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Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

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Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#241

Post by dheera »

542354234235 wrote: post #229
kirillzubovsky wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because the promise of autonomy is that you will be able to let go, close your eyes, take a nap, or read a book. That is really hard to do if you have even a 0.0001% chance of hitting something and dying because your car didn't do something right. Sure, your chances of getting into an accident while driving your own car are higher, and some dummy could throw a turkey onto your windshield and kill you ...etc,…

> That is really hard to do if you have even a 0.0001% chance of hitting something and dying because your car didn't do something right. Have you ever flown in a plane before? Some people are more nervous than others about giving up control but billions of people still do it because the benefits vastly outweigh slight anxiousness about that billion to one chance. People will not want to drive in an autonomous vehicle…

I think people who are born into it will be fine with it. You probably get inside elevators without second thoughts. If you are of the age of the typical HN reader, they've been L4 autonomous since you were born, so you don't think about it.

With planes I think most people realize that the trained pilot is a better pilot than they are, so they feel more at ease giving up control to someone that is better than them. People just need to see that similarly, software drives cars better than humans.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#242

Post by krapp »

themaninthedark wrote: post #225
krapp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The point of having a public forum is to give new ideas a chance, as unheard of or unpopular as they may be. Of course, with that you get the risk of misinformation as well. So since the ideas behind scientific racism, the dark enlightenment, white supremacy, Nazism and anti-semitism, and any prejudice based on conservative or religious ideals (such as sexual or gender discrimination or anti LGBT prejudice) are neit…

At what time do we decide we have reached the "TRUTH" and decide to stop giving ideas a chance? If we were to take your argument back in time and apply it, what would we see? "I mean...heliocentricism, really? Do we have to give Copernicus slosh any thought, we all know that God created the earth and then the heavens so it is only natural that they orbit the earth." On the front page at the same time is a story about…

> At what time do we decide we have reached the "TRUTH" and decide to stop giving ideas a chance?

OK, so I see you've decided to ignore the context of my comment, pretend I was referring to some absolute "TRUTH" then strawman it.

Yet everything you've listed, being scientific and therefore part of a framework in which those ideas could be proven or disproven, are part of what I mentioned at the end of my article, which I will quote verbatim for you: cases where legitimate scientific or political ideas which run afoul of the status quo and public acceptance need protection in a free market of ideas and thus explicitly not germane to my point.

How do I suppose we handle science? Science. But then nothing I listed was actually science, nor is there any valid controversy around any of them, as science has invalidated practically all of it already. There is no universe in which it turns out Hitler was right all along if only we'd listened.

So let me flip the script on you - how long do you believe we should let ideas like white supremacy, anti-semitism, lunatic conspiracy theories like QAnon, anti-vaxx etc remain in the marketplace?

Or even keeping it within the bounds of science - do you believe we should still be arguing the merits of the luminiferous aether and miasma theory, or "teaching the controversy" around creationism?

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#243

Post by black_puppydog »

Dork_Sider wrote: post #237
black_puppydog wrote: post #224

Anyone else getting strong "I, Robot" (the movie) vibes from this line of research? I can see this happening as an opening shot to an action movie. Some reporter finds out that $government is doing $bad_thing. They pack up the evidence, rush out the door to talk to their editor. A slick, self-driving car pulls up as they exit the building, they enter and pull away. It is a rainy night, and the car zips along the city…

I mean you've basically described the opening to Upload on Amazon.

Huh, gotta check that out then I guess? I was going off "Enemy of the State" :P

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#244

Post by jpindar »

mamon wrote: post #197
dheera wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving cars is not just about not wanting to drive. It's also about enabling Uber-style intelligent carpooling so that you can save energy while still maintaining similar times to driving, especially in places with poor or non-existent public transportation. It's also about reducing the number of cars in the world. You probably use your car for less than 5% of your life. Most of the time it just sits there taki…

>> Why do you need to own it? Because our primitive brains instinctively want to own things. We can share with family, and with good friends, but not with strangers. Another thing: car is used not only to drive, but also as a storage space for things that you want to have always with you: a bottle of water, duffel bag with gym clothes, umbrella, etc. With rented car pools you'd have to carry all that with you. Also,…

And of course the cars would track everywhere you go, supposedly just to choose which ads to show to their captive audience.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#245

Post by noodlesUK »

pritovido wrote: post #209

Billboards at night should be forbidden. Period. I almost had an accident when a billboard that was dark suddenly displayed a very bright image on my side. My body reacted moving suddenly the steering wheel as a reflex action. At another one having some big image being moved actually made my eyes follow the movement instead of the road with cars on it. I had to make work in order to focus on the road and not the scre…

