4 ms·

You do want them to be better than humans, but vision quality is not really a major source of human accidents. Accidents are typically caused by driving techniq

You do want them to be better than humans, but vision quality is not really a major source of human accidents. Accidents are typically caused by driving technique, inattention, or a failure to accurately model the behavior of other drivers. Put another way - would giving humans superhuman vision significantly reduce the accident rate? The issue here is that the vision based system failed to even match human capabilities, which is a different issue from whether it can be better than humans by using some different vision tech.

hughw 2y ago
Yes?
luckylion 2y ago
Will limiting auto-pilots to human-level vision not increase their accident rate?
NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
> but vision quality is not really a major source of human accidents. Never driven before?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 2y ago
  I've driven before, and agree with the OP. Now what?
  - ruined 2y ago
    let's experiment. i'll reduce your vision quality, then you try driving
    - gruez 2y ago
      It's pretty obvious from the context of the thread that "vision quality" refers to LIDAR vs cameras, and that human vision is good enough, not that being legally blind doesn't somehow doesn't affect driving quality.
      - NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
        Human vision isn't good enough, though. Otherwise why not just drive the car yourself?
        gruez 2y ago
        >Human vision isn't good enough, though. Maybe if your standard is "scheduled commercial passenger flights" level of safety. >Otherwise why not just drive the car yourself? There's plenty of reasons why humans can be more dangerous outside of vision quality. For instance, being distracted, poor reaction times, or not being able to monitor all angles simultaneously.
        NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
        > For instance, being distracted, poor reaction times, or not being able to monitor all angles simultaneously. As a pitch for self driving, it's going to be a long time before I trust a computer to do the above better than I do. At the very least adding sensors I don't have access to will give me assurance the car won't drive into a wall with a road painted on it. I don't know how on earth you'd market self-driving as competent without being absurdly conservative about what functionality you claim to be able to deliver. Aggregate statistics about safety aren't going to make me feel emotionally stable when I am familiar with how jerky and skittish the driving is under visually confusing driving conditions. Perhaps vision is sufficient, but it seems hopelessly optimistic to expect to be able to pitch it without some core improvement over human driving (aside from my ability to take the hand off the wheel while driving). Edit: hilariously, there's already a video demonstrating this exact scenario: https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ
maxerickson 2y ago
The improved sensors improve awareness, improving situational awareness of human drivers would have a huge impact.
- layer8 2y ago
  Humans have limited awareness bandwidth. I’m doubtful that improved “sensors” would change the fact that one can only take in and focus on very few things at a time. If anything, filtering down the input to the relevant features would consume more brain resources and possibly take longer.
crazygringo 2y ago
> Put another way - would giving humans superhuman vision significantly reduce the accident rate? Yes? Incredibly? If people had 360° instant 3D awareness of all objects, that would avoid so many accidents. No more blind spots, no more missing objects because you were looking in one spot instead of another. No more missing dark objects at night. It would be a gigantic improvement in the rate of accidents.
- shepherdjerred 2y ago
  Idk, many people are just bad at driving due to impatience. They don’t leave enough space/time to react even if they did have enough awareness
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Sure but that's not all people. If you assume a constant rate of attention, but then massively increase what people are aware of during that attention, that's a massive increase in safety. Safety is affected by lots of factors. Increasing any of them increases safety -- you don't need to increase all of them to get improvements.
    - shepherdjerred 2y ago
      ... I don't know. Many people are in accidents that are entirely not their fault, e.g. being rear-ended. You can't do anything about those who drive unsafely, distracted, under the influence, etc. Assuming you have a "good" driver, there are still plenty of times they might be into accidents for reasons that aren't because of awareness. For example, road conditions, behavior of other drivers, and just normal, honest mistakes. At least for me, my own sense aren't really the limiting factor in my safety. My eyes are good enough. Modern cars have the equivalent of bowling lane bumpers with auto-centering, pre-collision warning, and blind spot warning/indicators.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        I don't understand what you're trying to say. Your eyes aren't good enough, compared to if you had 360° LIDAR awareness, which is the comparison here. You're listing all these other causes of accidents, which no one disputes. There's still a whole range of accidents caused by limitations in our spatial awareness because we can only ever be looking in one direction at a time. You're talking about "normal, honest mistakes". That's what I'm talking about. There would be less of those if we had magic 360° LIDAR in our bodies. A lot less. Especially at night, but during the day too. This isn't about blaming anybody. It's just the simple scientific fact that human senses are limited, and self-driving cars shouldn't limit themselves to human senses. Human senses aren't good enough for preventing all preventable accidents, no matter how "honest" drivers are.
harimau777 2y ago
Isn't radar/lidar less like super vision and more like spidey sense? I'd love to give human drivers an innate sense of exactly how far away things are and how fast they are closing.
sudosysgen 2y ago
Human eyes are in many ways far superior to reasonably priced vision sensors. This isn't giving humans superhuman vision, it's changing the tradeoffs human vision has (without changing the cognitive process that it coevolved with to begin, and which is the most important part of why we get into accidents). There is no affordable vision system that's as good as human vision in key situations. LiDAR+vision is the only way to actually get superhuman vision. The issue isn't the choice of vision system, it's to choose vision itself, and besides the lesson from the human sensory system is to have sensors that go well with your processing system, which again would mean LiDAR. If humans could integrate a LiDAR-like system where we could be warned of approaching objects from any angle and accurately gauge the speed and distance of multiple objects simultaneously, we would surely be better drivers.
flashman 2y ago
seems like vision quality might be a major source of robot accidents

hughw 2y ago

Yes?

luckylion 2y ago

Will limiting auto-pilots to human-level vision not increase their accident rate?

