Live data from Hacker News

Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

tesla.com

21–30 of 658 posts

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#21
post #7

I believe this was released as part of Tesla's Autopilot hiring announcement. More details here: https://www.tesla.com/autopilotAI Definitely someone's dream job ;) I particularly like the applicant query: "Tell us, what extraordinary work you have done?"

Two issues, first: I thought fully autonomous driving was meant to be done by now? Second, don't Tesla & SpaceX have a reputation for being a terrible place to work, with Musk expecting everyone to be working as hard (or harder) than him, and firing people in weird and capricious ways.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#22
post #2

I have often wondered about this, so I do find this interesting. Of all of the info presented, one question I have is how does the AI decide when to go at a 4-way stop? In real life, I'm am constantly amazed at how confusing a 4-way stop is to humans. Not that I ever had any doubt into how complicated real-time video analysis could be, this just makes my appreciation of the complexity of the problem that much more qu…

As a casual observer of self-driving, I feel like this is a really interesting part of the overall problem space. Until such time as a vehicle fleet is 100% autonomous, human piloted & autonomous vehicles need to co-exist. Humans bend & break driving rules by social interactions which autonomous vehicles don't currently participate in.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#23
post #2

I have often wondered about this, so I do find this interesting. Of all of the info presented, one question I have is how does the AI decide when to go at a 4-way stop? In real life, I'm am constantly amazed at how confusing a 4-way stop is to humans. Not that I ever had any doubt into how complicated real-time video analysis could be, this just makes my appreciation of the complexity of the problem that much more qu…

The system isn't AI based... It's currently based on static programming. This is why a development team would have to think of every possible scenario that could happen on roads to make self driving cars really work. You'd have to ask all kinds of wild questions too like: "What if kids played a prank and re-painted road lanes on a highway at 50MPH?" "What if a sand storm happened?" "What would the car do if a tire bl…

The system is absolutely AI based today. There is no hardcoding like this. Hardware 3 in Tesla cars is an ASIC meant to run neural nets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Hardware_3). Why are you so confidently stating things you don't know about?

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#24

Which sensor has primacy? radar, lidar or camera? I recall it mentioned somewhere that, after a well publicized tragedy hitting the side of a white truck on a bright day, Tesla was moving to radar? And yet a lot of the cues this awesome video shows seems to be camera-based line detection etc?

Tesla doesn't use lidar. They have always used radar, but radar can't always tell the difference between a stationary metal sign near/over the road and a stalled car in the middle of the lane, so for stationary objects they need the cameras. This is why every adaptive cruise control system (not just Tesla's) has a warning that it may not detect stationary objects. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/why-emergency-br…

Though only(?) Tesla pretends that their adaptive cruise control is full blown self-driving.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#26
post #18

Interesting, but is it just me or does it seem overly jumpy?

One of the real challenges of these systems is that even a very good system only needs to lose confidence in some object for a very short period of time for the system to lose confidence in its navigation and return control to the user. The easy way to get around that issue is to categorize objects and then just ignore them out of the context you expect them to appear in -- which is how Tesla managed to kill a pedestrian walking their bicycle across the road.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#27
post #3
post #2

I have often wondered about this, so I do find this interesting. Of all of the info presented, one question I have is how does the AI decide when to go at a 4-way stop? In real life, I'm am constantly amazed at how confusing a 4-way stop is to humans. Not that I ever had any doubt into how complicated real-time video analysis could be, this just makes my appreciation of the complexity of the problem that much more qu…

Yes. In theory, 4 way stops follow some simple rules -- whoever gets there first and makes a full stop goes first, and if more than one party makes a full stop at the same time, the party on the right goes first. In practice we live in a world of (very illegal) rolling stops, people beckoning at each other to go first, people inching forward, etc. That's not even considering some very stupidly designed four-way stops…

Near where I live we've got two lanes + turn lanes on all 4 sides. It is a nightmare both as a driver and as a pedestrian. I'm not sure how that gets put in place or gets addressed as it inevitably gets busier. Traffic circles perhaps?

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#28

Which sensor has primacy? radar, lidar or camera? I recall it mentioned somewhere that, after a well publicized tragedy hitting the side of a white truck on a bright day, Tesla was moving to radar? And yet a lot of the cues this awesome video shows seems to be camera-based line detection etc?

They use both radar and cameras, but primarily cameras. Lines, road markings, stop lights, and street signs can only be detected with vision, but cars+pedestrians can (usually) be verified by both radar and cameras. In fact, they’ve mentioned that they use radar data to help train the camera neural nets to predict distances more accurately. However, radar alone isn’t sufficient for detecting obstacles — it sometimes misses vehicles with a lot of ground clearance, and sometimes registers false positives when driving underneath bridges and overpasses, resulting in phantom braking.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#29
post #2

I have often wondered about this, so I do find this interesting. Of all of the info presented, one question I have is how does the AI decide when to go at a 4-way stop? In real life, I'm am constantly amazed at how confusing a 4-way stop is to humans. Not that I ever had any doubt into how complicated real-time video analysis could be, this just makes my appreciation of the complexity of the problem that much more qu…

I've wondered why cars don't have a built-in communication mechanism.

I should be able to broadcast somehow (using a voice message?) to nearby cars that "I'm going now, don't go".

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#30
I wonder why they would let the public see this. To the critical eye it looks like it barely works. It loses its mind right at the beginning, around 0:06-0:07, veers to the right for no reason and then rolls through a stop sign without stopping. It spends the rest of the video hunting left and right like a drunk.
Post reply on HN