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Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

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Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#711

Post by pmart123 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

It should probably be called "CoPilot" and issue significant alerts as to when it has a poor understanding of the situation so the driver is aware to at least be more alert.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#712

Post by dahdum »

dkonofalski wrote: post #639
fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

This is why I don't understand the sad conclusion of the story in the article. The driver knew that AutoPilot had issues with that stretch of the freeway and was able to repeat the issues on several occasions but still thought it best to be on his phone, while driving 71 mph, at the mercy of AutoPilot? Especially considering that he was an engineer who had expressed concern over this, it seems silly to me that he wou…

His phone was using data, that’s not proof he was using it and distracted. Spotify streaming a new playlist could be responsible for that.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#713

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tim333 wrote: post #460
neuronic wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. What really bugs me, as someone working in consulting as a hands-on backend developer with a previous background in technical consulting at an accounting Big4 (student job), is the insane amount of PR, politics and marketing talk by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are talking about. I witnessed politicians an…

Yeah but speaking as someone kinda on the other side there are things like this 'actual Level 4' delivering stuff for real in Wuhan https://kr-asia.com/jd-com-uses-l4-autonomous-driving-soluti... Fair enough it's not very good - that one just went 600m - but it's hard to argue it won't exist for decades when it exists now. And historically going form sorta works but is rubbish in info tech eg. early cellphones, inter…

There's no reason to believe that's a level 4 autonomous vehicle, other than the marketing release of the company that makes it.

Going from early cellphones to smartphones was an engineering problem. All the technology was already available and it was a case of putting it all together in a way that worked and that could be manufactured at scale and for profit.

With vehicle autonomy, the problem is that we don't know how to create autonomous AI agents yet, so we don't know how to make a car driven by such an agent. Claims of level 4 autonomy should, at this point, be treated like claims of teleportation or time-travelling back in time: theoretically possible but we don't know how to make it happen in practice.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#714

Post by eschneider »

khendron wrote: post #593
ijpsud wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just "image de-obfuscation" though? Seems like narrow AI will be able to out-class humans at that in no time. You can generate as much training data for that as you want. Doesn't really require human-type intelligence. Though I guess you might mean that the obfuscation makes the edge cases even harder, which makes sense.

Here's my go-to example about the challenges of driving in a Canadian winter. I was waiting for my bus to work one morning after a large snowfall. The snow clearing crews were hard at work, but the street was effectively blocked by piles of snow, men, and machines. Yet, my bus arrived on time *driving down the sidewalk". I am not sure how any self-driving system could have figured that out :)

And if it did, hollow sidewalks are a thing in some places, so...

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#715

Post by nicpottier »

Alupis wrote: post #388
fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. It's followers see no other possible solution as acceptable. Instead of putting our heads together to make really good driver assistance technologies and being satisfied, the darn thing needs to also drive itself everywhere otherwise we're leaving something on the table! Untill we have zero deaths, we cannot stop demanding…

I'm not sure what you are saying actually maps to reality.

Frame and chassis have never been safer and manufacturers continue to improve. Many (most) new cars have automatic emergency braking that continue to improve. New cars seem to have an ever increasing number of air bags to protect passengers.

All these things are happening at the same time that self-driving is taking place. Tesla FWIW is pretty good at all the above despite their focus on self driving as well.

I agree it is just as ridiculous to say we need level 5 to be make something useful. Will it be decades before we have cars without steering wheels? Sure, maybe even longer. But what exists is already pretty great in most environments and only getting better. (IE, crawling along in a traffic jam at ~15mph is something I would really love to never do again and it seems self driving systems can handle this with aplomb these days)

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#716

Post by greedo »

asdff wrote: post #335
ironmagma wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but there’s no rolling back history. We’re quite locked in to our current situation and the best we can do is work within the constraints that have been established.

Or set the clock right and invest in road diets and protected bus lanes. These are solutions that any city can implement but doesn't, because they aren't politically agreeable to local electorates. Nearly all american metros were laid out around the street car, anyway.

Those pesky local electorates. Always stopping progress.

Maybe, just maybe, the majority of people who live in those cities like the way they're arranged?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#717

Post by tyrust »

jaxn wrote: post #534
tyrust wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It has improved a lot in the 9 months I have had it. A system like this should not have noticable changes in behavior over such a short period of time. In other words, I don't think they should launch it (let alone call it "autopilot") until it's done and stable.

I think you are under-appreciating the amount of perception that goes into driving. We are accustomed to making constant micro adjustments constantly while driving. Under autopilot, there are times when the "do I need to make an adjustment" instinct kicks in and you decide that you don't, but it was borderline. Things like being centered in the lane while passing a semi.

Perhaps you're right, I've not used any driver assist before so I'm not speaking from experience.

Second-guessing the system while driving just does not sound like something I'd want to deal with (as someone pointed out above [0]).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22305695

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#718

Post by natch »

eropple wrote: post #705
natch wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of trying to tear Tesla down for something you are doing yourself, why not look for the positive aspects of what is happening? The technology is getting hugely better over time, so whatever you have been reading about it is probably outdated.

Tearing down a faceless company! Heaven forfend. We're all just "haters" here, I guess. Never mind that they killed somebody, but sure.

"they killed somebody"... ok, we're done here.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#719

Post by SolaceQuantum »

allovernow wrote: post #643
fxtentacle wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like an NVIDIA salesperson trying to sell me on a $3000 Titan ;) There is no doubt in my mind that an AI with billions of parameters will be excellent at memorizing stuff. I also have no doubt that research activity has exploded, which might be related to the generous hardware grants being handed out... But all that research has produced surprisingly little progress over algorithms from 2004 in the field of…

>There is no doubt in my mind that an AI with billions of parameters will be excellent at memorizing stuff We're way past memorization. We're into interpolation and extrapolation in high D spaces with Bayesian parameters. Sentiment analysis and contextual searches - search by idea , not keyword. Heuristic decision making. Massively accelerated 3D modeling with 99% accuracy. Generative nets for text, music, scientific…

Would you be willing to link to some papers and cite some specific algos to play with? The above cited specific algos. What are the new versions of these named algorithms?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#720

Post by lb1lf »

greedo wrote: post #666
lb1lf wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't the SOLE action for L5 to be feasible, but I believe it is a REQUIRED action. (Emphasis added not to insinuate you'd need it, but rather to show, well, my emphasis. :)) For the foreseeable future, there's simply too many variables outside autopilot manufacturers' control; I cannot see how car-borne sensors alone will be able to provide the level of confidence needed to do L5 safely. Oh, and a mix of self-dri…

I see this stated often, that humans are unpredictable drivers. What's the proof that automated systems will be predictable? They too will be dealing with a huge number of variables, and trying to interpret things like intent etc.

Yes, automated systems will also do unpredictable things - the point I was (poorly, as it were) trying to make was that the mix of autopilots and humans are likely to create new problems; without being able to dig it out now, I remember a study which found that humans had problems interacting with autonomous vehicles as the latter never fudged their way through traffic like a human would - say, approaching a traffic light, noting it turned yellow - then coming to a hard stop, whereas a human driver would likely just scoot through the intersection on yellow. Result - autonomous vehicles got rear-ended much more frequently than normal ones.

So - humans need to adapt to new behaviour from other vehicles on the road.

When ALL vehicles are L5, though, they (hopefully) will all obey the same rules and be able to communicate intent and negotiate who goes where when /prior/ to occupying the same space at the same time...

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