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This video convinced me that self-driving cars are definitely going to beat humans at safety. Freaky how early the thing gets that there's going to be a crash a

This video convinced me that self-driving cars are definitely going to beat humans at safety. Freaky how early the thing gets that there's going to be a crash and the distance at which it responds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ-d9k6JFA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ-d9k6JFA8

joering2 9y ago
Can Lidar distinquish between an empty plastic white bag dancing on the wind in the middle of the highway, and a baby that fell out of a stroller? In both scenarios whether it can or cannot, its a distaster.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Many humans also won't be able to distinguish between inanimate objects and babies/animals on the road. When there isn't sufficient data, there isn't sufficient data. Machine learning is not magic.
- make3 9y ago
  yes, it definitely can. deep learning is what is used in these things, and identifies objects and their properties
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    You are taking it for magic. Do not. http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.html http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.ht...
    - make3 9y ago
      I work on precisely this task for a living
      - Piskvorrr 9y ago
        My apologies. I mistook your comment for "just sprinkle it with the magic dust."
- tbabb 9y ago
  I don't know why this is getting downvoted. That's on of the harder problems in vehicle autonomy.
  - joering2 9y ago
    I wouldn't worry much. I have a few "fans" that follow my comments regularly and mass down-vote me. I also realized lately that my own upvote/downvote does not get accounted for.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Better than a human driver can detect a cat in the road. In fact a failure where it slows until it confirms with another sensor (probably optical) is ok. Many a driver won't even see the object and will drive though it.
- Someone 9y ago
  That problem is hard, but because of cultural norms not as hard as it seems at first sight. You rarely will find that baby without a stroller next to it, and without a human close by hurrying towards it. So, if you avoid hitting that stroller and that human, and, next, avoid almost hitting that human, you probably are safe. A jury wouldn't easily convict you for accidentally hitting a baby that fell out of a stroller on the middle of the road and then was left alone without any adult supervision. I would think the difference between a solid object such and a piece of concrete or steel girder and various low-density objects (plastic bags, empty carton boxes) is harder. On the other hand, I guess it might be easier than laymen would think to use machine learning to build a "what's the density of the object on this photo" program that is in par with humans.
axiom92 9y ago
From the comments: "It has been brought to my attention, that some of these clips may be fake. A new video has been made that eliminates the fake clips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphN3R6KKyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphN3R6KKyU ".
- oculusthrift 9y ago
  watching these videos just freaks me out at how bad human drivers are.
zkms 9y ago
Not to detract from the fact that autonomous driving has the potential to be safer than humans (if only because it doesn't get distracted), but none of these autonomous responses are "freakishly early". I've seen attentive human drivers respond with similar or better performance. As a matter of fact, let's examine how human drivers responded to one of the collisions in this video. At 00:28.828, a human could tell that an accident is imminent -- the oncoming car will violate the median should it not apply immediate corrective action. However, other drivers are not obligated to wait until the aggressor vehicle crosses the median to take evasive action! Indeed, the silver vehicle (ahead of the dashcam'd vehicle) begins decisive and correct evasive action at 00:28.328. That vehicle maintains the same steering angle and at 00:29.295 crosses the solid white shoulder/"fog" line -- it's unambiguously an evasive action and absolutely not a normal lane change. The autonomous vehicle only begins to brake/turn at 00:30.130 (the first frame where the car begins to pitch forwards due to the weight transfer). The autonomous vehicle has begun to take evasive action a full 1.8 seconds later than the silver non-autonomous vehicle. Awkwardly, the Tesla's reaction seems to be triggered not by the median-violating vehicle but by the white vehicle (who is attempting to take evasive action) cutting it off. Worse, the silver vehicle is already crossing the shoulder line a full second before the Tesla begins to brake/turn. This isn't even commensurate with human performance -- the two human drivers visible in the dashcam video react significantly earlier than the autonomous vehicle. It's absolutely possible to make vehicles that respond quicker and more effectively to impending collisions than humans do. Sensing with radar and IR can give autonomous vehicles information that human eyes simply can't detect -- IR is useful for detecting human presence, for example, and radar can be used to detect positions of cars beyond-line-of-sight. Better sensing translates to earlier warning. Also, when the computer has full control authority over individual wheel torques there's a whole new range of operating regimes that get opened up -- and autonomous vehicles that exploit those have the potential to make cars much safer (see research like http://news.stanford.edu/2015/10/20/marty-autonomous-delorean-102015/ http://news.stanford.edu/2015/10/20/marty-autonomous-delorea...). This sort of tactic can use the tyre grip to the absolute limit can let the computers craft the optimal (given constraints such as the vehicle's position, surrounding vehicles/barriers, and tyre/road conditions) trajectory out of a collision and execute it with precise per-wheel torque control (via the ABS/ESC system) and high-speed steering input. Even the best drift drivers don't have that level of control authority over their cars! There's lots of room to make autonomous vehicles safer than human drivers but this video is a demonstration that autonomous vehicles can be a lot worse than human drivers.

