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George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

330 points by gatsby 10y ago

daveloyall 10y ago
The commenters on that twitter thread are critical of geohot for "rolling over easily". I don't think we should presume that the guy who defied Sony, AT&T, Apple, and the DCMA is doing any such thing. Maybe he discovered a flaw in the design of comma AI or something.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Then maybe he should have said so. Criticizing him based on his own description of why it's canceled is entirely reasonable. He got a letter from the NHTSA and immediately said he was done because he didn't want to deal with it. He's either rolling over for them or he's lying about his motivations, either way it's not good.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    Well, it is not really cancelled. He's moving to China.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      He said "The comma one is cancelled." I interpret the followup as being that they're doing other products and doing those other products in other markets. Maybe he just meant they'll do it in China instead, but I can only go off what he says here.
tetrep 10y ago
a little more detail from techcrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... It seems that Hotz said, “dealing with regulators and lawyers… isn’t worth it.” Which seems very unfortunate/shortsighted due to how useful this tech could be. Why not hire someone to deal with them for you?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That may be just a fig-leaf to plaster over 'we couldn't do it'. It's one thing to release software, it's quite another thing to release this software and have it tested, audited and certified safe and that's definitely part of the process of delivering software that is critical to the well being of the users and the other people you're sharing the road with. And that second part is part-and-parcel of wanting to operate in this space.
  - ceterum_censeo 10y ago
    And he would have needed to have performed the development under an appropriately rigorous development process.
  - snarf21 10y ago
    I agree. Prototypes are easy, production level products/systems are hard and take time and money. There is also another angle of just hoping to sell the prototype and "team" and let someone else do the hard work of making it real.
  - kough 10y ago
    Exactly what I think -- here's the "deus ex machina" that he needed to wash his hands of the whole thing, after having talked himself into a corner where the only other way out was to deliver a real, working, product. The letter the government sent was simply asking for more information and a temporary pause in sales; not any permanent injunction at all. It reads like they know he's kind of a hothead but they're doing their best to convince him that this is in everyone's best interest.
  - snotrockets 10y ago
    An ex-colleague of mine used to say the difference between a software engineer and a real engineer is that the latter's signature is criminally binding. We can refuse to be real engineers (it is a great responsibility), but then we should drop the title.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
dibstern 10y ago
It's difficult to be sure about George. He spoke so derisively about other companies that failed to deliver, and now because of the inevitable paperwork that comes with a product that takes over your car for you at times (level-3 autonomy iirc), he too fails to deliver. If he leaves to join Tesla, it seems pretty irresponsible, given that he's raised $3.1M and has a team of employees relying on him. But that's all speculation until we see what comes next. Perhaps I'm unimaginative at ~1:30am, but I can't imagine what he wants comma.ai to do, unless he sells or licenses the product to automakers who can do the paperwork for him.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  He could return the unused funds still.
nibs 10y ago
Classic government. Self-driving technology should benchmarked against how good people are at driving (and how often they kill and injure people), as opposed to being proven intrinsically safe like a car part.
- dmreedy 10y ago
  The reason for the disparity here is because, while you're right that humans are not particularly good drivers, there is a massive institutional infrastructure built up around things like criminal prosecution and insurance for when a human messes up. We know[0] how to deal with (accidental or deliberate) 'bad' people. We haven't quite figured out how to do that with intelligent systems that blur the line between automatic and intentional. --- [0] Of course, there is much valid debate as to whether we really -know- how to do this either. But legacy and history carry weight, unfortunately, either way
- bpicolo 10y ago
  I mean, they apparently have a clause trying to entirely deny liability. That's not really a reasonable spot.
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Can you show me if Tesla's is fundamentally different? I'm sincerely curious.
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      Afaik they don't have people signing waivers, so I imagine they must have gone through a lot of regulatory hurdles? They definitely talk about people needing to be attentive in ways, but I don't personally know the extent of it. "Tesla autopilot liability /waivers" didn't come up any relevant stuff.
- lallysingh 10y ago
  Well there are two options a politician has here: 1) Figure out how to explain a nuanced argument to their constituents. 2) Block progress until their explanation problem goes away (in this case, by raising the benchmark).
helpless_slav 10y ago
There's gotta be something else, no way one letter makes you scrap a product like this, I fail to believe it
helpless_slav 10y ago
There's gotta be something else, no way one letter makes you scrap a product like this, I fail to believe it
TheDrizzle43 10y ago
I guess that makes Hotz one of the "jokers" now?
losteverything 10y ago
<<George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’ after request from NHTSA What is the role of the national highway transportation safety administration wrt driver less card and trucks? Can they issue rules? Can they prevent deployment? Is it for cars and trucks? Once driverless exists will there have to be a differentiator for auto/truck?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > Can they issue rules? Can they prevent deployment? Is it for cars and trucks? Yes. They are a federal regulatory agency.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  They can issue rules and regulations, levy fines, and prevent deployment on public roads. If you are operating only on private roads(say, a farm, or a mining site), then you are not under NHTSAs purview and can more or less do what you want.
spectrum1234 10y ago
Technically it sounds more like he is pivoting to other markets and tweaking the product. I don't think he is giving the 3 million back to Andreessen.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  For a community that preaches iteration so consistently it's rather hypocritical and hilarious to see so many responses basically thinking that he's vaporware and moving operations to China because he can't hack it here in the US - Occam's Razor would indicate less regulations in China would be a path of least resistance to iteration of this sort. Besides, if Hotz can get his car to navigate China before Musk can get his product to not drive in the wrong lane in a fucking parking lot, then we've got game on.
wyldfire 10y ago
Wow, sometimes I wish HN came with a "context, please" button. ;) It's a self driving car (or rather a prototype of an "autopilot" feature like Tesla's), AFAICT. From [1]: > After a couple miles, Hotz lets go of the wheel and pulls the trigger... Hotz shouts, “You got this, car! You got this!” > The car does, more or less, have it. ... Amazed, I ask Hotz what it felt like the first time he got the car to work. > “Dude,” he says, “the first time it worked was this morning.” [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/ http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...
- mikeash 10y ago
  It does have such a button! It's the comments button. Of course, it relies on enterprising users such as yourself to make it happen. You have created what you wished for! And just to confirm, your summary is correct. It's not self-driving, but it is lane keeping and intelligent cruise control adequate for fully automatic highway driving in normal circumstances, like Tesla's current Autopilot is. It was to be an aftermarket accessory that could be installed by the buyer, presumably hooking into the OBD2 port and controlling existing servos. The initial release was to focus on a small number of Honda and Acura models which already have lane assist and cruise control features, but not as sophisticated, so it was able to take advantage of that existing hardware and extend its functionality.
- web007 10y ago
  And that last line is exactly why he got the letter from NHTSA.
Analemma_ 10y ago
He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn't all delusional technolibertarian assholes, but guys like this sure aren't making my case easy.
- j2bax 10y ago
  Come on... Hotz doesn't really represent anyone but George Hotz. He is a very unique individual that was blessed with a very mathematical mind but very little social grace.
  - gaze 10y ago
    He's a good hacker but he's not particularly mathematical...
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    Sure, but every individual is part of a pattern, and our outgroup is becoming more convinced that there's one pattern in particular at play here. Take a look at the front page of Hacker News right now: in addition to this story, there's "Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick" and "Uber drivers win employee rights case" (presumably over Uber's fierce opposition). With 30 items on the front page, that means we've got 10% of the news in our field which could plausibly be parsed by outsiders as "technolibertarian assholes". I've been watching public opinion of the Bay Area startup scene gradually eroding in the last half-decade or so, and this is a big part of the reason; it's a real problem that we need to start thinking about.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      I don't think this can be fixed. Silicon Valley thinks its the solution, when its more the problem. You can't drastically disrupt major pieces of the economy, expect to keep large swaths of the pie for yourself, and having no safety net, those who used to have jobs end up disenfranchised and permanently economically disadvantaged.
