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The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. A radar is a se

The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. A radar is a sensor a human doesn't have, but we can gauge distance, and they also do introduce potential supply chain issues. So limiting the number of sensors is beneficial there. He also makes the argument that you have a tonne of data already. 8 1.2mp cameras, so 9.6 million pixels or effectively 9.6 million separate data points used to train the model. When you have that much data, what does including some relatively low resolution radar information give you that you couldn't infer from vision? I don't know enough about AI to know if he's right, but it makes some sense to me. I think my biggest issue with it is that human eyes are insanely high quality, able to adapt to huge changes in light levels and clean themselves every few seconds. I know Teslas have issues with cameras being blocked by sunlight and things like that. A human can just move their head and use the sun visor. With my limited knowledge I think vision probably is the ultimate way forward, but maybe they're too early. Perhaps there's some breakthrough we need to simplify the problem. I don't think Tesla will be the first to start making money from autonomous vehicles. I think Waymo will be the first. LIDAR isn't scalable but it simplifies a big part of the problem to the point that you can generate revenue from autonomous taxis while you train and perfect the general purpose vision model in the long term.

philjohn 4y ago
It doesn't make sense to me at all. We have an iris, this allows us to limit the amount of light hitting our retina, or increase it when conditions are darker. Do the cameras on a Tesla have shutters that can do this? Otherwise you're going to have fun when there is glare off a wet road.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  Did you even read my comment?
klondike_ 4y ago
The issue is that self driving needs to be better than human drivers by a considerable margin. The public will not tolerate an AI driver that makes the same mistakes as humans, they expect better. To do this it will need access to sensors that humans don't have
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  A good human driver won't cause an accident though. The majority of accidents are caused through distraction or inhibition. A car can't get distracted or drunk.
gradascent 4y ago
In such a safety-critical system, it's important to have backups. You need at least two cameras to accurately estimate depth, and cameras can fail for a variety of reasons (sun glare, low lighting, heavy fog). Radar, at the very least, is a backup for the cameras. Also, with vision, the best you can do is estimate distance, whereas with radar and LIDAR you are explicitly measuring it.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  >Also, with vision, the best you can do is estimate distance, whereas with radar and LIDAR you are explicitly measuring it. But is there any evidence you need to measure distances? We humans can navigate the world without walking into walls, so long as we're looking where we're going. For a machine to navigate the world it should be possible to do it via vision. And Tesla's do have multiple cameras to be able to measure depth. And radar is not a backup for cameras. The resolution of the data is terrible and you can not rely on it to do any sort of driving except braking if it thinks there's an obstacle. Radar is also susceptible to problems as well, which is why Tesla's and other cars with radar can often go crazy thinking you're gonna crash randomly.
sho_hn 4y ago
> The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. Humans also learn social dynamics through numerous other senses and in situations that Tesla's models never encounter or code for. Those other cars on the road do have human drivers, after all. Humans also have ears, etc. Plenty of unusual road or lot situations where those things come in handy.
moralestapia 4y ago
>The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. Yes ... and? Is this guy like an oracle with all the right answers wrt to AI? You're also appealing to the authority of a guy that didn't deliver much in 4 years and then just left the company. Then after he leaves Tesla brings back the radars lol, but that's definitely a coincidence, right? Because he's Andrek Karpathy, and he was definitely not wrong about that, at all.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  I'm not appealing to anyone. I'm just stating his argument since he was one of the main guys at Tesla working on this problem. He might have a point, he might not. I stated the obvious problems with it in my original comment.
pwinnski 4y ago
If you limit yourself to the equipment that humans have, how do you expect to outperform humans? Would we accept 40k deaths every year in the US from self-driving cars, too? For that matter, I don't think the cameras installed in Teslas work as well as a good human eye, with dynamic range and depth perception. So it seems like a bad premise to start with, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak. So many years in, and when they pulled the radar out for supply chain reasons they had to disable self-parking, too.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  The majority of road accidents are caused by distractions and inhibition. If you perform like the best drivers on the road, then you won't have accidents.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    That last statement is an assertion lacking evidence, and as counter-evidence I offer every accident Tesla’s “autopilot” has been involved in. If drivers always paid good attention, I’m sure we would have fewer collisions. I’m not sure we would have none.
TomSwirly 4y ago
> The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. By that argument, we should abandon silicon for our chips, because we think without it. Heck, by that argument, we should be building androids and putting them into the driver's seat, because humans use hands to drive. What an incredibly stupid argument. My respect for this guy just went right into the toilet.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  >By that argument, we should abandon silicon for our chips, because we think without it Evolution has created some of the greatest computational machines. If it was possible to build a programmable biological brain, we'd do it in a heartbeat if that's what it took to develop true artificial general intelligence. >Heck, by that argument, we should be building androids and putting them into the driver's seat, because humans use hands to drive Humans don't need to use hands to drive though. We could input steering and throttle controls though many different ways. We have vehicles that are controlled by tilting our bodies in different directions. But the fact of that matter is, that we use vision to see where we're going and the infrastructure is designed for vision. I'm not sure what your point is, it doesn't seem like you understand his.

