7 ms·

Tesla: Artificial Intelligence and Autopilot

55 points by tweaker 5y ago

juancampa 5y ago
First time hearing about Tesla Bot. From the article: > Develop the next generation of automation, including a general purpose, bi-pedal, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring. We’re seeking technical, electrical, controls and software engineers to help us leverage our AI expertise beyond our vehicle fleet.
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Well, it was just announced about an hour ago.
andyxor 5y ago
Bullshit artists, but I hope some of that “AI” money trickles down to fundamental research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to bring us closer to understanding cognition
- beeboop 5y ago
  What do you consider bullshit about Tesla's use of AI?
  - sidibe 5y ago
    The robot was pure BS. You can tell they haven't done anything or even thought much about it, there was just the slide and he didn't even know what to say about it during the presentation just "look, robot"
    - shmoe 5y ago
      It's a recruiting event. The same way they announced a 25k EV in China to recruit designers there. It doesn't mean it won't happen, but it's also a tactic.
    - BluSyn 5y ago
      It is clearly a future product idea simply designed to inspire robotics experts to join the company. Not many other places (eg, Boston Dynamics) have access to custom designed ML hardware. So they are saying: if you want to build the robots of the future, this is the company to join. I don't understand how that's "BS"? They're not marketing this to consumers.
    - ctdonath 5y ago
      It was a funny. Laugh.
  - andyxor 5y ago
    false advertising, that “AI” literally doesn’t know what it’s doing
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - beeboop 5y ago
      There are a lot of levels and definitions of AI. Elon and team clearly refer to their own products as "narrow" AI, which it literally is by definition.
    - iseanstevens 5y ago
      I certainly don’t know what I’m doing, but many people have said I’m intelligent.
      - andyxor 5y ago
        You know more than you realize, and your brain does more than you know It’s been said that AI is surprisingly hard because a lot that’s happening is unconscious, and once you fall into the rabbit hole of chasing it AI becomes a perpetual “5 years away” goal
- s5300 5y ago
  If the people who've made the singular successful US automobile manufacturer & US space travel company in decades are bullshit artists, yet still obviously the best we have going for us, then damn we in for a bleak future aren't we... I think that may be false and you might just not like Elon though.
  - shmoe 5y ago
    Boeing can't even get off the ground without checking the hardware clock, and Blue Origin has never made it to orbit. I hate people who discount the achievements of SpaceX/Tesla because they tend to make this look easy.
  - andyxor 5y ago
    it’s a common mistake to extend expertise in one domain to other completely unrelated domains A good example is Noam Chomsky and his political ramblings
    - staunch 5y ago
      Chomsky is just not as smart as effective as some other people. Many people thought: 1. Elon Musk was a Silicon Valley software guy that couldn't possibly build electric cars or rockets. 2. The Wright brothers were a couple of bicycle mechanics that couldn't possibly build a real flying machine. 3. Steve Jobs was a right-place right-time washed up has-been that could not revive Apple and certainly could not make it the most valuable company on earth. History is full of examples of smart and effective people transferring their abilities to new challenges.
    - s5300 5y ago
      This is true, but one should still consider that Musk tends to attract some of the best, brightest, and highly motivated engineers and scientists (despite those who would argue this is false, I think it's quite clear who is correct when looking at the ventures of Alumni of his companies and what his companies have produced so far...) As well as a good amount of non-bureaucratically/red-tape-restricted financial backing. Those conditions seem highly likely to be able to produce results compared to other companies in the space - but I guess only time will tell. For a funnier and maybe slightly less related example like yours though... There is a surviving Japanese company that made samurai swords for a few centuries or so - they now make nail clippers, and they're some of the best damn nail clippers one can buy on this planet. They then ventured into making tweezers as well. You would expect that if they can make such amazing and highly acclaimed nail clippers, they can probably make damn good tweezers as well. Their tweezers are absolutely awful and they've never revised them for as long as they've been selling them.
- mzs 5y ago
  >Carl Berry, a lecturer in robotics engineering at the UK’s University of Central Lancashire, put things to me in less uncertain terms: “[Calling it] horse shit sounds generous, frankly. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be doing research like this, but it’s the usual overblown hype.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-musk-ai-day https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-m...
beeboop 5y ago
Part of the AI day video had a QA where Elon said "I discourage use of machine learning because it's really difficult. Unless you have to use machine learning, don't do it... 99.9% of the time you do not need it". I'm not really familiar with machine learning and how it differs from the type of work Tesla does with self driving software. I guess I was under the assumption some form of machine learning was being used for self driving? Anyone have some insight on what he means by this? Maybe some examples of where we see ML being used today where it doesn't need to be?
- TheDudeMan 5y ago
  He didn't say they don't use it.
