Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

kqed.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

891–900 of 919 posts

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

#891

Post by snowwrestler »

nradov wrote: post #640
fortran77 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handwriting recognition works very well if you can capture the actual strokes used while writing and not just the end result.

I doubt it. My handwriting is at least average neatness, and stroke based recognition systems still make multiple errors per sentence. It's just a frustrating waste of time and now that we have touch screen keyboards there's no longer any point to handwriting recognition. The only handwriting recognition system which ever worked correctly with a low error rate was Palm Graffiti. It forced the user to learn a new shor…

The secret to Palm Graffiti's market success was that it hacked user expectations.

Because it asked users to learn a new way of writing, when the recognition failed, users were more likely to blame themselves, like, "Oh, I must have not done that Graffiti letter right, I'll try again."

But when it came to recognizing regular (i.e. natural) handwriting, users believed inherently (i.e. somewhat unconsciously) that they already knew how to write, and the machine was new, so mistakes were the machine's fault.

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

#892

Post by ivalm »

nicpottier wrote: post #722
ivalm wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current self-driving might be safer than the avarage driver Citation needed, as far as I know this is not true at all.

Obviously take with a grain of salt give the source but.. https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport "In the 4th quarter, we registered one accident for every 3.07 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.10 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active…

I don't think it is at all reasonable to assume this. The autopilot disengagement is a major driver of "tesla autopilot safety".

I don't know what disengagement rate is for Tesla, but we do know that early 2019 waymo it was like roughly every 11k miles driven[0]. Given that waymo uses lidar/generally considered to be closer to actual autonomy than Tesla this speaks poorly of actual autopilot safety.

[0] - https://9to5google.com/2019/02/13/waymo-self-driving-disenga...

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

#893

Post by MereInterest »

anon73044 wrote: post #696
MereInterest wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70% more likely to be killed when struck by a larger car [1]. With a higher front face, pedestrians are struck in the chest, rather than the legs. Turns out, broken legs are a lot more survivable than damage to internal organs. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/07/a-deadly-prob...

By that logic, a low slung sports car is the most pedestrian safe and Ferrari's should get a pedestrian safety rebate. I'll take one!

So long as there is sufficient space between the hood and the engine, which tends to be the main issue with very low cars. Sheet metal deforms as a pedestrian bounces off of the hood, increasing the interaction time and decreasing the instantaneous acceleration. This requires at least 10 cm between the bottom of the hood and the top of the engine. Less distance, and a pedestrian instead bounces off of the engine block, which doesn't deform on impact.

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

#894

Post by brandonmenc »

skgoa wrote: post #877
brandonmenc wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the car go fill itself up with gas at night while I am soundly asleep. I'm bearish on both self-driving and the universal adoption of electric cars, but everyone will be plugging their car in at home long before they can make one that drives itself to the gas station.

> everyone will be plugging their car in at home I realize that a lot of people here are privileged enough to own a single family home, but the majority of humanity lives in apartments and parks on the street. Trickle-charging at home is not a universal solution. The only practical solution seems to be some form of rapid charging of the car's energy storage. Either by pumping huge amounts of amps into a huge battery…

yeah, everyone is missing my point with this statement which is pointing out that it's never going to happen

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

#895

Post by ironmagma »

smallcharleston wrote: post #673
neuronic wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. What really bugs me, as someone working in consulting as a hands-on backend developer with a previous background in technical consulting at an accounting Big4 (student job), is the insane amount of PR, politics and marketing talk by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are talking about. I witnessed politicians an…

I wonder why the self-driving car hype folks don’t simply lobby to make more trains. (I mean the ones who have been successfully marketed to here, not the marketers).

How do you know the people bullish on self driving cars haven’t also lobbied for trains? There’s a lot more standing in the way of trains being built in the US, unfortunately. To me, self driving cars are just the second-best thing, and one that might actually happen. It’s a bit too late for trains to take over in most of the country.

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

#896

Post by brokenmachine »

johnjungles wrote: post #676
maxaf wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should at least test drive it under controlled conditions [...] Who cares what the car does under controlled conditions? I'm sure the manufacturer did exactly that in their testing. Even when they test on public roads, there's a hands-off safety driver behind the wheel, who is paid to be on the lookout and sufficiently alert to take over in case of an unexpected excursion. (Unless the self-driving car under tes…

My comment about controlled conditions was about making you feel comfortable and give yourself a safe to try it out to get an understanding of when it. It wasn’t to say to believe in self driving, I agree it’s a long way out. Understanding the technology is more important than dismissing it altogether is what I was simply trying to point out. I think you can at the least try it, understand it, then have an opinion ab…

I'm not OP, but even if a test drive went perfectly, I would remain worried about the chance of the car randomly killing me for some stupid edge case reason.

Maybe not today, not tommorrow, but maybe six months in the future when the weather and road conditions happen to be just precisely right to confuse the system at just the most dangerous time.

In the meantime I will just read/watch the stories of people more trusting than me about how well the technology works, and currently those stories don't fill me with confidence.

IMO, this is currently dangerous technology that should not be allowed on the road at all.

Common-sense tells me that these half-self-driving systems are dangerous.

I would like to see a study that tested the reaction times of a person who sits doing nothing for a hour and then is suddenly expected to take evasive maneuvers, versus a sober - or even a drunk - driver who is actually driving the car continuously.

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

#897

Post by brokenmachine »

johnjungles wrote: post #680
neotek wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becaus…

Thank you for having actually tried it then having a real opinion about it. I have a Tesla, I usually use autopilot for highway traffic only, summon it like a valet to where I am in my parking lot, and not have to idle in hot and cold weather. I agree, I wouldn’t use it for local roads and unclear highways, but isn’t this what they tell you? I don’t think they ever tell you that it’s full self driving right now. Also…

>summon it like a valet to where I am in my parking lot

It can drive by itself from where it's parked to where you are?

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

#898

Post by brokenmachine »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #502
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 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…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22088547

Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus... (via foxrob92)

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

#899

Post by brokenmachine »

dkonofalski wrote: post #833
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…

The car had LIDAR. It wasn't an equipment failure, it was a failure on the part of the programmers. They had programmed in a hard delay to prevent erratic breaking and the system was programmed to dump data whenever an object was re-categorized. The system detected the person in the road as an unknown obstruction and properly detected that it was moving into the road but it re-categorized that obstruction 4 times bef…

Seriously, that is hopeless. It is worse than I'd expect from a university project.

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

#900

Post by hvidgaard »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #881
hvidgaard wrote: post #873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone defines Autopilot as an automatic system, shouldn't the definition in the dictionaries be updated? That was a rhetorical question, because it happens all the time. Besides, Tesla claim that it can drive you unassisted on the highway, so they are very much coining that definition as well.

Everyone does not. This is why you see this many people have a problem with how you seem to use that word.

Not everyone as the pedantic everyone - it's stupid to argue semantics. Tesla claims when you order a car that it has

> Full Self-Driving Capability

And in my experience 9 out 10 people take that literally.

Post reply on HN