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Yes, this has been his project for many years now - he threw a fit and fled to China in 2016 when the NHTSA sent him a Special Order requesting test data for th

by bri3d 6y ago

Yes, this has been his project for many years now - he threw a fit and fled to China in 2016 when the NHTSA sent him a Special Order requesting test data for the Comma One product, which he then cancelled and released as pseudo open-source (the ML model is still a closed black box).

db374837 6y ago
Yours is the very essence of a HackerNews comment. Comma is everything a startup should be. They are not wrapping a lame business model in CRUD and living off of malinvestment. They are solving ridiculously hard problem with a small team of very smart people. Their competition has burnt billions. Meanwhile, Comma is profitable, has a better safety model than anyone. Hotz is a legend and is not running from anyone.
- bri3d 6y ago
  This is a straw-man. I did not compare Comma to any other startup, or some bizarre ideal of "what a startup should be." I strongly disagree that Comma "have a better safety model than anyone" - their entire safety model revolves around two things, an assertion that the driver is fully responsible, and a poorly documented set of callback functions in their CAN-intercept board which, depending on the vehicle, do different things, but generally try to limit angular input and introduce an emergency override. This is smart, but the code is not documented well enough to be considered a "safety model" in any commercial sense, and the system, while it has a MISRA C linter plugged into it somewhere, is not built using safety-approved hardware or to any known safety standard. Plus, the fundamental approach on most cars involving CAN message-stuffing simply cannot be as reliable as an integrated system - in that sense, the entire model is flawed and cannot "have a better safety model than anyone." And, Hotz explicitly and openly left the United States and cancelled his first Comma product launch, rather than respond to a letter NHTSA sent him asking questions about Comma's testing protocols and safety process. Call that what you will.
yannoninator 6y ago
> pseudo open-source (the ML model is still a closed black box). ? I am confused with this statement. Sure the ML model is a black box, but it's better than closed source completely with no model. It's more realistic to build the software yourself than training your own self driving ML system. I would still class this as still 'open source'.
- bri3d 6y ago
  The most fundamental part of the system, the one which makes driving decisions, is not open. I did not say anything about whether or not this was "better" than the product being fully closed source, only that it is not truly open, and I fully believe this. "Open source autopilot" implies to me that the autopilot is open - that an end-user can inspect, audit, and attempt to understand the decisions their vehicle is making. This is not the case for Comma - rather, it is an open-source CANbus translation layer attached to a closed source autopilot.
  - Torq_boi 6y ago
    When you say not everything is open source. I assume you mean the training code is not open source? I'm curious what you would want to learn from that? You wouldn't be able to actually train a model since you wouldn't have access to the data. The end-user can inspect, audit and understand the decisions their vehicle is making. All you have to do is see how the neural network behaves for different inputs. That's the correct approach, whether you have access to the training code or not.
    - bri3d 6y ago
      Comma don't even say _how_ the model works! What layers are there? What learning strategies are they using? What do they do? It's literally a black box! "All you have to do is see how it behaves for different inputs" is just black box reverse engineering! Machine Learning is NOT a magic black box. Comma have constructed a "stack" of models, just as you would connect a series of functions to make a kernel in the mathematics sense, or a series of algorithms or instructions to make a program. And that stack is entirely closed. https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilot-the-driving-model-a1ad3b4a3612 https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilo... here is an example of reverse-engineering the driving model. If Comma released this exact sort of documentation, including what ML modeling strategies they were using, what each input and output parameter affected, and how the model was trained, I could maybe consider the system open.
RealityVoid 6y ago
Can you point me to the part that is closed? Last time I looked, there were just a bunch of weights.
- bri3d 6y ago
  Isn't any ML model "just a bunch of weights," if you look at it right? So, where does "modelV2" come from here, in the part that plans the lateral steering action? https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/4ace476f14bb73c354234c6bbedbc4ea0bf2d402/selfdrive/controls/lib/lateral_planner.py#L101 https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/4ace476f14bb73c354... . It's a model. A video frame goes into the model, and somehow the desired path comes back out. That's the core of the driving system! Here's an analysis of one of the closed parts: https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilot-the-driving-model-a1ad3b4a3612 https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilo...