- sidibe 5y ago
  Questioner was referring to use of AI elsewhere besides in robots and cars. He didn't see the point of using it in factories or infrastructure (they probably don't have the infrastructure complexity and scale to make it worthwhile like it is for other companies).
  - beeboop 5y ago
    Thanks, that makes more sense.
- BluSyn 5y ago
  I think it's also related to automation in manufacturing. I imagine Tesla gets lots of sales people trying to pitch "ML-enhanced manufacturing solution". Many repetitive tasks are better suited to a simple heuristic. In those scenarios using ML as a solution is like building a rocket to fly from SF to LA. In many cases, heuristics are both simpler and the best solution to a problem, but many companies are falling into the hype trap and using ML to solve problems where it's actually complete overkill or unnecessary.
systemvoltage 5y ago
Mimicking nature, the argument that if our eyes can do and therefore, it must be sufficient is... true - we have the evidence in front of our eyes (sorry for the pun). However, evolutionary processes have no hindsight and they often get stuck in local minima in terms of the optimization space. Of course, I am making the argument that having LIDAR only helps to augment the sensory input from cameras. It doesn't take anything away. I believe Tesla wanted to save a buck in its initial days and banked on cameras-only solution to FSD, continued to double down on it instead of re-evaluating the cost benefits. I am sure there are heated debates internally at Tesla team. Whether they'll use LIDAR or not seems to be a shut case for now. Tesla's main goal is to do a lot while keeping the costs low. The fact the the entire interior is devoid of critical things like buttons is a testament to not how they're good at UX/UI, but how they've shaved off $$$. Pretty impressive. A potpourri of features in a Tesla car are all software-based (fixed NRE cost, essentially zero bloat on the COGS). Spending extra on a set of buttons, let alone a LIDAR system, would piss off the bean counters. If anything else, their marketing is great and people love the brand (and the stock).
- borkyborkbork 5y ago
  I believe they said that LIDAR was so low resolution and was giving so many false readings that they had to give it up when using it in the real world (non pre-mapped cities like some other companies).
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Yes, they have been repeating this argument but intuitively it doesn't doesn't make sense to me. How is it more difficult than stiching a dozen cameras together? Even a single point in the lidar map can provide distance information to giant median columns Tesla cars keep missing. Any computer-vision experts can weigh in on this? Isn't Waymo doing this already? Another argument is to not fuse the data. Just keep it as a backup decision maker akin to how Aviation systems are designed. If both systems agree, then you have additional reliability. Would love to hear from someone who's worked on these kinds of FSD systems.
valine 5y ago
My takeaways: They're using transformers to persist occluded objects which is very cool. Path planning is done almost entirely without neural networks. The do have an optimization routine which runs on the car with cost functions for comfort, distance, etc. They have HD maps but the data is stored in the vision network's latent space. A joke was made about the vision network overfitting and storing a representation of the whole world, ie an HD map embedded in the network weights. Also a comment was made about detecting pillars, seems that's on top of mind for the team.
Geee 5y ago
The bot wasn't a product announcement. They just announced that they're trying to build one, which probably won't look like that at all when it's ready. It was expected, because there has been hints about it. Everyone knows robots are the future and it'll certainly be interesting watching tech companies entering this space. Apple is probably building one too (hiding it as autonomous car program).
panick21 5y ago
A lot of people want to talk about the Tesla Bot. That is clearly in the early stages. Can we talk about Dojo? This seems like a pretty crazy projects. A fully integrated super computer designed from core to multi-rack design. I have never really seen a system integrated like that? Are there other examples of people doing this? They seem to have designed some kind of sled that connect to power and liquid cooling system. Can somebody with some expertise in large scale training compare this to state of the art?
- refulgentis 5y ago
  The same robot is supposed to be out sometime in 2022, unbelievable. In Q+A they said the Dojo stuff was an aspirational vision, not a production-ready design Elon is a self parody at this point.
  - bhauer 5y ago
    > The same robot is supposed to be out sometime in 2022, unbelievable. How did you get that interpretation from Elon saying they're aiming to have a prototype next year? It's a recruiting event. Presumably in part to recruit people to work on this new project.
  - panick21 5y ago
    That not at all the case. The robot was not supposed to be 'out' next year. He said they might have the first prototype built next year. Those are very different things. And Dojo is clearly advanced state, as they show the hardware and showed how far they are. They haven't built the full rack of course. > Elon is a self parody at this point. I think people who act like everything he says is some made up nonsense are a parody of themselves if anything.
    - refulgentis 5y ago
      I think you understand why people might think extending FSD to robots is a bit...loaded...considering Musk has been promising and selling FSD to consumers for years. Remember 1 million robotaxis? There's a much higher chance there's a consumer fraud case on FSD than ten of these robots are ever sold

