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I love the idea of Comma. It makes a lot of sense to have an after-market instrument to drive your car. There's no reason you have to re-build a car. You can pr

by bko 4y ago

I love the idea of Comma. It makes a lot of sense to have an after-market instrument to drive your car. There's no reason you have to re-build a car. You can probably get very far with just a few sensors and connecting to existing car controls. Humans drive perfectly well without lidar or a large number of cameras, so a bot should be able to as well. You can tell how full of shit a company is by the number of tangential things in their mission statement. If they want self driving, and all electric, and made from recycled parts, and give back 2% to the environment, they're prob full of it. Comma is taking an incremental approach which I like. Most driving is done on long monotonous roads going straight. If you can eliminate that portion, you'd add huge value. The other cool thing is that its completely open-source (except for code used to train the models). You can install it on your own device and run it, or fork it. I read a high percentage of users use custom forks of the software. They also have a discord where you can talk to the engineers and people working there if you have any issues or questions. Imagine calling someone from Toyota and just being connected to a auto-engineer? There's a lot to like about Comma. There are few businesses out there with this mindset. I hope other companies take their lead and think outside the box and stop worrying about the next round and just get some hackers together and build something people want.

giobox 4y ago
To preface this complaint, I'm generally bullish on self driving and think it will be solved to a reasonable standard in not too many years. With that said, even if this solution drove flawlessly I'm not so sure I like idea of cars being driven by an optical system that is attached to the windshield with suction cups. Much like we already mandate things like car lights cannot be on a moving piece of body work in the USA (to ensure lights visible even when boot or trunk open), I wonder if we should ensure that the critical sensors for self driving are hard mounted to the car securely? There is inevitably going to be occasions this falls off mid-drive - these suction cups are rarely perfect in my experience. I've always wondered if CarPlay/AndroidAuto one day might somehow just reuse existing sensor suites on vehicles to provide self driving - this would let the cellphone (which increasingly has ML acceleration hardware anyway) still be responsible for the driving with cameras that won't fall off.
- bko 4y ago
  I've never heard of this issue. I'm not sure what the system does, i imagine it disengages same as if the view were to suddenly to become obscured. They have a safety model that basically says it's not allowed to move the car more than you would be able to override. So it's limited which is why you have a lot of disengagemenets on curvy roads. I think it's a great safety model as you should always be paying attention. I don't think that problem is even in the top 5 risks of the system
  - hattmall 4y ago
    What's really the point if you still have to be paying attention? Having a lane departure and forward collision detection is pretty standard now. Im curious what benefits this provides beyond that?
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      The system that comes on your car will likely never be updated (except Tesla and a couple other manufacturers). Comma allows you to keep using the same sensors, but get the benefit of continued learning — without having to upgrade your car. If I buy a $40k car and 3 years go by, I'd be happy to buy a system that gives me access to state-of-the-art driving intelligence, using my car's existing sensors.
- birken 4y ago
  Your skepticism is fine, but you are not really educated on Comma's product at all. Comma uses a very strong adhesive for the mount, and then the Comma housing slides into that mount very securely. I don't think it is any more likely to fall off than your rear view mirror is (which also uses an adhesive). Comma isn't a purely optical system, it also uses the car's forward radar information in addition to its cameras. Comma does not pretend to be a fully self-driving system (yet), and in fact it has a camera facing the driver and will warn you if you are not paying attention or disengage if you are not paying attention long enough. It's a tool to make driving easier and safer. I'm quite confident if you sat in my car while Comma was driving you would be shocked at how good it is.
Melatonic 4y ago
While I agree that it would be cool to retrofit old cars for self driving this is just not really the case at all - human vision is incredibly advanced and we have some insane processing power behind that vision along with very often decades of learning how to harness that vision. What actually might be interesting would be a "self driving" addon that is actually just simply powered by a human remotely driving your car. Obviously you would need to add cameras and whatnot and it might be priced higher than most would want but with properly fast and reliable internet a random person could be driving your vehicle from their home while you sleep.
- ifdefdebug 4y ago
  Yeah, no. Having an underpaid rando who's life is not at stake driving my car while I am asleep is not an option.
- bko 4y ago
  I've asked about this on HN before and was told that latency and connectivity is the big issue. I think there is a startup doing this. Basically have drivers in mock cars like remote Uber drivers. But realistically you would need some hybrid approach but that sounds so much worse
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Reminds me of Ender's game. Could you do this with enough redundancy to make it worthwhile? And also have a computer doing the easy stuff, with humans at the ready to help at intersections and such.
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    Yea I think the ideal way would be as much machine control as possible with a real human ready to take over at the worst. Of course the person in the car would be better but you could also use such a thing for public transit like busses
sushisource 4y ago
> Most driving is done on long monotonous roads going straight. If you can eliminate that portion, you'd add huge value. I don't think this is actually true at all. I mean, it's a nice little plus for long road trips I suppose, but how often do you do those? If you can't automate the whole trip, there's little value. I can't go to the bar and have a few drinks and have my car drive me home. I can't avoid parking entirely by having my car park itself. I can't just stop owning a car because there is a circulating supply of autonomous ones. Those are the real "huge" value adds. Not being able to take a nap on a road trip, and those things are still quite far off.
- munificent 4y ago
  > I don't think this is actually true at all. I mean, it's a nice little plus for long road trips I suppose, but how often do you do those? The typical HN reader lives in a dense metro area where commute distances are much shorter than average. The average commute in the US is 16 miles each way. Millions of Americans spend hours on interstates every day.
GuB-42 4y ago
> Humans drive perfectly well without lidar or a large number of cameras, so a bot should be able to as well. This is Tesla, and Comma argument. I think it is a fallacy. Yes, we can drive with just a pair of eyeballs. But you have to realize that the entire road infrastructure is made for humans. Signs are made to be easily recognizable by humans, human reaction time is taken into account, we have a good idea on what is easy to understand and interpret by humans, but we don't give a fuck about bots when building roads. It means that we start with an unfair advantage. And we are asking bots to be better than we are in that environment. Humans have a remarkable ability to contextualize a situation. For example, if we see someone walking on a side lane, marked for pedestrians. We know that that person is not a threat, he is unlikely to leave his line and therefore we can pass at a normal speed. That's unless we see that the person is visibly drunk, or maybe he is a small child, in these cases, we will slow down, because he may suddenly jump in front of the car. Bots probably won't know that, and usually, for safety, they will always slow down. Similar situations happen all the time, and that would make for a terrible ride, so what should we do? Make the system ignore the "drunk man" or "small child" case and possibly kill people? Also one shouldn't forget the communication aspect of driving. Drivers have all sorts of way of showing their intentions: turn signals obviously, but also subtle movement, you may go forward a bit to signal you intend to merge into traffic for instance, wait a bit to let someone know he can pass, etc... New drivers often struggle with that, which may cause more experienced drivers to misread their intention and potentially cause an accident, unless these drivers notice that he is indeed a newbie... or a bot. One answer is for bots to compensate their weakness with things they are good at. Lightning fast reflexes is a given, but sensors are another aspect. Unlike humans, bots are not limited to a narrow field of vision and visible light. It is an advantage they should use. We humans are insanely good at reconstructing a 3D image from our 2D eyes, a good part of our brain is dedicated to that, computers can't compete, unless the computer is assisted by something like a lidar.
- hattmall 4y ago
  I'd be fine with self driving that only went 30mph max. It may take twice as long to get placed but so what I can be asleep or making a quesadilla.