by bri3d 6y ago

db374837 6y ago

Yours is the very essence of a HackerNews comment. Comma is everything a startup should be. They are not wrapping a lame business model in CRUD and living off of malinvestment. They are solving ridiculously hard problem with a small team of very smart people. Their competition has burnt billions. Meanwhile, Comma is profitable, has a better safety model than anyone. Hotz is a legend and is not running from anyone.

bri3d 6y ago
This is a straw-man. I did not compare Comma to any other startup, or some bizarre ideal of "what a startup should be." I strongly disagree that Comma "have a better safety model than anyone" - their entire safety model revolves around two things, an assertion that the driver is fully responsible, and a poorly documented set of callback functions in their CAN-intercept board which, depending on the vehicle, do different things, but generally try to limit angular input and introduce an emergency override. This is smart, but the code is not documented well enough to be considered a "safety model" in any commercial sense, and the system, while it has a MISRA C linter plugged into it somewhere, is not built using safety-approved hardware or to any known safety standard. Plus, the fundamental approach on most cars involving CAN message-stuffing simply cannot be as reliable as an integrated system - in that sense, the entire model is flawed and cannot "have a better safety model than anyone." And, Hotz explicitly and openly left the United States and cancelled his first Comma product launch, rather than respond to a letter NHTSA sent him asking questions about Comma's testing protocols and safety process. Call that what you will.

yannoninator 6y ago

> pseudo open-source (the ML model is still a closed black box). ? I am confused with this statement. Sure the ML model is a black box, but it's better than closed source completely with no model. It's more realistic to build the software yourself than training your own self driving ML system. I would still class this as still 'open source'.

bri3d 6y ago
The most fundamental part of the system, the one which makes driving decisions, is not open. I did not say anything about whether or not this was "better" than the product being fully closed source, only that it is not truly open, and I fully believe this. "Open source autopilot" implies to me that the autopilot is open - that an end-user can inspect, audit, and attempt to understand the decisions their vehicle is making. This is not the case for Comma - rather, it is an open-source CANbus translation layer attached to a closed source autopilot.
- Torq_boi 6y ago
  When you say not everything is open source. I assume you mean the training code is not open source? I'm curious what you would want to learn from that? You wouldn't be able to actually train a model since you wouldn't have access to the data. The end-user can inspect, audit and understand the decisions their vehicle is making. All you have to do is see how the neural network behaves for different inputs. That's the correct approach, whether you have access to the training code or not.
  - bri3d 6y ago
    Comma don't even say _how_ the model works! What layers are there? What learning strategies are they using? What do they do? It's literally a black box! "All you have to do is see how it behaves for different inputs" is just black box reverse engineering! Machine Learning is NOT a magic black box. Comma have constructed a "stack" of models, just as you would connect a series of functions to make a kernel in the mathematics sense, or a series of algorithms or instructions to make a program. And that stack is entirely closed. https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilot-the-driving-model-a1ad3b4a3612 https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilo... here is an example of reverse-engineering the driving model. If Comma released this exact sort of documentation, including what ML modeling strategies they were using, what each input and output parameter affected, and how the model was trained, I could maybe consider the system open.

RealityVoid 6y ago

Can you point me to the part that is closed? Last time I looked, there were just a bunch of weights.

bri3d 6y ago
Isn't any ML model "just a bunch of weights," if you look at it right? So, where does "modelV2" come from here, in the part that plans the lateral steering action? https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/4ace476f14bb73c354234c6bbedbc4ea0bf2d402/selfdrive/controls/lib/lateral_planner.py#L101 https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/4ace476f14bb73c354... . It's a model. A video frame goes into the model, and somehow the desired path comes back out. That's the core of the driving system! Here's an analysis of one of the closed parts: https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilot-the-driving-model-a1ad3b4a3612 https://medium.com/@chengyao.shen/decoding-comma-ai-openpilo...