8 ms·

AI Mid 2021: Self Driving Car Meets Reality

85 points by tempodox 5y ago

ilovefood 5y ago
Discrediting work being done by others in the realm of self driving cars is rarely a good segway for introducing a company that automates checkout-free stores powered by machine learning / image recognition (which the articles builds up to). Sure, the developments have been quite disappointing for the cars but that's a way bigger challenge that currently has examples running. And what is the source of that disappointment? "X said it should be there in 3 years and it's not so it's a fail", really? That strikes me as dismissive and at best counter productive. Marketing and developping are two different things, don't use the shortcomings of the former to discredit the latter. It doesn't help anyone, especially new people joining the field. > "The deep learning hype is now deflating pretty strongly too, with even the biggest "enthusiasts" now admitting that things ain't as rosy as they were hoping." This comes out as bad faith, so a reference would be needed... Andrew NG was pointing at the use of wrong/bad data, and not the models or approach per se... So yeah, crapping on a trendy topic (deep learning) to market your venture that ironically itself uses that trendy topic (i quote "artificial intelligence"), is at best totally uncool...
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  I read it in quite the opposite direction, the cautionary note here is that if you overpromise and under deliver you might be able to secure early funding but eventually you precipitate yet another AI winter. The author, as someone in the space, is cautioning for more realism which arguably is lacking in public communications within that field.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I think his last paragraph makes that very clear and echoes a conversation I was having with someone last week. There are a lot of practical if often boring wins to be had. We're just probably not going to get some of the things like "never need to own/drive a car" that had some people so excited. As the piece articulates, there has been a big deflation of many high expectations from "just around the corner" to "maybe in 40 or 50 years."
    - WDCDev 5y ago
      Has there? I can't imagine investors/corporations dumping billions, annually, into an project which won't produce a return for 40-50 years.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        >Has there? Yes? That's what the whole article is about. To be clear, it's doubtless brought benefit to assistive driving systems. And we may even see full autonomy under limited conditions (e.g. specific limited access highways in good weather) in a significantly shorter period of time. But door to door robo taxis? Seems highly unlikely. >I can't imagine investors/corporations dumping billions There have been big pullbacks. And I wouldn't be the slightest bit shocked if Google/Alphabet pull the plug on Waymo one of these days--especially if they have to start tightening their belt for some reason.
        WDCDev 5y ago
        > Yes? That's what the whole article is about. Articles like this have been written for 5 years now, but the money keeps flowing into these projects. Argo, Aurora and Aptiv etc. are all still burning mountains of cash. I am shocked the industry didn't take Uber/Lyft selling off their self-driving divisions as the signal to stop funding these efforts.
        ghaff 5y ago
        Lots of stupid money flowing around these days. I'm genuinely curious how the various self-driving efforts broke down among: - We can do it! - Maybe we can't do it but even partial success makes it worthwhile - What a pipe dream but it would be morally wrong not to separate greedy VCs from their cash I do think it's different from 5 years ago. Yes, some researchers were throwing cold water on the idea then but they were seen as contrarians. And, on boards like this one, you'd have no shortage of people going but Waymo is going to have a taxi service next year! Today, it's closer to being accepted wisdom.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > Andrew NG was pointing at the use of wrong/bad data, and not the models or approach per se... Except that Deep Learning is equal parts data & model. And he wasn't saying that the data was bad, he was saying that it turns out that the data collected turned out to be so context-dependent that it wasn't usable with even a small change in that context. That's not "bad data", that's "the real world".
thecopy 5y ago