kejaed 10y ago
Haven't we heard this story countless times from projects on sites like Kickstarter before? There is a huge difference between tinkering in your garage and creating a production product. Whether it's something that falls under government regulations like Hotz's project, or transitioning from a couple of 3D-printed models in your basement to an injection molded factory, making things (at scale and in the real world) is hard.
j2bax 10y ago
The dude is brilliant no doubt... But this space requires brilliance and a lot of spine. That is what makes someone like Musk so unique. Someone thats willing to risk it all, and won't let doors closing in their face and public opinion hinder them. I hope Hotz can put his ego aside and go work with someone that can handle the bureaucracy and red tape. He is surely a prodigy and it would be a shame if the world can't benefit from his ideas.
firasd 10y ago
I find it interesting that he was on This Week in Startups only a few weeks ago calling every company he found unconvincing "losers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy_07g2IrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy_07g2IrM Maybe they're all losers and you're a winner, but perhaps being an elite hax0r isn't all that's needed to go to market... If you can't reply to a regulator letter, how are you going to deal with supply chain or cash flow issues? Bad reviews in the press or on Amazon? People who want refunds? Not to mention the literal horror of a car crash. To borrow a term injected into this election season, you gotta have Stamina.
- devy 10y ago
  Keep in mind that given Geohot's promise of "shipping" comma one by 2016 EOY, it's impossible to keep that promise if they have to deal with regulatory agencies and certifications stuff. And there are probably other countries and markets with much lax requirements, I think this is probably the main reason he cancelled the product on U.S. On the other hand, I am really concerned that he and his team didn't appear to think about working with the government agencies beforehand to sort out any regulatory requirements in order to prevent this kind of situation. Shocked!
  - phkahler 10y ago
    >> On the other hand, I am really concerned that he and his team didn't appear to think about working with the government agencies beforehand to sort out any regulatory requirements in order to prevent this kind of situation. Shocked! Well consider the attitude of SV hackers toward the established auto industry. They think we're a bunch of... I dunno... rust-belt, old-school, last century, bumblefucks who don't understand technology. Given that attitude it probably never occurred to him that there might be people or even regulators taking this stuff way more seriously than him.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pugworthy 10y ago
  And speaking of elections. Using the term "losers" sure reminds me of someone...
brianbreslin 10y ago
Something seems fishy to me. Cruise which GM bought for $1B a few months back was working on similar tech. Having only raised $3M he could have EASILY sold his tech/team to Chrysler or Ford or Hyundai, or any other car company for $100M and made his investors super happy and himself very rich. So why "quit" when the feds ask you to deal with regulations that involve passenger safety. Its not like he had to spend $20M on clinical trials.
- ohitsdom 10y ago
  Yeah this seems like an easy out that allows him to save face.
  - DasIch 10y ago
    Unless he tried this already and anyone who took a serious look saw that he had nothing of value.
    - exDM69 10y ago
      Every major player in the automotive industry is probably further along in development than this product is. They've probably been running cars on the road with similar capabilities for about a year or more now.
- idsout 10y ago
  He posted the answer to this on Twitter: "Would much rather spend my life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers. It isn't worth it." Money isn't everything to some people. He has the true hacker ethos.
  - sharpercoder 10y ago
    For me, hacking is about understanding systems and altering them in a way they behave favourably to you. The right thing to do when a regulator fires letters to you is to build a firewall of managers and/or lawayers to ensure they don't penetrate the hacking activity.
gallerytungsten 10y ago
It appears Hotz will now deploy his system in China, where the regulations on such devices are surely more lax. Looks like a good move for extended testing without pesky government scrutiny.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  If it doesn't work the US might be a better place to mess up than China.
  - defen 10y ago
    I was thinking the same thing...sure there are fewer regulations, but "death penalty" is not outside the realm of possibility for fucking this up in China.
hangonhn 10y ago
Wow. If he really moves his project to China to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment even though he couldn't pass the scrutiny in the US, he's being very immoral and cavalier about people's lives in China. I don't understand how a startup like Cruise can get past this regulatory hurlde in the US but Hotz can't.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  It will be fun when he realizes the lack of road markings and overall road quality/traffic mess in China makes it much harder than driving in your avg. US road (especially in California)
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    ...which means that if he's successful his product will likely be more robust than ones worked through in less challenging environments. Here in North Texas I just took a weird exchange between two major highways (I-30E to Loop 12N) and at night, poorly marked lanes, very aggressive exit/entry points, and the first thought that popped into my head was "There's no way a Tesla autopilot - or anything - on the market today could navigate this at posted speed even in ideal conditions." I'm sure it's a bit over-the-top of me to come up with such useless tests, but I love driving and wish there was as much emphasis on actual driver education as there is on innovating driver-less vehicles.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  My guess is that there are other problems with the comma one system, and he is using this as an excuse to back out (not so) gracefully from his previous statements.
- espadrine 10y ago
  If that is his intention, it is also risky from a business perspective. China does have laws and regulations, even if they haven't yet set many laws on self-driving facilities. Understanding those, and appealing to the Chinese population, are very difficult business and marketing tasks, much greater than trying to develop a business in a country he knows, in a culture he understands. Google, Uber, and so many others have struggled and are struggling still.
sickbeard 10y ago
Maybe it's a piece of crap and not worth the lawyers
- arcticfox 10y ago
  This is the most likely explanation to me
tptacek 10y ago
Here's what the Special Order demanded: 1. Describe in detail how the comma one is installed in a vehicle and provide a copy of installation instructions for the comma one. 2. Describe in detail the advanced driver assistance features of the comma one, including how those features differ from the existing features of the vehicles in which the comma one is intended to be installed. 3. Describe in detail how a vehicle driver uses the comma one and provide a copy of user instructions for the comma one. 4. Provide a detailed description of the conditions under which you believe a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely. This description must include a. The types of roadways on which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; b. The geographic area in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; c. The speed range in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; d. The traffic conditions in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; e. The environmental conditions in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; f. The amount and type of driver inputs necessary for a vehicle equipped with comma one to operate safely. 5. Provide a detailed description of the basis for your response to Request No. 4, including a description of any testing or analysis to determine safe operating conditions for a vehicle equipped with comma one. 6. Describe the steps you have taken or plan to take to ensure the safe operation of a vehicle equipped with comma one, including but not limited to automated shutoff of comma one features and owner education. 7. Provide a list by make, model, model year or year of production of each vehicle for which you support or anticipate supporting use of the comma one. 8. Describe in detail any steps you have taken to ensure that installation of the comma one in any supported vehicle does not have unintended consequences on the vehicle’s operation. 9. Describe the functionality of comma one, if any, if installed in an unsupported vehicle. 10. Have you done any analysis or testing of the impact or potential impact of comma one on the vehicle’s compliance with the FMVSS? If yes, please describe the analysis or testing in detail and provide supporting documentation. If no, describe why not. 11. Describe in detail how the comma one impacts a vehicle’s rearview mirror, including whether it requires removal of the rearview mirror or the extent to which it blocks or obstructs the rearview mirror. 12. State your position on how the comma one does or does not affect a vehicle’s compliance with FMVSS No 111, Review Mirrors (49 CFR 571.111), and provide any supporting information or documentation to support your position. 13. State the date on which you currently plan to begin selling the comma one, and provide a list of all retailers and/or websites through which you anticipate selling the comma one. 14. State the date on which you currently plan to begin shipping the comma one. 15. Provide any other information which you believe supports the safety of the comma one.
RickS 10y ago
Reading the letter seemed somewhat tame until the end - fined $21k/day for noncompliance. Ouch.
- rtkwe 10y ago
  It's not really out of the ordinary. The fines provide an actual known incentive to actually respond and not brush the letter off.
samfisher83 10y ago
