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This TED talk from last year makes a pretty convincing case that you can't (from a technical perspective) incrementally improve driver assist to be fully driver

This TED talk from last year makes a pretty convincing case that you can't (from a technical perspective) incrementally improve driver assist to be fully driverless: http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_s... Also there is the argument that driver assist can lure drivers into a false sense of security where they don't pay attention when they should be. The worry is that driver assist systems could cause accidents by seeming safer than they actually are. I really like Tesla though and hope for everyone sake that that doesn't happen.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
I'm not surprised the head of Google self-driving cars thinks Google's approach is the only way to do it.
- tempestn 11y ago
  Which of his arguments do you specifically disagree with?
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    At the risk of invoking the ire of Google's marketing team further (I just got -6'd on this thread in less than two minutes. It happens actually as predictably as clockwork on any case where I point out Google isn't quite as amazing as it seems.) So, I'm sitting here watching this, and nothing he's saying is particularly a solid logical argument. He's pointing out that a always-running self-driving car has to make more decisions or actions than a driver assistance device, but that's irrelevant: 99% of the time, the car's basically just moving forwards. And arguably, lane assist devices make decisions or corrections just as often as an autonomous car, same for automatic breaking. They constantly need to check the conditions on the road and decide whether or not to adjust. I'm not seeing any real reasoning driver assistance and fully autonomous are so shockingly different... short of the fact that this guy is marketing a Google product. If anything, it seems Urmson is heavily pidgeon-holing what a "driver assistance system" is, so that he can discredit the way all of their competitors are developing the same types of technology. Nothing particularly special about what Google is tracking that couldn't be similarly developed as part of a driver assistance system. In actuality, his final argument is the most ludicrous of them all... that gradually developing the technology through driver assistance is too slow. That this needs to be rushed out the door in the next couple years.
    - tempestn 11y ago
      I didn't downvote your first comment, but in my opinion the reason it was downvoted was that it amounted to ad-hominem ("Don't listen to him because he's from Google.") rather than a reasoned argument like you've posted here. Sure, it's wise to take into account the source of an argument, but you can't reasonably stop there. I do disagree with your first point, that an always-running self-driving car having to make more decisions is irrelevant because a car spends the majority of its time moving forward. I think the point is that a driver assistance system basically only handles that moving forward case. It may cover 99% of the time, but it only covers a small fraction of the decisions and actions the car has to take. It's the other 1% (probably higher than 1% actually, but it doesn't matter) that's the tricky part, and it is difficult to iterate from handling the special (if very common) case of basically just moving forward, to handling all the other situations a car can find itself in. You would quickly lose any easily-understood distinction between what situations the car is and is not able to handle, making it difficult for the human driver to know when their input will be required.
      - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        But we have other types of driver assistance for that as well. For instance, parking assist has to handle the complex maneuvering of a vehicle into a narrow space. Presumably while both avoiding hitting the cars near it which are parked, but also any cars which might come across your car while it is parking. I could see driver assistance eventually move to a point where it's tracking and simulating just as much as a fully autonomous vehicle, but allowing the driver to remain in control until it believes a collision is imminent, or that the user is making an unsafe judgment call. Things like the automatic emergency braking feature will eventually learn how to detect different types of objects as well. Say, to avoid slamming on the brakes because a plastic bag was pushed by the wind past a camera or sensor. Presumably, these currently independent assistance features will converge over time, into your car simply being aware of it's surroundings and intervening to protect you. And then someday it'll just drive itself. All of this can (and probably will) be done gradually, but it sounds like that isn't fast enough for Urmson's son to reach driving age.
mikeash 11y ago
I'm reminded of, "The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person who is doing it." Maybe they're right, but so far the driver-assistance angle seems to be advancing quite a bit faster and is certainly doing more to improve safety in the real world.
- haberman 11y ago
  It's advancing faster in terms of being available to the consumer, that is true. But I'm not sure I would say it's advancing faster in terms of technology. If you watch the TED talk you'll see that Google's cars today are responding to situations far beyond what Tesla's current offerings are designed to do. Construction flaggers, school busses which must not be passed, bicycles blowing through red lights in intersections, cars randomly pulling into the middle of traffic, bicycles hand-signaling a turn, a woman in a wheelchair chasing a duck, Google's cars are negotiating these situations without driver intervention. It's a totally different class of problem than lane tracking, emergency braking, auto-park, etc.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

