Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#321

Post by imtringued » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #217

_ph_ wrote: post #49

One thing to remember in all the discussions about the accident is, that there is no information available whether the autopilot was active at the time of the accident.

Tesla has just announced that autopilot was on during the crash. https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident It sounds like they are saying the driver had 5 seconds to notice the problem and react. It is scary to think that when you are on autopilot you may be 5 seconds away from death at any time. Better not take those eyes off the road!

If you take the human factor away 5 seconds ahead of time warning is quite a lot. The car could have slowed down to a possibly non fatal speed. By asking the human to act the autopilot is actually throwing away at least 2 of those precious 5 seconds.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#322

Post by loceng » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #108

dirtae wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the accident happened on US 101, which is a multi-lane highway with 5 or 6 lanes at the spot where the accident occurred. How many of the trips Tesla is citing occurred with the vehicle in the same lane as this guy? Comparing apples to apples would probably greatly reduce these 85,000 / 200 per day figures.

Exactly. Same lane, same time of day, same time of year (sunset/sunrise changes in lighting conditions) same weather patterns, same level of traffic. The combinatorics involved expand the possibilities to the point that some scenariors may have had little or no coverage from a dataset with 85k observations.

Yes, Tesla needs to not be releasing PR targeted for the masses, they should be releasing statements with a scientific level of information. Whether it is disingenuous or not, whether it was rushed statement, they perhaps need to better scrutinize. It would be fine if they released the holistic information, so long as they get into full depth possible. They need to act as stewards we can trust, if they fail to do so then they will lose mindshare and longer-term market share as they will simply blend in with everyone else.

The obvious failure was the highway safety mechanism not immediately being replaced after the previous crash - that would have made the Tesla crash have gone from death to perhaps only minor injuries.

I would argue too there is a need for AI image analysis - could perhaps be crowdsourced - to analyze the structure/state of a highway or any road. It would of course need to be trained, however it could also likely serve as tool to improve road safety worldwide - bringing everyone in line with known best practices. In this case, it would have caught the improper safety mechanism not being replaced, and then that death would have been avoided; cost-benefit analysis says this system would be worth it as life is invaluable.

If Tesla/Elon leads this effort it would show them being proactive in improving future safety, accountable, and taking ownership. Why has no other auto manufacturer done so, why has no government implemented such a system? Well, because honestly we are stuck in scarcity only caring about our own costs, and so if the random person dies here and there, there's not a big enough ripple effect (unfortunately) to cause enough personal worry to cause change. Tesla, if wanting to posture as being the steward I think many of us hope they are, does however absorb these ripples that get associated with their brand - and therefore the responsibility does pass onto them, whether they agree to accept it or not.

All auto manufacturers would likely benefit from this, allowing their software to work better within certain expected constraints. Many more possibilities as I think of it, newly spotted damage or cracks in bridges, detection of debris on highway or excessive dirt on the edge of the road making the conditions more dangerous for emergency stopping/maneuvering, etc.

Edit: I added a few sentences, so the one upvote prior to editing, they didn't upvote everything I said though it's all in line.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#323

Post by headgsaket » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #141

shawn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heisenbugs in AI are also interesting. As computers approach sentience, it will become progressively harder to explain their behavior. Why did you eat a bagel instead of eggs this morning? Usually there isn't a scientific answer. In the present, AI models are already so complicated that it seems hard to get reproducible diagnostic results, short of just saving every frame of data that the car's sensors pick up. And f…

Id be willing to take a 1k bet that computers won’t approach sentience in our lifetime. Don’t believe the AI hype train, there hasn’t been a real breakthrough. Just more accurate versions of the same (dumb) classifiers.

