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Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

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Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#251

Post by JeffL »

drcode wrote: post #186
throwup238 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think your "automatic driving" argument is wishful thinking See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaticity It’s a well known phenomenon.

I don't dispute that people get used to driving, but I think arguing that "driving" requires the same amount of effort as "not driving" is a more specious claim

I have FSD and totally agree with you. I use it about 90% of the time, feel less stressed and more safe. I feel like I have a good idea and where it might have an issue and am super vigilant in those situations but way more relaxed on those same stretches of road it's driven perfectly 100 times already. It's "nice to have" in normal driving conditions and f-ing wonderful when there's traffic.

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#252

Post by belter »

hankman86 wrote: post #64

They should teach Tesla’s “autopilot” (and its FSD upgrade) in business schools. Turns out you can sustainably push up company valuation on vapourware. You have to wonder if Tesla’s autonomous driving technology was actually ever meant to turn into a product. Or whether it is mostly a tool to justify the lofty Tesla stock price. I very much doubt that it is technologically ahead of its competitors.

> I very much doubt that it is technologically ahead of its competitors.

This is where they are as of April 2024: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INCLA-EA22002-14498.pd...

"ODI completed an extensive body of work via PE21020 and EA22002, which showed evidence that Tesla’s weak driver engagement system was not appropriate for Autopilot’s permissive operating capabilities. This mismatch resulted in a critical safety gap between drivers’ expectations of the L2 system’s operating capabilities and the system’s true capabilities. This gap led to foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes. During EA220002, ODI identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries, in which foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role. ODI’s analysis conducted during this investigation, which aligns with Tesla’s conclusion in its Defect Information Report, indicated that in certain circumstances, Autopilot’s system controls and warnings were insufficient for a driver assistance system that requires constant supervision by a human driver."

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#253

Post by belter »

devnull3 wrote: post #114
deng wrote: post #54

And please keep in mind that this is pretty much in the optimal settings for FSD: great weather, huge streets, everything is as "car friendly" as it gets. I'd like to see FSD navigating an old Italian city, there's just no way. Even in car-friendly Germany you very often have streets with side-parking, which are too narrow to fit two cars, you need to communicate with oncoming cars, for instance by waving or flashing…

> old Italian city Try traffic in India [1][2] If it were a game, then India will be the last boss fight in ultra-hard mode. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnPiP9PkLAs [2] https://youtu.be/WC2FUEmKEu8?t=412

Oh my, that person dressed in white: https://youtu.be/KnPiP9PkLAs?t=55

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#254

Post by JeffL »

mg wrote: post #37

I think a good indicator if it is useful or not is to look at how much it is actually used. Tesla published a chart of cumulative miles driven over time on page 8 of their latest quarterly update: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... So far, I'm not sure what to make of it. The chart looks somewhat exponential. But since they brought more and more cars onto the road, one would expect expone…

I use FSD a lot and generally like and feel less stressed and safer. For me, since I dive mostly the same roads a lot, I know which roads and intersections FSD can handle correctly and which ones it can't, so I use it where it works and don't use it where it doesn't. I've personally had a pretty big increase in use over the last year because it's just plain getting so much better. It works in places now where it didn't before.

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#255

Post by coffeebeqn »

henrikschroder wrote: post #229
lll-o-lll wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, because if you want something bad enough, and if it’s clearly possible, enough research will get us there! Except: commercially viable fusion, quantum computers, hyper loops, AGI, interstellar space travel. Hmmm. That’s the problem with research; much of it turns out to be a dead-end, or exponentially more difficult as you approach the goal. FSD looked extremely likely there for a time, but I think the problem w…

Machine-learning of any kind has this uncanny ability to get you really far with very little work, which gives this illusion of rapid progress. I remember watching George Hotz' first demo of his self-driving thing, it's absolutely nuts how much he was able to do himself with so little. Sure, it drove like a drunk toddler, but it drove! And that tricks you into thinking that the hard parts are done, and you just need…

Park rangers, all the fire departments, normal people who try temporarily route traffic around something unusual like a crash, animals, hazardous conditions.

