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Should you remove the human and then expand scope (Waymo)? Or expand the scope and then remove the human (Tesla)? I dunno. I personally think the Tesla approac

Should you remove the human and then expand scope (Waymo)? Or expand the scope and then remove the human (Tesla)? I dunno. I personally think the Tesla approach is fundamentally better because it obtains more data, faster. Millions of miles per day rather than millions of miles per year, with better macrodiversity to boot. However, that's just a heuristic: we've got a Tortoise and Hare scenario and as the parable teaches us, it's not so difficult to imagine a scenario where slow and steady wins the race. Even though I favor the Tesla approach, I could see this going either way. That said, I do think it's uncharitable to read failure into Tesla's high level decisions. They could have chosen the Waymo path and dumped all their effort into maximizing reliability on a small scenario subset. They chose not to. There are Andrej Karpathy interviews about it. They wanted to data-max. They data-maxed. Now they have 300x the data collection rate of Waymo. That's not failure, and it may even be a killer advantage. We'll see.

ra7 3y ago
> They wanted to data-max. They data-maxed. Now they have 300x the data collection rate of Waymo. Citation needed. What Tesla lacks is quality data, which Waymo has due to their high fidelity sensors. Tesla has been "collecting data" for years without much to show for. They still have embarrassing failures so basic in nature [1], you know they're going nowhere. If all it took was data, they would have something meaningful by now. [1] https://twitter.com/elaifresh/status/1727889381309239731 https://twitter.com/elaifresh/status/1727889381309239731
- jdewerd 3y ago
  Tesla's data isn't just more volumnious than Waymo's, it's also higher quality. Macrodiversity is important. LiDAR isn't. Scene reconstruction got good in the last few years, and that's what LiDAR was competing with. Meanwhile, there's no substitute for macrodiversity. Anyway, you asked for citations. Here they are. Waymo: > Waymo was the clear leader in 2022 with 2.9 million miles with safety drivers https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/#:~:text=Waymo%20summary,with%202.3%20million%20in%202021 https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/#:~.... Tesla: > FSD Now Drives 1 Million Miles Per Day https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1327/tesla-fsd-milestone-1-million-miles-per-day-actively-driven#:~:text=Tesla's%20Full%20Self%2DDriving%20(FSD,per%20day%20across%20the%20fleet https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1327/tesla-fsd-milestone-1.... > Graph showing 2M miles per day https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2023-Update-3.pdf https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... > Tesla has been "collecting data" for years without much to show for. Except, you know, millions of miles per day of self-driving in situations that Waymo isn't even planning to attempt for years.
  - ra7 3y ago
    Waymo has millions of driverless miles at this point. Tesla has zero. I'm not sure how Waymo's safety driver miles is relevant here. > Except, you know, millions of miles per day of self-driving in situations that Waymo isn't even planning to attempt for years. And what exactly have they got to show for it? All that data collection and they can't handle the easiest of situations in San Francisco. You don't need nationwide data not to run stop signs or swerve onto oncoming traffic.
    - jdewerd 3y ago
      Safety-driver miles are more useful for training. Driverless miles are more useful for proving. Like I said, different paths: remove the human then expand scope vs expand scope and then remove the human. Waymo is undeniably further along path 1, Tesla is undeniably further along path 2. Which path is shorter? I'm pretty sure it's path 2, but time will tell. > All that data collection and they can't handle the easiest of situations in San Francisco Unlike Waymo, they haven't limited to and exclusively trained on the easiest situations in SF for the last decade. Just like Tesla hasn't even attempted true driverless miles, Waymo hasn't even attempted unmapped back-alley navigation, let alone unmapped back-alleys in the middle of nowhere. You need scope and reliability to win this race, and it seems to me that the Tesla formula for improving reliability scales better than the Waymo formula for expanding scope. Time will tell.
      - ra7 3y ago
        > Safety-driver miles are more useful for training. Waymo does most of its training in simulation. They do 20+ million miles of simulation every single day with 25,000 "virtual" vehicles. They don't even have to put out many cars for training. > Unlike Waymo, they haven't limited to and exclusively trained on the easiest situations in SF for the last decade. I've got a bridge to sell you if you think driving in SF is easy or that Waymo is only doing it in the easiest situations. They cover the entire city 24/7, and in rain and fog. > Just like Tesla hasn't even attempted true driverless miles, Waymo hasn't even attempted unmapped back-alley navigation, let alone unmapped back-alleys in the middle of nowhere. And they won't because maps are clearly a big part of their tech stack and they've found a way to efficiently maintain them. That's what gives them the confidence a.k.a reliability to remove the driver. > You need scope and reliability to win this race, and it seems to me that the Tesla formula for improving reliability scales better than the Waymo formula for expanding scope. So far, evidence suggests Waymo is expanding both scope and reliability faster than Tesla. They just announced airport terminal rides in PHX today. Community trackers (absence of Tesla sharing data) show Tesla's intervention rate hasn't really improved much at all and they still seem to make extremely basic mistakes. So the formula clearly isn't working as of today.
Larrikin 3y ago
As a vehicle user, and not a stock holder, there is only heuristic that will determine whether I get into either of their vehicles: Which one is more likely to kill me. I'll take a ride in a self driving taxi through residential streets that might hit a dog. I will not pay for a vehicle that will hard brake on a highway or drive under a tractor trailer. Maybe after more deaths and data Tesla will pull ahead in that risk calculation but I will not pay to be part of that.
- jdewerd 3y ago
  Of course. I feel the same way. Nobody is asking us to behave differently.