55 points by tweaker 5y ago

First time hearing about Tesla Bot. From the article: > Develop the next generation of automation, including a general purpose, bi-pedal, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring. We’re seeking technical, electrical, controls and software engineers to help us leverage our AI expertise beyond our vehicle fleet.

ctdonath 5y ago
Well, it was just announced about an hour ago.

andyxor 5y ago

Bullshit artists, but I hope some of that “AI” money trickles down to fundamental research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to bring us closer to understanding cognition

beeboop 5y ago
What do you consider bullshit about Tesla's use of AI?
- sidibe 5y ago
  The robot was pure BS. You can tell they haven't done anything or even thought much about it, there was just the slide and he didn't even know what to say about it during the presentation just "look, robot"
  - shmoe 5y ago
    It's a recruiting event. The same way they announced a 25k EV in China to recruit designers there. It doesn't mean it won't happen, but it's also a tactic.
  - BluSyn 5y ago
    It is clearly a future product idea simply designed to inspire robotics experts to join the company. Not many other places (eg, Boston Dynamics) have access to custom designed ML hardware. So they are saying: if you want to build the robots of the future, this is the company to join. I don't understand how that's "BS"? They're not marketing this to consumers.
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    It was a funny. Laugh.
- andyxor 5y ago
  false advertising, that “AI” literally doesn’t know what it’s doing
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - beeboop 5y ago
    There are a lot of levels and definitions of AI. Elon and team clearly refer to their own products as "narrow" AI, which it literally is by definition.
  - iseanstevens 5y ago
    I certainly don’t know what I’m doing, but many people have said I’m intelligent.
    - andyxor 5y ago
      You know more than you realize, and your brain does more than you know It’s been said that AI is surprisingly hard because a lot that’s happening is unconscious, and once you fall into the rabbit hole of chasing it AI becomes a perpetual “5 years away” goal
s5300 5y ago
If the people who've made the singular successful US automobile manufacturer & US space travel company in decades are bullshit artists, yet still obviously the best we have going for us, then damn we in for a bleak future aren't we... I think that may be false and you might just not like Elon though.
- shmoe 5y ago
  Boeing can't even get off the ground without checking the hardware clock, and Blue Origin has never made it to orbit. I hate people who discount the achievements of SpaceX/Tesla because they tend to make this look easy.
- andyxor 5y ago
  it’s a common mistake to extend expertise in one domain to other completely unrelated domains A good example is Noam Chomsky and his political ramblings
  - staunch 5y ago
    Chomsky is just not as smart as effective as some other people. Many people thought: 1. Elon Musk was a Silicon Valley software guy that couldn't possibly build electric cars or rockets. 2. The Wright brothers were a couple of bicycle mechanics that couldn't possibly build a real flying machine. 3. Steve Jobs was a right-place right-time washed up has-been that could not revive Apple and certainly could not make it the most valuable company on earth. History is full of examples of smart and effective people transferring their abilities to new challenges.
  - s5300 5y ago
    This is true, but one should still consider that Musk tends to attract some of the best, brightest, and highly motivated engineers and scientists (despite those who would argue this is false, I think it's quite clear who is correct when looking at the ventures of Alumni of his companies and what his companies have produced so far...) As well as a good amount of non-bureaucratically/red-tape-restricted financial backing. Those conditions seem highly likely to be able to produce results compared to other companies in the space - but I guess only time will tell. For a funnier and maybe slightly less related example like yours though... There is a surviving Japanese company that made samurai swords for a few centuries or so - they now make nail clippers, and they're some of the best damn nail clippers one can buy on this planet. They then ventured into making tweezers as well. You would expect that if they can make such amazing and highly acclaimed nail clippers, they can probably make damn good tweezers as well. Their tweezers are absolutely awful and they've never revised them for as long as they've been selling them.
mzs 5y ago
>Carl Berry, a lecturer in robotics engineering at the UK’s University of Central Lancashire, put things to me in less uncertain terms: “[Calling it] horse shit sounds generous, frankly. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be doing research like this, but it’s the usual overblown hype.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-musk-ai-day https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-m...

beeboop 5y ago

Part of the AI day video had a QA where Elon said "I discourage use of machine learning because it's really difficult. Unless you have to use machine learning, don't do it... 99.9% of the time you do not need it". I'm not really familiar with machine learning and how it differs from the type of work Tesla does with self driving software. I guess I was under the assumption some form of machine learning was being used for self driving? Anyone have some insight on what he means by this? Maybe some examples of where we see ML being used today where it doesn't need to be?