And to detect when someone is doing a prank or just a homeless guy yelling and waving their fist at cars etc

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#256

Post by jfoster »

schmuelio wrote: post #245
drcode wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dispute that people get used to driving, but I think arguing that "driving" requires the same amount of effort as "not driving" is a more specious claim

> I think arguing that "driving" requires the same amount of effort as "not driving" is a more specious claim It's really not, the human brain is _really_ good at abstracting. In pretty much exactly the same way you don't have to pay attention to balancing to walk, your brain learns to do the same thing for cycling and driving. It abstracts the mechanics of the car (e.g. turning the wheel to turn left/right) and sort…

Do you have a theory as to why drcode feels "FSD is a significant quality of life improvement for me"?

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#257

Post by JeffL »

Laremere wrote: post #87
nomilk wrote: post #83

The article answers the wrong question of 'is FSD perfect?'. A better question is whether it's 'cost-benefit positive'. That's all that matters when users decide whether or not to use something. If FSD reduces fatigue and allows you to arrive to work fresher, it might be worth tolerating the odd wrong turn extending the drive time by 2 minutes.

The conclusion addresses your point: > Without FSD, you pay attention to the road and everything else is within your control. With FSD, you still need to pay attention but now there’s the additional cognitive load to monitor an unpredictable system over which you don’t have direct control. For the author, FSD is a worse experience in addition to costing a lot of money.

When you are new to it, yes. For me it's a better experience because I've been using it so long and have a good idea of what it can and can't handle. I use it extensively on roads I know it works well on, and use it sometimes tentitively on new roads when I'm in the mood. That I spend almost all of my driving time on the same few routes makes FSD very valuable to me. It's probably still not a net benefit if you're mostly driving new places or places where it doesn't work well, but it's getting better.

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#258

Post by aurareturn »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #191
vasco wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting bit is that recently Nvidia's CEO said Tesla is ahead of the other companies in the space. My opinion is also that Tesla isn't but then we have a connundrum. Is Nvidia's CEO just saying this because Waymo doesn't buy GPUs from them? > “Tesla is far ahead in self-driving cars,” Huang said in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-ceo-says-tesla-far-ahe...

> Is Nvidia's CEO just saying this because Waymo doesn't buy GPUs from them? Waymo works in limited places and relies on a ridiculous number of sensors. Have you seen one in real life with all its equipment? Surely that makes it less advanced or at less ambitious. Assuming something malicious about Nvidia’s CEO seems like a big leap.

I've always wondered why adding more sensors to a self driving car was such a big deal.

Yes, it makes the cars more expensive but at some point, these parts will get mass produced and they will be cheap as hell.

The more data a car has, the better it should drive.

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#259

Post by cess11 »

henearkr wrote: post #130
cess11 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Scary stuff. I'm not excited to drive a cheap second-hand ICE car, but the fanciness stops at AC and 3.5 mm AUX-jack on the stereo, and that's pretty nice. If I wanted to I could do service and repairs myself.

You can also just have a dumb EV and thus do a favor to both your own safety and the survivability of the planet. EV does not automatically entail AI-assist.

I'm not very well informed in this area but I suspect there are no serious alternatives. Ignoring price, are there EV:s that can travel at least 500-600 kilometers on a charge but only weigh 1500 kilos and hence are rather simple to lift with consumer or improvised tooling? Are there EV:s without remote control and 'upgrades'? Can I change lamps and shift tires on such EV:s? Do they fit at least two child seats or is that amount of space more of a premium feature?

Re: Tesla's FSD – A Useless Technology Demo

#260

Post by jfoster »

nomilk wrote: post #83

The article answers the wrong question of 'is FSD perfect?'. A better question is whether it's 'cost-benefit positive'. That's all that matters when users decide whether or not to use something. If FSD reduces fatigue and allows you to arrive to work fresher, it might be worth tolerating the odd wrong turn extending the drive time by 2 minutes.

I think some other interesting questions are:

Is it getting better?

Is it going to continue to get better?

When will it be good enough to not have a driver?

No technology that's actively being worked on is "done". It seems silly to decide that because it isn't perfect today, it's only a useless technology demo.

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