He did release the dataset and some python scripts for training the model. https://github.com/commaai/research https://github.com/commaai/research The last blog post talks about them having a system for the 2016 civic. I guess maybe they will sell it on aliexpress?
singularity2001 10y ago
The government threatening him to pay a penalty of $21,000 per day(!) before even selling the product sure didn't inflict affection from his side. [0] https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...
- mikeash 10y ago
  They're just asking for information at this point. The penalty is if he doesn't provide that information by the deadline. I'm sure being threatened with such a penalty isn't pleasant, but it's hardly unusual. I mean, just about every little government form I send in has a section that starts out with, "Under penalties of perjury, I declare that...."
asimpletune 10y ago
May I remind everyone we don't know the full details behind what's going on!
tawya 10y ago
"The difference is shipability."
deleted 10y ago
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sytelus 10y ago
Here's Bloomberg article on Hotz's initial prototype: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/ http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...
smpetrey 10y ago
Rule number 1. Don't piss off investors. This won't bode well for Comma or the investors. Really bad PR move.
shraken 10y ago
I'm not involved in the machine vision field but I found his commitment to open and transparent academic publishing very admirable. He published a paper with their summer intern here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.01230.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.01230.pdf
- assface 10y ago
  This is not peer-reviewed. This is a tech report. Anybody can post these.
  - claudius 10y ago
    Well, you usually need a university address or some endorsers to post to the arxiv, but true, most people could probably post that. On the other hand, the arxiv is also the default method of communication in quite a few fields (physics and maths, mostly), to the point that while grant committees etc. look at your peer-reviewed papers, I essentially only check the arxiv for new developments, not the plethora of properly peer-reviewed journals.
- argonaut 10y ago
  Also, the entire deep learning academia is already extremely open and transparent with publishing.
- andreyk 10y ago
  I looked over that paper, and honestly it is nothing that impressive. Basically it just described applying off-the-shelf algorithms to a particular kind of data. It probably would be published and is interesting to look over, so I don't mean to deride the paper itself, but still it is just not that novel. Nothing about how their end-to-end self driving works or how it's better than the many competitors. So to me this was hugely underwhelming, really.
Kenji 10y ago
That reminds me of my old comment about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492856 I'm really not overly negative about new things but this was predictable.
izqui 10y ago
Today, I can only paraphrase George's harsh bulling destructive feedback he gave us on our startup: George, "that wouldn't work" :)
- luisivan 10y ago
  And days before that I was with him in a fundraising dinner and we were like besties. Sociopaths. (Edited to reflect the point more politely)
  - olegkikin 10y ago
    That's a very rude thing to say publicly.
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    >And days before that I was with him in a fundraising dinner and we were like besties. Sociopaths. Are you suggesting people should be rude to you when your product is shit?
- eugeneionesco 10y ago
  How is that bullying, how is that destructive?
jason_slack 10y ago
Why does the document from the NHTSA look like a court order..formatted like something you would receive when getting sued, etc? Is this standard format to request that questions be answered? It looks more intimidating and scary than a friendly "hey, we want info about your product".
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That's to make sure you understand that if you ignore the document there will be consequences.
cloudjacker 10y ago
Egohotz is back!
deleted 10y ago
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phasmantistes 10y ago
I love this paragraph of the Request: > The singular includes the plural; the plural includes the singular. The masculine gender includes the feminine and neuter genders; and the neuter gender includes the masculine and feminine genders. "And" as well as "or" shall be construed either disjunctively or conjunctively, to bring within scope of this Special Order all responses that might otherwise be construed to be outside the scope. "Each" shall be construed to include "every", and "every" shall be construed to include "each". "Any" shall be construed to include "all", and "all" shall be construed to include "any". The use of a verb in any tense shall be construed as the use of the verb in a past or present tense, whenever necessary to bring within the scope of the document requests all responses which might otherwise be construed to be outside its scope. I've seen similar paragraphs on other legal documents, but this is the most thorough I've seen. It's basically just a huge middle finger to all (any?) armchair lawyers who want to weasel out of the order.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Yup, that is the "don't try to wiggle out of this with some thin reasoning about scope" paragraph.
- d0vs 10y ago
  Need me one of those for internet comments.
- AceJohnny2 10y ago
  See also RFC 2119 that disambiguates the meaning of "must", "shall", "may" and others in specs. It's because of that RFC that you often see those words in caps in a spec. https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
- phjesusthatguy3 10y ago
  It didn't spell out what the definition of 'is' is, though.
got2surf 10y ago
In the discussion on Jalopnik (a fairly large auto-enthusiast site), someone mentioned that Alex Roy had a good experience riding in a comma one-equipped car (https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657 https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657). I thought this was an interesting perspective - Alex Roy is famous in car enthusiast circles for his driving records over the past 30 years. He's set speed records with drives across the US and around Manhattan, and has set electric/semi-autonomous records in a Tesla Model S in August 2016. The point being that Alex Roy has probably spent more time thinking about driving, planning trips, and understanding traffic rules than most other people alive today. His perspective is just a single perspective, but given his massive experience with car-driver systems I think it's an interesting perspective.
ucaetano 10y ago
Funny that Tesla doesn't even sell "Autopilot" anymore, as it was an off-the-shelf 3rd-party solution, but the reference persists. Talk about the power of marketing and branding.
antirez 10y ago
Given how reasonable the NHTSA request looks, to give up so quickly is a bit suspicious. In products like that it is likely that the first 50% looks much more approachable, and then as you try to reach something that can actually be shipped to customers, you have to solve huge problems incrementally, and it is very hard. So looks like a bit of an excuse to stop it: if you have the working thing you try harder before giving up IMHO.
- macspoofing 10y ago
  I agree. I think he hit a wall with his tech, realized it and was looking for an out.
CobrastanJorji 10y ago
I've been thinking for a while now that the main threat to the existence of self-driving cars in the medium-term future is that somebody, in the rush to beat Google, jumping the gun and selling cars that kill people cause Congress to knee-jerk outlaw the whole thing.
pinaceae 10y ago
YC should take note, as a bunch of recent investments outside of pure software will likely end up in the same problem space. nuclear energy, supersonic planes, etc. - applying the "disruption" and "agile" method does not work everywhere, to put it mildly.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Do I think Hotz has a viable product? Yes. (A comment over at Jalopnik linked to a Tweet where an actual human rider / journalist experienced the Hotz vehicle and was quite impressed) Do I think there's significant political pressure to have his product, ahem, driven into the ground as to not be a viable competitor to larger firms? Yes. Do I think it's a sign of immaturity to pack up your stuff and leave when confronted by a small challenge? Yes. Do I think dealing with the NHTSA (and potential NTSB) is a small challenge? No. Am I still a fan of George Hotz as both an inventor, innovator, and persona? Yeah, I can see where he's coming from. Do I think it's hilarious that a vocal contingent here criticizes him for taking a "path of least resistance" (regulation) in his development and iteration process? Absolutely.
- ar15saveslives 10y ago
  Let us know when you think again.
- defen 10y ago
  > Do I think Hotz has a viable product? Yes. (A comment over at Jalopnik linked to a Tweet where an actual human rider / journalist experienced the Hotz vehicle and was quite impressed) Journalists being shown demos in controlled circumstances are a notoriously unreliable source of information about the viability of a product.
  - got2surf 10y ago
    That's a fair point, and we shouldn't over-weight one journalist's experience. However, I think that in this case, the author of the tweet has a lot of credibility (https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657 https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657) as the holder of multiple performance driving records. You're right that it is only one anecdotal perspective, but it's kind of like a prominent Apple blogger tweeting that a new Microsoft product has phenomenal UI. It's just one perspective, but (to me) it's interesting enough to merit further consideration.
    - 10y ago
msane 10y ago
I'm just amazed at what a bad name that is. "Comma One"... Did they never think that it would be called the The Coma One after even the slightest inevitable incident? Or that a segment of people will be innocently misspelling it as "Coma" everywhere? and how quickly it could catch on? It's so obvious it seems almost Freudian ...
- web007 10y ago
  It's not a great name, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it's "all things AI". Think classification language, like "Car, Self-Driving". They could be "Car, AI" and "Assistant, AI". Less charitably, it's step one toward Tres Commas.
