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

arstechnica.com

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

#131

Post by jfoster »

URSpider94 wrote: post #104
karmakaze wrote: post #71

Not buying the storyline. Certainly Tesla will have to keep upgrading its systems to achieve true FSD. They could even decide that LIDAR has become cheap enough to use anyway. What they have is cars on the road collecting data. They'll have to collect new data and develop new algorithms on that data but that path is not excluded from them. > "It is a misconception that you can just keep developing a driver assistance…

The proposition that is being discussed is not whether Tesla as a company will get to autonomous driving, it’s whether Tesla’s current suite of sensors and its “HW 3” inference engine will get there. Keep in mind, Tesla has taken thousands of dollars from customers with the promise that they will deliver them “full self driving” in the near future (or actually in the past, as it was promised by 2018). If Tesla revise…

> Tesla has taken thousands of dollars from customers with the promise that they will deliver them “full self driving” in the near future

Isn't that between Tesla and the customers who paid for it?

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

#132

Post by ashtonkem »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #97
smnrchrds wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All of the systems in other vehicles have the same pitfalls as any driver-assistance system and have the same driver behavior risks as Tesla's system.

They’re also designed and marketed very differently. The lane keeping in my Subaru isn’t good enough for me to fully trust it, so I monitor it carefully.

I suspect that there’s probably a local minimum for safety, where the autopilot is good enough to lull users into complacency, but not good enough to actually be safe.

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

#133

Post by mortenjorck »

granzymes wrote: post #7
breakfastduck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bound to happen, but also likely to be the result of the driver not paying attention.

Right, but 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 slowly improving the autopilot with a person behind the wheel is super dangerous because we get lulled into a false sense of security. I hope Tesla just keeps it to highway lane keeping until they're ready to roll out better sensors.

This principle is glaringly obvious in retrospect, and seeing it put so succinctly actually changed my mind. I previously thought Tesla's approach was an achievable long shot, but I'm now convinced it's fundamentally wrong.

The safety-driver model pursued by Waymo and every other autonomy startup is the only responsible way to train an autonomy network because the drivers are specifically trained to look out for edge cases, versus consumers who will easily be lulled into complacency once the system looks superficially like it's running at level-5 competency.

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

#134

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

mrtksn wrote: post #23
granzymes wrote: post #3

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…

I'm not so sure the second one is something a person would never do. The second car also brakes very late, for instance. Did autopilot break at the last second for the Tesla, or the driver? I'm also bearish on autopilot and am not saying the Tesla performed well, but I bet human highway drivers run into stationary traffic all the time too.

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

#135

Post by jfoster »

guiomie wrote: post #84
karmakaze wrote: post #71

Not buying the storyline. Certainly Tesla will have to keep upgrading its systems to achieve true FSD. They could even decide that LIDAR has become cheap enough to use anyway. What they have is cars on the road collecting data. They'll have to collect new data and develop new algorithms on that data but that path is not excluded from them. > "It is a misconception that you can just keep developing a driver assistance…

"What they have is cars on the road collecting data" ... what do the ToS say about this? Is this really true they are gathering data from all their customers? I havent seen uptick in my internet bandwidth as Tesla owner.

If you are using AP or FSD and you take control suddenly, that will sometimes send data to Tesla so that they can improve the autonomy. I don't know what the ToS say, but Tesla are pretty open about the fact that the cars do that.

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

#136

Post by dragonwriter »

mortenjorck wrote: post #133
granzymes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but 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 slowly improving the autopilot with a person behind the wheel is super dangerous because we get lulled into a false sense of security. I hope Tesla just keeps it to highway lane keeping until they're ready to roll out better sensors.

This principle is glaringly obvious in retrospect, and seeing it put so succinctly actually changed my mind. I previously thought Tesla's approach was an achievable long shot, but I'm now convinced it's fundamentally wrong. The safety-driver model pursued by Waymo and every other autonomy startup is the only responsible way to train an autonomy network because the drivers are specifically trained to look out for edge…

While I agree that the Waymo, et al., way is the only responsible way, that is not an argument against Tesla’s way being workable, just that it is grossly unethical.

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

#137

Post by jiofih »

missedthecue wrote: post #16
raldi wrote: post #14

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

Musk seems more of a marketer than an engineer to me, even though he's always characterized as one.

Not only he sold two tech companies where he worked as a software engineer early in his career, but he has been the chief engineer for SpaceX for almost twenty years, and the results of that kind of speak for themselves?

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

#138

Post by lathiat »

mxschumacher wrote: post #54
rcxdude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of how Tesla is viewed in the autonomous car industry. No-one thinks they are a serious contender when it comes to a driverless vehicle (and their business model basically doesn't match with the technology either: every other company is basically going to operate a taxi service because there's far more value to be captured and it can help pay for the hardware making driverless possible)

it's interesting how optimistic long term visions conflict - if you really think autonomous cabs will become widespread then by implication you are also saying that car sales will be drastically lower. Tough to be serious betting on both. The math of "you'll pay more for the car but the car will go out and make money for you as a robotic Uber" sounds like a pyramid scheme to me; if too many people do it, it can no lo…

The Tesla robotic Uber thing can totally work but it's not going to work if everyone with a car now, tries to use it. It'l flatten out to find the break event point.

But that's a normal market effect and the same as Taxis which traditionally (at least in many places) had quotas to stop people not getting enough jobs to fulfill their wage (Taxi 'Tag' or 'Plate' or 'License'); or similar effects on the number of Uber drivers which obviously are not restricted so you have a sort-of imperfect market effect there where it's not worth more drivers joining as they won't get paid enough and some will leave.. or part of why supposedly surge pricing will drive drivers to leave to further away areas to take more jobs, etc.

Not a market expert but just wanted to note that while, in effect, you are right.. it's not really surprising, unexpected or unprecedented and not a pyramid scheme :)

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

#139

Post by alextheparrot »

jfoster wrote: post #123
sixQuarks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, getting downvoted for stating this fact. I can't believe the anti-Musk bias here on HN. You would think HN would actually appreciate one of the more innovative entrepreneurs on the planet.

I think it might be due to a form of jealousy. Sad to see HN so unenthusiastic about a guy who is probably the most amazing entrepreneur of our time. It's not that he hasn't invited a little bit of controversy (eg. comments about the diver, covid, etc.) but I think those are inconsequential when it comes to HN's attitude toward him.

What are you all talking about, the original top-level post has a reasonably presented assessment of Tesla’s strategy and the ramifications of such a strategy. Sure, that assessment might be flawed, but I don’t see how any of that is “anti-Musk bias” or “jealousy”.

The comment regarding humans not needing LiDAR misses the point, which is that either every other self-driving car group is incorrectly deploying an expensive hardware solution or there are valid technical reasons why that might be a better path to L5. Tesla trying to overcome the limitations other companies are deploying LiDAR for is a technical risk they are taking on, and, as the top level post noted, might not be the worst bet given the downside which is that they’ll just have to license the tech.

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