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Tesla Autopilot

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Re: Tesla Autopilot

#161

Post by stretchwithme »

legolas2412 wrote: post #135
ageofwant wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, its still an objectively better driver than you.

Not a better driver than "me +active driver assistance like collision detection, Lane keeping etc".

I think that we'll only turn over driving to a computer (for reals) when safety systems are good enough to prevent most accidents. I think we'll keep the safety system separate from the drive system.

Perfecting safety on human drivers first is the way to go and will most of the risk of lettings computers drive.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#162

Post by Qworg »

jaimex2 wrote: post #146
Animats wrote: post #64

Watch this at 0.25x speed or slower to see what's going on. This is a carefully chosen environment. Every place it drives has very clear highway centerline markings. It seems to be highly dependent on those for guidance. Sometimes it can't quite identify the road edge, but the centerline provides a position reference. The inputs seem to be road line recognition, optical flow for the road, and solid object recognition…

This video is from 7 months ago and a concept demo. They would be quite a lot further along now. Read further down: "Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed."

They _might_ be further along. Everything you've quoted is vapor until it is demonstrated with their current hardware.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#163

Post by barrkel »

quotemstr wrote: post #149
elmigranto wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software-like licenses make their way to hardware world. I wonder how soon we'll start seeing "as is" and "no guarantees of any kind" clauses…

People try these shenanigans every generation or so. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

It's not going to work, things will change or we will have no self driving cars. There must be someone who's liable, and that person will be the corporation that wrote the software. That in turn will mean restrictions; the software must be updated on a timely basis, and the risk to the company must be controlled in an actuarial sense just like vehicle insurance.

Vehicle insurance like today can't be used because incentives aren't aligned. Fully self-driving cars will come with an insurance package, and the company will need to control its insurable risk, or there will be no self-driving cars at all. If it's against the law, the law will change, not the model.

I'm sorry, but society will demand it. You will not and cannot have full ownership control over a self-driving car.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#164

Post by aws_ls »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #148
wibr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really believe that the hardware is enough for what they are trying to achieve. There is almost no redundancy e.g. on sensor level except for the front radar supporting the front cameras and ultrasound for close distances, however if one of those rear-facing cameras fails due to a defect or dirt on the lens the vehicle would have to stop because it wouldn't be able to detect oncoming cars. I am also not sure…

I'm interested how they plan to solve the problems that the cameras alone cannot solve (assuming they're just RGB cameras with no special dynamic-range abilities) - like white-out snow conditions or driving directly facing the sun (a contributory cause towards the Tesla+truck fatal crash last year) - I understand that only systems with active projection (e.g. Lidar) and beyond-visual-spectrum cameras can provide reli…

There are quite a few transforms HSV, HSL etc that you can do on images for doing things like lane detection in different conditions (bright light or darkness). Also typically you take the input from 3 camera sources left, right and center.

To add to it there are techniques like applying shadow to a bright image.

When we combine some of these techniques, the task does become possible, even in in adverse conditions.

Also, various techniques often complement each other. For e.g. We may derive a steering angle out of a Machine learning system, and we can cross check that against the lane detection, vehicle detection (no collision) etc.

To think of it, we when we drive ourselves, we just use the eyes. So there is a view that cameras alone are sufficient. But definitely as Radar and Lidar complement the cameras and make the driving system more robust. As Lidar gets cheaper, we are bound to see it being used more even in camera only approaches.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#165

Post by atupem »

wilhil wrote: post #131
castratikron wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this any different than Microsoft restricting Home versions of Office for non-business use? They've been getting away with that for decades now.

Because when you buy software, you know you are renting it - you technically can reverse engineer/decompile, copy, clone, resell - but you know you shouldn't. If I buy a car and want to take the engine out, or a light and resell it - I would be very stupid, but, it is my property and I should be able to. If Tesla want to lend instead of sell you something - fine, just be honest!

