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I didn't realize from the link title that it also collided with the stopped vehicle. Wow. It made me wonder, are the driving models trained at all to recognize

I didn't realize from the link title that it also collided with the stopped vehicle. Wow. It made me wonder, are the driving models trained at all to recognize accidents or other road anomalies? A plane making an emergency landing in front of them? Just curious. Edit: Would also be interested to know if there's a way police could work with Tesla or other autopilot carmakers to broadcast special codes like don't-hit-us-here-is-our location, or just send a signal blocking autopilot, or whatever. They already send texts and radio alerts, and there are already local AM alert stations in the US anyway. If my kids would be driving, I'd rather buy from that kind of manufacturer.

melling 5y ago
How about a generic anti-collision with a large solid object? Radar? LiDAR? Nice safety feature.
- curryst 5y ago
  That's a much more complicated feature than you'd think. What does the car do when someone cuts you off on the highway? You're going 60 mph and there's now an object 3 feet in front of you. The car doesn't know whether it's moving or not, it takes time to measure velocity. Or if you're on one of those curved highway offramps with concrete barriers. There is legitimately an object directly in front of you. Or if it's just a plastic bag that you can totally just plow into. We can solve those problems, but it requires stuff like planning a route so you know if there are things in the path, and tracking objects around the car so you already know how fast they're going. A naive "if object in front of car and impact will happen in less than X seconds" approach is going to misfire often, and people are going to rear-end the car when it slams its breaks at 75 mph on the highway for no apparent reason.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I have a Honda that seems to have solved all those problems. It doesn't really "take time" to measure velocity, at least in the context of moving objects with inertia and human reaction time. There is a way to deal with emergency braking that could be considered obvious and yet ingenious, if you have radar or something that can identify solid objects. Instinctively, you'd think these systems are complicated, and impossible to guaranteed correct behavior with. But you might set the threshold so that braking triggers slightly after avoiding an accident is physically impossible given the required acceleration vector. That basically guarantees that you can't make things worse.
g_p 5y ago
> Would also be interested to know if there's a way police could work with Tesla or other autopilot carmakers to broadcast special codes like don't-hit-us-here-is-our location, or just send a signal blocking autopilot, or whatever. They already send texts and radio alerts, and there are already local AM alert stations in the US anyway. I don't think this will be a good solution, since inherently these incidents happen when there's an "exception". If every stationary emergency vehicle had to send a notification each time the lights were activated, this would maybe work, until you're in an area without coverage. To me, we need to raise the bar for what's acceptable - this vehicle would presumably also have ploughed into an injured motorist's car before the police had arrived... The root problem isn't the lack of notice of the stopped emergency vehicle, rather it's the apparent inability to avoid a stationary vehicle on the roadway, which should be the very first (and simplest) thing to detect, since the self driving vehicle is closing in on it and can see its relative position isn't moving. If it can't do that, IMO it shouldn't be on a public road, as it isn't capable of basic speed management in traffic without being able to gauge closing speed against a vehicle ahead.
user_named 5y ago
I think that by even asking the question if the system has been trained to recognize accidents you're giving it too much credit. It simply does not recognize objects that are not moving. This is not a smart system but something very dumb. As for accidents, it will never be able to understand visually what constitutes an accident site.
iamevn 5y ago
> Edit: Would also be interested to know if there's a way police could work with Tesla or other autopilot carmakers to broadcast special codes like don't-hit-us-here-is-our location, or just send a signal blocking autopilot, or whatever. They already send texts and radio alerts, and there are already local AM alert stations in the US anyway. I think that's solving the wrong problem, as the rest of your comment implies it's just as important to not hit other stationary objects like, say, another Tesla that has decided it's going to stop in the middle of the road[1]. [1]: https://twitter.com/repkord/status/1440908464625106946 https://twitter.com/repkord/status/1440908464625106946

melling 5y ago

How about a generic anti-collision with a large solid object? Radar? LiDAR? Nice safety feature.

curryst 5y ago
That's a much more complicated feature than you'd think. What does the car do when someone cuts you off on the highway? You're going 60 mph and there's now an object 3 feet in front of you. The car doesn't know whether it's moving or not, it takes time to measure velocity. Or if you're on one of those curved highway offramps with concrete barriers. There is legitimately an object directly in front of you. Or if it's just a plastic bag that you can totally just plow into. We can solve those problems, but it requires stuff like planning a route so you know if there are things in the path, and tracking objects around the car so you already know how fast they're going. A naive "if object in front of car and impact will happen in less than X seconds" approach is going to misfire often, and people are going to rear-end the car when it slams its breaks at 75 mph on the highway for no apparent reason.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I have a Honda that seems to have solved all those problems. It doesn't really "take time" to measure velocity, at least in the context of moving objects with inertia and human reaction time. There is a way to deal with emergency braking that could be considered obvious and yet ingenious, if you have radar or something that can identify solid objects. Instinctively, you'd think these systems are complicated, and impossible to guaranteed correct behavior with. But you might set the threshold so that braking triggers slightly after avoiding an accident is physically impossible given the required acceleration vector. That basically guarantees that you can't make things worse.

g_p 5y ago

> Would also be interested to know if there's a way police could work with Tesla or other autopilot carmakers to broadcast special codes like don't-hit-us-here-is-our location, or just send a signal blocking autopilot, or whatever. They already send texts and radio alerts, and there are already local AM alert stations in the US anyway. I don't think this will be a good solution, since inherently these incidents happen when there's an "exception". If every stationary emergency vehicle had to send a notification each time the lights were activated, this would maybe work, until you're in an area without coverage. To me, we need to raise the bar for what's acceptable - this vehicle would presumably also have ploughed into an injured motorist's car before the police had arrived... The root problem isn't the lack of notice of the stopped emergency vehicle, rather it's the apparent inability to avoid a stationary vehicle on the roadway, which should be the very first (and simplest) thing to detect, since the self driving vehicle is closing in on it and can see its relative position isn't moving. If it can't do that, IMO it shouldn't be on a public road, as it isn't capable of basic speed management in traffic without being able to gauge closing speed against a vehicle ahead.

user_named 5y ago

I think that by even asking the question if the system has been trained to recognize accidents you're giving it too much credit. It simply does not recognize objects that are not moving. This is not a smart system but something very dumb. As for accidents, it will never be able to understand visually what constitutes an accident site.

iamevn 5y ago

> Edit: Would also be interested to know if there's a way police could work with Tesla or other autopilot carmakers to broadcast special codes like don't-hit-us-here-is-our location, or just send a signal blocking autopilot, or whatever. They already send texts and radio alerts, and there are already local AM alert stations in the US anyway. I think that's solving the wrong problem, as the rest of your comment implies it's just as important to not hit other stationary objects like, say, another Tesla that has decided it's going to stop in the middle of the road[1]. [1]: https://twitter.com/repkord/status/1440908464625106946 https://twitter.com/repkord/status/1440908464625106946