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Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

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Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#821

Post by pbhjpbhj »

buvanshak wrote: post #792
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dips aren't quite an optical illusion; nor are blind spots, or obscured vehicles (behind frame of the car or behind another vehicle), but those are all quite common and are similar to illusions (you see imperfectly). Sometimes you'll see multiple white lines, or lanes that appear to vere off due to dirt on the road. A bit of litter looks like a person, a kid looks like they might run out. A lot of times I find I'm se…

> but those are all quite common and are similar to illusions No. None of those qualify as brain being cheated.

They're similar in the sense that you don't see what you need to see; in the limited locus of "ability to safely control a vehicle" I consider them similar.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#822

Post by amluto »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #716
skgoa wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why, as the head of Google's self driving effort once said, partial self driving "assistance" is inherently unsafe. Sorry, but this is the exact wrong conclusion to make from the available data. Partially automated cars have been driven by average people on the public roads since 2006, when the Mercedes S class got active steering and ACC. There is no data that says that these systems, which are available o…

I don't think it's a problem specific to Tesla; the main difference is that Tesla's system instills a lot more confidence in drivers than tools like lane assist and adaptive cruise control (source: I have those; I don't trust them). It's a marketing and user experience problem; marketing because Tesla still insists on calling it autopilot, and user experience because it works pretty good most of the time - in normal…

What if confidence is lowered when a crash is imminent?

I test drove an “autopilot 2” Tesla a while back. Avoiding hitting trash cans and parked cars was much harder than it would have been if Autopilot had been off. When you’re on a road and the car decides to steer toward an obstacle, you have very little time to correct the car.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#823

Post by amluto »

vonseel wrote: post #680
Animats wrote: post #552

Tesla's system demands more from drivers than manual driving. The driver has to detect automation failures after they occur, but before a crash. This requires faster reaction time than merely avoiding obstacles. Here's a good example - a Tesla on autopilot crashing into a temporary road barrier which required a lane change.[1] This is a view from the dashcam of the vehicle behind the Tesla. At 00:21, things look norm…

Does the autopiloted steering wheel turn as if piloted by a human driver? If your hands are on a steering wheel, you’re watching the road, and autopilot begins turning towards an obstacle, you should be aware enough to grip the wheel fully and prevent the incorrect turn. End of story. Edit: “Autopilot” is a great brand-name for the technology, but perhaps implies too much self-driving capability. Maybe “assisted stee…

> If your hands are on a steering wheel, you’re watching the road, and autopilot begins turning towards an obstacle, you should be aware enough to grip the wheel fully and prevent the incorrect turn.

> End of story.

No, not true at all. If you’re in a car, paying complete attention, and holding the wheel, but keeping your arms loose enough that the car is fully controlling the steering, you somehow need to notice the car’s error and take over in something on the order of a second or perhaps much less. Keep in mind that, on many freeway ramps, there are places where you only miss an obstacle by a couple of feet when driving correctly. If the car suddenly stops following the lane correctly, you have very little time to fix it.

It seems to me that errors of the sort that Autopilot seems to make regularly are very difficult for even attentive drivers to recover from.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#824

Post by buvanshak »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #821
buvanshak wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but those are all quite common and are similar to illusions No. None of those qualify as brain being cheated.

They're similar in the sense that you don't see what you need to see; in the limited locus of "ability to safely control a vehicle" I consider them similar.

Optical Illusion is not similar to not being able to see an object behind an opaque object. And when you say "brain can be cheated", it means an optical illusion.

That is the only thing I was responding in the start of this discussion. Essentially the person was saying human brain can be cheated just like a computer.

I am saying, No. Not just like a computer. Human brains does not get cheated so easily like a computer. Claiming that is outrageous and shows you have no idea of what you are talking about...

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#825

Post by azernik »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #665
azernik wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't "physics in this way" - it's a computation and machine learning problem that still has not been solved with purely visual sensors.

Fine, but then ot's beneath totally irresponsible to let such technology loose on the public.

Yyyyyyyup.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#826

Post by azernik »

anyzen wrote: post #650
azernik wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't "physics in this way" - it's a computation and machine learning problem that still has not been solved with purely visual sensors.

