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Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

arstechnica.com

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Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#181

Post by adrianN »

paulddraper wrote: post #168
est31 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For self-driving cars, what would that be? You can misuse a non-self driving car by speeding, giving you above-average chances of accidents. You can be old, giving you above average chances of being involved in accidents (per km driven). You can smoke, giving you above average chances of getting lung cancer. You can misuse a partially self driving car by somehow convincing it that you do follow the traffic while actu…

> Unless some roads are more susceptible to accidents than others By chance do you happen to live somewhere without icy roads?

I imagine that computers are a lot better than humans at control tasks like keeping traction on icy roads. I don't think that this is a hard problem in self-driving tech.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#182

Post by scarejunba »

paulddraper wrote: post #179
scarejunba wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. This reminds me of all the comments about apps like Dropbox. "Do you happen to live with strict low data caps?" Well, guess what, those guys are still on Reddit making snarky comments and the Dropbox guys have IPO'd.

I certainly hope hazardous weather conditions go the way of small data caps.

Haha, or we can get better at dealing with them and introduce ourselves to them as we get better.

But fair play for playing with the analogy. Funny.

Yes, people who can't live in pleasant places will not get some tech early. C'est la vie. We'll get there.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#183

Post by sliken »

Retric wrote: post #178
sliken wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, question is, does that lower level of stress make it harder to pay attention enough to save your life when the 0.1% event happens?

First stress kills, so the heath benifits are meaningful. Second, these systems are adding redundancy. As both the system and human driver needs to fail which means someone that’s only paying attention 98% of the time can still cover for 49 out of 50 times the system fails. Current data suggests a net gain in safety which is likely to improve as these systems mature.

I agree, but the problem is if you are not controlling the throttle and not controlling the steering wheel.. what are you doing? I find it tedious, but not particularly hard to drive for 12 hours in a row. On road trips most people I travel with fall asleep within a few hours if they are not driving.

Seems human nature to watch the car avoid 99 problems, and fall into a false sense of security and stop paying attention. Sleep, cell phone, talking to a passenger, or just day dreaming seems ever more likely the longer you are letting the car drive.

It's 2 people so far that lethally broadsided an 18 wheeler with a tesla on autopilot?

So an attentive human + FSD sounds great. Not sure humans are going to be able to stay attentive though. Sure at some point inattentive human + FSD will be safer than a stand alone human, but it doesn't seem like that's happened yet.

Telsa seems a bit evasive with the safety data. Maybe it's because human with autopilot off (but safety braking on) is just as safe as human with autopilot on.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#184

Post by alkonaut »

ec109685 wrote: post #157
alkonaut wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether cameras or lidar win out, just consider the fact that back up cameras already exist on tons of modern cars, and the solution to the environment issues of these cameras is one of: a) fold it out when you put the car in reverse, so it's always ice-free b) ignore this problem. It's covered in ice for months. This is a simple problem in comparison, and neither of the above solutions would work for a…

If the camera is broken, Tesla will obviously not enable auto driving. It has a steering wheel for a reason.

If it’s “broken” every morning for months in winter climates like the cameras I mention, then people there won’t pay a premium for the capability.

And if it doesn’t keep itself ice free it will risk going from uncovered to covered in seconds. Cameras need to be ice/snow/rain proof in the sense that they stay clear of it while driving.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#185

Post by zaroth »

ypzhang2 wrote: post #125
zaroth wrote: post #96

I’ve read so many of these articles obviously written by someone who has no hands-on experience with the Tesla Autopilot and what it actually does for the driving experience. Maybe Tesla will get to a point where my TM3 will drive me to work while I nap, or use my phone. One thing that’s pretty amazing is that if they can get to that point, it will come as a free automatic software update or an available for purchase…

Issue is Autopilot is more of a feature that is geared towards convenience. You are doing all of the driver attention work, but someone who activates Autopilot isn't required to. I think a lot of the argument against Tesla is that Autopilot isn't doing enough in that arena. GM's Super Cruise is a lot more feature-full with regards to driver attentiveness. It might not be as useful in terms of being able to be used ev…

Anyone who drives a car is technically, legally, and ethically responsible for being capable of operating the machine and to do so in a responsible manner.

Tens of thousands of people a year fail to do exactly that. Tens of thousands of fatalities every year, not to mention maimings and injuries, countless billions of dollars in property damages and lost wages, because humans generally fail in their legal, and ethical responsibility to operate their motor vehicles responsibly and in conditions they could handle.

