7 ms·

I mean, I'm also pessimistic about self driving cars, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Tesla engineers are aware that machine learning is hard.

jacobush 8y ago
Depends on how many are fired by angry managers. If you are unlucky, only the wood carving ones are left.
- Animats 8y ago
  Tesla's "autopilot" project has had at least 3 of the project leaders quit.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/tesla-autopilot-crisis-deepens-with-loss-of-third-autopilot-boss-in-18-months/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/tesla-autopilot-crisis-...
  - jacobush 8y ago
    I could also imagine being a reluctant woodcarver ... "Yes master. If we keep carving this piece of wooden golem, it will come alive!"
dchichkov 8y ago
I'm actually moderately optimistic about self driving cars. I think, we will see large fleets operating with no drivers in good conditions (and low speeds :) in a relatively short time frame. There are companies in which people had been honing skills of building products with machine learning for decades. BTW, a bit of a plug. I'm running a nonprofit/public dataset project aimed at increasing safety of autonomous vehicles. If anyone here wants to contribute (with suggestions / pull requests / following it on twitter / etc) - you'd be most welcome. Its: https://www.safe-av.org/ https://www.safe-av.org/ . I'm just starting it/trying it out - simple feedback or following the twitter handle would already be helpful.
baybal2 8y ago
That's strange. As one of most popular "crash management" systems on the market, one installed on Volvos is quite good at this, to the extend they put it's test video into their commercials. A sponsored article?
- mcguire 8y ago
  https://support.volvocars.com/hk/cars/Pages/owners-manual.aspx?mc=v526hbat&my=2016&sw=15w46&category=bfe09b83a7da95c6c0a801e800441a78&article=3f6a5e488975bef4c0a8015160bb1f21 https://support.volvocars.com/hk/cars/Pages/owners-manual.as... "WARNING "When the adaptive cruise control is following another vehicle at speeds in excess ofca 30 km/h (20 mph) and the target is changed from a moving vehicle to a stationary vehicle, the adaptive cruise control will ignore the stationary vehicle and instead select the stored speed. "The driver must then intervene him/herself and brake."
  - rspeer 8y ago
    Wow, that is some really unclear and weaselly wording. Do I understand correctly that it means "This system might decide to 'follow' a stopped car and crash into it, and then we'll say it's your fault"?
    - mcguire 8y ago
      Yes.
  - RaceWon 8y ago
    As an open wheel formula car racer, I have to say that my best guess is most people who would purchase a "self-driving" car do not like to drive (if I could disable the anti-lock on my cars I would, and I ALWAYS drive with the skid control turned off. Although I have track tested some of the VW models circa 2010 on short autocross tracks with the stability program on and did not find it a hindrance to driving the cars sideways through the corners. I did not time test it to see which way was quicker, but again I felt in control and not that the car was fighting me; having said that I still drove my GTI with the stability program switched off even in the snow and especially in the rain) and I believe this is a major factor in these crashes. One of the most difficult things to do in a race, is to go fast/drive at your best the moment the flag goes green; and here it appears to me that we have people who don't like to drive, so therefore they likely aren't very good at it, and suddenly they are faced with a life and death crisis in which they NOW have to save their life by starting to drive the car when they are not even warmed up and they have very little room for error... I mean do the math.
stephengillie 8y ago
Yandex Taxi has Youtube videos of their self-driving car. This video of a car navigating a snowy Moscow street is especially impressive [0]. They don't seem to come up in self-driving car discussions on HN. [0] https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow
- amelius 8y ago
  A system which uses a LiDAR can be conceptually a lot simpler than one without. It tells you where all the obstacles are (stationary or not), so it naturally circumvents the main problem of Autopilot.

jacobush 8y ago

Depends on how many are fired by angry managers. If you are unlucky, only the wood carving ones are left.

Animats 8y ago
Tesla's "autopilot" project has had at least 3 of the project leaders quit.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/tesla-autopilot-crisis-deepens-with-loss-of-third-autopilot-boss-in-18-months/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/tesla-autopilot-crisis-...
- jacobush 8y ago
  I could also imagine being a reluctant woodcarver ... "Yes master. If we keep carving this piece of wooden golem, it will come alive!"

dchichkov 8y ago

I'm actually moderately optimistic about self driving cars. I think, we will see large fleets operating with no drivers in good conditions (and low speeds :) in a relatively short time frame. There are companies in which people had been honing skills of building products with machine learning for decades. BTW, a bit of a plug. I'm running a nonprofit/public dataset project aimed at increasing safety of autonomous vehicles. If anyone here wants to contribute (with suggestions / pull requests / following it on twitter / etc) - you'd be most welcome. Its: https://www.safe-av.org/ https://www.safe-av.org/ . I'm just starting it/trying it out - simple feedback or following the twitter handle would already be helpful.

baybal2 8y ago

That's strange. As one of most popular "crash management" systems on the market, one installed on Volvos is quite good at this, to the extend they put it's test video into their commercials. A sponsored article?

mcguire 8y ago
https://support.volvocars.com/hk/cars/Pages/owners-manual.aspx?mc=v526hbat&my=2016&sw=15w46&category=bfe09b83a7da95c6c0a801e800441a78&article=3f6a5e488975bef4c0a8015160bb1f21 https://support.volvocars.com/hk/cars/Pages/owners-manual.as... "WARNING "When the adaptive cruise control is following another vehicle at speeds in excess ofca 30 km/h (20 mph) and the target is changed from a moving vehicle to a stationary vehicle, the adaptive cruise control will ignore the stationary vehicle and instead select the stored speed. "The driver must then intervene him/herself and brake."
- rspeer 8y ago
  Wow, that is some really unclear and weaselly wording. Do I understand correctly that it means "This system might decide to 'follow' a stopped car and crash into it, and then we'll say it's your fault"?
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Yes.
- RaceWon 8y ago
  As an open wheel formula car racer, I have to say that my best guess is most people who would purchase a "self-driving" car do not like to drive (if I could disable the anti-lock on my cars I would, and I ALWAYS drive with the skid control turned off. Although I have track tested some of the VW models circa 2010 on short autocross tracks with the stability program on and did not find it a hindrance to driving the cars sideways through the corners. I did not time test it to see which way was quicker, but again I felt in control and not that the car was fighting me; having said that I still drove my GTI with the stability program switched off even in the snow and especially in the rain) and I believe this is a major factor in these crashes. One of the most difficult things to do in a race, is to go fast/drive at your best the moment the flag goes green; and here it appears to me that we have people who don't like to drive, so therefore they likely aren't very good at it, and suddenly they are faced with a life and death crisis in which they NOW have to save their life by starting to drive the car when they are not even warmed up and they have very little room for error... I mean do the math.

stephengillie 8y ago

Yandex Taxi has Youtube videos of their self-driving car. This video of a car navigating a snowy Moscow street is especially impressive [0]. They don't seem to come up in self-driving car discussions on HN. [0] https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow

amelius 8y ago
A system which uses a LiDAR can be conceptually a lot simpler than one without. It tells you where all the obstacles are (stationary or not), so it naturally circumvents the main problem of Autopilot.