After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again • Hacker News Board

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#241

Post by cgriswald » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:04 AM UTC

0815test wrote: post #210

quickthrower2 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruise control is useful to me because it means I won’t accidentally speed. But having to hold the wheel means I need to pay attention. If the car is driving itself human nature means you might not pay attention. Also if the car does something weird you have to decide in a split second if it is because of a hazard you haven’t seen but the car has, or because the software went wrong.

You do have to hold the wheel, precisely because you might find yourself having to assess what the car is doing "in a split second", and possibly issue corrective actions. You can't do that unless you are holding the wheel and are paying attention to what the car is doing! But all that means is that the car is not really driving itself; it is however dealing with the boring, predictable parts of the job and leaving t…

That makes no sense. If I can’t pay attention to the boring predictable part of driving how am I going to pay attention when I’m not even the one driving?

As for the rare unpredictable stuff, I might not be able to predict, say, a ladder falling off a work truck, but I can recognize it could fall off, prepare for that type of event, probably even recognize it before the car does, and if I don’t die, I can learn from it.

I don’t really see how also having to worry about the car itself creating a rare event helps. Now I’ve got to spend additional time deciding whether to take over and if I do, the time I have to react is reduced.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#242

Post by Chris_Chambers » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:08 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #219

slg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm aware, Tesla has never claimed their cars will be able to handle all those situations. "Self driving car" is a vague term that has different definitions depending on who you ask. You are considering "self driving" as level 5 autonomy and Tesla probably considers it somewhere between 3-4 autonomy. I don't think it makes sense to get angry because their definition of the phrase is not the same as your def…

Tesla skirts morality. The feature is called 'Full self driving'. Their sales reps regularly told customers to take their hands off the steering wheel of their "Autopilot". Sure, the fine print says "always pay attention", but there's an entire marketing scheme going on here which is borderline dishonest.

Borderline?

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#243

Post by prestonh » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:09 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #106

SilasX wrote: post #7

I would be a lot more forgiving of these screwups if Tesla didn't constantly swear up and down that they've solved self-driving cars. As far back as 2016 they were claiming they had full SDC capability above human driver safety [1], and their recent Model Y announcement suggests that the only thing holding it up is regulatory approval, and not failure to achieve the desired spec. >Model Y will have Full Self-Driving…

I don't want to dismiss your whole point, because it is certainly valid, but that isn't really the issue here. It is entirely possible for bugs like this to exist in the self driving tech and for Tesla to be correct in their claims that Autopilot is on average safer than a human driver. It is obviously troubling to see self driving cars run into solid and stationary objects, but human drivers do that all the time too…

Is it, though? If every car that drove that route was a Tesla on autopilot, you'd probably have more traffic fatalities than the national total, and that doesn't even factor in every other similar traffic barrier this can occur at.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#244

Post by tzs » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

kirse wrote: post #184

erobbins wrote: post #138

I think Tesla eventually has a catastrophic accident and is sued and/or criminally prosecuted into oblivion. I feel sorry for the people who are going to have to die for this to happen. This trope that humans are bad drivers is, in general, crap. Humans are very good drivers. The US has 7.3 deaths per billion km driven. This means if you drive 50km a day, every day, you are (essentially) guaranteed to die... after 75…

I feel sorry for the people who are going to have to die for this to happen. I try to explain this to friends who are far too optimistic on self-crashing car technology. Self-driving cars (SDC) ultimately trade one class of problems that result in death (human-attention deficit) for another class of growing issues (sensor malfunctions/incapabilities, software defects). Ultimately SDC deaths end up as bugs/features on…

> Self-driving cars (SDC) ultimately trade one class of problems that result in death (human-attention deficit) for another class of growing issues (sensor malfunctions/incapabilities, software defects).

One big difference between those classes is what you can do after an accident. With both, you can investigate why it happened and then make recommended changes to prevent it or reduce its chances in the future.