philjohn 4y ago

It doesn't make sense to me at all. We have an iris, this allows us to limit the amount of light hitting our retina, or increase it when conditions are darker. Do the cameras on a Tesla have shutters that can do this? Otherwise you're going to have fun when there is glare off a wet road.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
Did you even read my comment?

klondike_ 4y ago

The issue is that self driving needs to be better than human drivers by a considerable margin. The public will not tolerate an AI driver that makes the same mistakes as humans, they expect better. To do this it will need access to sensors that humans don't have

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
A good human driver won't cause an accident though. The majority of accidents are caused through distraction or inhibition. A car can't get distracted or drunk.

gradascent 4y ago

In such a safety-critical system, it's important to have backups. You need at least two cameras to accurately estimate depth, and cameras can fail for a variety of reasons (sun glare, low lighting, heavy fog). Radar, at the very least, is a backup for the cameras. Also, with vision, the best you can do is estimate distance, whereas with radar and LIDAR you are explicitly measuring it.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
>Also, with vision, the best you can do is estimate distance, whereas with radar and LIDAR you are explicitly measuring it. But is there any evidence you need to measure distances? We humans can navigate the world without walking into walls, so long as we're looking where we're going. For a machine to navigate the world it should be possible to do it via vision. And Tesla's do have multiple cameras to be able to measure depth. And radar is not a backup for cameras. The resolution of the data is terrible and you can not rely on it to do any sort of driving except braking if it thinks there's an obstacle. Radar is also susceptible to problems as well, which is why Tesla's and other cars with radar can often go crazy thinking you're gonna crash randomly.

sho_hn 4y ago

> The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. Humans also learn social dynamics through numerous other senses and in situations that Tesla's models never encounter or code for. Those other cars on the road do have human drivers, after all. Humans also have ears, etc. Plenty of unusual road or lot situations where those things come in handy.

moralestapia 4y ago

>The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. Yes ... and? Is this guy like an oracle with all the right answers wrt to AI? You're also appealing to the authority of a guy that didn't deliver much in 4 years and then just left the company. Then after he leaves Tesla brings back the radars lol, but that's definitely a coincidence, right? Because he's Andrek Karpathy, and he was definitely not wrong about that, at all.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
I'm not appealing to anyone. I'm just stating his argument since he was one of the main guys at Tesla working on this problem. He might have a point, he might not. I stated the obvious problems with it in my original comment.

pwinnski 4y ago

If you limit yourself to the equipment that humans have, how do you expect to outperform humans? Would we accept 40k deaths every year in the US from self-driving cars, too? For that matter, I don't think the cameras installed in Teslas work as well as a good human eye, with dynamic range and depth perception. So it seems like a bad premise to start with, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak. So many years in, and when they pulled the radar out for supply chain reasons they had to disable self-parking, too.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
The majority of road accidents are caused by distractions and inhibition. If you perform like the best drivers on the road, then you won't have accidents.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  That last statement is an assertion lacking evidence, and as counter-evidence I offer every accident Tesla’s “autopilot” has been involved in. If drivers always paid good attention, I’m sure we would have fewer collisions. I’m not sure we would have none.

TomSwirly 4y ago

> The argument from Andrej Karpathy is that humans use vision and vision alone, so if we can learn to drive by vision, then so should an ML model. By that argument, we should abandon silicon for our chips, because we think without it. Heck, by that argument, we should be building androids and putting them into the driver's seat, because humans use hands to drive. What an incredibly stupid argument. My respect for this guy just went right into the toilet.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
>By that argument, we should abandon silicon for our chips, because we think without it Evolution has created some of the greatest computational machines. If it was possible to build a programmable biological brain, we'd do it in a heartbeat if that's what it took to develop true artificial general intelligence. >Heck, by that argument, we should be building androids and putting them into the driver's seat, because humans use hands to drive Humans don't need to use hands to drive though. We could input steering and throttle controls though many different ways. We have vehicles that are controlled by tilting our bodies in different directions. But the fact of that matter is, that we use vision to see where we're going and the infrastructure is designed for vision. I'm not sure what your point is, it doesn't seem like you understand his.