The example with the stop-sign on the building [0] really hits the nail on the head. For a human it is trivial to see that this is attached to a building (i.e. not part of the road-sign network). I can imagine a camera-only system would struggle with this, and i wonder how a camera-only system can solve this in the general case without a breakthrough in general understanding and interpretation of the world. [0] https://i0.wp.com/blog.piekniewski.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/E03PrXOXEAMOF38.jpeg?ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/blog.piekniewski.info/wp-content/uploads/2...
- ben_w 5y ago
  It’s trivial with any parallax, but in isolation and with only a glance I might have been fooled too. Also: https://youtu.be/r8j1JCVu6qY https://youtu.be/r8j1JCVu6qY
  - thecopy 5y ago
    >It’s trivial with any parallax Sorry, but evidently it is not trivial, since Tesla failed it.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      I meant for a human. If I’d seen that in the wild either while moving or with both eyes open, that wall sign wouldn’t have made me pause and think. Yet it was a single non-moving photo, so for a very brief moment it did.
      - cupofcoffee 5y ago
        Humans, how do you build those?
        ben_w 5y ago
        Take two suitable Homo heidelbergensis…
    - 5y ago
luplex 5y ago
Self-driving is another problem that seems like it's a constrained scope. After all, there's a clear rule set and even lines on the ground! But like so many fields, it's very hard to model the human actors, their feelings and intentions. We understand quite well how to get a 3d representation of the scene and model basic physics. But we need a lot of further work to handle the messiness and complex expectations in real life. You basically need to understand much more of the world than we thought to handle edge cases in driving. On the other hand, some jobs are so standardized that robots really can - and do - replace them. A cashier's job really is a lot simpler than a driver's. P.S. At the very bottom of the page: "If you found an error, highlight it and press shift+enter to notify us" This is the first time I see something like this, it's awesome!
- ben_w 5y ago
  > A cashier's job really is a lot simpler than a driver's. Even then, part of a cashier’s job is to avoid shoplifting: https://www.securitytags.com/theft-self-checkout https://www.securitytags.com/theft-self-checkout
  - skywhopper 5y ago
    ...and to solve problems with equipment, and to access items that can’t be left unsupervised, and to answer questions, and to observe interactions between customers and intervene if necessary, and to notify management of problems they cannot solve, and, and, and...
    - ghaff 5y ago
      You see a pretty clear model today with self-checkout. And it's probably the same even if you make self-checkout better. You have people readily available when things don't "just work."
  - notahacker 5y ago
    And the majority of a cashier's job isn't automated away by self checkouts, it's simply passed to the customer...
jessriedel 5y ago
This is the kind of article that should be quantitative, but isn't.
maydup-nem 5y ago
A CEO overpromised. AI underdelivered. Big fucking news.
klmadfejno 5y ago
Self driving is, in my opinion, ironically, a trolley problem. If enabled in mainstream usage, we'd probably see total deaths drop, but they'd be shifted to a more random set of people dying for stupider reasons. Would you rather two drunk drivers and an overworked sleepy trucker die; or one guy who could drive safely but was instead driven into an overturned truck.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's a trolley problem so much as an automated system that is statistically safer than manual operation but will "randomly" kill people on a regular basis. Which is a legislative/liability problem because outside of possibly rare drug side effects, we don't normally accept consumer-facing products, even if used and maintained properly, randomly killing people--and just shrug our shoulders because stuff happens.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I think the OP was referencing the trolley problem because autonomous driving AI is often regarded as a utilitarian problem. In other words, "intent" does not matter, only consequences. In that regard, any ML cost function is purely focused on consequences. In the context of minimizing deaths it wouldn't matter if the software deliberately chose to kill one person, if the cost (presumably total deaths) was minimized. Where I think it gets sticky is that our society does factor in intent (see the various degrees of homicide) and if we're thinking in terms of pure utilitarianism, I'm not sure how this plays into the liability of autonomous software.