ra7 3y ago

> They wanted to data-max. They data-maxed. Now they have 300x the data collection rate of Waymo. Citation needed. What Tesla lacks is quality data, which Waymo has due to their high fidelity sensors. Tesla has been "collecting data" for years without much to show for. They still have embarrassing failures so basic in nature [1], you know they're going nowhere. If all it took was data, they would have something meaningful by now. [1] https://twitter.com/elaifresh/status/1727889381309239731 https://twitter.com/elaifresh/status/1727889381309239731

jdewerd 3y ago
Tesla's data isn't just more volumnious than Waymo's, it's also higher quality. Macrodiversity is important. LiDAR isn't. Scene reconstruction got good in the last few years, and that's what LiDAR was competing with. Meanwhile, there's no substitute for macrodiversity. Anyway, you asked for citations. Here they are. Waymo: > Waymo was the clear leader in 2022 with 2.9 million miles with safety drivers https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/#:~:text=Waymo%20summary,with%202.3%20million%20in%202021 https://www.eetimes.com/waymo-cruise-dominate-av-testing/#:~.... Tesla: > FSD Now Drives 1 Million Miles Per Day https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1327/tesla-fsd-milestone-1-million-miles-per-day-actively-driven#:~:text=Tesla's%20Full%20Self%2DDriving%20(FSD,per%20day%20across%20the%20fleet https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1327/tesla-fsd-milestone-1.... > Graph showing 2M miles per day https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2023-Update-3.pdf https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... > Tesla has been "collecting data" for years without much to show for. Except, you know, millions of miles per day of self-driving in situations that Waymo isn't even planning to attempt for years.
- ra7 3y ago
  Waymo has millions of driverless miles at this point. Tesla has zero. I'm not sure how Waymo's safety driver miles is relevant here. > Except, you know, millions of miles per day of self-driving in situations that Waymo isn't even planning to attempt for years. And what exactly have they got to show for it? All that data collection and they can't handle the easiest of situations in San Francisco. You don't need nationwide data not to run stop signs or swerve onto oncoming traffic.
  - jdewerd 3y ago
    Safety-driver miles are more useful for training. Driverless miles are more useful for proving. Like I said, different paths: remove the human then expand scope vs expand scope and then remove the human. Waymo is undeniably further along path 1, Tesla is undeniably further along path 2. Which path is shorter? I'm pretty sure it's path 2, but time will tell. > All that data collection and they can't handle the easiest of situations in San Francisco Unlike Waymo, they haven't limited to and exclusively trained on the easiest situations in SF for the last decade. Just like Tesla hasn't even attempted true driverless miles, Waymo hasn't even attempted unmapped back-alley navigation, let alone unmapped back-alleys in the middle of nowhere. You need scope and reliability to win this race, and it seems to me that the Tesla formula for improving reliability scales better than the Waymo formula for expanding scope. Time will tell.
    - ra7 3y ago
      > Safety-driver miles are more useful for training. Waymo does most of its training in simulation. They do 20+ million miles of simulation every single day with 25,000 "virtual" vehicles. They don't even have to put out many cars for training. > Unlike Waymo, they haven't limited to and exclusively trained on the easiest situations in SF for the last decade. I've got a bridge to sell you if you think driving in SF is easy or that Waymo is only doing it in the easiest situations. They cover the entire city 24/7, and in rain and fog. > Just like Tesla hasn't even attempted true driverless miles, Waymo hasn't even attempted unmapped back-alley navigation, let alone unmapped back-alleys in the middle of nowhere. And they won't because maps are clearly a big part of their tech stack and they've found a way to efficiently maintain them. That's what gives them the confidence a.k.a reliability to remove the driver. > You need scope and reliability to win this race, and it seems to me that the Tesla formula for improving reliability scales better than the Waymo formula for expanding scope. So far, evidence suggests Waymo is expanding both scope and reliability faster than Tesla. They just announced airport terminal rides in PHX today. Community trackers (absence of Tesla sharing data) show Tesla's intervention rate hasn't really improved much at all and they still seem to make extremely basic mistakes. So the formula clearly isn't working as of today.

Larrikin 3y ago

As a vehicle user, and not a stock holder, there is only heuristic that will determine whether I get into either of their vehicles: Which one is more likely to kill me. I'll take a ride in a self driving taxi through residential streets that might hit a dog. I will not pay for a vehicle that will hard brake on a highway or drive under a tractor trailer. Maybe after more deaths and data Tesla will pull ahead in that risk calculation but I will not pay to be part of that.

jdewerd 3y ago
Of course. I feel the same way. Nobody is asking us to behave differently.