NoTeslaThrow 2y ago

> but vision quality is not really a major source of human accidents. Never driven before?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gruez 2y ago
I've driven before, and agree with the OP. Now what?
- ruined 2y ago
  let's experiment. i'll reduce your vision quality, then you try driving
  - gruez 2y ago
    It's pretty obvious from the context of the thread that "vision quality" refers to LIDAR vs cameras, and that human vision is good enough, not that being legally blind doesn't somehow doesn't affect driving quality.
    - NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
      Human vision isn't good enough, though. Otherwise why not just drive the car yourself?
      - gruez 2y ago
        >Human vision isn't good enough, though. Maybe if your standard is "scheduled commercial passenger flights" level of safety. >Otherwise why not just drive the car yourself? There's plenty of reasons why humans can be more dangerous outside of vision quality. For instance, being distracted, poor reaction times, or not being able to monitor all angles simultaneously.
        NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
        > For instance, being distracted, poor reaction times, or not being able to monitor all angles simultaneously. As a pitch for self driving, it's going to be a long time before I trust a computer to do the above better than I do. At the very least adding sensors I don't have access to will give me assurance the car won't drive into a wall with a road painted on it. I don't know how on earth you'd market self-driving as competent without being absurdly conservative about what functionality you claim to be able to deliver. Aggregate statistics about safety aren't going to make me feel emotionally stable when I am familiar with how jerky and skittish the driving is under visually confusing driving conditions. Perhaps vision is sufficient, but it seems hopelessly optimistic to expect to be able to pitch it without some core improvement over human driving (aside from my ability to take the hand off the wheel while driving). Edit: hilariously, there's already a video demonstrating this exact scenario: https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ

maxerickson 2y ago

The improved sensors improve awareness, improving situational awareness of human drivers would have a huge impact.

layer8 2y ago
Humans have limited awareness bandwidth. I’m doubtful that improved “sensors” would change the fact that one can only take in and focus on very few things at a time. If anything, filtering down the input to the relevant features would consume more brain resources and possibly take longer.

crazygringo 2y ago

> Put another way - would giving humans superhuman vision significantly reduce the accident rate? Yes? Incredibly? If people had 360° instant 3D awareness of all objects, that would avoid so many accidents. No more blind spots, no more missing objects because you were looking in one spot instead of another. No more missing dark objects at night. It would be a gigantic improvement in the rate of accidents.

shepherdjerred 2y ago
Idk, many people are just bad at driving due to impatience. They don’t leave enough space/time to react even if they did have enough awareness
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Sure but that's not all people. If you assume a constant rate of attention, but then massively increase what people are aware of during that attention, that's a massive increase in safety. Safety is affected by lots of factors. Increasing any of them increases safety -- you don't need to increase all of them to get improvements.
  - shepherdjerred 2y ago
    ... I don't know. Many people are in accidents that are entirely not their fault, e.g. being rear-ended. You can't do anything about those who drive unsafely, distracted, under the influence, etc. Assuming you have a "good" driver, there are still plenty of times they might be into accidents for reasons that aren't because of awareness. For example, road conditions, behavior of other drivers, and just normal, honest mistakes. At least for me, my own sense aren't really the limiting factor in my safety. My eyes are good enough. Modern cars have the equivalent of bowling lane bumpers with auto-centering, pre-collision warning, and blind spot warning/indicators.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      I don't understand what you're trying to say. Your eyes aren't good enough, compared to if you had 360° LIDAR awareness, which is the comparison here. You're listing all these other causes of accidents, which no one disputes. There's still a whole range of accidents caused by limitations in our spatial awareness because we can only ever be looking in one direction at a time. You're talking about "normal, honest mistakes". That's what I'm talking about. There would be less of those if we had magic 360° LIDAR in our bodies. A lot less. Especially at night, but during the day too. This isn't about blaming anybody. It's just the simple scientific fact that human senses are limited, and self-driving cars shouldn't limit themselves to human senses. Human senses aren't good enough for preventing all preventable accidents, no matter how "honest" drivers are.

harimau777 2y ago

Isn't radar/lidar less like super vision and more like spidey sense? I'd love to give human drivers an innate sense of exactly how far away things are and how fast they are closing.

sudosysgen 2y ago

Human eyes are in many ways far superior to reasonably priced vision sensors. This isn't giving humans superhuman vision, it's changing the tradeoffs human vision has (without changing the cognitive process that it coevolved with to begin, and which is the most important part of why we get into accidents). There is no affordable vision system that's as good as human vision in key situations. LiDAR+vision is the only way to actually get superhuman vision. The issue isn't the choice of vision system, it's to choose vision itself, and besides the lesson from the human sensory system is to have sensors that go well with your processing system, which again would mean LiDAR. If humans could integrate a LiDAR-like system where we could be warned of approaching objects from any angle and accurately gauge the speed and distance of multiple objects simultaneously, we would surely be better drivers.

flashman 2y ago

seems like vision quality might be a major source of robot accidents