- omgJustTest 5y ago
  Well given that the genetic lottery works differently for different gene pools… I’d say that two drunk drivers or a sleepy trucker are already pretty random. Most success is arbitrary, even genetic success, and we should have compassion replace self-righteousness. A lot of people who are failures or successes don’t “deserve” their fates. Self driving is obviously a vain per suit of personal space for those who can afford it. Automated public transport, or even slightly improved public transport is a much better goal for the us.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I have been working as a an AI practitioner since 1982, and have enjoyed the flow of much hype, failures, and wonderful successes over the years. We will get there, eventually, for fully automated cars. Of topic, but while I don't have a car (I gave mine to my granddaughter a few years ago, and now simply walk in the small town I live in, borrowing a car as needed), my wife got a new 2021 Honda Pilot and I find the driver assist features hit a sweet spot: warning of other vehicles in blind spots, lane following, etc. Pretty decent technology.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > the driver assist features hit a sweet spot: warning of other vehicles in blind spots, lane following, etc. Actually all I want from "AI".
- gizmondo 5y ago
  I find lane following quite stressful after it got confused by temporary-vs-permanent lines and tried to steer in the direction of a temporary barrier. Warnings are nice, actions - I'm not sure.
lm28469 5y ago
Autonomous driving is the perfect example of 80/20 (or more like 99/01) I'm sure autonomous cars can drive fine on Mountain View's straight wide streets, with 360 days of sun a year, barely any rain and no snow. Put them in Swiss snowy mountain roads, in the middle of narrow historical Italian towns, or on an unmarked multi lane roundabout [0] and it's a whole other set of problems. Autonomous cars is a good toy project but when you think about it's only going to make us even more addicted to cars, commute longer, pollute more. We'll need to redesign major portions of out infrastructures so that smart (ie dumb) cars can read the roads properly. I can't even imagine the amount of time and money we spent on this, realistically all you need is some kind of dumb algorithm to take care of stop and go traffic and emergency braking. Everything else will be too faillible and require someone to constantly make sure the car doesn't suddenly decide to commit suicide [0] https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2019/11/paris-arc-triomphe-rond-point-étoile-champs-elysees-accident-1.jpg https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2019/11/paris-arc-triomphe-ro...
- ghaff 5y ago
  You don't even need to get to the genuinely tough scenarios that I almost certainly would have sweaty palms driving in. There are just a lot of scenarios with utility or delivery trucks blocking lands, even modest snow, construction work, unprotected lefts with various complications, pedestrians doing crazy things, roads not on maps, etc. But an autonomous vehicle needs to be able to handle pretty much all those things even without a human present.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    It's just a matter of whether it's 40/60, 50/50 or eventually 80/20. The point I think is still valid: some fixed cost gets you half the way from where you are, towards 100. You will never get to 100, and the place where you might stop and think "This will be more expensive than a private driver for the coming decade" is probably lower than we think (say 90/10 or even 80/20). Making a car that can do 99% of my highway driving or 90% of my driving time will be easy, possibly even in my lifetime. But neither of those makes for truly autonomous taxis, and they won't drive me home from the pub when I sleep in my back seat, so I really don't see the point.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sheepdog 5y ago
I'm disappointed about the reluctance on Lidar. It seems like a great safety net, allowing the car to say "I don't know what this large white blob on the camera is, but it's solid and coming up fast, so I'm going to do an emergency stop..." I suspect this is cost-cutting more than anything else.
Juntu 5y ago
Tesla period a company that’s dealt with wrong people that slaves and feed cars are made and bought on silence being brought to them