> ... with purely visual sensors So maybe they shouldn't use purely visual sensors until the problem is solved? It's not like they don't have any other option.

I 100% agree. Tesla has been completely irresponsible here - when they say they're selling hardware that's ready for autonomous driving, they're telling an extremely dangerous and irresponsible lie.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#827

Post by imtringued »

tim333 wrote: post #641
Animats wrote: post #552

Tesla's system demands more from drivers than manual driving. The driver has to detect automation failures after they occur, but before a crash. This requires faster reaction time than merely avoiding obstacles. Here's a good example - a Tesla on autopilot crashing into a temporary road barrier which required a lane change.[1] This is a view from the dashcam of the vehicle behind the Tesla. At 00:21, things look norm…

>obvious orange obstacle Apparently they loose the colour info and process black and white because it is easier. https://electrek.co/2017/05/16/tesla-autopilot-2-0-can-see/ This seems to have been an issue in some of the crashes and maybe was a mistake. See also for example the trailer an earlier Tesla crashed into https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/20/tesla_death_crash_a... Kind of obvious in colour but at the ti…

I've had my suspicions but this confirms it. Tesla's autopilot cannot detect non-moving obstacles. This thing is a killing machine! The problem is not caused by an opaque machine learning network running wild or anything of similar complexity. It's something as basic as a lack of sensor input. With the current hardware on Tesla cars full autonomy is simply not possible. It's basically a glorified lane keeping assistant with marketing that fools people into risking their lives.

Tesla's stance to blame the driver without admitting that their hardware is inadequate will back them into a corner in the long term. They cannot transition from highway to city driving without significant changes to the autopilot software and hardware and this means they effectively have to start over from scratch. They have to start working on a serious competitor to Uber or Waymo now otherwise Tesla will be too late to the market.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#828

Post by russjr08 »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #817
Double_a_92 wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you don't know what the car is going to do. E.g. if you see a barrier you would mentally prepare to steer. But if you trust the car you don't prepare and then suddenly have to take over at the last moment when you realize the car is doing something wrong. That means the autopilot doesn't help at all since you would have to basically drive manually all the time anyway.

Maybe one solution would be to actually show you what the car is "thinking". E.g. it could project the outlines of what it's seeing and what it's planning to do on the windshield.

Aren't there regulations/requirements about what's allowed on the windshield?

I would think it'd be seen as a "distraction", those suction cup mounts for example are illegal in a lot of states.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#829

Post by imtringued »

fapjacks wrote: post #155
patcheudor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>t's a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred. This needs far more discussion. I just don't buy it. I don't believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive. I think our psychology won't allow it. When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is…

I have to preface my post to say that I think developing self-driving automobiles is so important that it's worth the implied cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives in order to perfect the technology, because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem. But I think you're right. I think the "best" way to move forward unt…

In that case tesla's autopilot is a red herring. It's not a fully autonomous system. If you're willing to sacrifice human lives then please sacrifice them on systems that actually have a chance of working. Tesla's autopilot isn't one of them, it's most likely never going to reduce the fatality rate below the skill of a sober human because it's just a simple lane keeping and cruise control assistant.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#830

Post by imtringued »

TipVFL wrote: post #690
buvanshak wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, people are terrible at detecting objects directly in front of them and just like computers, the human brain can be cheated, overloaded, inept or inexperienced leading to an accident. How many optical illusions do you usually see in the roads while driving, that can result in an accident? I am not even talking about the "people are terrible at detecting objects directly in front of them" part. I mean, how can…

Humans can only look in one direction, and only from inside the car with their view obstructed, and they're only paying attention sometimes. Check out this article, it is easy to never see a bike you're on a collision course with. https://singletrackworld.com/2018/01/collision-course-why-th...

We're not talking about complicated scenarios with multiple moving actors. Tesla's autopilot cannot even do something as basic as detect stationary obstacles that are directly in front of the car. It will crash into barriers even if the highway is completely devoid of other cars.

You may consider humans as bad drivers but Tesla's autopilot is even worse than that:

It can't even look in one direction!

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