  - msane 10y ago
    I can imagine overhearing the mass market consumers: "Oh, the name is inspired from classification language ... "
  - henrikschroder 10y ago
    Given that he referenced the HBO show in his Techcrunch presentation, I'd say the reference to the three comma club is probably the most likely. Also, one comma would be $1000, which is what the thing was supposed to cost.
    - msane 10y ago
      I don't know if it was ever intended as a consumer facing name, but even without the "coma" puns, it's too wonky for customers, do you think? Besides, isn't one comma 99k worth of room? It's marketing lingo aimed at the hubris of venture capitalists.
      - msane 10y ago
        / or yeah a bit from Silicon Valley, got it.
- 10y ago
coverband 10y ago
I'm seeing a huge number of assumptions and assertions, but this is still "developing news". I think it's equally likely that this device will be brought to market at a later point when the start-up gathers the resources, test results, and the lawyers that can handle the regulators.
lawnchair_larry 10y ago
Nobody who is familiar with George is surprised by this. It's unfortunate that his ego has a scapegoat, however. I guess this time he couldn't find anyone on IRC to finish the hard parts for him and let him take the credit.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  > I guess this time he couldn't find anyone on IRC to finish the hard parts for him and let him take the credit. I feel like there is some backstory here I've never heard.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    'lawnchair_larry knows way more about this than I do but there's a pretty significant schadenfreude thing happening in security-nerd-land right now.
  - Relys 10y ago
    Backstory here: https://twitter.com/comex/status/709868908161929216 https://twitter.com/comex/status/709868908161929216
  - spike021 10y ago
    Probably has to do with when he participated in the PS3 or iOS "hack" scenes.
- hellameta 10y ago
  IRC? Is there more to this?...
nzjrs 10y ago
Hopefully his example is shown to every engineering class along side the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse example. He is truly an example of an irresponsible engineer and a great lesson to learn from.
8_hours_ago 10y ago
Do third-party "autopilot" systems require ISO 26262 certification? I know that car manufacturers and tier-1s spend lots of time and money getting their safety-critical code certified. Do the same requirements not apply to aftermarket solutions? Actually, now that I think about this more... does Tesla's autopilot have ISO 26262 certification? I hope that the recent advancements in self-driving cars isn't a result of tech companies bending or breaking the rules, but I don't know enough about when ISO 26262 is required (if at all).
droopybuns 10y ago
The comments in this thread make me realize that there is a large amount of HN readers who have never had to deal with the government. Yes, the penalty is scary looking, but it is par for the course. You don't get exposed to it if you are doing amateur/freelance/e-commerce. As soon as you touch critical national infrastructure (Telcom, NTSB, Healthcare, finance) then you have to deal with the government, which never forgets to remind you of the threat of authorized violence and financial penalties. If you want to play at the high stakes tables, you have to pay the blinds. If that's too scary, then stay at the smaller tables. The unfairness commentary here is pretty naive.
- xemdetia 10y ago
  I feel like another part missing in the comments here is that most US regulations allow an individual pretty extensive free reign when it comes to risky ventures (see experimental aircrafts, make your own guns, electronic devices and a couple others). The regulation hammer really kicks in once you start trying to market it to other people, or 'what are you actually selling to people.'
  - r0m4n0 10y ago
    Yea I totally agree with you here. If he hadn't said he was selling this product and branded it so, he most definitely would have some interesting arguments under most of these regulations and verbiage in the letter. What happens if I install a little motor that controls my own pedals and steering wheel? What if I blogged about it? What if I tried to sell it? I think there were a lot of poor decisions made by hotz
yalogin 10y ago
Must be a great morale boost for the employees.
kamkha 10y ago
Comma's main advantage over Tesla's Autopilot was, as I understand it, the use of cameras to collect video data. Hotz presented that as the advantage at TechCrunch Disrupt, at least, saying that he could beat Tesla's Autopilot because he had full video data from a small smartphone app that he had test users running as they drove while Tesla's vehicles had no video input. I wonder if his choice to cancel Comma is related to Tesla's recent announcement that all new Tesla vehicles would ship with a full video camera outfit.
- AceJohnny2 10y ago
  > while Tesla's vehicles had no video input. This is factually incorrect. Tesla vehicles rely on Mobileye [1] cameras to do its environmental analysis. These cameras come with the processing hardware to analyze the sensor data they're getting, and spits out environmental information that the driver assistance [2] can use to navigate the car. Whether Tesla had access to the sensor data directly rather than just the analyzed stream is not public information. Now that Mobileye broke up with Tesla [3], it's unlikely they'll ever have it. Mobileye has years of experience in dealing with the kind of visual data you need to have on the road, such as crazy HDR (you want to be able to extract useful information when the sun is glaring at you as well as in the dark woods in the night, and be able to switch immediately as when you're going through a tunnel). They've developed dedicated hardware to reliably and quickly do object distance and velocity detection: this is exactly the scenario that a "Real-Time OS" is made for. You cannot afford to be pre-empted and lose 5ms on your analysis and miss an action frame. Thinking you can pull this off reliably with a non-RTOS and consumer cameras is... naive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye [2] Mobileye's equipment was never rated for full-on "Autopilot", which is why they were very unhappy with Tesla marketing their systems as such [3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobileye-ends-partnership-with-tesla-1469544028 http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobileye-ends-partnership-with-t...
  - AceJohnny2 10y ago
    I should add, by the way, that while Teslas have onboard radar, it is not a primary sensor, but a secondary discriminating sensor. This was admitted by Musk on Twitter following the fatal crash in Florida: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748625979271045121 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748625979271045121
krmboya 10y ago
I hope he backs down a bit, consults widely and work with the regulators looking into his company's product, even while exploring other markets. Still personally rooting for him because I personally think his product is amazing, and is poised to be a huge success if he does ship. As an outsider, his audacity, backed by proven technical smarts, seems to be the quality that should define the Silicon Valley startup scene, but over time, sentiments here at HN and other forums seem to suggest otherwise.
dev360 10y ago
The following quote from his site speaks volumes about the hubris: "we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost -- nokia, or car companies in 5 years"
jfornear 10y ago
Hotz started an AI company and the autopilot system was a relevant application but not the core product or mission.
cakeface 10y ago
When is the open source project to create self driving systems going to start? I feel very uncomfortable with private corporate AI driving me around and making decisions with my family's life in the balance. For me, I need to be able to see the code, change the code, change the weightings and priorities. I've been thinking about FOSS solutions to car computers a lot and it seems like it is really the only way to go if you care about freedom, security and privacy.
- inimino 10y ago
  Probably about ten years after it's commercially available.
iuguy 10y ago
Not everything we do is a success, and there are many reasons for our failures when they happen. The trick is to lick your wounds, learn from your mistakes and get back on the horse as soon as you're able to. I hope George learns all the lessons he needs from this to make whatever happens next a success.
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Thank goodness. It sounds like his grand scheme crumbled under a little scrutiny from a consumer safety organization. We don't need another theranos.
gwbas1c 10y ago
The attitude in the tech industry is to ship buggy products before they are complete. I'm so tired of wasting my time with buggy crap. I think it's awesome that a government agency said that this practice is not acceptable when someone's life is at stake.
dfar1 10y ago
It's weird that he would give up on his product after one letter, specially when money is not an issue. Perhaps he already has a buyer for the tech and just wants to move on to something else.
bertiewhykovich 10y ago
Good. It seems exceedingly unlikely that this is a road-ready technology, and we don't need yet another software-brained megalomaniac releasing an insufficiently-developed, unproven product into the physical world, where "bugs" will actually just straight kill you.
tomjacobs 10y ago
Best way to get some more press and attention? Hype a project and then claim to cancel it.
Freezerburnt 10y ago
Personally, I think it's good to see this. I work on a small part of an ADAS system being developed for a large Tier 1 supplier. They won't even look at you if you haven't adhered to ISO 26262 development standards which add - easily - 2 times the work that a normal development would take. And for good reason. I'd like to see GH's Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, Failures in Time Analysis, etc., etc., etc. This stuff is really safe and not there yet for a REASON.
rdl 10y ago
Was this just a face-saving way to end the project, or did he really shut down a viable project that he wanted to continue over a simple request for information by a regulator?
flylib 10y ago
doubt he actually cancels it and changes his mind next week, this was more spur of the moment and his investors calmed him down?, way too much attention being brought to it

