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Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

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Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#201
post #156

These spectacular fails weaken the rationalist's arguments that "as long as FSD achieves lower deaths per km driven (or any other metric) than humans" then FSD should be accepted in favor of human driving. Even if "on aggregate" FSD performs safer (by some metric) than humans, as long as FSD continues to fail in a way that would have been easily preventable had a human been at the wheel, FSD will not be accepted into…

I think you misunderstand the argument. It is that if, hypothetically, FSD really did save human lives on average then it should be accepted as the default mode of driving. It would be a net win in human lives after all. But the "should" can also acknowledge that people irrationally won't accept this net life-saving technology because it will redistribute the deaths in ways which they're not accustomed to. So it's as much a statement about utility as a statement about the need to convince people.

Of course this is all theoretical. If we had solid evidence that it performs better than humans in some scenarios but worse in others then we could save even more lives by only allowing it to run in those cases where it does and only do shadow-mode piloting in the others (or those who opt into lab rat mode). Enabling it by default only makes sense if we do know that it performs better on average and we do not know when it does.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#202
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will die today because a driver was drunk/distracted/suicidal/rode raged or had a medical problem. Are you OK with that or do you think we should attempt to fix that with software? If you do think you should attempt to fix that, do you understand that software engineering is a iterative process? It gets safer overtime.

> People will die today because a driver was drunk/distracted/suicidal/rode raged or had a medical problem. That's a straw man argument. Mandatory breathalyzer tests before every engine start and yearly medical and psychological check-ups would solve a lot of these problems as well. > It gets safer overtime. There is no evidence of this happening yet. It's still trying to drive people into concrete pillars. Remember…

>Mandatory breathalyzer tests before every engine start

We don't do that today and we are still allowing people to drive on the road today.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#203
post #11

I don't understand how something this broken is allowed to operate on public roads. If I drove like Tesla's FSD seems to based on the videos I've seen, I'd be pulled out of my car and arrested on (well founded) suspicions of "driving while hammered." After a decade of work, it's not capable of doing much beyond "blundering around a city mostly without hitting stuff, but pay attention, because it'll try to hit the mos…

The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Nine versions in, I would expect ongoing challenges with things like you mention. But continued failure to even see large, flat obstacles is no longer something that needs to be fixed – that it has persisted this long (even after killing someone as in the case of T-boning a semi trailer at highway speeds) is an indictment of the entire approach Tesla has been taking to FSD. I used…

The monorail video is jaw-dropping.

Yes. Pause the video and look at the car's screen. There's no indication on screen of the columns. A car on the other side of the row of columns is recognized, but not the columns. It's clear that Tesla has a special-purpose recognizer for "car".

The columns are a solid obstacle almost impinging into the road, one that doesn't look like a car. That's the standard Tesla fail. Most high-speed Tesla autopilot collisions have involved something that sticks out into a lane - fire truck, street sweeper, construction barrier - but didn't look like the rear end of a car.

As I've been saying for years now, the first job is to determine that the road ahead is flat enough to drive on. Then decide where you want to drive. I did the DARPA Grand Challenge 16 years ago, which was off-road, so that was the first problem to solve. Tesla has lane-following and smart cruise control, like other automakers, to which they've added some hacks to create the illusion of self-driving. But they just don't have the "verify road ahead is flat" technology.

Waymo does, and gets into far less trouble.

There's no fundamental reason LIDAR units have to be expensive. There are several approaches to flash/solid state LIDAR which could become cheap. They require custom ICs with unusual processes (InGaAs) that are very expensive when you make 10 of them, and not so bad at quantity 10,000,000. The mechanically scanned LIDAR units are now smaller and less expensive.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#204
post #156

These spectacular fails weaken the rationalist's arguments that "as long as FSD achieves lower deaths per km driven (or any other metric) than humans" then FSD should be accepted in favor of human driving. Even if "on aggregate" FSD performs safer (by some metric) than humans, as long as FSD continues to fail in a way that would have been easily preventable had a human been at the wheel, FSD will not be accepted into…