joering2 9y ago

Can Lidar distinquish between an empty plastic white bag dancing on the wind in the middle of the highway, and a baby that fell out of a stroller? In both scenarios whether it can or cannot, its a distaster.

dingo_bat 9y ago
Many humans also won't be able to distinguish between inanimate objects and babies/animals on the road. When there isn't sufficient data, there isn't sufficient data. Machine learning is not magic.
make3 9y ago
yes, it definitely can. deep learning is what is used in these things, and identifies objects and their properties
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  You are taking it for magic. Do not. http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.html http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.ht...
  - make3 9y ago
    I work on precisely this task for a living
    - Piskvorrr 9y ago
      My apologies. I mistook your comment for "just sprinkle it with the magic dust."
tbabb 9y ago
I don't know why this is getting downvoted. That's on of the harder problems in vehicle autonomy.
- joering2 9y ago
  I wouldn't worry much. I have a few "fans" that follow my comments regularly and mass down-vote me. I also realized lately that my own upvote/downvote does not get accounted for.
AstralStorm 9y ago
Better than a human driver can detect a cat in the road. In fact a failure where it slows until it confirms with another sensor (probably optical) is ok. Many a driver won't even see the object and will drive though it.
Someone 9y ago
That problem is hard, but because of cultural norms not as hard as it seems at first sight. You rarely will find that baby without a stroller next to it, and without a human close by hurrying towards it. So, if you avoid hitting that stroller and that human, and, next, avoid almost hitting that human, you probably are safe. A jury wouldn't easily convict you for accidentally hitting a baby that fell out of a stroller on the middle of the road and then was left alone without any adult supervision. I would think the difference between a solid object such and a piece of concrete or steel girder and various low-density objects (plastic bags, empty carton boxes) is harder. On the other hand, I guess it might be easier than laymen would think to use machine learning to build a "what's the density of the object on this photo" program that is in par with humans.

axiom92 9y ago

From the comments: "It has been brought to my attention, that some of these clips may be fake. A new video has been made that eliminates the fake clips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphN3R6KKyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphN3R6KKyU ".

oculusthrift 9y ago
watching these videos just freaks me out at how bad human drivers are.

zkms 9y ago

Not to detract from the fact that autonomous driving has the potential to be safer than humans (if only because it doesn't get distracted), but none of these autonomous responses are "freakishly early". I've seen attentive human drivers respond with similar or better performance. As a matter of fact, let's examine how human drivers responded to one of the collisions in this video. At 00:28.828, a human could tell that an accident is imminent -- the oncoming car will violate the median should it not apply immediate corrective action. However, other drivers are not obligated to wait until the aggressor vehicle crosses the median to take evasive action! Indeed, the silver vehicle (ahead of the dashcam'd vehicle) begins decisive and correct evasive action at 00:28.328. That vehicle maintains the same steering angle and at 00:29.295 crosses the solid white shoulder/"fog" line -- it's unambiguously an evasive action and absolutely not a normal lane change. The autonomous vehicle only begins to brake/turn at 00:30.130 (the first frame where the car begins to pitch forwards due to the weight transfer). The autonomous vehicle has begun to take evasive action a full 1.8 seconds later than the silver non-autonomous vehicle. Awkwardly, the Tesla's reaction seems to be triggered not by the median-violating vehicle but by the white vehicle (who is attempting to take evasive action) cutting it off. Worse, the silver vehicle is already crossing the shoulder line a full second before the Tesla begins to brake/turn. This isn't even commensurate with human performance -- the two human drivers visible in the dashcam video react significantly earlier than the autonomous vehicle. It's absolutely possible to make vehicles that respond quicker and more effectively to impending collisions than humans do. Sensing with radar and IR can give autonomous vehicles information that human eyes simply can't detect -- IR is useful for detecting human presence, for example, and radar can be used to detect positions of cars beyond-line-of-sight. Better sensing translates to earlier warning. Also, when the computer has full control authority over individual wheel torques there's a whole new range of operating regimes that get opened up -- and autonomous vehicles that exploit those have the potential to make cars much safer (see research like http://news.stanford.edu/2015/10/20/marty-autonomous-delorean-102015/ http://news.stanford.edu/2015/10/20/marty-autonomous-delorea...). This sort of tactic can use the tyre grip to the absolute limit can let the computers craft the optimal (given constraints such as the vehicle's position, surrounding vehicles/barriers, and tyre/road conditions) trajectory out of a collision and execute it with precise per-wheel torque control (via the ABS/ESC system) and high-speed steering input. Even the best drift drivers don't have that level of control authority over their cars! There's lots of room to make autonomous vehicles safer than human drivers but this video is a demonstration that autonomous vehicles can be a lot worse than human drivers.