330 points by gatsby 10y ago

The commenters on that twitter thread are critical of geohot for "rolling over easily". I don't think we should presume that the guy who defied Sony, AT&T, Apple, and the DCMA is doing any such thing. Maybe he discovered a flaw in the design of comma AI or something.

mikeash 10y ago
Then maybe he should have said so. Criticizing him based on his own description of why it's canceled is entirely reasonable. He got a letter from the NHTSA and immediately said he was done because he didn't want to deal with it. He's either rolling over for them or he's lying about his motivations, either way it's not good.
- stale2002 10y ago
  Well, it is not really cancelled. He's moving to China.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    He said "The comma one is cancelled." I interpret the followup as being that they're doing other products and doing those other products in other markets. Maybe he just meant they'll do it in China instead, but I can only go off what he says here.

tetrep 10y ago

a little more detail from techcrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... It seems that Hotz said, “dealing with regulators and lawyers… isn’t worth it.” Which seems very unfortunate/shortsighted due to how useful this tech could be. Why not hire someone to deal with them for you?

jacquesm 10y ago
That may be just a fig-leaf to plaster over 'we couldn't do it'. It's one thing to release software, it's quite another thing to release this software and have it tested, audited and certified safe and that's definitely part of the process of delivering software that is critical to the well being of the users and the other people you're sharing the road with. And that second part is part-and-parcel of wanting to operate in this space.
- ceterum_censeo 10y ago
  And he would have needed to have performed the development under an appropriately rigorous development process.
- snarf21 10y ago
  I agree. Prototypes are easy, production level products/systems are hard and take time and money. There is also another angle of just hoping to sell the prototype and "team" and let someone else do the hard work of making it real.
- kough 10y ago
  Exactly what I think -- here's the "deus ex machina" that he needed to wash his hands of the whole thing, after having talked himself into a corner where the only other way out was to deliver a real, working, product. The letter the government sent was simply asking for more information and a temporary pause in sales; not any permanent injunction at all. It reads like they know he's kind of a hothead but they're doing their best to convince him that this is in everyone's best interest.
- snotrockets 10y ago
  An ex-colleague of mine used to say the difference between a software engineer and a real engineer is that the latter's signature is criminally binding. We can refuse to be real engineers (it is a great responsibility), but then we should drop the title.
  - jacquesm 10y ago

dibstern 10y ago

It's difficult to be sure about George. He spoke so derisively about other companies that failed to deliver, and now because of the inevitable paperwork that comes with a product that takes over your car for you at times (level-3 autonomy iirc), he too fails to deliver. If he leaves to join Tesla, it seems pretty irresponsible, given that he's raised $3.1M and has a team of employees relying on him. But that's all speculation until we see what comes next. Perhaps I'm unimaginative at ~1:30am, but I can't imagine what he wants comma.ai to do, unless he sells or licenses the product to automakers who can do the paperwork for him.

tedmiston 10y ago
He could return the unused funds still.

nibs 10y ago

Classic government. Self-driving technology should benchmarked against how good people are at driving (and how often they kill and injure people), as opposed to being proven intrinsically safe like a car part.

dmreedy 10y ago
The reason for the disparity here is because, while you're right that humans are not particularly good drivers, there is a massive institutional infrastructure built up around things like criminal prosecution and insurance for when a human messes up. We know[0] how to deal with (accidental or deliberate) 'bad' people. We haven't quite figured out how to do that with intelligent systems that blur the line between automatic and intentional. --- [0] Of course, there is much valid debate as to whether we really -know- how to do this either. But legacy and history carry weight, unfortunately, either way
bpicolo 10y ago
I mean, they apparently have a clause trying to entirely deny liability. That's not really a reasonable spot.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Can you show me if Tesla's is fundamentally different? I'm sincerely curious.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    Afaik they don't have people signing waivers, so I imagine they must have gone through a lot of regulatory hurdles? They definitely talk about people needing to be attentive in ways, but I don't personally know the extent of it. "Tesla autopilot liability /waivers" didn't come up any relevant stuff.
lallysingh 10y ago
Well there are two options a politician has here: 1) Figure out how to explain a nuanced argument to their constituents. 2) Block progress until their explanation problem goes away (in this case, by raising the benchmark).

helpless_slav 10y ago

There's gotta be something else, no way one letter makes you scrap a product like this, I fail to believe it

helpless_slav 10y ago

There's gotta be something else, no way one letter makes you scrap a product like this, I fail to believe it

TheDrizzle43 10y ago

I guess that makes Hotz one of the "jokers" now?

losteverything 10y ago

<<George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’ after request from NHTSA What is the role of the national highway transportation safety administration wrt driver less card and trucks? Can they issue rules? Can they prevent deployment? Is it for cars and trucks? Once driverless exists will there have to be a differentiator for auto/truck?

toomuchtodo 10y ago
> Can they issue rules? Can they prevent deployment? Is it for cars and trucks? Yes. They are a federal regulatory agency.
oh_sigh 10y ago
They can issue rules and regulations, levy fines, and prevent deployment on public roads. If you are operating only on private roads(say, a farm, or a mining site), then you are not under NHTSAs purview and can more or less do what you want.

spectrum1234 10y ago

Technically it sounds more like he is pivoting to other markets and tweaking the product. I don't think he is giving the 3 million back to Andreessen.

6stringmerc 10y ago
For a community that preaches iteration so consistently it's rather hypocritical and hilarious to see so many responses basically thinking that he's vaporware and moving operations to China because he can't hack it here in the US - Occam's Razor would indicate less regulations in China would be a path of least resistance to iteration of this sort. Besides, if Hotz can get his car to navigate China before Musk can get his product to not drive in the wrong lane in a fucking parking lot, then we've got game on.

wyldfire 10y ago

Wow, sometimes I wish HN came with a "context, please" button. ;) It's a self driving car (or rather a prototype of an "autopilot" feature like Tesla's), AFAICT. From [1]: > After a couple miles, Hotz lets go of the wheel and pulls the trigger... Hotz shouts, “You got this, car! You got this!” > The car does, more or less, have it. ... Amazed, I ask Hotz what it felt like the first time he got the car to work. > “Dude,” he says, “the first time it worked was this morning.” [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/ http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...

mikeash 10y ago
It does have such a button! It's the comments button. Of course, it relies on enterprising users such as yourself to make it happen. You have created what you wished for! And just to confirm, your summary is correct. It's not self-driving, but it is lane keeping and intelligent cruise control adequate for fully automatic highway driving in normal circumstances, like Tesla's current Autopilot is. It was to be an aftermarket accessory that could be installed by the buyer, presumably hooking into the OBD2 port and controlling existing servos. The initial release was to focus on a small number of Honda and Acura models which already have lane assist and cruise control features, but not as sophisticated, so it was able to take advantage of that existing hardware and extend its functionality.
web007 10y ago
And that last line is exactly why he got the letter from NHTSA.

Analemma_ 10y ago

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn't all delusional technolibertarian assholes, but guys like this sure aren't making my case easy.

j2bax 10y ago
Come on... Hotz doesn't really represent anyone but George Hotz. He is a very unique individual that was blessed with a very mathematical mind but very little social grace.
- gaze 10y ago
  He's a good hacker but he's not particularly mathematical...
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  Sure, but every individual is part of a pattern, and our outgroup is becoming more convinced that there's one pattern in particular at play here. Take a look at the front page of Hacker News right now: in addition to this story, there's "Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick" and "Uber drivers win employee rights case" (presumably over Uber's fierce opposition). With 30 items on the front page, that means we've got 10% of the news in our field which could plausibly be parsed by outsiders as "technolibertarian assholes". I've been watching public opinion of the Bay Area startup scene gradually eroding in the last half-decade or so, and this is a big part of the reason; it's a real problem that we need to start thinking about.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    I don't think this can be fixed. Silicon Valley thinks its the solution, when its more the problem. You can't drastically disrupt major pieces of the economy, expect to keep large swaths of the pie for yourself, and having no safety net, those who used to have jobs end up disenfranchised and permanently economically disadvantaged.

