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Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

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Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#21

Post by detaro »

gwbas1c wrote: post #9
spamalot159 wrote: post #2

I've been acquainted with a number of engineers at various autonomous vehicle companies and they are some of the most reserved people when it comes to the reality of autonomous driving. Many of them going so far as to say they would never use one for themselves now or in the near future. I think when domain experts speak up like this we should listen. The autonomous vehicle technology seems like it has a long way to…

One of the biases in Hacker News is that comments like yours tend to get downvoted. Some of my more reserved comments get downvoted, and then flooded with replies about 360 vision and cars never getting sleepy. IMO: Most of the autonomous driving tech will evolve to be driver assistance and safety tech in the upcoming decade. I still believe we'll get autonomous driving someday, but not until we have a few more AI br…

... he comments under the top comment.

Skepticism of self-driving tech and "AI" in general is a very popular position here.

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#22

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

I think the big issue is that if you really want autonomous driving over any road, you will likely either need sensors beyond vision or some AGI level model of the world.

For example, on the highway, truck infront of you drops some debris.

What do you do? It can be dangerous to suddenly swerve or brake, but also dangerous to hit something.

What you do In real life is quickly evaluate. You are looking at the object that fell and estimating how deformable it is. For example, if it looks like a wad of paper, you would continue on. Or you estimate if you have clearance based o how big it looks and your mental model of your car’s clearance.

You also look at the traffic beside you and behind you to evaluate risk of braking or swerving.

You are also doing object recognition. If it is an empty box, you may be ok hitting it, but if it is an infant car seat that fell, you will brake hard/ swerve even if it is dangerous.

Also, for people who bring up the safety of human drivers, one thing to consider is the safety of a hybrid approach where the human is still in charge but you have safety features like lane keeping, blind spot monitoring, automatic emergency braking, etc. That hybrid approach may be actually safer than either only human, or only computer driving.

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#23

Post by ocdtrekkie »

908B64B197 wrote: post #17
spamalot159 wrote: post #2

I've been acquainted with a number of engineers at various autonomous vehicle companies and they are some of the most reserved people when it comes to the reality of autonomous driving. Many of them going so far as to say they would never use one for themselves now or in the near future. I think when domain experts speak up like this we should listen. The autonomous vehicle technology seems like it has a long way to…

It's an incredibly hard problem to solve. The Boring Company might be onto something. These tunnels are a very controlled environment, highly predictable. If they can be be made cheaper it might just be the initial "killer app" of self-driving cars.

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27077320

The Boring company is essentially redesigning trains. With single-family train cars that are also very overpriced normal cars. That need to be substantially modified into very inefficient train cars to go down the tunnel.

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#25

Post by aeternum »

gwbas1c wrote: post #9
spamalot159 wrote: post #2

I've been acquainted with a number of engineers at various autonomous vehicle companies and they are some of the most reserved people when it comes to the reality of autonomous driving. Many of them going so far as to say they would never use one for themselves now or in the near future. I think when domain experts speak up like this we should listen. The autonomous vehicle technology seems like it has a long way to…

One of the biases in Hacker News is that comments like yours tend to get downvoted. Some of my more reserved comments get downvoted, and then flooded with replies about 360 vision and cars never getting sleepy. IMO: Most of the autonomous driving tech will evolve to be driver assistance and safety tech in the upcoming decade. I still believe we'll get autonomous driving someday, but not until we have a few more AI br…

This is because OP's comment is simply an appeal to authority without any direct evidence or reasoning. Listen to the experts. This is highly counter to the hacker ethos, and personally, I'm disappointed to see it as a top comment on HN.

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#26

Post by shagie »

wutbrodo wrote: post #7
superkuh wrote: post #3

Autonomous cars might be possible for climates without snow but they'll never be capable of driving with humans in winter till they start making the same intuitive mistakes as humans given sparse data (complete snow covering). The problem with any non-vision based location system to compensate for covered roads is that it isn't what humans use. In winter in cold climates sometimes the roads are covered with snow for…

There are already limitations by road condition. This level of control over the operating environment is part of why so many services are targeting robotaxis as their initial product.

Would a robotaxi in Detroit, Chicago, or Minneapolis in the winter be viable?

I'm thinking about those roads where it's nominally a two lane in each direction, but the snow banks make it a 1.5 lane in each direction (if that).

Where one doesn't start into the intersection when the light turns green - to give any cars that have the need to slide through. And likewise the ability for the robotaxi to realize "well, I've got no traction - guess I'm going to slide through this intersection and the left turn is impossible - I'm going straight through."

A robotaxi in LA, SF... ok. Pheonix - sure. But I've yet to see any examples of a self driving vehicle able to drive in winter condition roads in the midwest.

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#28

Post by ocdtrekkie »

TylerLives wrote: post #14
paulcole wrote: post #10

I still can’t get over how deceptive the marketing was on the Autopilot page on Tesla.com >Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars >All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. How was it possible to know in advance what hardware will be required?

What would they need the better hardware for?

If they haven't achieved full self driving, how could they know, and hence claim, to have the necessary hardware?

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#29

Post by [deleted] »

bhupy wrote: post #15
spamalot159 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to Elon, there were a lot of naysayers coming at him about Tesla and SpaceX but he has accomplished more than they ever thought he would. Most of the time, however he has exaggerated the timeline in order to keep the hype around him and his companies. I think he would do better to under-promise and over-deliver. Especially with a technology that could potentially cost lives if delivered too early.

The way I like to think about it, Elon Musk over over over over promises, and "just" over delivers. Most CEOs could never dream of producing the kinds of real results that Elon Musk has, but also most CEOs aren't as comically obnoxious as he is.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Engineer Says Musk Overstated Tesla Autopilot Reality

#30

Post by prima_cookie »

908B64B197 wrote: post #17
spamalot159 wrote: post #2

I've been acquainted with a number of engineers at various autonomous vehicle companies and they are some of the most reserved people when it comes to the reality of autonomous driving. Many of them going so far as to say they would never use one for themselves now or in the near future. I think when domain experts speak up like this we should listen. The autonomous vehicle technology seems like it has a long way to…

It's an incredibly hard problem to solve. The Boring Company might be onto something. These tunnels are a very controlled environment, highly predictable. If they can be be made cheaper it might just be the initial "killer app" of self-driving cars.

if it's just fixed route stuff why not just build more advanced subways/underground trains? not that boring couldn't make that cheaper and faster to do the whole 2/4 door cars in a tunnel thing feels weird to me

I'm not trying to contrarian or anything but most of my life those have been my primary mode of transportation and it's worked out great especially if you throw a bike or now I guess a e-scooter into the mix

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