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i think autopilot is a misnomer in this case, it should have been called brainless driving assistant on a serious note, it's not that another edge case was mis

i think autopilot is a misnomer in this case, it should have been called brainless driving assistant on a serious note, it's not that another edge case was missing in training data but what we call "common sense" is fundamentally missing in neural network based approach, and no amount of parameters, model permutations and gpu power would compensate for that

tylerhou 6y ago
This isn't a neural network edge case/common sense issue; this is an issue with the radar sensors that Tesla is using for driver assist. Specifically, radar is noisy — it will constantly detect non-existent "stationary" objects in front of the car. Driver assist systems therefore ignore any objects which are stationary on the road — if it didn't, then the car would stop erratically.
- Traster 6y ago
  You know what wouldn't have had this issue? Lidar.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> Driver assist systems therefore ignore any objects which are stationary on the road If true, that is totally unacceptable. Any mountain road can have fallen rocks. Any city road can have a child's toy be stationary in the road. And EVERY road can at any time have a live person, a fallen motorcyclist/bicyclist, lying crumpled up and stationary in the middle of the road. Stationary objects, whether on radar, camera or both cannot be ignored. If the radar 'sees' such an object for more than a heartbeat or two, the car should take action. That's what any reasonable person does when they aren't sure what they are looking at.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Why do you say this? I'm at the wheel so I can always act. The driver assist makes this easier to do by helping out but I'm still here at the wheel and so I don't need perfection, I just appreciate the help.
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      People aren't machines and when something works fine 95+% of the time they'll get complacent and an uncommon event will eventually catch some people out.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        My Subaru has Eyesight and I don't think I ever take my hands off the wheel to let it drive, though it does lane-keep. It's a comfort feature. I wonder if I would get more complacent in a Tesla.
        rtkwe 6y ago
        Yeah there's a whole different level of automation between your car and what's being advertised by Tesla. EyeSight does do a bit of driving for you at higher speeds but it's not the stop and go capable 'Autopilot' of the Tesla.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    It's even worse. Tesla maintains a whitelist of locations where problematic radar returns are caused by surrounding infrastructure. They blind themselves to the radar data in those zones. Pray you never get hit by a Tesla that has decided you're part of the background because their database says so.
  - caf 6y ago
    You always see a giant stationary object in front of you - the road itself. The way you can tell the difference between the rock and the road itself is through additional resolution, reflectance and colouring information that is available at visible light wavelengths but not to radar. So it's not a problem that can be solved through radar alone, you do need to combine that data with other sensors.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      Yes, but when the radar sees a particularly reflective bit of road, suggesting something other than flat pavement, the least it can do is alert the driver. False alarms are an annoyance but a small price to pay. Even my tiny garmin dashcam has a basic collision alarm feature when it sees an object growing in size.
- kzrdude 6y ago
  Like a normal driver, if it sees something unexpected or that it doesn't understand, it needs to slow down, drive carefully. No driver steps on the gas if they have something that they don't understand what it is in front of them.
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    I’d like to see this. Designing behavior and UI presentation for cautious slowdowns would be an interesting challenge. The car would only be slowing in situations when the driver was comfortable (else the driver would be asserting the control.) Believability would be a challenge, as would persuading drivers from setting speed higher to compensate.
- mshook 6y ago
  Someone explained it best here a long time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16239612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16239612 Namely, this user wrote: To add even more detail, as there still appears to be a lot of confusion: The radar systems in these vehicles send out a radio pulse in a broad approximate-cone forward. They get bounces back from everything that reflects radio in front of them. Distance from the object is calculated by time between pulse and response. Speed towards/away from the object is calculated from Doppler shift of the radio frequency. There are two main things that these systems can't detect. 1. Speed of the object perpendicular to the direction of radio wave travel. 2. Location of the object within the approximate-cone the radio pulse travels in. Note that thanks to the second, you can't calculate the first with higher-level object tracking, either. So the data you get back is a list of (same-direction velocity component, distance) pairs. There's no way to distinguish between stationary objects in the road and stationary objects above the road, to the side of the road, or even the surface of the road itself. Radar just doesn't provide the directional information necessary to handle obstacle detection safely.
deleted 6y ago
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tylerhou 6y ago

This isn't a neural network edge case/common sense issue; this is an issue with the radar sensors that Tesla is using for driver assist. Specifically, radar is noisy — it will constantly detect non-existent "stationary" objects in front of the car. Driver assist systems therefore ignore any objects which are stationary on the road — if it didn't, then the car would stop erratically.

