47 ms·

The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Nine versions in, I would expect ongoing challenges with things like you mention. But continued failure to even see large,

The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Nine versions in, I would expect ongoing challenges with things like you mention. But continued failure to even see large, flat obstacles is no longer something that needs to be fixed – that it has persisted this long (even after killing someone as in the case of T-boning a semi trailer at highway speeds) is an indictment of the entire approach Tesla has been taking to FSD. I used to think FSD was just a matter of getting enough training for the models, but this has changed my mind. When you still require a disengagement not to negotiate some kind of nuanced edge case, but to avoid driving straight into a concrete pylon, it's time to throw it all out and start over.

barbazoo 5y ago
I agree. Not sure if I'd be able to trust it again after an incident like this at least in similar situations where there are obstacles so close to the road.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
flutas 5y ago
I think a big issue with that instance (monorail) is probably because they just threw out years of radar data without having a comparable reliability in place with the vision only. Completely mental that they are allowed to run this on public roadways.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  I'm not sure radar would help - the pillar is a stationary object, and car based radar tends to drop all returns at the same rate as the car is moving forward. Radar isn't terribly precise, so you end up with tons of returns off signs, bridge abutments, etc. Remember, with radar, Teslas will happily autopilot themselves into a semi truck across the road, stopped fire trucks, concrete road barriers, etc. I see no reason to believe that a stationary concrete pillar in the middle of the road would be avoided any better with radar than without.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    Here's what happened another time someone argued that "radar can't detect stationary objects". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722461 Radar does detect stationary objects, come on.
    - Syonyk 5y ago
      Yes, radar can easily detect stationary objects. Tesla's implementation of their radar processing drops all returns from anything stationary, given the forward speed of the car. In the context of a Tesla thread, I didn't think that needed to be specifically stated, but will do so in the future.
      - mcguire 5y ago
        Because, clearly, anything stationary is ground clutter that can be ignored.
        moralestapia 5y ago
        Particularly if you're traveling towards it at 60 mph.
      - aeternum 5y ago
        A big problem with radar was the resolution. The radar signature of a highway overpass looks extremely similar to the monorail column. Emergency breaking on a highway when going under an overpass is also a huge problem, so radar may not be the answer.
- TheParkShark 5y ago
  It’s a stationary object. What source do you have to say Tesla deleted the date? Seems kinda foolish for a company like them to just throw data away. They even have data on lumbar support usage.
  - flutas 5y ago
    > What source do you have to say Tesla deleted the date? Elon himself? Autopilot v9 itself does not use radar data at all[1], additionally cars manufactured from earlier this year on do not even have the radar modules[2]. Note, that I didn't say "threw out the data" in a silo, I said "without having a comparable reliability in place with the vision only." [1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1397347380874203136 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1397347380874203136 [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/25/22453518/tesla-vision-radar-autopilot-model-3-y-fsd https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/25/22453518/tesla-vision-rad...
moralestapia 5y ago
>The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Who needs radar right? A few cameras are enough to discern gray concrete structures in the night, oh wait ...
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  They probably would be if they stopped using such shitty cameras. It always blows my mind that the cameras they use appear to be quite bad for the job. > in the night Purpose-built cameras can see better in the dark than humans can.
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    But we have a working brain to interpret those images.
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      Your brain helps you with all kinds of things, but fundamental geometry is not magic. Reconstructing scene geometry from high quality binocular video is an extremely well developed field and has been for decades. The problem seems to be that Tesla overrelies on ML-based instantaneous pixel classification when you don't actually need to know what a large thing moving toward you is in order to not run into it.
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      And this is supposed to imply what exactly?
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "Cars driving at night are supposed to have headlights active." And yet...
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >Purpose-built cameras can see better in the dark than humans can. Define "see better". Human eyes have way more dynamic range (30 f stops) than even the best cinema camera sensors (14 f stops), and I highly doubt the sensors Tesla use are anywhere close to the gigantic expensive sensors used in cinema cameras and are most likely closer to the sensors in your mobile phone (11 f stops). So no, no camera sensor can currently match the human eye, let alone the image processing and cognition our brains do on top.
AlexandrB 5y ago
The monorail posts and planters would be trivially handled by LIDAR. Tesla's aversion to time of flight sensors often strikes me a premature given our level of planning/perception technology.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  They should be trivially handled by stereopsis and structure from motion as well. Stereo+time photogrammetry has been solved well enough to not steer directly towards large obstacles for decades. Overreliance on machine learning pixel models to classify everything in view is the real problem.
  - flowerlad 5y ago
    Why not have redundant sensors and crosscheck them? Boeing 737 Max had only one AOA sensor [1], and that wasn't a great idea. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/boeing-sensor-737-max-faa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/boeing-sensor-737-ma...
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      No great reason not to _plan_ to use them. I mean, lidar is still kinda not great right now, but I'm sure it will be great at some point. But they could already be doing better with just cameras than they're currently doing, so why not fix that?
    - brianwawok 5y ago
      Right, so what happens when one says wall, and one says clear air? You brake? That is what happens now with phantom braking. Approaching a bridge? camera sees air, radar sees wall, slam on brakes. You want the best sensor type over a high-fidelity sensor and a lower fidelity sensor. The Tesla system has 8 cameras (3 forward), so they def have overlap between what they are considering better cameras. Time will prove which approach wins.
      - 5y ago
Animats 5y ago
The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Yes. Pause the video and look at the car's screen. There's no indication on screen of the columns. A car on the other side of the row of columns is recognized, but not the columns. It's clear that Tesla has a special-purpose recognizer for "car". The columns are a solid obstacle almost impinging into the road, one that doesn't look like a car. That's the standard Tesla fail. Most high-speed Tesla autopilot collisions have involved something that sticks out into a lane - fire truck, street sweeper, construction barrier - but didn't look like the rear end of a car. As I've been saying for years now, the first job is to determine that the road ahead is flat enough to drive on. Then decide where you want to drive. I did the DARPA Grand Challenge 16 years ago, which was off-road, so that was the first problem to solve. Tesla has lane-following and smart cruise control, like other automakers, to which they've added some hacks to create the illusion of self-driving. But they just don't have the "verify road ahead is flat" technology. Waymo does, and gets into far less trouble. There's no fundamental reason LIDAR units have to be expensive. There are several approaches to flash/solid state LIDAR which could become cheap. They require custom ICs with unusual processes (InGaAs) that are very expensive when you make 10 of them, and not so bad at quantity 10,000,000. The mechanically scanned LIDAR units are now smaller and less expensive.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > As I've been saying for years now, the first job is to determine that the road ahead is flat enough to drive on. Then decide where you want to drive. I did the DARPA Grand Challenge 16 years ago, which was off-road, so that was the first problem to solve. Tesla has lane-following and smart cruise control, like other automakers, to which they've added some hacks to create the illusion of self-driving. But they just don't have the "verify road ahead is flat" technology. This matches my perception as well and it continues to blow my mind. Like it just seems like it would require full-on incompetence to use only specific pedestrian/car/sign/lane classifiers rather than splitting the world first into ground/obstacle by reconstructing geometry and then assigning relative velocity, acceleration, and curvature to coherent obstacle segments irrespective of their identification. But the videos always make it look like this is exactly what's happening. And worse it always appears to be happening on an instantaneous frame-by-frame basis with things flickering in and out of existence as if "thing there" and "nothing there" are somehow equally safe guesses.
avereveard 5y ago
> Tesla doesn't recognize a one-way street and the one-way sign in the street, and it drives towards the wrong way this too, means tesla is a blind man going by memory, not an autonomous driver.