TheDudeMan 5y ago
He didn't say they don't use it.
sidibe 5y ago
Questioner was referring to use of AI elsewhere besides in robots and cars. He didn't see the point of using it in factories or infrastructure (they probably don't have the infrastructure complexity and scale to make it worthwhile like it is for other companies).
- beeboop 5y ago
  Thanks, that makes more sense.
BluSyn 5y ago
I think it's also related to automation in manufacturing. I imagine Tesla gets lots of sales people trying to pitch "ML-enhanced manufacturing solution". Many repetitive tasks are better suited to a simple heuristic. In those scenarios using ML as a solution is like building a rocket to fly from SF to LA. In many cases, heuristics are both simpler and the best solution to a problem, but many companies are falling into the hype trap and using ML to solve problems where it's actually complete overkill or unnecessary.

systemvoltage 5y ago

Mimicking nature, the argument that if our eyes can do and therefore, it must be sufficient is... true - we have the evidence in front of our eyes (sorry for the pun). However, evolutionary processes have no hindsight and they often get stuck in local minima in terms of the optimization space. Of course, I am making the argument that having LIDAR only helps to augment the sensory input from cameras. It doesn't take anything away. I believe Tesla wanted to save a buck in its initial days and banked on cameras-only solution to FSD, continued to double down on it instead of re-evaluating the cost benefits. I am sure there are heated debates internally at Tesla team. Whether they'll use LIDAR or not seems to be a shut case for now. Tesla's main goal is to do a lot while keeping the costs low. The fact the the entire interior is devoid of critical things like buttons is a testament to not how they're good at UX/UI, but how they've shaved off $$$. Pretty impressive. A potpourri of features in a Tesla car are all software-based (fixed NRE cost, essentially zero bloat on the COGS). Spending extra on a set of buttons, let alone a LIDAR system, would piss off the bean counters. If anything else, their marketing is great and people love the brand (and the stock).

borkyborkbork 5y ago
I believe they said that LIDAR was so low resolution and was giving so many false readings that they had to give it up when using it in the real world (non pre-mapped cities like some other companies).
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Yes, they have been repeating this argument but intuitively it doesn't doesn't make sense to me. How is it more difficult than stiching a dozen cameras together? Even a single point in the lidar map can provide distance information to giant median columns Tesla cars keep missing. Any computer-vision experts can weigh in on this? Isn't Waymo doing this already? Another argument is to not fuse the data. Just keep it as a backup decision maker akin to how Aviation systems are designed. If both systems agree, then you have additional reliability. Would love to hear from someone who's worked on these kinds of FSD systems.

valine 5y ago

My takeaways: They're using transformers to persist occluded objects which is very cool. Path planning is done almost entirely without neural networks. The do have an optimization routine which runs on the car with cost functions for comfort, distance, etc. They have HD maps but the data is stored in the vision network's latent space. A joke was made about the vision network overfitting and storing a representation of the whole world, ie an HD map embedded in the network weights. Also a comment was made about detecting pillars, seems that's on top of mind for the team.

Geee 5y ago

The bot wasn't a product announcement. They just announced that they're trying to build one, which probably won't look like that at all when it's ready. It was expected, because there has been hints about it. Everyone knows robots are the future and it'll certainly be interesting watching tech companies entering this space. Apple is probably building one too (hiding it as autonomous car program).

panick21 5y ago

A lot of people want to talk about the Tesla Bot. That is clearly in the early stages. Can we talk about Dojo? This seems like a pretty crazy projects. A fully integrated super computer designed from core to multi-rack design. I have never really seen a system integrated like that? Are there other examples of people doing this? They seem to have designed some kind of sled that connect to power and liquid cooling system. Can somebody with some expertise in large scale training compare this to state of the art?

refulgentis 5y ago
The same robot is supposed to be out sometime in 2022, unbelievable. In Q+A they said the Dojo stuff was an aspirational vision, not a production-ready design Elon is a self parody at this point.
- bhauer 5y ago
  > The same robot is supposed to be out sometime in 2022, unbelievable. How did you get that interpretation from Elon saying they're aiming to have a prototype next year? It's a recruiting event. Presumably in part to recruit people to work on this new project.
- panick21 5y ago
  That not at all the case. The robot was not supposed to be 'out' next year. He said they might have the first prototype built next year. Those are very different things. And Dojo is clearly advanced state, as they show the hardware and showed how far they are. They haven't built the full rack of course. > Elon is a self parody at this point. I think people who act like everything he says is some made up nonsense are a parody of themselves if anything.
  - refulgentis 5y ago
    I think you understand why people might think extending FSD to robots is a bit...loaded...considering Musk has been promising and selling FSD to consumers for years. Remember 1 million robotaxis? There's a much higher chance there's a consumer fraud case on FSD than ten of these robots are ever sold