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Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

latimes.com

371–380 of 394 posts

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet Tesla comes out saying “we’ve got some mediocre cameras and we’re gonna run with it!” To be fair, humans managed to solve self-driving with some mediocre cameras, some crappy microphones, and some unreliable force-feedback and chemical sensors, without (importantly) adding any new sensors to the hardware between start-of-project and successful full driving. So it's not a priori implausible that "use whatever se…

The difference here is that our “cameras” are processed in ways we really don’t understand and at speeds we can’t seem to compete with yet (at least not with the quality of processing we have, so far). Our sight is also enhanced by our hearing or familiarity with certain driving situations and, in most cases, familiarity with certain places we drive frequently. If we isolated our eyes from our other senses I have a f…

Unspoken knowledge is also not one of the 5 human senses.

FSD needs the human sense that seeing a stop sign on the freeway (sticking out of the back of a highway maintenance trailer) doesn't mean what a stop sign usually means - but that stopped highway trailer, with a person holding the same sign and looking at you means you should follow it.

Should you run into a pile of gravel to avoid a baby stroller? If a loose garbage can and a baby stroller appear on opposite sides of the road and both block your path, which one do you hit? A soccer ball coming out between parked cars probably has a kid following it...

The people who have died with FSD ran into problems like these. A human would see a transport truck cab, and the wheels on the other side of the road and infer that - even though it blends into the sky - that there's a trailer in between. One of the Tesla accidents was that the side of the trailer appeared the same color and location as the sky, so the Tesla didn't see it and went under the trailer at highway speeds. The driver wasn't paying attention and didn't make it.

Sensing packages will only get you so far, human intuition for new unexpected situations is impossible to get AI to learn - at least at this point.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#372
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what you mean exactly. If you’re suggesting that repeated failure to meet ambitious target deadlines is more indicative of bad faith than a single failure to do so, well… I don’t think it works like that. The bar for abandoning the presumption of good faith, and the principle of charitable interpretation, is very high.

> I’m not sure what you mean exactly. If you’re suggesting that repeated failure to meet ambitious target deadlines is more indicative of bad faith than a single failure to do so, well… I don’t think it works like that. Sure it does! Elon Musk isn't 5, right? He's capable of observing the rate of progress and adjusting his pronouncements.

Failure to improve forecasting skills is valid criticism, but that doesn’t amount to bad faith.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#373
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not sure what you mean exactly. If you’re suggesting that repeated failure to meet ambitious target deadlines is more indicative of bad faith than a single failure to do so, well… I don’t think it works like that. Sure it does! Elon Musk isn't 5, right? He's capable of observing the rate of progress and adjusting his pronouncements.

Failure to improve forecasting skills is valid criticism, but that doesn’t amount to bad faith.

It's bad faith if you believe he does have the capability but intentionally doesn't use it. And isn't listening to his advisors.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between "all normal driving conditions" ( your definition of Level 4) and "all known driving conditions" (your definition of L5)?

These are not my definitions, they are the SAE's definitions. As anyone can verify themselves by visiting SAE.org

Even with SAE's definition, Waymo seems to be at L4: https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#375
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here is that our “cameras” are processed in ways we really don’t understand and at speeds we can’t seem to compete with yet (at least not with the quality of processing we have, so far). Our sight is also enhanced by our hearing or familiarity with certain driving situations and, in most cases, familiarity with certain places we drive frequently. If we isolated our eyes from our other senses I have a f…

Unspoken knowledge is also not one of the 5 human senses. FSD needs the human sense that seeing a stop sign on the freeway (sticking out of the back of a highway maintenance trailer) doesn't mean what a stop sign usually means - but that stopped highway trailer, with a person holding the same sign and looking at you means you should follow it. Should you run into a pile of gravel to avoid a baby stroller? If a loose…

Agree 100% but I wouldn’t call it intuition, but human understanding. We don’t just see stuff, we understand it. We understand so much context surrounding the things we see. We can predict the weight of an object by observing it’s motion in response to wind, essentially running a physics simulation, to know that that 4x8 sheet of styrofoam blowing in our lane poses no risk. Or that an empty cardboard box tumbling in the wind is actually empty based on it's motion.