There have been a few cases where Tesla drivers have made the same failing. Sometimes the AutoPilot feature was engaged at the time. Sometimes they were just pushing the vehicle too hard and ended up on the wrong side of physics. The Tesla is stupidly fun to drive and sometimes I drive more spiritedly than I should. Being too fun to drive could get people hurt or killed too (and it has)

I strongly believe a responsible driver is more safe with than without an AutoPilot feature, mostly from my own personal experience, as the data point I used to cite is somewhat controversial.

Just like the amazing cornering and torque of the Tesla can be abused and even lead to fatalities when pushed too far, so can the AutoPilot.

I personally think it’s a mistake to make the feature significantly less useful to a responsible driver to try to possibly prevent these edge cases. If it were possible to make the attentiveness features entirely non-intrusive than absolutely they should be added. But in reality the attentiveness features are already intrusive to a responsible driver and detract from the experience.

Interestingly Volvo seems to be going in a different direction. They believe as the manufacturer it’s their responsibility to create a product that even a human attempting to operating irresponsibly or illegally should be kept safe. They’re adding hard speed limits well below the functional limit of the hardware, and contemplating even systems like breathalyzers and fatigue detection which would entirely disable the vehicle.

I personally don’t want to live in a world where every product I use is sizing me up and deciding how I should use it, whether it’s a chef’s knife, jet ski, automobile, or semi-automatic.

In the meantime what I love most about AutoPilot is how it can only possibly get better over time, and every single car in the fleet is benefiting from that. That’s as long as the regulators don’t fuck it up.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#186

Post by J_cst »

peeters wrote: post #32

I've always found that half the issue is with the name: Autopilot. On an airplane, autopilot means you can take your focus off of both the physical and mental act of moving the plane through the air, and if it needs you to intercede there is pretty much no emergency in which you wouldn't have a few seconds to react. In a car, Tesla's Autopilot simply doesn't give you that. If you are reading and your autopilot exits,…

Unfortunately people buy on promises, marketing guys know that, and Elon - among other things - is a marketing person. The promise of 'self driving' was too appealing to be left unspent.

Ethically discussable, but that's how things seems to work.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#188

Post by imtringued »

est31 wrote: post #97
perl4ever wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product." I am skeptical of that, because I expect that even if disconnects are ultra-rare overall, and the testing is representative of normal usage, there will be enough people that frequently use the technology in ways far off on the tail of the distribution that for them, disconnects…

For self-driving cars, what would that be? You can misuse a non-self driving car by speeding, giving you above-average chances of accidents. You can be old, giving you above average chances of being involved in accidents (per km driven). You can smoke, giving you above average chances of getting lung cancer. You can misuse a partially self driving car by somehow convincing it that you do follow the traffic while actu…

>You can misuse a non-self driving car by speeding, giving you above-average chances of accidents.

I feel like it's the opposite... When I drive the speed limit, other drivers around me become more aggressive. Even if they have to exit the highway 20 seconds later they fiercely fight for tiny speed differences of 10km/h, start flashing their headlights, etc.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#189

Post by g6nhe9twPd66 »

jaimex2 wrote: post #113

I'm confused. The article seems to extrapolate that Tesla has failed in autonomous driving because it removed some lines from its Autopilot page. It's still very much in progress and progress is routinely confirmed by the company. Musk is known for blowing timelines but they do get delivered. When it talks about "old approach" I'm again confused. No one else crowd sources driving data from a real world fleet. They ha…

> Currently Autopilot is very clear on telling at every chance its an assistant.

Yep, hence why this article is just clickbait for Tesla haters. Every Tesla owner is fully aware that it's not self-driving in the sense that you can take a nap.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#190

Post by garmaine »

creato wrote: post #175
oflannabhra wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Will be”? Yep. Given an infinite timescale computers “will be” able to do lots of things better than people, such as navigate rough terrain or open a door. Currently, they can’t do any of that better than humans, and probably not for several years.

It sounded like the post you replied to was referring to emergency maneuvers, and I think automated systems are probably better than humans at some kinds of emergency maneuvers even right now.

Performing emergency maneuvers, yes. Predicting the need for emergency maneuvers based on the varied and unpredictable responses of humans in exceptional circumstances, not so much.
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