I suggest a simpler solution. Billboards (particularly the LED array ones) should be forbidden, period. They are explicitly designed to capture attention away from drivers whilst they are doing a very dangerous activity. Why? Because they attract customers and make businesses money. This kind of thing needlessly has a human toll, and we could eliminate it with the stroke of a pen.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#246

Post by proactivesvcs »

pritovido wrote: post #209

Billboards at night should be forbidden. Period. I almost had an accident when a billboard that was dark suddenly displayed a very bright image on my side. My body reacted moving suddenly the steering wheel as a reflex action. At another one having some big image being moved actually made my eyes follow the movement instead of the road with cars on it. I had to make work in order to focus on the road and not the scre…

The entire concept of roadside advertising should be seriously looked at. The roads are dangerous enough as it is - especially with attention gradually being degraded by cockpit distractions - without superfluous equipment which is specifically designed to attract attention.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#247

Post by proactivesvcs »

alistairSH wrote: post #236
dontcarethrow2 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be given an extra sense with LIDAR but that is 'a fool's errand' and not as profitable. I should start carrying a stop sign in my pack, have some fun on the highway.

As a cyclist who frequently gets buzzed by cars, it's certainly interesting to ponder the possibilities.

A thought which had come to my mind while reading this thread. One of the UK's "lane closed" signs, perhaps? ;-)

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#248

Post by JKCalhoun »

dragonwriter wrote: post #52
JKCalhoun wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of find the idea of self-driving cars as ... selfish? Don't want to drive, take the bus. The idea that we all need our personal chariots (and now robotic chauffeurs) seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility. And, yes, I am guilty of owning a car myself and feel guilt about it. But for some reason the self-driving bit just seems to take it to another level for me. Maybe too there's an air of elitism abo…

> Don't want to drive, take the bus. Self-driving “cars” include taxis (that's one of the prime motivating use cases), trucks (another big one), and busses (not as frequently talked about, but once the technology is there, it's going to get applied to them, as well.) It's not just about individually-owned vehicles for people who want to own, but not drive, a personal vehicle.

I feel taxi drivers, truck drivers, deserve jobs.

It seems to be popular to want to automate all the "working class" jobs though.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#249

Post by dheera »

mamon wrote: post #197
dheera wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving cars is not just about not wanting to drive. It's also about enabling Uber-style intelligent carpooling so that you can save energy while still maintaining similar times to driving, especially in places with poor or non-existent public transportation. It's also about reducing the number of cars in the world. You probably use your car for less than 5% of your life. Most of the time it just sits there taki…

>> Why do you need to own it? Because our primitive brains instinctively want to own things. We can share with family, and with good friends, but not with strangers. Another thing: car is used not only to drive, but also as a storage space for things that you want to have always with you: a bottle of water, duffel bag with gym clothes, umbrella, etc. With rented car pools you'd have to carry all that with you. Also,…

But what if not owning a car meant you saved an additional $400 per month, and reclaimed 1-1.5 more hours per day?

Personally, I think a lot of people would take that trade. I would.

Yes, there are people who like lugging everything but the kitchen sink with them around. For a lot of people in the world though "things you always want to have with you" fits in a handbag or backpack.

Re: Hacked billboards make Teslas see phantom objects causing them to swerve or stop

#250

Post by jvanderbot »

dmitriid wrote: post #153
jvanderbot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know it's a "car" or a "cow" or a "corvette" to know that the flat surface you are on ends in less than your stopping distance. Semantically, it's a meaningless distinction. But in implementation it's much easier to detect the shape of the upcoming terrain using, say, lidar or regular old multi-camera disparity. Flat and following your map: that's driveable. I'm guessing many take this approach, but…

A one-way street is also a drivable flat surface. As is a road with no lane markings. Can you guess why blindly driving down each of these will be dangerous?

You don't need only flat surface detection, but it should be the highest priority safety check. And it should be the primary check. We shouldn't turn onto one-way streets, of course! Just like we shouldn't swerve off streets when we detect something that can be spoofed ... such as the false positives shown in the article and the false negatives given by other Tesla crashes.

You can actually correct those instances by using reliable ranging devices with dense enough sampling to ensure flat surfaces without intermediate obstacles.

To say that there are no other factors at play is foolish, of course, but it's also foolish to say that somehow we shouldn't be doing this.

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