kejaed 10y ago

Haven't we heard this story countless times from projects on sites like Kickstarter before? There is a huge difference between tinkering in your garage and creating a production product. Whether it's something that falls under government regulations like Hotz's project, or transitioning from a couple of 3D-printed models in your basement to an injection molded factory, making things (at scale and in the real world) is hard.

j2bax 10y ago

The dude is brilliant no doubt... But this space requires brilliance and a lot of spine. That is what makes someone like Musk so unique. Someone thats willing to risk it all, and won't let doors closing in their face and public opinion hinder them. I hope Hotz can put his ego aside and go work with someone that can handle the bureaucracy and red tape. He is surely a prodigy and it would be a shame if the world can't benefit from his ideas.

firasd 10y ago

I find it interesting that he was on This Week in Startups only a few weeks ago calling every company he found unconvincing "losers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy_07g2IrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy_07g2IrM Maybe they're all losers and you're a winner, but perhaps being an elite hax0r isn't all that's needed to go to market... If you can't reply to a regulator letter, how are you going to deal with supply chain or cash flow issues? Bad reviews in the press or on Amazon? People who want refunds? Not to mention the literal horror of a car crash. To borrow a term injected into this election season, you gotta have Stamina.

devy 10y ago
Keep in mind that given Geohot's promise of "shipping" comma one by 2016 EOY, it's impossible to keep that promise if they have to deal with regulatory agencies and certifications stuff. And there are probably other countries and markets with much lax requirements, I think this is probably the main reason he cancelled the product on U.S. On the other hand, I am really concerned that he and his team didn't appear to think about working with the government agencies beforehand to sort out any regulatory requirements in order to prevent this kind of situation. Shocked!
- phkahler 10y ago
  >> On the other hand, I am really concerned that he and his team didn't appear to think about working with the government agencies beforehand to sort out any regulatory requirements in order to prevent this kind of situation. Shocked! Well consider the attitude of SV hackers toward the established auto industry. They think we're a bunch of... I dunno... rust-belt, old-school, last century, bumblefucks who don't understand technology. Given that attitude it probably never occurred to him that there might be people or even regulators taking this stuff way more seriously than him.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pugworthy 10y ago
And speaking of elections. Using the term "losers" sure reminds me of someone...

brianbreslin 10y ago

Something seems fishy to me. Cruise which GM bought for $1B a few months back was working on similar tech. Having only raised $3M he could have EASILY sold his tech/team to Chrysler or Ford or Hyundai, or any other car company for $100M and made his investors super happy and himself very rich. So why "quit" when the feds ask you to deal with regulations that involve passenger safety. Its not like he had to spend $20M on clinical trials.

ohitsdom 10y ago
Yeah this seems like an easy out that allows him to save face.
- DasIch 10y ago
  Unless he tried this already and anyone who took a serious look saw that he had nothing of value.
  - exDM69 10y ago
    Every major player in the automotive industry is probably further along in development than this product is. They've probably been running cars on the road with similar capabilities for about a year or more now.
idsout 10y ago
He posted the answer to this on Twitter: "Would much rather spend my life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers. It isn't worth it." Money isn't everything to some people. He has the true hacker ethos.
- sharpercoder 10y ago
  For me, hacking is about understanding systems and altering them in a way they behave favourably to you. The right thing to do when a regulator fires letters to you is to build a firewall of managers and/or lawayers to ensure they don't penetrate the hacking activity.

gallerytungsten 10y ago

It appears Hotz will now deploy his system in China, where the regulations on such devices are surely more lax. Looks like a good move for extended testing without pesky government scrutiny.

jacquesm 10y ago
If it doesn't work the US might be a better place to mess up than China.
- defen 10y ago
  I was thinking the same thing...sure there are fewer regulations, but "death penalty" is not outside the realm of possibility for fucking this up in China.

hangonhn 10y ago

Wow. If he really moves his project to China to take advantage of a lax regulatory environment even though he couldn't pass the scrutiny in the US, he's being very immoral and cavalier about people's lives in China. I don't understand how a startup like Cruise can get past this regulatory hurlde in the US but Hotz can't.

raverbashing 10y ago
It will be fun when he realizes the lack of road markings and overall road quality/traffic mess in China makes it much harder than driving in your avg. US road (especially in California)
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  ...which means that if he's successful his product will likely be more robust than ones worked through in less challenging environments. Here in North Texas I just took a weird exchange between two major highways (I-30E to Loop 12N) and at night, poorly marked lanes, very aggressive exit/entry points, and the first thought that popped into my head was "There's no way a Tesla autopilot - or anything - on the market today could navigate this at posted speed even in ideal conditions." I'm sure it's a bit over-the-top of me to come up with such useless tests, but I love driving and wish there was as much emphasis on actual driver education as there is on innovating driver-less vehicles.
oh_sigh 10y ago
My guess is that there are other problems with the comma one system, and he is using this as an excuse to back out (not so) gracefully from his previous statements.
espadrine 10y ago
If that is his intention, it is also risky from a business perspective. China does have laws and regulations, even if they haven't yet set many laws on self-driving facilities. Understanding those, and appealing to the Chinese population, are very difficult business and marketing tasks, much greater than trying to develop a business in a country he knows, in a culture he understands. Google, Uber, and so many others have struggled and are struggling still.

sickbeard 10y ago

Maybe it's a piece of crap and not worth the lawyers

arcticfox 10y ago
This is the most likely explanation to me

tptacek 10y ago

Here's what the Special Order demanded: 1. Describe in detail how the comma one is installed in a vehicle and provide a copy of installation instructions for the comma one. 2. Describe in detail the advanced driver assistance features of the comma one, including how those features differ from the existing features of the vehicles in which the comma one is intended to be installed. 3. Describe in detail how a vehicle driver uses the comma one and provide a copy of user instructions for the comma one. 4. Provide a detailed description of the conditions under which you believe a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely. This description must include a. The types of roadways on which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; b. The geographic area in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; c. The speed range in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; d. The traffic conditions in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; e. The environmental conditions in which a vehicle equipped with comma one may operate safely; f. The amount and type of driver inputs necessary for a vehicle equipped with comma one to operate safely. 5. Provide a detailed description of the basis for your response to Request No. 4, including a description of any testing or analysis to determine safe operating conditions for a vehicle equipped with comma one. 6. Describe the steps you have taken or plan to take to ensure the safe operation of a vehicle equipped with comma one, including but not limited to automated shutoff of comma one features and owner education. 7. Provide a list by make, model, model year or year of production of each vehicle for which you support or anticipate supporting use of the comma one. 8. Describe in detail any steps you have taken to ensure that installation of the comma one in any supported vehicle does not have unintended consequences on the vehicle’s operation. 9. Describe the functionality of comma one, if any, if installed in an unsupported vehicle. 10. Have you done any analysis or testing of the impact or potential impact of comma one on the vehicle’s compliance with the FMVSS? If yes, please describe the analysis or testing in detail and provide supporting documentation. If no, describe why not. 11. Describe in detail how the comma one impacts a vehicle’s rearview mirror, including whether it requires removal of the rearview mirror or the extent to which it blocks or obstructs the rearview mirror. 12. State your position on how the comma one does or does not affect a vehicle’s compliance with FMVSS No 111, Review Mirrors (49 CFR 571.111), and provide any supporting information or documentation to support your position. 13. State the date on which you currently plan to begin selling the comma one, and provide a list of all retailers and/or websites through which you anticipate selling the comma one. 14. State the date on which you currently plan to begin shipping the comma one. 15. Provide any other information which you believe supports the safety of the comma one.

RickS 10y ago

Reading the letter seemed somewhat tame until the end - fined $21k/day for noncompliance. Ouch.

rtkwe 10y ago
It's not really out of the ordinary. The fines provide an actual known incentive to actually respond and not brush the letter off.

samfisher83 10y ago

He did release the dataset and some python scripts for training the model. https://github.com/commaai/research https://github.com/commaai/research The last blog post talks about them having a system for the 2016 civic. I guess maybe they will sell it on aliexpress?

singularity2001 10y ago

The government threatening him to pay a penalty of $21,000 per day(!) before even selling the product sure didn't inflict affection from his side. [0] https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...

mikeash 10y ago
They're just asking for information at this point. The penalty is if he doesn't provide that information by the deadline. I'm sure being threatened with such a penalty isn't pleasant, but it's hardly unusual. I mean, just about every little government form I send in has a section that starts out with, "Under penalties of perjury, I declare that...."

asimpletune 10y ago

May I remind everyone we don't know the full details behind what's going on!

tawya 10y ago

"The difference is shipability."