by bko 4y ago

giobox 4y ago

To preface this complaint, I'm generally bullish on self driving and think it will be solved to a reasonable standard in not too many years. With that said, even if this solution drove flawlessly I'm not so sure I like idea of cars being driven by an optical system that is attached to the windshield with suction cups. Much like we already mandate things like car lights cannot be on a moving piece of body work in the USA (to ensure lights visible even when boot or trunk open), I wonder if we should ensure that the critical sensors for self driving are hard mounted to the car securely? There is inevitably going to be occasions this falls off mid-drive - these suction cups are rarely perfect in my experience. I've always wondered if CarPlay/AndroidAuto one day might somehow just reuse existing sensor suites on vehicles to provide self driving - this would let the cellphone (which increasingly has ML acceleration hardware anyway) still be responsible for the driving with cameras that won't fall off.

bko 4y ago
I've never heard of this issue. I'm not sure what the system does, i imagine it disengages same as if the view were to suddenly to become obscured. They have a safety model that basically says it's not allowed to move the car more than you would be able to override. So it's limited which is why you have a lot of disengagemenets on curvy roads. I think it's a great safety model as you should always be paying attention. I don't think that problem is even in the top 5 risks of the system
- hattmall 4y ago
  What's really the point if you still have to be paying attention? Having a lane departure and forward collision detection is pretty standard now. Im curious what benefits this provides beyond that?
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    The system that comes on your car will likely never be updated (except Tesla and a couple other manufacturers). Comma allows you to keep using the same sensors, but get the benefit of continued learning — without having to upgrade your car. If I buy a $40k car and 3 years go by, I'd be happy to buy a system that gives me access to state-of-the-art driving intelligence, using my car's existing sensors.
birken 4y ago
Your skepticism is fine, but you are not really educated on Comma's product at all. Comma uses a very strong adhesive for the mount, and then the Comma housing slides into that mount very securely. I don't think it is any more likely to fall off than your rear view mirror is (which also uses an adhesive). Comma isn't a purely optical system, it also uses the car's forward radar information in addition to its cameras. Comma does not pretend to be a fully self-driving system (yet), and in fact it has a camera facing the driver and will warn you if you are not paying attention or disengage if you are not paying attention long enough. It's a tool to make driving easier and safer. I'm quite confident if you sat in my car while Comma was driving you would be shocked at how good it is.