We have an incredible level of understanding.

Jeez I even put myself in other drivers’ shoes/heads so as to predict their behavior. Their subtle cues in lane positioning, distraction, etc. they’re all incredibly telling if you can model human psychology.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird amount of hubris for someone who either doesn't understand the goals of current work on self-driving cars or is just clueless about the field. Tesla's attempts at self-driving capture absolutely nothing besides... Tesla's attempts at self-driving. There are companies with realistic sensor stacks, not artificially imposing restrictions so they can pre-sell their results, actually focused on self-drivin…

Dismissing "snow" as something that happens only in "the frozen tundra" is fairly provincial. You'd be surprised by how much of the USA (and other industrialized countries) have roads and road edges mostly obscured by snow for weeks at a time multiple times throughout winter. There's a reason almost all autonomous driving tests are done in places like Arizona. And the ones done in winter settings tend to be absolute…

> Dismissing "snow" as something that happens only in "the frozen tundra" is fairly provincial.

Who did that? My comment certainly didn't by any reading of it.

> You'd be surprised by how much of the USA (and other industrialized countries) have roads and road edges mostly obscured by snow for weeks at a time multiple times throughout winter

Again, maybe you would, but I'm not.

> There's a reason almost all autonomous driving tests are done in places like Arizona

Yes, because they have good weather. It turns out that compartmentalizing a problem as large as autonomous vehicles is a smart idea.

It's not like you can't work on participation just because the local weather is nice. Regardless of climate we use things like rain and temp chambers, and there are AVs in places with bad weather, but that's not where service gets launched because again, compartmentation is a good thing.

I guess all that is to say, no one in the AV field is unaware that bad weather is a thing, and yet we're still in the problem space.

> non-human vision modalities which don't actually match how human drivers flock

Is this supposed to be a gotcha or did you not realize AV companies are not about blindly to replicate human vision in the AV field?

You'll find Tesla is the only company silly enough to imply nonsense like that.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rain can be no joke here. I've had to stop driving and pull over for the first time in my life after moving to NC. The rain was too heavy to see more than 10 feet or so.

> The rain was too heavy to see more than 10 feet or so. Probably a hurricane. Did you see any cattle flying?

Not hurricane season at the time. There's a clearly defined season for that weather. This is just a normal thunderstorm.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#378
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rain can be no joke here. I've had to stop driving and pull over for the first time in my life after moving to NC. The rain was too heavy to see more than 10 feet or so.

Rain + city lights can make it hard to see even road markins in front. Technically self-driving car would theoretically have opportunity for advantage here (as it can just refer to maps) but practically it's super hard problem to solve.

Rain fade affects GPS does it not? Is the car relying on inertial navigation for a period? This rain is not something a camera and iffy GPS signal can keep you on the road. The intensity and amount of rain would definitely not let a camera see.

Quick add: this was at 12PM (noon) on a countryish road. City lights had nothing to do here.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#379

It might be a plausible argument for stuff sold 6 years ago when the future was uncertain. But in 2022 I'm not seeing how it's plausible as an excuse. Considering it's still being sold and marketed as 'Full self driving'. Clearly even level 4 autonomy is far beyond what any near future technology is capable of. If at the very least due to the fact that a very commonly encountered condition, construction work, effecti…

Pretend you don’t know anything about the different levels. You’re just a random person looking to buy a car. What does “full self driving” sound like to you?

Great, so we're back to "unlimited data" doesn't really mean "unlimited" but, just a large amount, but not really a large amount, because...

Words have meaning. Full self driving, to anyone who isn't a nerd who likes to pick shit apart, means the freaking car will drive all by itself as if a human were driving it, maybe even better.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans don't have cameras.

Sure they do. They're those two spherical mostly-white-with-colored-circles-on-the-front things embedded in the upper half of their face. (They usually tend to call them "eyes" for some reason.) They're closed-circuit and wired pretty directly into the brain, so it's not like webcams or recording cameras where you can semi-easily get the data off somewhere else, and obviouly they're kind of wet and squishy and not-ea…

> wired pretty directly into the brain

Eyes are actually the only visible part of our brains. They aren’t wired pretty directly, they themselves are brain material.

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