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

#551

Post by bluGill » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #538

syshum wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually one of the biggest obstacles to Level 5 is expectation of Zero Deaths for Level 5 autonomous operations. The standard should be fewer deaths than human-operated (or even auto assisted ) cars. When you have thousands of machines traveling in close proximity at speeds exceeding 50mph there will be deaths, this is unavoidable. We need to reduce those as much as possible but to demand ZERO before the technology…

> The standard should be fewer deaths than human-operated (or even auto assisted ) cars. How do we go about testing this? By tallying up autonomous deaths until there are fewer per year than human drivers? > We need to reduce those as much as possible but to demand ZERO before the technology can be used is just unrealistic Human driver skill varies immensely by person. The idea that anyone who is (or even considers t…

It isn't hard to show an order of magnitude less deaths even with non-zero deaths. At that point expect government to mandate level 5 on all cars.

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

#552

Post by Psyladine » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

fouc wrote: post #506

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. > I wonder if that is just me Can't find it now but there was a poignant quote or anecdote I read the other day that expresses this exact sentiment - the more you know about technology, the less likely you are to use it. I think it was in the context of e.g. smart homes and voice assistants or online tracking - if you're aware of how much data they hoover up…

It would be nice if that sort of awareness was more prevalent on HN.

The cult of cheer, eyes waxing over from a disappointed jet-age generation, and a little shiny syndrome.

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

#553

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #546

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

- Tesla makes a product and calls it Autopilot - Autopilot has an option for "full self driving capabilities" (with lots of promises for the future and an unclear description what it actually can do right now) - People buy a Tesla and indeed seem to have a self-driving car if they sleep at the wheel - Tesla doesn’t attempt to make it right that this shouldn’t be done as far as I can tell - Some people believe that Te…

[deleted]

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

#554

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

throwaway92384 wrote: post #448

Alupis wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is a religion, nothing "faux" about it. It fills the same needs, and uses the same mechanisms within the human mind as more traditional religion. It is also completely bonkers, as it makes bold assertions about the real world, with which reality will eventually disagree, whereas older religions tended to keep their most dogmatic positions unfalsifiable (the afterlife, the soul, vague prophecies, ...)

Calling it a religion makes about as much sense as calling efforts to cure AIDS or vaccinate Polio prior to the success of Salk a religion. There is a clear and obvious good to achieve, one which is theoretically implementatable and has predecessors for success. Reality can only disagree if it is outright proven impossible due to something - say in this counterfactual Polio has a 5% of turning any unique adjacent molecule it into more polio. otherwise they are literally Just like how taking the spit of a polio patient and putting it in saline with a sprig of mint will spread instead of vaccinating but it doesn't prove a polio vaccine is impossible because "we tried and people got sick".

It is clearly a goal and a realistic one within even a few decades pessimisitcally given that its ability is creeping upwards.

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

#555

Post by ijpsud » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #545

xkemp wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predicting with All-Caps confidence that autonomous driving is "decades away" is at least as indefensible as overly optimistic predictions were.

Having driven in Canadian winters, I honestly agree that reliable autonomous driving in inclement weather is indeed decades away. The visual recognition needed is well beyond the systems today.

Isn't that just "image de-obfuscation" though? Seems like narrow AI will be able to out-class humans at that in no time. You can generate as much training data for that as you want. Doesn't really require human-type intelligence. Though I guess you might mean that the obfuscation makes the edge cases even harder, which makes sense.

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

#556

Post by keanzu » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #542

TheAdamist wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has no relevance once level 5 exists. Vehicle manufacturers will run the vehicles directly if there is any profit to be made from a taxi service.

I doubt it. Vertical integration only works so far. I think the manufactures will sell cars to those want to run a taxi company. This is, and will remain a race to the bottom because competition is fierce: people buy price and first to get to them. They will also sell cars to normal people. Most people don't think about how convenient it is to have the storage of their personal car. If parking is free or cheap (which…

Congestion problems are dramatically alleviated if you can convert your city over to self driving only. Once the cars can drive in platoons they are packed in tight, no more accordion effect.

On the way something like UberPool would be needed. Or the taxi can just drive me to the nearest train station and I can take mass transit into the city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_(automobile)

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

#557

Post by Communitivity » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:24 PM 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 agree with all but one of your points, and they're all well made.

However, by saying "AI is stochastical gradient descent optimization" you're equating AI with Machine Learning/Deep Learning.

The list of AI technologies also includes things like Artificial Life, Genetic Algorithms, Biological Systems Modeling, and Semantic Reasoning.

I suspect that when we get true AI, i.e. Strong AI or Artificial General Intelligence, we will achieve it through a combination of these techniques made to work together.

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

#558

Post by DangerousPie » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #376

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would almost agree with you, but please indulge with me in the following thought. Let's say that you can go to work by feet or by bike. Let's also say that by feet your probability of getting killed are 1 in 1,000,000, and the commute takes 20 minutes. On a bike, commuting takes only 10 minutes, but the probability is up to 1 in 200,000. Five times more. You end up deciding to use the bike every day to go to work.…

These sorts of analyses get complicated fast. Walking is riskier in part because you're more exposed to the "killer self-driving cars", but also people with preconditions will walk. Like, if you're drunk you'll walk home, if you're unfit you're more likely to walk than cycle, etc., people walking probably get mugged more often, ...

But OP is making the opposite assumption here - that cycling is riskier. Which, keeping all other factors constant, seems intuitively correct to me since you go at a higher speed and you are on the road with cars rather than on the sidewalk.

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

#559

Post by Psyladine » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #450

tiborsaas wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never owned a car, but going anywhere, anytime, at will is a very real thing and cars are the obvious solution. Humans are terrible at safe driving and self driving will eventually solve this. I don't see how this is not the future of transportation.

We're going to lose the global warming battle if we don't reduce personal cars in transportation. (And no, EVs don't solve it, they still have way too big CO2 footprints)

> personal cars in transportation.

the EPA[1] says 4.6 metric tons of co2 from an average car. There were[2] 1bn cars in service globally, as of 2010.

“It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars."[3]

1bn/50m = 20 cargo ships equal the estimated world carbon footprint of automobiles.

There are 50,000 cargo ships globally. There's your problem, go nuclear or go home.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/cars/ [3] https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping...

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

#560

Post by bluGill » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

sam_goody wrote: post #419

Alupis wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Flying cars might or might not happen (see other discussions here). However they will never be more than a niche. Airplanes need far more safety space than cars. For a car you need a few dozen meters to the cars front and back, and less than 1 side to side. For airplanes it is thousands of meters in all directions, and you are limited as to height before you run out of atmosphere. So even thought planes run in 3d space, there is in practice less space for them than the few roads in a city.