But with driver attention problems, such as drunk driving or driving while texting, it is easy for those recommendations to be ignored. We've been telling people not to drive drunk, not to text while driving, and so on for probably a century in the case of drunk driving, and for as long as texting has existed for texting...and people still do them frequently.

With a software defect, it is a lot easier to make sure that the fix actually gets deployed. Make it part of the annual registration renewal for cars that all safety updates have been applied to their self-driving systems.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#245

Post by darkpuma » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

thomasjudge wrote: post #181

close04 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because Tesla marketing material doesn't tell the whole truth, just the selected bit that sounds impressive. The conditions in which the Autopilot is safer than a human driver are so narrow and under so many restrictions that it's obvious it's less "self driving" and more "driver assist". Indeed, I also find it disingenuous to claim the Autopilot is safer than a human driver even if it actually can't function at…

It's because -in general- marketing material doesn't tell the whole truth, just the selected bit that sounds impressive.

Yeah and the auto dealer industry is notoriously deceptive too. Telsa told us they'd be different. Well they're not selling cars through dealers, that much is true, but it seems clear the deception is still in force.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#246

Post by darkpuma » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #219

slg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm aware, Tesla has never claimed their cars will be able to handle all those situations. "Self driving car" is a vague term that has different definitions depending on who you ask. You are considering "self driving" as level 5 autonomy and Tesla probably considers it somewhere between 3-4 autonomy. I don't think it makes sense to get angry because their definition of the phrase is not the same as your def…

Tesla skirts morality. The feature is called 'Full self driving'. Their sales reps regularly told customers to take their hands off the steering wheel of their "Autopilot". Sure, the fine print says "always pay attention", but there's an entire marketing scheme going on here which is borderline dishonest.

> "Sure, the fine print says "always pay attention","

In fact the not-so-fine print in the user manual says to keep your hands on the wheels, but the promotional material tells a different story, as does Musk when he takes his hands off the wheel on national television.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#247

Post by cmurf » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

So far Tesla automation seems to handle edge cases. I have never rear ended or side swiped anyone, getting into such an accident or avoiding one is an edge case for me. Useful but not really automation.

For it to even have a chance during lane keeping of doing something only a sleeping or suicidal driver would do? It's utter bullshit. It's less safe than a human.

Autonomous driving is overhyped vaporware. Autonomous airplanes would be easier than cars, and we still are no where near that.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#248

Post by goshx » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

tbabb wrote: post #239

goshx wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my anecdote is useful for anything, my car drives about 90% of my 25mi commute today on its own, including leaving one highway and going over a ramp to then merge into another highway. Needless to say that I’m extremely happy with what has been delivered so far.

I think a careful interpretation shows how far that is. A self-driving system ought not be considered reliable until it can drive O(100 million miles) without disconnecting once, in order to match human reliability (that's about the distance between fatal accidents currently). A guaranteed disconnect within 25 miles is many zeros of missing reliability. A Disney park engineer once relayed to me the philosophy for des…

Sure, and we are not there yet and nobody has claimed that we are.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#249

Post by goshx » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:55 AM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #240

goshx wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my anecdote is useful for anything, my car drives about 90% of my 25mi commute today on its own, including leaving one highway and going over a ramp to then merge into another highway. Needless to say that I’m extremely happy with what has been delivered so far.

Hope your car doesn't drive you into a wall then.

I’m sure you care.

Re: After 6 months of working fine, Tesla software update drives at barriers again

#250

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 1:57 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #155

slg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are setting up a false dichotomy. You don't have to choose between Autopilot and paying attention. The video above is an obvious example. It didn't result in an accident because the driver was paying attention and intervened. Also you aren't considering that other drivers can be the cause of a potential accident. You can assume that the other drivers on the road are average drivers with all the distractions that…

> You are setting up a false dichotomy. You don't have to choose between Autopilot and paying attention. The video above is an obvious example. It didn't result in an accident because the driver was paying attention and intervened. If you have to pay attention, then you might as well be driving.

Not only that, this is a new type of driving where you have to actively pay attention and fight the vehicle.