5 ms·

i'm not sure if i buy his argument that the "delta is not big enough." i have some experience with realtime ai systems and i've noticed something interesting ab

by a-dub 4y ago

i'm not sure if i buy his argument that the "delta is not big enough." i have some experience with realtime ai systems and i've noticed something interesting about them. they have a non-smooth capability curve, where they can demonstrate proficiency in activities that in regular computer programs or people would imply a complete and continuous path of capability that has been mastered to achieve the demonstration, but ai systems are weird in that can do amazing things, but have loads of little holes and failure modes along the way. for example: gpt-3 can write you a shell script that will emit a c program that prints a poem about people you know, but will fail at very basic logic, sometimes. in light of that, having additional support data like radar or lidar seems like the right move for plugging all those little holes in capability that turn up in real ai systems. because at the end of the day, when you're driving a car in the real world and lives are at stake, simply interpolating or averaging over uncertainty seems awfully deadly and the only way to ameliorate that uncertainty seems to have multiple redundant sensory systems that can stand in for each other as conditions change. just like us!

Nomentatus 4y ago
They do "fall off the edge of the world" a lot; but so do human neural networks; I've seen a bad crash as a result of a human simply pulling out of a driveway right in front of a motorcycle, 'cause they're rare. She had tagged the motorcycle as a bike while it was farther away, then boom. Her interpolation (while checking the other side) didn't work, and her averaging over uncertainty didn't work either because motorcycles are rather rare up north, they aren't the average vehicle. I've made a similar error re a kid on a wall (he suddenly jumped directly into the bikepath) but managed to avoid him (my bike zoomed to his left and I tumbled past his right. He wasn't hurt, although I got a severe wrist sprain from throwing the bike to the left.) As a driver I behave very differently around kids on walls, now. It was just an edge case I'd never encountered, and I didn't have enough data to calculate under uncertainty.
- api 4y ago
  I see surprisingly little discussion of overall statistics on safety of self drive vs humans, and what I do see is often self reported by companies or by equally potentially biased sources in the media. I’ve searched many times and a straightforward stat seems hard to find.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    There's still too much apples and oranges for direct comparison. Tesla FSD doesn't make some of the mistakes human drivers do (like dozing off or being drunk) but it introduces new mistakes humans rarely make (like driving under semi trailers crossing the road).
  - hwillis 4y ago
    It's certainly not straightforward. You know how 90% of crashes occur within whatever many miles of home? People don't use autopilot while they're cruising around their suburbs or cities. Companies would have to disclose not just their accidents, but also how much driving is done in different places. Then all those places would have to be compared or at least categorized. Its complex enough that there would definitely not be a straightforward, obviously-correct way to interpret it all. Since companies do not disclose where self-driving occurs, the whole thing is a complete nonstarter. It's whatever they choose to disclose.
    - Nomentatus 4y ago
      This does spark a thought in me - at some point Telsa could create a proper test, with a portion of their drivers being asked to not use self-driving for a month, say. Or a free trial for a month that only half of Tesla users not already subscribed (randomly chosen) are eligible for.
  - touch_abs 4y ago
    There isnt really a way to gather the data free from a manufacturer, every current self-drive mode has limited operating scenarios, if you want to record an incident you first need the manufacturer to confirm that it was operating, and that it was one of the intended use cases. Companies are less interested in safety vs a human to begin with, they have a emphasis on not causing any accident they are culpable for.

by a-dub 4y ago

Nomentatus 4y ago

They do "fall off the edge of the world" a lot; but so do human neural networks; I've seen a bad crash as a result of a human simply pulling out of a driveway right in front of a motorcycle, 'cause they're rare. She had tagged the motorcycle as a bike while it was farther away, then boom. Her interpolation (while checking the other side) didn't work, and her averaging over uncertainty didn't work either because motorcycles are rather rare up north, they aren't the average vehicle. I've made a similar error re a kid on a wall (he suddenly jumped directly into the bikepath) but managed to avoid him (my bike zoomed to his left and I tumbled past his right. He wasn't hurt, although I got a severe wrist sprain from throwing the bike to the left.) As a driver I behave very differently around kids on walls, now. It was just an edge case I'd never encountered, and I didn't have enough data to calculate under uncertainty.

api 4y ago
I see surprisingly little discussion of overall statistics on safety of self drive vs humans, and what I do see is often self reported by companies or by equally potentially biased sources in the media. I’ve searched many times and a straightforward stat seems hard to find.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  There's still too much apples and oranges for direct comparison. Tesla FSD doesn't make some of the mistakes human drivers do (like dozing off or being drunk) but it introduces new mistakes humans rarely make (like driving under semi trailers crossing the road).
- hwillis 4y ago
  It's certainly not straightforward. You know how 90% of crashes occur within whatever many miles of home? People don't use autopilot while they're cruising around their suburbs or cities. Companies would have to disclose not just their accidents, but also how much driving is done in different places. Then all those places would have to be compared or at least categorized. Its complex enough that there would definitely not be a straightforward, obviously-correct way to interpret it all. Since companies do not disclose where self-driving occurs, the whole thing is a complete nonstarter. It's whatever they choose to disclose.
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    This does spark a thought in me - at some point Telsa could create a proper test, with a portion of their drivers being asked to not use self-driving for a month, say. Or a free trial for a month that only half of Tesla users not already subscribed (randomly chosen) are eligible for.
- touch_abs 4y ago
  There isnt really a way to gather the data free from a manufacturer, every current self-drive mode has limited operating scenarios, if you want to record an incident you first need the manufacturer to confirm that it was operating, and that it was one of the intended use cases. Companies are less interested in safety vs a human to begin with, they have a emphasis on not causing any accident they are culpable for.