Melatonic 4y ago

While I agree that it would be cool to retrofit old cars for self driving this is just not really the case at all - human vision is incredibly advanced and we have some insane processing power behind that vision along with very often decades of learning how to harness that vision. What actually might be interesting would be a "self driving" addon that is actually just simply powered by a human remotely driving your car. Obviously you would need to add cameras and whatnot and it might be priced higher than most would want but with properly fast and reliable internet a random person could be driving your vehicle from their home while you sleep.

ifdefdebug 4y ago
Yeah, no. Having an underpaid rando who's life is not at stake driving my car while I am asleep is not an option.
bko 4y ago
I've asked about this on HN before and was told that latency and connectivity is the big issue. I think there is a startup doing this. Basically have drivers in mock cars like remote Uber drivers. But realistically you would need some hybrid approach but that sounds so much worse
gnicholas 4y ago
Reminds me of Ender's game. Could you do this with enough redundancy to make it worthwhile? And also have a computer doing the easy stuff, with humans at the ready to help at intersections and such.
- Melatonic 4y ago
  Yea I think the ideal way would be as much machine control as possible with a real human ready to take over at the worst. Of course the person in the car would be better but you could also use such a thing for public transit like busses

sushisource 4y ago

> Most driving is done on long monotonous roads going straight. If you can eliminate that portion, you'd add huge value. I don't think this is actually true at all. I mean, it's a nice little plus for long road trips I suppose, but how often do you do those? If you can't automate the whole trip, there's little value. I can't go to the bar and have a few drinks and have my car drive me home. I can't avoid parking entirely by having my car park itself. I can't just stop owning a car because there is a circulating supply of autonomous ones. Those are the real "huge" value adds. Not being able to take a nap on a road trip, and those things are still quite far off.

munificent 4y ago
> I don't think this is actually true at all. I mean, it's a nice little plus for long road trips I suppose, but how often do you do those? The typical HN reader lives in a dense metro area where commute distances are much shorter than average. The average commute in the US is 16 miles each way. Millions of Americans spend hours on interstates every day.

GuB-42 4y ago

> Humans drive perfectly well without lidar or a large number of cameras, so a bot should be able to as well. This is Tesla, and Comma argument. I think it is a fallacy. Yes, we can drive with just a pair of eyeballs. But you have to realize that the entire road infrastructure is made for humans. Signs are made to be easily recognizable by humans, human reaction time is taken into account, we have a good idea on what is easy to understand and interpret by humans, but we don't give a fuck about bots when building roads. It means that we start with an unfair advantage. And we are asking bots to be better than we are in that environment. Humans have a remarkable ability to contextualize a situation. For example, if we see someone walking on a side lane, marked for pedestrians. We know that that person is not a threat, he is unlikely to leave his line and therefore we can pass at a normal speed. That's unless we see that the person is visibly drunk, or maybe he is a small child, in these cases, we will slow down, because he may suddenly jump in front of the car. Bots probably won't know that, and usually, for safety, they will always slow down. Similar situations happen all the time, and that would make for a terrible ride, so what should we do? Make the system ignore the "drunk man" or "small child" case and possibly kill people? Also one shouldn't forget the communication aspect of driving. Drivers have all sorts of way of showing their intentions: turn signals obviously, but also subtle movement, you may go forward a bit to signal you intend to merge into traffic for instance, wait a bit to let someone know he can pass, etc... New drivers often struggle with that, which may cause more experienced drivers to misread their intention and potentially cause an accident, unless these drivers notice that he is indeed a newbie... or a bot. One answer is for bots to compensate their weakness with things they are good at. Lightning fast reflexes is a given, but sensors are another aspect. Unlike humans, bots are not limited to a narrow field of vision and visible light. It is an advantage they should use. We humans are insanely good at reconstructing a 3D image from our 2D eyes, a good part of our brain is dedicated to that, computers can't compete, unless the computer is assisted by something like a lidar.

hattmall 4y ago
I'd be fine with self driving that only went 30mph max. It may take twice as long to get placed but so what I can be asleep or making a quesadilla.