3 ms·

Maybe camera only was a mistake? Researchers in this space have been saying that since DARPA Urban challenge in 2007, but Elon thinks he knows best.

bdcravens 5y ago
I think they are making a long-term bet here, likely in their ML models as they acquire millions of miles of driving data. The problem is an ethical one, as they are wagering today's safety, and the very real people and property that stand to be harmed.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  > The problem is an ethical one No, it's a reputational problem now. Musk and Tesla have pointlessly backed themselves into an anti-lidar corner. They're going to look foolish when they finally do add lidar to the cars. Lidar costs are reducing and it is making its way into more production cars: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/elon-musk-looks-increasingly-isolated-as-automakers-embrace-lidar https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/elon-musk...
  - bdcravens 5y ago
    They are not mutually exclusive. A company can act (or choose not) based on affects on reputation, but this doesn't eliminate the ethical component of those decisions. You needn't consider the ethics of a decision for it to have ethical implications.
  - paulmendoza 5y ago
    Vision seems to be working pretty well for them. I don’t see them changing course. FSD keeps improving.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      Sure does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyNg9kYEq4&t=340s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyNg9kYEq4&t=340s No problems: https://electrek.co/2022/02/04/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-crash-video/ https://electrek.co/2022/02/04/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-... It's working great: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44216/this-tesla-self-driving-fail-video-is-exactly-whats-wrong-with-tesla-stans https://www.thedrive.com/news/44216/this-tesla-self-driving-...
- freemint 5y ago
  The machine learning data also would be more valuable if it came with depth data. They could always produce future products which are camera only if their models would be good enough. It is probably just a means to get extra funding without having to spend much more on hardware.
  - paulmendoza 5y ago
    They trained some of their initial depth vision networks with LiDAR.
- salawat 5y ago
  This has the same problem as hypothetical sales. You can justify anything if you're willing to accept it into your moral/ethical calculus. I prefer less rationalizatiom and Farquading of others.
rasz 5y ago
Camera is just fine IF you can produce depth data out of it (/1). Evidently Tesla cant. /1 You might want to go for Stereo setup to be on a safe side, but on the pillars not 2cm apart. Tesla didnt even opt for that. First version using Mobileye had something hilariously bad like single 30fps 640x480 monochrome/red(limited ability to recognize red/green lights) front facing camera.
- paulmendoza 5y ago
  Tesla can produce depth data from vision. A few years ago they couldn’t but they have been since early 2021 I think.
  - rasz 5y ago
    If they could they wouldnt be driving into big stationary objects.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      It's the driver who is driving the car, not Tesla.
paulmendoza 5y ago
Vision only is probably better than mixing different sensors. Radar brings a whole other set of issues. BMW and other driver assist systems with radar all have a class of failures related to the detection of stopped objects when traveling at high speed. The radar is giving a confusing response and the vision disagrees. So which one to trust is hard. Tesla’s vision is just a better approach. It’s how humans drive. FSD is using all vision.
- jtsiskin 5y ago
  The argument “more sensor data = worse” is a pretty hard one to make, especially in the AI world. If it were the case radar is bad at detecting stopped objects at high speed and vision is better there, wouldn’t the model learn this? Yes, humans drive with just two eyes. But we don’t have LiDAR. If humans had LiDAR, you can bet we would use those when driving too. If Tesla had had LiDAR, it seems reasonable to believe at least one of the autopilot involved deaths would have not occurred. So now we’re at a weird point where we are evaluating the trade off between money, progress, and human lives.
md2020 5y ago
Obligatory “Tesla != Elon”. You’re acting as if “researchers in this space” and Tesla are separate entities, and they’re not. Tesla employs people with very good research track records, notably Andrej Karpathy, who is Director of AI and has a decade of ML/CV research under his belt and was a founding employee at OpenAI. Andrej has enough clout independent of his work at Tesla that if he thought Tesla’s approach was stupid, he could just leave and get a similar job at a company he thought had a better approach. Not saying he won’t do this eventually, but he’s been working on FSD since 2017 and hasn’t jumped ship yet, so presumably he likes the direction they’re going in.
electrondood 5y ago
What set of researchers? All researchers? "Many people are saying" energy.

