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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”

#261

Post by judge2020 »

threeseed wrote: post #167
mrtksn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Autopilot is like on the planes, so only fools think that it is autonomous Nobody other than pilots, engineers or enthusiasts knows the subtleties of how aircraft autopilot systems work. Every other person on this planet knows it to mean "fly the plane by itself". And would expect a Tesla car to "drive by itself".

I think the parent comment was making the same point as you. We, but mostly Tesla, should be educating people on why autopilot doesn't mean it drives itself in all situations. While buying a car[0], the furthest the webpage goes is:

> automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars

And while it does all of this very well right now, there still is that piece of text at the bottom:

> The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.

Honestly Tesla is doing the bare minimum here to have plausible deniability, but the text at the bottom really should be the same size as the text above it.

0: https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#autopilot

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

#262

Post by newbie789 »

kerng wrote: post #233

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.

That’s a very interesting neutral take that “Tesla’s strategy might be the winning horse in this race” and that the Waymo CEO may be defensive or scared. I personally don’t know enough about either company or their tech or how people react to self driving cars to call a winner when it comes to a something (in this case, fully self driving cars at scale) that literally don’t exist yet with enough certainty to predict winners or establish the emotions of either company’s leadership.

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

#263

Post by perryizgr8 »

blueblisters wrote: post #234

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.

I don't think there is any reason for Waymo not to pair up their system with a regular petrol car. Electric vehicle capability is orthogonal to self driving.

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

#264

Post by f5e4 »

joeblau wrote: post #245
kerng wrote: post #233

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.

The term you’re looking for is “Federated Machine Learning.” The more cars Tesla has, the faster they can train the neural networks edge cases.

Tesla does not use federated ML. Federated ML is specifically about training models on device, and is mainly a technique for preserving data privacy.

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

#265

Post by judge2020 »

pound wrote: post #199
jiofih wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: - autopilot was not engaged, only cruise control - the anti-collision applied brakes but not soon enough - the driver walked away without a scratch

How do you differentiate between autopilot and cruise control in Tesla case? I assume by lane keeping engaged?

Yes - 'autopilot' is auto-steer combined with adaptive cruise control. Now, Tesla's technically do have 'dumb' cruise control that doesn't reduce speed in response to a car getting close, but that configuration is rare since you need to specifically call in to buy one without autopilot and is probably not what the article was referring to.

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

#266

Post by judge2020 »

mminer237 wrote: post #8
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 already have died because of Autopilot years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/business/tesla-crash-auto... It is an inevitability that people will die because of any autopilot system if it lasts long enough.

Better source, also linked elsewhere in this thread https://www.tesladeaths.com/

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

#267

Post by perryizgr8 »

trianglem wrote: post #44
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 can die. Honestly in my opinion it’s worth it. Will it happen to me? No, because I’m extra cautious and won’t slack off but to make progress quickly these things must be done. If you really want to be hyper cautious, you can always make the case that it’s saving lives that would otherwise be lost.

> No, because I’m extra cautious and won’t slack off

A big issue is that some random guy in the Tesla behind you may not be so careful. So you cold still get into an accident because of Tesla's recklessness.

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

#268

Post by stingraycharles »

joeblau wrote: post #245
kerng wrote: post #233

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.

The term you’re looking for is “Federated Machine Learning.” The more cars Tesla has, the faster they can train the neural networks edge cases.

They are collecting data on all cars yes, but are training a model in one place. That is not federated machine learning, it’s federated data collection at best.

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

#269

Post by hjnilsson »

sorenjan wrote: post #182
ra7 wrote: post #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 methodo…

I don't understand why it's legal. How can it be allowed to send out uncertified software to cars on public roads? Aren't there safety standards that need to be met? I thought that safety critical products where better regulated than this.

In Europe, most of the Tesla features are disabled because they were deemed hazardous. Only lane assist and adaptive cruise control is enabled. The others are severely limited or disabled (Summon etc.)

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

#270

Post by burmanm »

stordoff wrote: post #224
screye wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference being they are reliable 100% of the time. Cruise control frequently fails and lane assist that explicitly the one that take steering control away from you has put me in dangerous situations more often than it has saved me from them. Lane assist as an alarm to alert you is great though.

Nitpick: 99.(many 9s)% of the time. I had the power steering drop out going into a turn (fuel pump failure IIRC), and it could have easily caused an accident (I physically couldn't turn the wheel enough to complete the turn).

If power steering fails in speed, it doesn't really matter - the power steering does very little when the car has some velocity. If you can't turn the wheel at speed, then there's something else than power steering pump failing (the steering must have been locked by something else).

Or you have very serious muscle weakness, at which point I'm not sure if driving a car is a smart option in any case.

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