travelling on it.

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

#486

Post by neotek » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:20 AM UTC

johnjungles wrote: post #442

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 is an oversimplification of Tesla’s technology, and they don’t use Tensorflow, other people’s pre-trained models, and computer vision isn’t the only thing that is a part of driving, they use radar and ultrasonics as well. I try new technologies all the time to get a sense of where it is in coming to fruition. I think what you mean is, you’re more skeptical of claims. The same way you claim you can’t learn anythi…

I've driven a Model 3 over the course of a few days, maybe a handful of hours in total, and based on that experience I absolutely do not feel comfortable using Auto Pilot and would not buy a Tesla at the moment.

It's far more janky and susceptible to confusion than Tesla makes it out to be in its marketing, and the reality is that people simply do not pay as much attention as they are required to when using it because Tesla has convinced them it's magic that's safer than anything else on the road.

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

#487

Post by keanzu » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

sedgjh23 wrote: post #474

michaelt wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that was the price for Velodyne's 64 laser LIDAR. They've discontinued it and now the top of the line is the Alpha Prime VLS-128 which has 128 lasers and is ~$100K.

There are many other cheaper LIDARs, even in the Velodyne lineup, but they are less capable.

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

#488

Post by traviscj » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

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 love this take!

I’ve been similarly untrusting of a lot of “high tech” approaches to various things, and I derive a lot of joy from products/services/etc that take a “back to basics” or at least minimally- or non-digital philosophy. In particular: I have an affinity for automatic watches and carbureted motorcycles.

If nothing else, it’s a bit of a break from what feels like a constant struggle to keep all the gears turning at work.

BUT... I’ll confess I’m also a sucker for innovations / the occasional new hotness. I recently upgraded a Kawasaki KLR650 (a competent but... “well tested”, shall we say? motorcycle) in favor of KTM’s top-of-the-line adventure bike. The technology difference between the two (despite only 3 model years between them) is incredible: the latter adds 5x the power, ride-by-wire, cruise control, lean-sensitive ABS/traction control, an up/down-capable quickshifter, probably a thousand other improvements.

One day, about 1100 miles into owning the new bike, the dash pops up a low tire pressure warning from the tire pressure monitoring system. It showed the rear pressure was fairly low, and sure enough, I’d picked up a small screw between the treads.

Certainly a TPMS is nothing compared to anything self-driving, but honestly it was a bit of a wake-up call — I WANT systems on my bike to increase my safety level.

I’m not really sure what the lesson is here. Maybe “Look for the middle grounds (the ABS/TPMS-maturity systems) between ancient technology (anything on my beloved KLR) and bleeding edge (non-replicable papers on self-driving cars)”? Seems like this holds up ok, especially as a consumer of those techs... But maybe not for the innovators?

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

#489

Post by skat20phys » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

ascar wrote: post #398

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That report is comparing humans driving in all conditions vs autopilot driving in only the best conditions. Humans are deciding when it is safe enough to turn autopilot on. So no, it is not less dangerous.

That's not what the report is comparing at all. The report is comparing all vehicles driving in all conditions vs Teslas driving in all conditions (separate for with and without autopilot). The numbers show that Teslas experience a lower crash rate than other vehicles. Granted, this can be to a number of reasons including the hypothesis that humans deciding to buy Teslas drive more carefully to begin with. And the nu…

I think the tricky part is that at some level you want to be comparing counterfactuals. That is, accident rates of Teslas on autopilot with a driver of Tesla-driver abilities, in road conditions where the accidents occur, and so forth.

It kinda seems self evident that a car that drives you into a wall randomly is less safe than one that doesn't.

I grant that Teslas might be safer than eg a drunk driver, and so we might be better off replacing all cars with Teslas in some sense, but we'd also be better off if we replaced drunk drivers with sober ones. But would safe, competent drivers be safer, and would that be ethical? At that point are you penalizing safe competent drivers?

Drunk drivers in Teslas are actually interesting for me to think about, because I suspect they'd inappropriately disengage autopilot at nontrivial rates. I'm not sure what that says but it seems significant to me in thinking about issues. To me it maybe suggests autopilot should be used as a feature of last resort, like "turn this on if you're unable to drive safely and comply with driving laws." But then shouldn't you just not be behind the wheel, and find someone who can?

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

#490

Post by KurtMueller » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 11:25 AM UTC

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…

Hey man, I want all of it, especially while on the way to full self-driving cars.