Live data from Hacker News

Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

tesla.com

81–90 of 658 posts

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#81
post #18

Interesting, but is it just me or does it seem overly jumpy?

I’m kind of impressed by how smooth it is, actually. If you watch videos of state-of-the-art object localization NNs, they tend to be EXTREMELY jumpy. These neural nets usually operate on only a single frame at a time, at least in the lower layers, so their predictions tend to jump around a lot from frame to frame (especially when the camera is moving!)

It worries me in general though, and I think that a higher level of consistently in the results of the parts of the image that don't significantly change between frames seems like a goal worth pursuing.

I also think that a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and techniques required to reduce jitter might offer some insights into ways of handling adversarial images.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#83
post #2

I have often wondered about this, so I do find this interesting. Of all of the info presented, one question I have is how does the AI decide when to go at a 4-way stop? In real life, I'm am constantly amazed at how confusing a 4-way stop is to humans. Not that I ever had any doubt into how complicated real-time video analysis could be, this just makes my appreciation of the complexity of the problem that much more qu…

I've wondered why cars don't have a built-in communication mechanism. I should be able to broadcast somehow (using a voice message?) to nearby cars that "I'm going now, don't go".

We tried it, but people kept on using it only to say the most innovative curse words at each other... Hah. :P

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proper rules[1] of a 4 way stop are probably pretty straightforward to encode, and probably easier for a computer to apply than a human, but the real issue is that you can't trust the other drivers (or AIs) to understand/follow them consistently. So the interesting part is how these kinds of systems can almost instantly react when another driver starts to go, and let them go. In NYC, where I live now, the de fact…

Wouldn't the data decide what the rule is? I'm guessing if in NYC, a more aggressive driving style is the norm - the models and the pipeline should be capable of adjusting to that.

Adjusted for New York driving the AI evens flings up the doors randomly to smack down cyclists!

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the more interesting/dangerous jumping is when the perception engine fails to consistently classify/find objects in the scene, between adjacent frames, not the specific fps of the process. This video seems to display some of such inter-frame jumpiness.

Inter-frame jumpy-ness can be smoothed out slightly by the control algorithms, on the assumption of object permanence, as long as the underlying vision NN doesn’t miss things too often.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#86
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google had to program their car to stop treating 4 way stops exactly as the law required, and instead pretend to be a little aggressive: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/technology/personaltech/g...

Unless you're driving in a place known for courtesy like Canada or Hawaii ಠ_ಠ... People often stop late and won't move until you go first...

My father taught me this trick -- if you're going to arrive simultaneously, just make sure you stop clearly second (especially if the other car is on your right).

I find it is usually pretty efficient and have yet to notice someone doing the same to me at the same time.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#87
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the real challenges of these systems is that even a very good system only needs to lose confidence in some object for a very short period of time for the system to lose confidence in its navigation and return control to the user. The easy way to get around that issue is to categorize objects and then just ignore them out of the context you expect them to appear in -- which is how Tesla managed to kill a pedest…

That event was done by Uber and if the human backup driver was paying attention, as they were supposed to because it was a test run, it wouldn't have happen. Yes the software was at fault of doing what you are saying, but the incident was a test run and the driver should have caught it and report to the engineer, not play on their phone and not pay attention.

Arguing that it happened because the human back up wasn't paying attention isn't a great defense of an autonomous vehicle. The issue isn't that the bug happened, the issue is that that particular bug only comes from doing something fundamentally bad - hardcoding the situation.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#88

Which sensor has primacy? radar, lidar or camera? I recall it mentioned somewhere that, after a well publicized tragedy hitting the side of a white truck on a bright day, Tesla was moving to radar? And yet a lot of the cues this awesome video shows seems to be camera-based line detection etc?

The problem with that collision is that neither the radar nor the camera saw the obstacle. To the camera it looked too much like the sky as you say. To the radar it appeared to be a stationary object and so probably an overhead sign or something instead of another vehicle. Once the car gets close enough that the radar's cone only includes dangerous obstacles then it starts putting the brakes but in that case it was t…

Tesla doesn't use LiDAR.

And I assure you that sensor fusion is not a well understood problem. One of the biggest challenges in autonomous driving is how to unify all of the different NN outputs.

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than your home computer can handle, much less the components in Tesla cars. Ehm a recent Tesla has very powerful specialized hardware, developed in-house, which is much more powerful than a commodity home PC with expensive GPUs. You might want to do some basic research before you make such claims... > The system isn't AI based... It's currently based on static programming A large neural network is used to make many…

There is Network Dependent AI... Not independent processing power on board each vehicle to make autonomous decisions. I was referring to AI that operates independently of a network connection. There are multiple scenarios in which a network connection can become unavailable. I'm not here to disparage Tesla, I really don't care what company creates self driving cars. Most people are acting like Tesla are the only ones…

A Tesla autopilot works offline without any network connection. (I mean of course the driving itself, not the updates.) So what exactly are you talking about?

Re: Tesla's self driving algorithm's overlay [video]

#90

Not sure I'd trust an autopilot based on crude visual odometry and segmentation that can only achieve a paltry 17 fps.

Not sure I'd trust humans since their crude visual systems lead to reaction times of over one second:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233039156_Brake_Rea...

17x faster is an impressive improvement

Post reply on HN