I'm not surprised the head of Google self-driving cars thinks Google's approach is the only way to do it.

tempestn 11y ago
Which of his arguments do you specifically disagree with?
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  At the risk of invoking the ire of Google's marketing team further (I just got -6'd on this thread in less than two minutes. It happens actually as predictably as clockwork on any case where I point out Google isn't quite as amazing as it seems.) So, I'm sitting here watching this, and nothing he's saying is particularly a solid logical argument. He's pointing out that a always-running self-driving car has to make more decisions or actions than a driver assistance device, but that's irrelevant: 99% of the time, the car's basically just moving forwards. And arguably, lane assist devices make decisions or corrections just as often as an autonomous car, same for automatic breaking. They constantly need to check the conditions on the road and decide whether or not to adjust. I'm not seeing any real reasoning driver assistance and fully autonomous are so shockingly different... short of the fact that this guy is marketing a Google product. If anything, it seems Urmson is heavily pidgeon-holing what a "driver assistance system" is, so that he can discredit the way all of their competitors are developing the same types of technology. Nothing particularly special about what Google is tracking that couldn't be similarly developed as part of a driver assistance system. In actuality, his final argument is the most ludicrous of them all... that gradually developing the technology through driver assistance is too slow. That this needs to be rushed out the door in the next couple years.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    I didn't downvote your first comment, but in my opinion the reason it was downvoted was that it amounted to ad-hominem ("Don't listen to him because he's from Google.") rather than a reasoned argument like you've posted here. Sure, it's wise to take into account the source of an argument, but you can't reasonably stop there. I do disagree with your first point, that an always-running self-driving car having to make more decisions is irrelevant because a car spends the majority of its time moving forward. I think the point is that a driver assistance system basically only handles that moving forward case. It may cover 99% of the time, but it only covers a small fraction of the decisions and actions the car has to take. It's the other 1% (probably higher than 1% actually, but it doesn't matter) that's the tricky part, and it is difficult to iterate from handling the special (if very common) case of basically just moving forward, to handling all the other situations a car can find itself in. You would quickly lose any easily-understood distinction between what situations the car is and is not able to handle, making it difficult for the human driver to know when their input will be required.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      But we have other types of driver assistance for that as well. For instance, parking assist has to handle the complex maneuvering of a vehicle into a narrow space. Presumably while both avoiding hitting the cars near it which are parked, but also any cars which might come across your car while it is parking. I could see driver assistance eventually move to a point where it's tracking and simulating just as much as a fully autonomous vehicle, but allowing the driver to remain in control until it believes a collision is imminent, or that the user is making an unsafe judgment call. Things like the automatic emergency braking feature will eventually learn how to detect different types of objects as well. Say, to avoid slamming on the brakes because a plastic bag was pushed by the wind past a camera or sensor. Presumably, these currently independent assistance features will converge over time, into your car simply being aware of it's surroundings and intervening to protect you. And then someday it'll just drive itself. All of this can (and probably will) be done gradually, but it sounds like that isn't fast enough for Urmson's son to reach driving age.

mikeash 11y ago

I'm reminded of, "The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person who is doing it." Maybe they're right, but so far the driver-assistance angle seems to be advancing quite a bit faster and is certainly doing more to improve safety in the real world.

haberman 11y ago
It's advancing faster in terms of being available to the consumer, that is true. But I'm not sure I would say it's advancing faster in terms of technology. If you watch the TED talk you'll see that Google's cars today are responding to situations far beyond what Tesla's current offerings are designed to do. Construction flaggers, school busses which must not be passed, bicycles blowing through red lights in intersections, cars randomly pulling into the middle of traffic, bicycles hand-signaling a turn, a woman in a wheelchair chasing a duck, Google's cars are negotiating these situations without driver intervention. It's a totally different class of problem than lane tracking, emergency braking, auto-park, etc.