In this case the software you're renting is the self driving capability.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#166

Post by barrkel »

georgemcbay wrote: post #31
quotemstr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think our legal system should allow car manufacturers to impose these kinds of restrictions on cars fully owned by their operators. If I have the title on my vehicle, I should be able to use it in any legal capacity. This restriction is an attack on the fundamental ideas of ownership and property.

Well it isn't currently clear that they do. Tesla can write whatever they want into the car version of a EULA, but it doesn't mean there is legal merit to any of it. Assuming Tesla eventually "catches" someone using a Tesla for ride sharing profit outside of their network they could remotely disable the car, at which point they will surely be sued and the courts will decide. And they will very likely decide against T…

If a court rules against the person who has the risk from controlling the risk, they will get themselves out of that situation. That will either mean changing the law, changing to a lease model and ceasing sales, or stop selling self driving at all.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#167

Post by roenxi »

honestoHeminway wrote: post #128
takeda wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between autopilot and examples you mentioned is that autopilot can decrease safety. If it works correctly 99.9% of the time, you get used to it and when 0.1% arrive you will cause accident, because you weren't paying attention.

The airplanes of this world demonstrate this.

Airplanes generally somewhat safer than driving. By quite a margin.

Without consulting the literature, it just seems easy to believe that machine-like consistency 99.9% of the time is more important to safety than confusion in the 0.1%.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#168

Post by NuDinNou »

aerovistae wrote: post #121

I don't think this is a new page on their site-- why is this suddenly at the top of HN? There's no new info here; this isn't an update or press release.

I don't know if there is or not something new with that page, but Elon recently tweeted this

"Radar-only braking on HW1 is getting better with every release. We're hoping to do the demo where it brakes for a UFO in the fog soon."

So maybe that has something to do with it.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#169

Post by PakG1 »

willvarfar wrote: post #160
the_rosentotter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It terrifies me to think of relying on image recognition software to correctly determine an upcoming crossing road (with cars zipping across) so it can properly slow down, rather than get broadsided at full speed. Or a number of other life-and-death situations (which are common during driving). It just seems fragile (what if the 'vision' is somehow impaired, f.ex. blinded by sunlight, or the road markings are wrong o…

> It terrifies me to think of relying on image recognition software to correctly determine (... snip) Do you not drive using only your eyes? If you are not terrified of the sensors, then software? Turing's central belief was that the human brain was 'just' a computer. Regards doing things like embedding reflectors in roads and other ways to simplify lane holding, completely agree. But we can't forego the cameras etc…

If the brain is just a computer, its machine learning algorithms for image recognition at a busy intersection are believably currently more accurate than any image processing software run on any computer that Tesla puts in its cars.

Re: Tesla Autopilot

#170

Post by function_seven »

wheelerwj wrote: post #115
saagarjha wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to respectfully disagree with you here. While I believe that self driving cars are infinitely better than human drivers, in this case I'd exercise caution. The issue here is that the vehicle is not fully self-driving–it still requires a human to be paying attention. The problem is that the system appears to be automatic and as such reduces the driver's focus; I've heard stories of people simply tuning ou…

if the driver allows themselves to lose focus, they are just bad drivers. autopilot won't change that. what it will do is reduce the number of collisions by people who are shitty drivers and are currently driving unprotected. the data already demonstrates that autopilot reduces collisions and fatalities. to argue that it doesn't put you in league with climate change deniers.

> if the driver allows themselves to lose focus, they are just bad drivers

This needs empirical support. All of us are human, and are susceptible to false senses of security. Most of us are not good at assessing real-world risks and probabilities. If the autopilot software is good enough to drive the car successfully for months on end, drivers will start to trust it. It will be very hard to stay vigilant and aware, with eyes on the road at all times and an alertness level on par with manual driving.

In other words, an otherwise “good” driver can easily be lulled into complacency by a system that’s really good, but not perfect. It’s an uncanny valley that is worth discussing.

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