85 points by tempodox 5y ago

Discrediting work being done by others in the realm of self driving cars is rarely a good segway for introducing a company that automates checkout-free stores powered by machine learning / image recognition (which the articles builds up to). Sure, the developments have been quite disappointing for the cars but that's a way bigger challenge that currently has examples running. And what is the source of that disappointment? "X said it should be there in 3 years and it's not so it's a fail", really? That strikes me as dismissive and at best counter productive. Marketing and developping are two different things, don't use the shortcomings of the former to discredit the latter. It doesn't help anyone, especially new people joining the field. > "The deep learning hype is now deflating pretty strongly too, with even the biggest "enthusiasts" now admitting that things ain't as rosy as they were hoping." This comes out as bad faith, so a reference would be needed... Andrew NG was pointing at the use of wrong/bad data, and not the models or approach per se... So yeah, crapping on a trendy topic (deep learning) to market your venture that ironically itself uses that trendy topic (i quote "artificial intelligence"), is at best totally uncool...

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
I read it in quite the opposite direction, the cautionary note here is that if you overpromise and under deliver you might be able to secure early funding but eventually you precipitate yet another AI winter. The author, as someone in the space, is cautioning for more realism which arguably is lacking in public communications within that field.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I think his last paragraph makes that very clear and echoes a conversation I was having with someone last week. There are a lot of practical if often boring wins to be had. We're just probably not going to get some of the things like "never need to own/drive a car" that had some people so excited. As the piece articulates, there has been a big deflation of many high expectations from "just around the corner" to "maybe in 40 or 50 years."
  - WDCDev 5y ago
    Has there? I can't imagine investors/corporations dumping billions, annually, into an project which won't produce a return for 40-50 years.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      >Has there? Yes? That's what the whole article is about. To be clear, it's doubtless brought benefit to assistive driving systems. And we may even see full autonomy under limited conditions (e.g. specific limited access highways in good weather) in a significantly shorter period of time. But door to door robo taxis? Seems highly unlikely. >I can't imagine investors/corporations dumping billions There have been big pullbacks. And I wouldn't be the slightest bit shocked if Google/Alphabet pull the plug on Waymo one of these days--especially if they have to start tightening their belt for some reason.
      - WDCDev 5y ago
        > Yes? That's what the whole article is about. Articles like this have been written for 5 years now, but the money keeps flowing into these projects. Argo, Aurora and Aptiv etc. are all still burning mountains of cash. I am shocked the industry didn't take Uber/Lyft selling off their self-driving divisions as the signal to stop funding these efforts.
        ghaff 5y ago
        Lots of stupid money flowing around these days. I'm genuinely curious how the various self-driving efforts broke down among: - We can do it! - Maybe we can't do it but even partial success makes it worthwhile - What a pipe dream but it would be morally wrong not to separate greedy VCs from their cash I do think it's different from 5 years ago. Yes, some researchers were throwing cold water on the idea then but they were seen as contrarians. And, on boards like this one, you'd have no shortage of people going but Waymo is going to have a taxi service next year! Today, it's closer to being accepted wisdom.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> Andrew NG was pointing at the use of wrong/bad data, and not the models or approach per se... Except that Deep Learning is equal parts data & model. And he wasn't saying that the data was bad, he was saying that it turns out that the data collected turned out to be so context-dependent that it wasn't usable with even a small change in that context. That's not "bad data", that's "the real world".

thecopy 5y ago

The example with the stop-sign on the building [0] really hits the nail on the head. For a human it is trivial to see that this is attached to a building (i.e. not part of the road-sign network). I can imagine a camera-only system would struggle with this, and i wonder how a camera-only system can solve this in the general case without a breakthrough in general understanding and interpretation of the world. [0] https://i0.wp.com/blog.piekniewski.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/E03PrXOXEAMOF38.jpeg?ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/blog.piekniewski.info/wp-content/uploads/2...

ben_w 5y ago
It’s trivial with any parallax, but in isolation and with only a glance I might have been fooled too. Also: https://youtu.be/r8j1JCVu6qY https://youtu.be/r8j1JCVu6qY
- thecopy 5y ago
  >It’s trivial with any parallax Sorry, but evidently it is not trivial, since Tesla failed it.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    I meant for a human. If I’d seen that in the wild either while moving or with both eyes open, that wall sign wouldn’t have made me pause and think. Yet it was a single non-moving photo, so for a very brief moment it did.
    - cupofcoffee 5y ago
      Humans, how do you build those?
      - ben_w 5y ago
        Take two suitable Homo heidelbergensis…
  - 5y ago

luplex 5y ago

Self-driving is another problem that seems like it's a constrained scope. After all, there's a clear rule set and even lines on the ground! But like so many fields, it's very hard to model the human actors, their feelings and intentions. We understand quite well how to get a 3d representation of the scene and model basic physics. But we need a lot of further work to handle the messiness and complex expectations in real life. You basically need to understand much more of the world than we thought to handle edge cases in driving. On the other hand, some jobs are so standardized that robots really can - and do - replace them. A cashier's job really is a lot simpler than a driver's. P.S. At the very bottom of the page: "If you found an error, highlight it and press shift+enter to notify us" This is the first time I see something like this, it's awesome!

ben_w 5y ago
> A cashier's job really is a lot simpler than a driver's. Even then, part of a cashier’s job is to avoid shoplifting: https://www.securitytags.com/theft-self-checkout https://www.securitytags.com/theft-self-checkout
- skywhopper 5y ago
  ...and to solve problems with equipment, and to access items that can’t be left unsupervised, and to answer questions, and to observe interactions between customers and intervene if necessary, and to notify management of problems they cannot solve, and, and, and...
  - ghaff 5y ago
    You see a pretty clear model today with self-checkout. And it's probably the same even if you make self-checkout better. You have people readily available when things don't "just work."
- notahacker 5y ago
  And the majority of a cashier's job isn't automated away by self checkouts, it's simply passed to the customer...

jessriedel 5y ago

This is the kind of article that should be quantitative, but isn't.

maydup-nem 5y ago

A CEO overpromised. AI underdelivered. Big fucking news.

klmadfejno 5y ago

Self driving is, in my opinion, ironically, a trolley problem. If enabled in mainstream usage, we'd probably see total deaths drop, but they'd be shifted to a more random set of people dying for stupider reasons. Would you rather two drunk drivers and an overworked sleepy trucker die; or one guy who could drive safely but was instead driven into an overturned truck.