barbazoo 5y ago

I agree. Not sure if I'd be able to trust it again after an incident like this at least in similar situations where there are obstacles so close to the road.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

flutas 5y ago

I think a big issue with that instance (monorail) is probably because they just threw out years of radar data without having a comparable reliability in place with the vision only. Completely mental that they are allowed to run this on public roadways.

Syonyk 5y ago
I'm not sure radar would help - the pillar is a stationary object, and car based radar tends to drop all returns at the same rate as the car is moving forward. Radar isn't terribly precise, so you end up with tons of returns off signs, bridge abutments, etc. Remember, with radar, Teslas will happily autopilot themselves into a semi truck across the road, stopped fire trucks, concrete road barriers, etc. I see no reason to believe that a stationary concrete pillar in the middle of the road would be avoided any better with radar than without.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Here's what happened another time someone argued that "radar can't detect stationary objects". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722461 Radar does detect stationary objects, come on.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    Yes, radar can easily detect stationary objects. Tesla's implementation of their radar processing drops all returns from anything stationary, given the forward speed of the car. In the context of a Tesla thread, I didn't think that needed to be specifically stated, but will do so in the future.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      Because, clearly, anything stationary is ground clutter that can be ignored.
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        Particularly if you're traveling towards it at 60 mph.
    - aeternum 5y ago
      A big problem with radar was the resolution. The radar signature of a highway overpass looks extremely similar to the monorail column. Emergency breaking on a highway when going under an overpass is also a huge problem, so radar may not be the answer.
TheParkShark 5y ago
It’s a stationary object. What source do you have to say Tesla deleted the date? Seems kinda foolish for a company like them to just throw data away. They even have data on lumbar support usage.
- flutas 5y ago
  > What source do you have to say Tesla deleted the date? Elon himself? Autopilot v9 itself does not use radar data at all[1], additionally cars manufactured from earlier this year on do not even have the radar modules[2]. Note, that I didn't say "threw out the data" in a silo, I said "without having a comparable reliability in place with the vision only." [1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1397347380874203136 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1397347380874203136 [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/25/22453518/tesla-vision-radar-autopilot-model-3-y-fsd https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/25/22453518/tesla-vision-rad...

moralestapia 5y ago

>The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Who needs radar right? A few cameras are enough to discern gray concrete structures in the night, oh wait ...