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sytelus 10y ago

Here's Bloomberg article on Hotz's initial prototype: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/ http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...

smpetrey 10y ago

Rule number 1. Don't piss off investors. This won't bode well for Comma or the investors. Really bad PR move.

shraken 10y ago

I'm not involved in the machine vision field but I found his commitment to open and transparent academic publishing very admirable. He published a paper with their summer intern here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.01230.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.01230.pdf

assface 10y ago
This is not peer-reviewed. This is a tech report. Anybody can post these.
- claudius 10y ago
  Well, you usually need a university address or some endorsers to post to the arxiv, but true, most people could probably post that. On the other hand, the arxiv is also the default method of communication in quite a few fields (physics and maths, mostly), to the point that while grant committees etc. look at your peer-reviewed papers, I essentially only check the arxiv for new developments, not the plethora of properly peer-reviewed journals.
argonaut 10y ago
Also, the entire deep learning academia is already extremely open and transparent with publishing.
andreyk 10y ago
I looked over that paper, and honestly it is nothing that impressive. Basically it just described applying off-the-shelf algorithms to a particular kind of data. It probably would be published and is interesting to look over, so I don't mean to deride the paper itself, but still it is just not that novel. Nothing about how their end-to-end self driving works or how it's better than the many competitors. So to me this was hugely underwhelming, really.

Kenji 10y ago

That reminds me of my old comment about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492856 I'm really not overly negative about new things but this was predictable.

izqui 10y ago

Today, I can only paraphrase George's harsh bulling destructive feedback he gave us on our startup: George, "that wouldn't work" :)

luisivan 10y ago
And days before that I was with him in a fundraising dinner and we were like besties. Sociopaths. (Edited to reflect the point more politely)
- olegkikin 10y ago
  That's a very rude thing to say publicly.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  >And days before that I was with him in a fundraising dinner and we were like besties. Sociopaths. Are you suggesting people should be rude to you when your product is shit?
eugeneionesco 10y ago
How is that bullying, how is that destructive?

jason_slack 10y ago

Why does the document from the NHTSA look like a court order..formatted like something you would receive when getting sued, etc? Is this standard format to request that questions be answered? It looks more intimidating and scary than a friendly "hey, we want info about your product".

jacquesm 10y ago
That's to make sure you understand that if you ignore the document there will be consequences.

cloudjacker 10y ago

Egohotz is back!

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

phasmantistes 10y ago

I love this paragraph of the Request: > The singular includes the plural; the plural includes the singular. The masculine gender includes the feminine and neuter genders; and the neuter gender includes the masculine and feminine genders. "And" as well as "or" shall be construed either disjunctively or conjunctively, to bring within scope of this Special Order all responses that might otherwise be construed to be outside the scope. "Each" shall be construed to include "every", and "every" shall be construed to include "each". "Any" shall be construed to include "all", and "all" shall be construed to include "any". The use of a verb in any tense shall be construed as the use of the verb in a past or present tense, whenever necessary to bring within the scope of the document requests all responses which might otherwise be construed to be outside its scope. I've seen similar paragraphs on other legal documents, but this is the most thorough I've seen. It's basically just a huge middle finger to all (any?) armchair lawyers who want to weasel out of the order.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Yup, that is the "don't try to wiggle out of this with some thin reasoning about scope" paragraph.
d0vs 10y ago
Need me one of those for internet comments.
AceJohnny2 10y ago
See also RFC 2119 that disambiguates the meaning of "must", "shall", "may" and others in specs. It's because of that RFC that you often see those words in caps in a spec. https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
phjesusthatguy3 10y ago
It didn't spell out what the definition of 'is' is, though.

got2surf 10y ago

In the discussion on Jalopnik (a fairly large auto-enthusiast site), someone mentioned that Alex Roy had a good experience riding in a comma one-equipped car (https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657 https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657). I thought this was an interesting perspective - Alex Roy is famous in car enthusiast circles for his driving records over the past 30 years. He's set speed records with drives across the US and around Manhattan, and has set electric/semi-autonomous records in a Tesla Model S in August 2016. The point being that Alex Roy has probably spent more time thinking about driving, planning trips, and understanding traffic rules than most other people alive today. His perspective is just a single perspective, but given his massive experience with car-driver systems I think it's an interesting perspective.

ucaetano 10y ago

Funny that Tesla doesn't even sell "Autopilot" anymore, as it was an off-the-shelf 3rd-party solution, but the reference persists. Talk about the power of marketing and branding.

antirez 10y ago

Given how reasonable the NHTSA request looks, to give up so quickly is a bit suspicious. In products like that it is likely that the first 50% looks much more approachable, and then as you try to reach something that can actually be shipped to customers, you have to solve huge problems incrementally, and it is very hard. So looks like a bit of an excuse to stop it: if you have the working thing you try harder before giving up IMHO.

macspoofing 10y ago
I agree. I think he hit a wall with his tech, realized it and was looking for an out.

CobrastanJorji 10y ago

I've been thinking for a while now that the main threat to the existence of self-driving cars in the medium-term future is that somebody, in the rush to beat Google, jumping the gun and selling cars that kill people cause Congress to knee-jerk outlaw the whole thing.

pinaceae 10y ago

YC should take note, as a bunch of recent investments outside of pure software will likely end up in the same problem space. nuclear energy, supersonic planes, etc. - applying the "disruption" and "agile" method does not work everywhere, to put it mildly.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Do I think Hotz has a viable product? Yes. (A comment over at Jalopnik linked to a Tweet where an actual human rider / journalist experienced the Hotz vehicle and was quite impressed) Do I think there's significant political pressure to have his product, ahem, driven into the ground as to not be a viable competitor to larger firms? Yes. Do I think it's a sign of immaturity to pack up your stuff and leave when confronted by a small challenge? Yes. Do I think dealing with the NHTSA (and potential NTSB) is a small challenge? No. Am I still a fan of George Hotz as both an inventor, innovator, and persona? Yeah, I can see where he's coming from. Do I think it's hilarious that a vocal contingent here criticizes him for taking a "path of least resistance" (regulation) in his development and iteration process? Absolutely.

ar15saveslives 10y ago
Let us know when you think again.
defen 10y ago
> Do I think Hotz has a viable product? Yes. (A comment over at Jalopnik linked to a Tweet where an actual human rider / journalist experienced the Hotz vehicle and was quite impressed) Journalists being shown demos in controlled circumstances are a notoriously unreliable source of information about the viability of a product.
- got2surf 10y ago
  That's a fair point, and we shouldn't over-weight one journalist's experience. However, I think that in this case, the author of the tweet has a lot of credibility (https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657 https://twitter.com/AlexRoy144/status/791996855114694657) as the holder of multiple performance driving records. You're right that it is only one anecdotal perspective, but it's kind of like a prominent Apple blogger tweeting that a new Microsoft product has phenomenal UI. It's just one perspective, but (to me) it's interesting enough to merit further consideration.
  - 10y ago

msane 10y ago

I'm just amazed at what a bad name that is. "Comma One"... Did they never think that it would be called the The Coma One after even the slightest inevitable incident? Or that a segment of people will be innocently misspelling it as "Coma" everywhere? and how quickly it could catch on? It's so obvious it seems almost Freudian ...