I’d be willing to make the same bet, the problem would be one of definition.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#324

Post by james-mcelwain » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #205

QuarterReptile wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having ridden a lot of Amtrak almost makes it less likely that you'd have experienced the single track problem, since quality rail experiences in the US are pretty concentrated such that someone who has good train experiences probably lives/works in an area where that is the rule. On the East coast, pretty good service arguably extends as far south as Richmond, but past that sitting on the tracks is very common. And…

I mostly rode the train from SC to Boston and back (Southern Crescent) ... it's dual track all of the way. Also DC to Chicago, southern route, dual track all of the way.

I love Amtrak and am willing to put up with the delays, but DC to Chicago stop all the time, especially in the mountains, to wait for higher priority trains to pass. Sometimes it's only for a few minutes at a time, but sometimes it adds up to hours.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#325

Post by naveen99 » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #302

sveme wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn‘t it possible to formally check Simulink autogenerated code using Polyspace? Or are you thinking of something else?

Oh god. You can check any C-code with Polyspace, I've done that. Most of the warnings Polyspace generates (at the time I did it) are not more significant than style - like checking for MISRA compliance doesn't guarantee a lack of bugs. To me formal verification has always meant proving correctness in a mathematical sense against some sort of formal specification. None of that really matters though because AFAIK you c…

Halting problem is even more general.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#326

Post by greedo » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #149

greedo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely untrue. The survival rate for plane crashes is extremely high.[1] 1. https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NTSB_releases...

Note the study refers to “airplane accidents,” not “plane crashes.” I suspect that the vast majority of the airplane accidents included in the denominator wouldn’t be described by the vast majority of people as “plane crashes.”

The NTSB doesn't split aircraft incidents into "accidents" and "crashes." Note that the report specifically mentions TWA Flight 800 as an accident, though the loss of life on that flight was 100%.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#327

Post by hokkos » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

taf2 wrote: post #315

swebs wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the image of the crash site, it looks like the driver was in a spot trying to merge left. That would require you to match the speed of the cars in the other lane. Also it looks like the software made the critical failure of assuming that it was driving in the left lane instead of the shoulder. https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x

Similar center divide that killed princess Diana.

No, it was a pillar in a tunnel : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/diana/st...

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#328

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

herbst wrote: post #288

gomox wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair that's not really a reasonable train trip for people that want to actually get there as opposed to riding a train. Probably above 9 hours compared to a sub-2h flight. Train routes that are more meaningful tend to be better serviced.

I regularly take a train that takes 6.5 hours. The flight would be 45 minutes. Getting to, into and away from the airport easily ads another 2 hours tho. Also this route has 3 flights a week compared to a train every 2 hours. With the train I just get in and enjoy nice service, free power and WiFi and usually get some work done. Not to mention the difference in my ecological footprint. My point is that it's not like…

> Not to mention the difference in my ecological footprint.

Only as clean as the electricity is produced. In many countries electricity production relies on coal, petrol or gas, which are far from being clean energies.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#329

Post by neffy » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

dorgo wrote: post #266

neffy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because we invented cars. And a few other things.

Among these other things which we invented are algorithms which invented other algorithms to solve real world problems. There is nothing unuique or irreplicable about humans (save of culture, emotions, etc. which nobody wants to replicate).

While it may come to pass that we do those things, so far all we've managed to replicate is the first 6 or so levels of the visual processing field.

Methinks there is far further to go than we realise - especially with the current air of hubris around the entire endeavour.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#330

Post by tzakrajs » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

arcticfox wrote: post #291

mozumder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. Also note that this includes trucks and motorcycles, which have much, much higher fatality rates than passenger cars. Motorcycles are around 10x-50x higher fatality rate than cars! So already Tesla's blog is doing a misleading comparison to more deadly vehicle classes. Additionally, there could be all sort…

> Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap. I agree with all the holes you poked in their stats, but then with the last sentence you just went way off the deep end. What does "death trap" mean to you? To me, it seems likely the Autopilot engaged is about as dangerous as disengaged.

Do you find yourself veering dangerously close to a traffic barrier on a regular basis (waiting for the day that the crash attenuator becomes defunct so you can slam into it)? I don't and any machine that does that qualifies as a death trap.