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
They probably would be if they stopped using such shitty cameras. It always blows my mind that the cameras they use appear to be quite bad for the job. > in the night Purpose-built cameras can see better in the dark than humans can.
- wiz21c 5y ago
  But we have a working brain to interpret those images.
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    Your brain helps you with all kinds of things, but fundamental geometry is not magic. Reconstructing scene geometry from high quality binocular video is an extremely well developed field and has been for decades. The problem seems to be that Tesla overrelies on ML-based instantaneous pixel classification when you don't actually need to know what a large thing moving toward you is in order to not run into it.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    And this is supposed to imply what exactly?
- mcguire 5y ago
  "Cars driving at night are supposed to have headlights active." And yet...
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Purpose-built cameras can see better in the dark than humans can. Define "see better". Human eyes have way more dynamic range (30 f stops) than even the best cinema camera sensors (14 f stops), and I highly doubt the sensors Tesla use are anywhere close to the gigantic expensive sensors used in cinema cameras and are most likely closer to the sensors in your mobile phone (11 f stops). So no, no camera sensor can currently match the human eye, let alone the image processing and cognition our brains do on top.

AlexandrB 5y ago

The monorail posts and planters would be trivially handled by LIDAR. Tesla's aversion to time of flight sensors often strikes me a premature given our level of planning/perception technology.

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
They should be trivially handled by stereopsis and structure from motion as well. Stereo+time photogrammetry has been solved well enough to not steer directly towards large obstacles for decades. Overreliance on machine learning pixel models to classify everything in view is the real problem.
- flowerlad 5y ago
  Why not have redundant sensors and crosscheck them? Boeing 737 Max had only one AOA sensor [1], and that wasn't a great idea. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/boeing-sensor-737-max-faa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/boeing-sensor-737-ma...
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    No great reason not to _plan_ to use them. I mean, lidar is still kinda not great right now, but I'm sure it will be great at some point. But they could already be doing better with just cameras than they're currently doing, so why not fix that?
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Right, so what happens when one says wall, and one says clear air? You brake? That is what happens now with phantom braking. Approaching a bridge? camera sees air, radar sees wall, slam on brakes. You want the best sensor type over a high-fidelity sensor and a lower fidelity sensor. The Tesla system has 8 cameras (3 forward), so they def have overlap between what they are considering better cameras. Time will prove which approach wins.
    - 5y ago

Animats 5y ago

The monorail video is jaw-dropping. Yes. Pause the video and look at the car's screen. There's no indication on screen of the columns. A car on the other side of the row of columns is recognized, but not the columns. It's clear that Tesla has a special-purpose recognizer for "car". The columns are a solid obstacle almost impinging into the road, one that doesn't look like a car. That's the standard Tesla fail. Most high-speed Tesla autopilot collisions have involved something that sticks out into a lane - fire truck, street sweeper, construction barrier - but didn't look like the rear end of a car. As I've been saying for years now, the first job is to determine that the road ahead is flat enough to drive on. Then decide where you want to drive. I did the DARPA Grand Challenge 16 years ago, which was off-road, so that was the first problem to solve. Tesla has lane-following and smart cruise control, like other automakers, to which they've added some hacks to create the illusion of self-driving. But they just don't have the "verify road ahead is flat" technology. Waymo does, and gets into far less trouble. There's no fundamental reason LIDAR units have to be expensive. There are several approaches to flash/solid state LIDAR which could become cheap. They require custom ICs with unusual processes (InGaAs) that are very expensive when you make 10 of them, and not so bad at quantity 10,000,000. The mechanically scanned LIDAR units are now smaller and less expensive.

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> As I've been saying for years now, the first job is to determine that the road ahead is flat enough to drive on. Then decide where you want to drive. I did the DARPA Grand Challenge 16 years ago, which was off-road, so that was the first problem to solve. Tesla has lane-following and smart cruise control, like other automakers, to which they've added some hacks to create the illusion of self-driving. But they just don't have the "verify road ahead is flat" technology. This matches my perception as well and it continues to blow my mind. Like it just seems like it would require full-on incompetence to use only specific pedestrian/car/sign/lane classifiers rather than splitting the world first into ground/obstacle by reconstructing geometry and then assigning relative velocity, acceleration, and curvature to coherent obstacle segments irrespective of their identification. But the videos always make it look like this is exactly what's happening. And worse it always appears to be happening on an instantaneous frame-by-frame basis with things flickering in and out of existence as if "thing there" and "nothing there" are somehow equally safe guesses.

avereveard 5y ago

> Tesla doesn't recognize a one-way street and the one-way sign in the street, and it drives towards the wrong way this too, means tesla is a blind man going by memory, not an autonomous driver.