ghaff 5y ago
I'm not sure it's a trolley problem so much as an automated system that is statistically safer than manual operation but will "randomly" kill people on a regular basis. Which is a legislative/liability problem because outside of possibly rare drug side effects, we don't normally accept consumer-facing products, even if used and maintained properly, randomly killing people--and just shrug our shoulders because stuff happens.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think the OP was referencing the trolley problem because autonomous driving AI is often regarded as a utilitarian problem. In other words, "intent" does not matter, only consequences. In that regard, any ML cost function is purely focused on consequences. In the context of minimizing deaths it wouldn't matter if the software deliberately chose to kill one person, if the cost (presumably total deaths) was minimized. Where I think it gets sticky is that our society does factor in intent (see the various degrees of homicide) and if we're thinking in terms of pure utilitarianism, I'm not sure how this plays into the liability of autonomous software.
omgJustTest 5y ago
Well given that the genetic lottery works differently for different gene pools… I’d say that two drunk drivers or a sleepy trucker are already pretty random. Most success is arbitrary, even genetic success, and we should have compassion replace self-righteousness. A lot of people who are failures or successes don’t “deserve” their fates. Self driving is obviously a vain per suit of personal space for those who can afford it. Automated public transport, or even slightly improved public transport is a much better goal for the us.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I have been working as a an AI practitioner since 1982, and have enjoyed the flow of much hype, failures, and wonderful successes over the years. We will get there, eventually, for fully automated cars. Of topic, but while I don't have a car (I gave mine to my granddaughter a few years ago, and now simply walk in the small town I live in, borrowing a car as needed), my wife got a new 2021 Honda Pilot and I find the driver assist features hit a sweet spot: warning of other vehicles in blind spots, lane following, etc. Pretty decent technology.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
> the driver assist features hit a sweet spot: warning of other vehicles in blind spots, lane following, etc. Actually all I want from "AI".
gizmondo 5y ago
I find lane following quite stressful after it got confused by temporary-vs-permanent lines and tried to steer in the direction of a temporary barrier. Warnings are nice, actions - I'm not sure.

lm28469 5y ago

Autonomous driving is the perfect example of 80/20 (or more like 99/01) I'm sure autonomous cars can drive fine on Mountain View's straight wide streets, with 360 days of sun a year, barely any rain and no snow. Put them in Swiss snowy mountain roads, in the middle of narrow historical Italian towns, or on an unmarked multi lane roundabout [0] and it's a whole other set of problems. Autonomous cars is a good toy project but when you think about it's only going to make us even more addicted to cars, commute longer, pollute more. We'll need to redesign major portions of out infrastructures so that smart (ie dumb) cars can read the roads properly. I can't even imagine the amount of time and money we spent on this, realistically all you need is some kind of dumb algorithm to take care of stop and go traffic and emergency braking. Everything else will be too faillible and require someone to constantly make sure the car doesn't suddenly decide to commit suicide [0] https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2019/11/paris-arc-triomphe-rond-point-étoile-champs-elysees-accident-1.jpg https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2019/11/paris-arc-triomphe-ro...

ghaff 5y ago
You don't even need to get to the genuinely tough scenarios that I almost certainly would have sweaty palms driving in. There are just a lot of scenarios with utility or delivery trucks blocking lands, even modest snow, construction work, unprotected lefts with various complications, pedestrians doing crazy things, roads not on maps, etc. But an autonomous vehicle needs to be able to handle pretty much all those things even without a human present.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  It's just a matter of whether it's 40/60, 50/50 or eventually 80/20. The point I think is still valid: some fixed cost gets you half the way from where you are, towards 100. You will never get to 100, and the place where you might stop and think "This will be more expensive than a private driver for the coming decade" is probably lower than we think (say 90/10 or even 80/20). Making a car that can do 99% of my highway driving or 90% of my driving time will be easy, possibly even in my lifetime. But neither of those makes for truly autonomous taxis, and they won't drive me home from the pub when I sleep in my back seat, so I really don't see the point.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sheepdog 5y ago

I'm disappointed about the reluctance on Lidar. It seems like a great safety net, allowing the car to say "I don't know what this large white blob on the camera is, but it's solid and coming up fast, so I'm going to do an emergency stop..." I suspect this is cost-cutting more than anything else.

Juntu 5y ago

Tesla period a company that’s dealt with wrong people that slaves and feed cars are made and bought on silence being brought to them