Yeah, I've brought this point up in other locations. It does not matter that any autonomous driving tech is safer than human drivers. They MUST be perfect for the general public to accept them. The only accidents they'd be allowed to get into are ones that are beyond their control. Algorithmic accidents, no matter how rare they are, won't be tolerated by the general public. Nobody will accept a self driving car runni…

>They MUST be perfect for the general public to accept them

No they don't, its far from perfect right now yet its available and you can use it right now provided you have money to buy it.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#205
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People will die today because a driver was drunk/distracted/suicidal/rode raged or had a medical problem. That's a straw man argument. Mandatory breathalyzer tests before every engine start and yearly medical and psychological check-ups would solve a lot of these problems as well. > It gets safer overtime. There is no evidence of this happening yet. It's still trying to drive people into concrete pillars. Remember…

What are you proposing? If someone is overweight with high blood pressure and a higher risk for a heart attack we should take away their license? These drivers are vetted and their usage is monitored, many are employees. In the long run automated driving will save many more lives than it takes. Just like automated elevators. https://www.npr.org/2015/07/31/427990392/remembering-when-dr... .

> What are you proposing? If someone is overweight with high blood pressure and a higher risk for a heart attack we should take away their license?

This does not seem like an important nit to pick, so I'm wondering why you're picking it. The number of people killed or injured because a driver had a heart attack at the wheel is vanishingly small compared to drunk or distracted driving.

So let's reframe your question as you should have asked it:

"If someone is driving drunk or distracted we should take away their license?"

Yes. Absolutely.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#206
post #144
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest some simple Smoke Tests. I love that concept for software testing. It could be applied here to test if we are getting closer or further from what humans can do. Some examples: Smoke Test 1: Driving with Snow Smoke Test 2: Driving with Rain Smoke Test 3: You are driving to a Red sign and you notice 50 meters ahead a pedestrian has its headphones on. The pedestrian is distracted and looking at traffic coming…

>the cyclist bad humor slecht humeur? That's "bad mood".

You are right. Was on mobile. Cannot edit it anymore...:-)

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#208
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally doesn't matter how well it does in 90% of situations when the other 10% can injure or kill people in relatively basic scenarios like the Tweets presented. I mean the car almost ran into a concrete pillar like it wasn't even there. > For BETA software, FSD 9 is doing remarkably well If this was a React website, that'd be great. But it's a production $40,000 multi ton automobile.

> ...doesn't matter how well it does in 90% of situations... Based on the full-length videos, I'd say it's more like 99.9% or even 99.99% for FSD 9.

That might be acceptable for minor failures but not for catastrophic failure.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Nine versions in, I would expect ongoing challenges with things like you mention. But continued failure to even see large, flat obstacles is no longer something that needs to be fixed – that it has persisted this long (even after killing someone as in the case of T-boning a semi trailer at highway speeds) is an indictment of the entire approach Tesla has been taking to FSD. I used…

The monorail posts and planters would be trivially handled by LIDAR. Tesla's aversion to time of flight sensors often strikes me a premature given our level of planning/perception technology.

I feel like the Xbox Kinect from 2010 would be a better vision solution than what they’ve got here, at least for the 20 feet ahead of you.

Re: Scenarios in which Tesla FSD Beta 9.0 fails

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you think of this closed beta as a way for Tesla to collect data about its program's shortcomings it's easy enough to see how releasing could save lives in the long run even it is takes some in the short run. Every day sooner that a 10x better self driving car comes is hundreds of lives saved.

And what if it gets stuck in a local maximum and never improves? Then you lost those extra lives for no reason, which consequently is what I believe has happened. At least 4 people are dead in preventable autopilot crashes, and the real number is probably over 10. For the number of Tesla’s on the road that number is way too high. https://tesladeaths.com

4 deaths is worth a 1% increased chance of achieving self driving a month earlier. Way more than 400 people a month die in car accidents.
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