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

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

#231

Post by ranman » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:43 AM UTC

While I’m all for being critical of TSLA’s FSD rollout I do think a bit of perspective is warranted: in the USA drivers are routinely drunk, distracted, or just plain stupid.

Everyday day I get on the road and I’m forced to drive defensively because I cannot trust any car on the road to behave logically.

How is that situation changed at all by having computers that don’t behave logically?

There’s a huge confirmation bias at play where you all seem to think human drivers are good... they’re not. They’re absolutely 100% not. The average driver is a complete moron. Go spend 10 minutes scrolling the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

So no, I don’t think TSLA is being irresponsible in their FSD rollout. At worst it’s equivalent to the average human driver.

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

#232

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:44 AM UTC

screye wrote: post #35

I worked with a self-driving product team a couple of years ago. Tesla's approach was looked upon with suspicion and often openly mocked. Tesla's entire self-driving strategy is led by Karpathy, who while brilliant, is an under-experienced researcher with a narrow expertise in large scale 2D CNNs. Tesla (and Comma.ai ?) seem to be the only groups that find Lidar unnecessary for L5 self-driving. I completely agree wit…

Be aware that Comma.ai doesn't bill itself as self-driving, it is just driver assist.

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

#233

Post by kerng » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:44 AM UTC

So much hate towards Tesla here. I'm more neutral - dont have a strong opinion on this. But from Google's messaging it seems that the Waymo CEO is maybe a bit defensive (scared?). Tesla has probably the long term better strategy which leads to more accurate up to date data to constantly improve their system.

Tesla's crowdsourcing strategy might be the winning horse in this race.

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

#234

Post by blueblisters » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

I think Tesla has a distinct advantage over Waymo because of their ability to control the entire vehicle stack from low-level ECUs to the batteries, motors and high-level autonomous stack.

Waymo has to partner with automobile OEMs who are still figuring out how to build electric vehicles, and build them in a way that can integrate with Waymo's technology.

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

#235

Post by aeternum » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

codebolt wrote: post #53

majewsky wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are enough tail events while driving where you can only make "the right decision" if you actually understand what's going on. I have the feeling this bar disqualifies most human drivers, too.

Human drivers fail reliably, in ways that are understandable. Non-AGI artificial intelligence based on a mix of heuristics and dumb statistics (aka 'deep learning') will fail in highly unpredictable and to a human eye completely foolish ways. The day these cars are let on the road in my area is the day I start taking the train.

You can predict the driving patterns of drunk human drivers, or humans that have seizures, cardiac, or other critical health events or just fall asleep at the wheel? Quite impressive.

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

#236

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:48 AM UTC

snoshy wrote: post #175

Animats wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Check out this one.[1] Watch the display for what it sees and isn't seeing. Awareness of oncoming traffic is almost nonexistent. Except when the FedEx truck is reflected in some windows; then it detects the reflection as a vehicle. Although the streets are almost empty, the driver takes over frequently. This is way below what Waymo and Cruise can do. [1] https://youtu.be/6G1Z2J3WUSg?t=231

Is this really all that important? There are 3 other cars ahead of the Tesla at this red light intersection. If you're able to react within tens or hundreds of milliseconds to a changing environment, it would actually make sense to reduce compute to save power for when the vehicle is in motion and not surrounded by other vehicles at a stop light. Edit: It seemed to handle that intersection just fine, but a couple of…

Being able to detect oncoming traffic seems pretty damned important to me! If it’s not detecting vehicles across the line, what assurance do I have that it’ll detect vehicles that cross the line?

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

#237

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:48 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #225

alextheparrot wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expen…

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. Implementing L5 without Lidar must be possible. Humans are absolute proof of that. That's not to say Lidar isn't useful, or cost effective given the complexity of the…

> Humans are absolute proof of that

Humans also have a organic supercomputer in their brain. Variety of sensors is probably the best approach. I've grown up and seen technology prices on all sorts of weird technology fall (3d printers, sensors, midi controllers). At some point, we will basically give up on perfection on LIDAR and just do cheap multi-LIDAR arrays where the error rate is overcome by just having multiple units.

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

#238

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #57

screye wrote: post #35

I worked with a self-driving product team a couple of years ago. Tesla's approach was looked upon with suspicion and often openly mocked. Tesla's entire self-driving strategy is led by Karpathy, who while brilliant, is an under-experienced researcher with a narrow expertise in large scale 2D CNNs. Tesla (and Comma.ai ?) seem to be the only groups that find Lidar unnecessary for L5 self-driving. I completely agree wit…

Tesla (and Comma.ai ?) seem to be the only groups that find Lidar unnecessary for L5 self-driving. There is another group who find Lidar unnecessary for driving: humans.

Sure. But that’s a moot point if it turns out you need to basically replicate large parts of the human brain in order to drive with cameras alone.

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

#239

Post by paul7986 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #143

paul7986 wrote: post #52

Im anti-robot car ... so many ppl will die for progress with this. I'm even more after my friend's Jeep Compass's AI system decided to lock up her brakes and steering wheel as she was turning into the bathroom area after the Golden Gate Bridge. The AI said nope im taking over your going to crash and thus you cant maneuver your way out of hitting the highway wall which she did and total that piece of junk; all bruised…

I would bet quite confidently that your friend would not have been able to avoid a crash, and the “AI” is just a convenient third party to blame. You need to be at a speed way above recommended for an exit, to trigger the anti-collision system, and actually sustain injuries. Humans tend to overestimate their abilities quite strongly, especially in hindsight.

Sure, I hear what your saying, but her insurance company said oh no worries we will pay for it all. It's not your fault... do you not think they have data about these things and why would they pay for it carte blanche?

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

#240

Post by anonytrary » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

ranman wrote: post #231

While I’m all for being critical of TSLA’s FSD rollout I do think a bit of perspective is warranted: in the USA drivers are routinely drunk, distracted, or just plain stupid. Everyday day I get on the road and I’m forced to drive defensively because I cannot trust any car on the road to behave logically. How is that situation changed at all by having computers that don’t behave logically? There’s a huge confirmation…

> Go spend 10 minutes scrolling the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

I don't think that is enough to form a conclusion. I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles and have yet to see an /r/IdiotsInCars moment. I think drivers are better than you think they are. If there are even just 10 recorded idiots a day, then that sub can be active and interesting every single day, but that doesn't reflect the fact that there may be 10,000,000 responsible drivers for each of those idiots.

> At worst it’s equivalent to the average human driver.

So I think this needs to be backed up with actual data and not some anecdotes from Reddit.