web007 10y ago
It's not a great name, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it's "all things AI". Think classification language, like "Car, Self-Driving". They could be "Car, AI" and "Assistant, AI". Less charitably, it's step one toward Tres Commas.
- msane 10y ago
  I can imagine overhearing the mass market consumers: "Oh, the name is inspired from classification language ... "
- henrikschroder 10y ago
  Given that he referenced the HBO show in his Techcrunch presentation, I'd say the reference to the three comma club is probably the most likely. Also, one comma would be $1000, which is what the thing was supposed to cost.
  - msane 10y ago
    I don't know if it was ever intended as a consumer facing name, but even without the "coma" puns, it's too wonky for customers, do you think? Besides, isn't one comma 99k worth of room? It's marketing lingo aimed at the hubris of venture capitalists.
    - msane 10y ago
      / or yeah a bit from Silicon Valley, got it.
10y ago

coverband 10y ago

I'm seeing a huge number of assumptions and assertions, but this is still "developing news". I think it's equally likely that this device will be brought to market at a later point when the start-up gathers the resources, test results, and the lawyers that can handle the regulators.

lawnchair_larry 10y ago

Nobody who is familiar with George is surprised by this. It's unfortunate that his ego has a scapegoat, however. I guess this time he couldn't find anyone on IRC to finish the hard parts for him and let him take the credit.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
> I guess this time he couldn't find anyone on IRC to finish the hard parts for him and let him take the credit. I feel like there is some backstory here I've never heard.
- tptacek 10y ago
  'lawnchair_larry knows way more about this than I do but there's a pretty significant schadenfreude thing happening in security-nerd-land right now.
- Relys 10y ago
  Backstory here: https://twitter.com/comex/status/709868908161929216 https://twitter.com/comex/status/709868908161929216
- spike021 10y ago
  Probably has to do with when he participated in the PS3 or iOS "hack" scenes.
hellameta 10y ago
IRC? Is there more to this?...

nzjrs 10y ago

Hopefully his example is shown to every engineering class along side the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse example. He is truly an example of an irresponsible engineer and a great lesson to learn from.

8_hours_ago 10y ago

Do third-party "autopilot" systems require ISO 26262 certification? I know that car manufacturers and tier-1s spend lots of time and money getting their safety-critical code certified. Do the same requirements not apply to aftermarket solutions? Actually, now that I think about this more... does Tesla's autopilot have ISO 26262 certification? I hope that the recent advancements in self-driving cars isn't a result of tech companies bending or breaking the rules, but I don't know enough about when ISO 26262 is required (if at all).

droopybuns 10y ago

The comments in this thread make me realize that there is a large amount of HN readers who have never had to deal with the government. Yes, the penalty is scary looking, but it is par for the course. You don't get exposed to it if you are doing amateur/freelance/e-commerce. As soon as you touch critical national infrastructure (Telcom, NTSB, Healthcare, finance) then you have to deal with the government, which never forgets to remind you of the threat of authorized violence and financial penalties. If you want to play at the high stakes tables, you have to pay the blinds. If that's too scary, then stay at the smaller tables. The unfairness commentary here is pretty naive.

xemdetia 10y ago
I feel like another part missing in the comments here is that most US regulations allow an individual pretty extensive free reign when it comes to risky ventures (see experimental aircrafts, make your own guns, electronic devices and a couple others). The regulation hammer really kicks in once you start trying to market it to other people, or 'what are you actually selling to people.'
- r0m4n0 10y ago
  Yea I totally agree with you here. If he hadn't said he was selling this product and branded it so, he most definitely would have some interesting arguments under most of these regulations and verbiage in the letter. What happens if I install a little motor that controls my own pedals and steering wheel? What if I blogged about it? What if I tried to sell it? I think there were a lot of poor decisions made by hotz

yalogin 10y ago

Must be a great morale boost for the employees.

kamkha 10y ago

Comma's main advantage over Tesla's Autopilot was, as I understand it, the use of cameras to collect video data. Hotz presented that as the advantage at TechCrunch Disrupt, at least, saying that he could beat Tesla's Autopilot because he had full video data from a small smartphone app that he had test users running as they drove while Tesla's vehicles had no video input. I wonder if his choice to cancel Comma is related to Tesla's recent announcement that all new Tesla vehicles would ship with a full video camera outfit.

AceJohnny2 10y ago
> while Tesla's vehicles had no video input. This is factually incorrect. Tesla vehicles rely on Mobileye [1] cameras to do its environmental analysis. These cameras come with the processing hardware to analyze the sensor data they're getting, and spits out environmental information that the driver assistance [2] can use to navigate the car. Whether Tesla had access to the sensor data directly rather than just the analyzed stream is not public information. Now that Mobileye broke up with Tesla [3], it's unlikely they'll ever have it. Mobileye has years of experience in dealing with the kind of visual data you need to have on the road, such as crazy HDR (you want to be able to extract useful information when the sun is glaring at you as well as in the dark woods in the night, and be able to switch immediately as when you're going through a tunnel). They've developed dedicated hardware to reliably and quickly do object distance and velocity detection: this is exactly the scenario that a "Real-Time OS" is made for. You cannot afford to be pre-empted and lose 5ms on your analysis and miss an action frame. Thinking you can pull this off reliably with a non-RTOS and consumer cameras is... naive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye [2] Mobileye's equipment was never rated for full-on "Autopilot", which is why they were very unhappy with Tesla marketing their systems as such [3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobileye-ends-partnership-with-tesla-1469544028 http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobileye-ends-partnership-with-t...
- AceJohnny2 10y ago
  I should add, by the way, that while Teslas have onboard radar, it is not a primary sensor, but a secondary discriminating sensor. This was admitted by Musk on Twitter following the fatal crash in Florida: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748625979271045121 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748625979271045121

krmboya 10y ago

I hope he backs down a bit, consults widely and work with the regulators looking into his company's product, even while exploring other markets. Still personally rooting for him because I personally think his product is amazing, and is poised to be a huge success if he does ship. As an outsider, his audacity, backed by proven technical smarts, seems to be the quality that should define the Silicon Valley startup scene, but over time, sentiments here at HN and other forums seem to suggest otherwise.

dev360 10y ago

The following quote from his site speaks volumes about the hubris: "we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost -- nokia, or car companies in 5 years"

jfornear 10y ago

Hotz started an AI company and the autopilot system was a relevant application but not the core product or mission.

cakeface 10y ago

When is the open source project to create self driving systems going to start? I feel very uncomfortable with private corporate AI driving me around and making decisions with my family's life in the balance. For me, I need to be able to see the code, change the code, change the weightings and priorities. I've been thinking about FOSS solutions to car computers a lot and it seems like it is really the only way to go if you care about freedom, security and privacy.

inimino 10y ago
Probably about ten years after it's commercially available.

iuguy 10y ago

Not everything we do is a success, and there are many reasons for our failures when they happen. The trick is to lick your wounds, learn from your mistakes and get back on the horse as soon as you're able to. I hope George learns all the lessons he needs from this to make whatever happens next a success.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

Thank goodness. It sounds like his grand scheme crumbled under a little scrutiny from a consumer safety organization. We don't need another theranos.

gwbas1c 10y ago

The attitude in the tech industry is to ship buggy products before they are complete. I'm so tired of wasting my time with buggy crap. I think it's awesome that a government agency said that this practice is not acceptable when someone's life is at stake.

dfar1 10y ago

It's weird that he would give up on his product after one letter, specially when money is not an issue. Perhaps he already has a buyer for the tech and just wants to move on to something else.

bertiewhykovich 10y ago

Good. It seems exceedingly unlikely that this is a road-ready technology, and we don't need yet another software-brained megalomaniac releasing an insufficiently-developed, unproven product into the physical world, where "bugs" will actually just straight kill you.

tomjacobs 10y ago

Best way to get some more press and attention? Hype a project and then claim to cancel it.

Freezerburnt 10y ago

Personally, I think it's good to see this. I work on a small part of an ADAS system being developed for a large Tier 1 supplier. They won't even look at you if you haven't adhered to ISO 26262 development standards which add - easily - 2 times the work that a normal development would take. And for good reason. I'd like to see GH's Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, Failures in Time Analysis, etc., etc., etc. This stuff is really safe and not there yet for a REASON.

rdl 10y ago

Was this just a face-saving way to end the project, or did he really shut down a viable project that he wanted to continue over a simple request for information by a regulator?

flylib 10y ago

doubt he actually cancels it and changes his mind next week, this was more spur of the moment and his investors calmed him down?, way too much attention being brought to it