Traster 6y ago
You know what wouldn't have had this issue? Lidar.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> Driver assist systems therefore ignore any objects which are stationary on the road If true, that is totally unacceptable. Any mountain road can have fallen rocks. Any city road can have a child's toy be stationary in the road. And EVERY road can at any time have a live person, a fallen motorcyclist/bicyclist, lying crumpled up and stationary in the middle of the road. Stationary objects, whether on radar, camera or both cannot be ignored. If the radar 'sees' such an object for more than a heartbeat or two, the car should take action. That's what any reasonable person does when they aren't sure what they are looking at.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Why do you say this? I'm at the wheel so I can always act. The driver assist makes this easier to do by helping out but I'm still here at the wheel and so I don't need perfection, I just appreciate the help.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    People aren't machines and when something works fine 95+% of the time they'll get complacent and an uncommon event will eventually catch some people out.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      My Subaru has Eyesight and I don't think I ever take my hands off the wheel to let it drive, though it does lane-keep. It's a comfort feature. I wonder if I would get more complacent in a Tesla.
      - rtkwe 6y ago
        Yeah there's a whole different level of automation between your car and what's being advertised by Tesla. EyeSight does do a bit of driving for you at higher speeds but it's not the stop and go capable 'Autopilot' of the Tesla.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  It's even worse. Tesla maintains a whitelist of locations where problematic radar returns are caused by surrounding infrastructure. They blind themselves to the radar data in those zones. Pray you never get hit by a Tesla that has decided you're part of the background because their database says so.
- caf 6y ago
  You always see a giant stationary object in front of you - the road itself. The way you can tell the difference between the rock and the road itself is through additional resolution, reflectance and colouring information that is available at visible light wavelengths but not to radar. So it's not a problem that can be solved through radar alone, you do need to combine that data with other sensors.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Yes, but when the radar sees a particularly reflective bit of road, suggesting something other than flat pavement, the least it can do is alert the driver. False alarms are an annoyance but a small price to pay. Even my tiny garmin dashcam has a basic collision alarm feature when it sees an object growing in size.
kzrdude 6y ago
Like a normal driver, if it sees something unexpected or that it doesn't understand, it needs to slow down, drive carefully. No driver steps on the gas if they have something that they don't understand what it is in front of them.
- 1123581321 6y ago
  I’d like to see this. Designing behavior and UI presentation for cautious slowdowns would be an interesting challenge. The car would only be slowing in situations when the driver was comfortable (else the driver would be asserting the control.) Believability would be a challenge, as would persuading drivers from setting speed higher to compensate.
mshook 6y ago
Someone explained it best here a long time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16239612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16239612 Namely, this user wrote: To add even more detail, as there still appears to be a lot of confusion: The radar systems in these vehicles send out a radio pulse in a broad approximate-cone forward. They get bounces back from everything that reflects radio in front of them. Distance from the object is calculated by time between pulse and response. Speed towards/away from the object is calculated from Doppler shift of the radio frequency. There are two main things that these systems can't detect. 1. Speed of the object perpendicular to the direction of radio wave travel. 2. Location of the object within the approximate-cone the radio pulse travels in. Note that thanks to the second, you can't calculate the first with higher-level object tracking, either. So the data you get back is a list of (same-direction velocity component, distance) pairs. There's no way to distinguish between stationary objects in the road and stationary objects above the road, to the side of the road, or even the surface of the road itself. Radar just doesn't provide the directional information necessary to handle obstacle detection safely.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]