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Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 581 posts

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#21
post #12

I have a feeling that AGI is a requirement for FSD. There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on.

I feel like AI vs AGI is going to be the next P vs NP kind of issue.

People will mostly realize that the concept of "general" intelligence is flawed yet we might strive to get to it indefinitely.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#22
post #12

I have a feeling that AGI is a requirement for FSD. There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on.

To my mind there are certainly a lot of unknowns around interactions with people outside the vehicle. A simple scenario like someone directing traffic around an accident seems like a nightmare for FSD.

(Edited: slight wording tweak.)

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#23

drivers came to trust it way too quickly. Drivers who were supposed to be closely monitoring the system instead spent their time looking at their phones, putting on makeup, and other distractions. Really hope no one dies because of Tesla's autopilot. This is a real risk. Quoting from below: if the car does it right 99% of the time it's just human nature to stop paying attention. The article makes a great point that s…

People die all the time, there are even higher profile cases like the Apple Engineer who slammed in the barriers at full speed: https://www.kqed.org/news/11801138/apple-engineer-killed-in-...

There are some spectacular failures that are very scary because the car does something that a person would never do, unless unconscious, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU

You don't hear much about it probably because Tesla fanboys are plenty and rabid, so people avoid talking about it online.

The defence is usually stats about human drivers crashing more often and it makes sense until you dive deeper into the numbers because these stats are usually oranges v.s. Apples. It feels like they have some playbook with statistics to slap when someone says something negative. If that doesn't cut, they say that the victim should have followed the manual that says "your attention should always be on the road" then proceed posting a video about how thanks to the latest update they can sleep drive to work and attach a banana to the driving wheel to disable the attention safeguards.

If someone asks how is this an autopilot, there are usually two ways to handle it:

1) Autopilot is just a brand name, the self driving software is in beta, so the victim should pay attention all the times.

2) Autopilot is like on the planes, so only fools think that it is autonomous, therefore it was working as intended but they should have been using it like an airline autopilot. Crash due to user error.

I'm actually a fan of Musk and Tesla but I feel like the community engagement is very unhealthy and lacks scrutiny due to the "online army" of his.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#24
Is anyone else confused on the merits of Waymo's argument? They differentiate "driver assistance" from "fully autonomous" systems in that Tesla somehow can never achieve the latter because they have developed the former. The only specific reason for this that I could find was a mention of LiDAR and how Waymo sees it as indispensable.

> Krafcik says that Waymo has largely completed technical work on its self-driving software and is now focused on scaling the technology up.

...cool? Again, no mention of a SPECIFIC reason Tesla cannot do the same work as Waymo outside of not having LiDAR sensors. They attack Tesla for not developing a fully autonomous vehicle from the get-go, but don't seem to explain why this makes it any harder for them to make the finished product.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#25
post #19

drivers came to trust it way too quickly. Drivers who were supposed to be closely monitoring the system instead spent their time looking at their phones, putting on makeup, and other distractions. Really hope no one dies because of Tesla's autopilot. This is a real risk. Quoting from below: if the car does it right 99% of the time it's just human nature to stop paying attention. The article makes a great point that s…

People will die. It will also save lives. It’s probably already prevented thousands of accidents, some of which would have been fatal. It just doesn’t make national news when your car moves you out of the way of danger.

I am not so sure about this. Modern cars come with a lot of safety features, like automatic braking and adaptive cruise control. Sure, if you replace all 1995 Honda Civics with Teslas, you will save many lives. I don't think you could save any lives by replacing all modern 2020 cars from other manufacturers with Teslas.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#26
I think the FSD beta rollout is completely irresponsible from Tesla. Rolling out a clearly half-baked safety critical technology to its customers (yes, I know it's only a few beta testers) who are untrained is nothing but a tactic to generate hype and get more customers to buy that $10k FSD package.

This is on top of Tesla being the least transparent company out there in reporting safety data or their testing methodologies (Tesla's quarterly safety report is a grand total of a single paragraph). Compare this to how transparent Waymo is [1], the difference in safety culture between Tesla and its competitors is stark. Not to mention how Tesla skirts around the rules by refusing to report autonomous miles with the excuse of classifying it as a driver assist system, while naming the technology "Full Self Driving" and Elon Musk hyping it up every chance he gets on how it will be Level 5-ready by end of the year.

[1] - https://waymo.com/safety/

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#27
post #23

drivers came to trust it way too quickly. Drivers who were supposed to be closely monitoring the system instead spent their time looking at their phones, putting on makeup, and other distractions. Really hope no one dies because of Tesla's autopilot. This is a real risk. Quoting from below: if the car does it right 99% of the time it's just human nature to stop paying attention. The article makes a great point that s…

People die all the time, there are even higher profile cases like the Apple Engineer who slammed in the barriers at full speed: https://www.kqed.org/news/11801138/apple-engineer-killed-in-... There are some spectacular failures that are very scary because the car does something that a person would never do, unless unconscious, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU You don't hear much about it pro…

Wow that second one is terrifying. Particularly since that was only 7 months ago!

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#29

drivers came to trust it way too quickly. Drivers who were supposed to be closely monitoring the system instead spent their time looking at their phones, putting on makeup, and other distractions. Really hope no one dies because of Tesla's autopilot. This is a real risk. Quoting from below: if the car does it right 99% of the time it's just human nature to stop paying attention. The article makes a great point that s…

I think the scrutiny should be whether fewer people die than otherwise would have.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#30
post #14

He seems so obviously correct that I can’t fathom how any engineer could see things otherwise.

An engineer that's being logical and thinking from first principles should come to the same solution, but the vast majority of the population base their viewpoints on what's "true" based on what the internet / mass media has told them for years is true, not by what actually makes logical sense in objective reality.

The news has been spamming PR pieces for years about self-driving cars, with absolutely no technical merit to them. Twitter/Reddit/Etc have been absolutely spammed by echo chambers that all assure themselves that self-driving cars have been invented and will be released soon.

The population is awash with the viral idea that they're possible, exist, and are on the way, because that's just what they've been told for years. The average person repeats the idea because that's what the internet told them is true, which makes it even more "true", since now there's another person repeating it.

What percentage of the population that goes online and talks about how self-driving cars are coming soon actually have the engineering background / technical knowledge to come to that conclusion?

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