bdcravens 5y ago

I think they are making a long-term bet here, likely in their ML models as they acquire millions of miles of driving data. The problem is an ethical one, as they are wagering today's safety, and the very real people and property that stand to be harmed.

clouddrover 5y ago
> The problem is an ethical one No, it's a reputational problem now. Musk and Tesla have pointlessly backed themselves into an anti-lidar corner. They're going to look foolish when they finally do add lidar to the cars. Lidar costs are reducing and it is making its way into more production cars: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/elon-musk-looks-increasingly-isolated-as-automakers-embrace-lidar https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/elon-musk...
- bdcravens 5y ago
  They are not mutually exclusive. A company can act (or choose not) based on affects on reputation, but this doesn't eliminate the ethical component of those decisions. You needn't consider the ethics of a decision for it to have ethical implications.
- paulmendoza 5y ago
  Vision seems to be working pretty well for them. I don’t see them changing course. FSD keeps improving.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Sure does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyNg9kYEq4&t=340s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyNg9kYEq4&t=340s No problems: https://electrek.co/2022/02/04/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-crash-video/ https://electrek.co/2022/02/04/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-... It's working great: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44216/this-tesla-self-driving-fail-video-is-exactly-whats-wrong-with-tesla-stans https://www.thedrive.com/news/44216/this-tesla-self-driving-...
freemint 5y ago
The machine learning data also would be more valuable if it came with depth data. They could always produce future products which are camera only if their models would be good enough. It is probably just a means to get extra funding without having to spend much more on hardware.
- paulmendoza 5y ago
  They trained some of their initial depth vision networks with LiDAR.
salawat 5y ago
This has the same problem as hypothetical sales. You can justify anything if you're willing to accept it into your moral/ethical calculus. I prefer less rationalizatiom and Farquading of others.

rasz 5y ago

Camera is just fine IF you can produce depth data out of it (/1). Evidently Tesla cant. /1 You might want to go for Stereo setup to be on a safe side, but on the pillars not 2cm apart. Tesla didnt even opt for that. First version using Mobileye had something hilariously bad like single 30fps 640x480 monochrome/red(limited ability to recognize red/green lights) front facing camera.

paulmendoza 5y ago
Tesla can produce depth data from vision. A few years ago they couldn’t but they have been since early 2021 I think.
- rasz 5y ago
  If they could they wouldnt be driving into big stationary objects.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    It's the driver who is driving the car, not Tesla.

paulmendoza 5y ago

Vision only is probably better than mixing different sensors. Radar brings a whole other set of issues. BMW and other driver assist systems with radar all have a class of failures related to the detection of stopped objects when traveling at high speed. The radar is giving a confusing response and the vision disagrees. So which one to trust is hard. Tesla’s vision is just a better approach. It’s how humans drive. FSD is using all vision.

jtsiskin 5y ago
The argument “more sensor data = worse” is a pretty hard one to make, especially in the AI world. If it were the case radar is bad at detecting stopped objects at high speed and vision is better there, wouldn’t the model learn this? Yes, humans drive with just two eyes. But we don’t have LiDAR. If humans had LiDAR, you can bet we would use those when driving too. If Tesla had had LiDAR, it seems reasonable to believe at least one of the autopilot involved deaths would have not occurred. So now we’re at a weird point where we are evaluating the trade off between money, progress, and human lives.

md2020 5y ago

Obligatory “Tesla != Elon”. You’re acting as if “researchers in this space” and Tesla are separate entities, and they’re not. Tesla employs people with very good research track records, notably Andrej Karpathy, who is Director of AI and has a decade of ML/CV research under his belt and was a founding employee at OpenAI. Andrej has enough clout independent of his work at Tesla that if he thought Tesla’s approach was stupid, he could just leave and get a similar job at a company he thought had a better approach. Not saying he won’t do this eventually, but he’s been working on FSD since 2017 and hasn’t jumped ship yet, so presumably he likes the direction they’re going in.

electrondood 5y ago

What set of researchers? All researchers? "Many people are saying" energy.