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Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, and some debris large enough to d

by rob74 1y ago

Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, and some debris large enough to damage your car showing up from out of nowhere after several hours of boring driving along a largely straight highway with little traffic is definitely one of these situations. But a self-driving system worth its salt should always be alert, scanning the road ahead, able to identify dangerous debris, and react accordingly. So, different pair of shoes...

agildehaus 1y ago
The humans in the vehicle spotted it fine, and we should not tolerate self-driving systems that are only as good as the worst of us.
- mynameisvlad 1y ago
  > and we should not tolerate self-driving systems that are as good as the worst of us The person you replied to didn't do that, though: > But a self-driving system worth its salt should always be alert, scanning the road ahead, able to identify dangerous debris, and react accordingly. So, different pair of shoes...
  - amelius 1y ago
    They never said they did.
    - mynameisvlad 1y ago
      I mean, those were direct quotes and it was literally half of their comment, but, sure, "they never said they did".
      - BobaFloutist 1y ago
        I think they meant the person you were responding to never claimed that the person they were responding to said that we should tolerate self driving systems that are no better than the worse of us, not that the person that the person you were responding to was responding to never said the thing you very clearly directly quoted.
      - orwin 1y ago
        I think you might have misunderstood someone here. The person you quoted made a generic statement about what we should expect from an autonomous vehicle, but never said (nor implied imho) that the person he responds to didn't expect the same.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  There’s thousands of examples where FSD seen something people did not. Sad to see HN to give up to mob mentality.
ape4 1y ago
And a self-driving car should have better sensors than a human (like lidar)
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Even with a single camera (no stereo vision) which is all a Tesla has, it's honestly surprising it didn't see that thing. It wasn't small. If it can't see something like that in ideal conditions, then god knows what else it'd miss in less ideal conditions.
root_axis 1y ago
I'm not convinced. The debris is clearly visible to the humans a long way off and the adjacent lane is wide open. Avoiding road debris is extremely common even in more congested and treacherous driving conditions. Certainly it's possible that someone texting on their phone or something might miss it, but under normal circumstances it could have been easily avoided.
- wlesieutre 1y ago
  Even if there wasn't space to swerve, a human would've hit the brakes and hit it much slower
- newyankee 1y ago
  I feel Waymo's LIDAR might have worked here
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    100% it would have. One of the main things the LiDAR system does is establish a "ground plane", which is the surface on which the car is expected to drive. Any hole or protrusions in that plane stick out like a sore thumb to a LiDAR system, you'll be able to see it in the raw data without much of a feature detector, so detecting them and reacting is fast and reliable. Contrast with Tesla's "vision-only" system, which uses binocular disparity along with AI to detect obstacles, including the ground plane. It doesn't have as good a range, so with a low- profile object like this it probably didn't even see it before it was too late. Which seems to me a theme for Tesla autonomy.
    - Der_Einzige 1y ago
      Elon's Musk believes that sensor fusion doesn't work and is a fake science. This is why FSD is still shit in late 2025 and drives like it's drunk.
    - xnx 1y ago
      In addition to detecting the object, Waymo has to make some determination about the material. Rigid heavy metal = slam on the brakes and/or swerve. Piece of tire or plastic bag = OK to run over if swerving or hitting the brakes would be more dangerous. Really hard problem that they're concerned about getting right before they open up highway driving.
close04 1y ago
> I have to admit that your friend has a point Do they? "Many humans" would hit that? The humans in the car spotted the debris at least 8s before the impact. I don't think any humans would hit that in broad daylight unless they were asleep, completely drunk, or somehow managed to not look at the road for a full 10s. These are the worst drivers, and there aren't that many because the punishment can go up to criminal charges. The argument that "a human would have made that mistake" backfires, showing that every Tesla equipped with the "safer than a human driver" FSD is in fact at best at "worst human driver" level. But if we still like the "humans also..." argument, then the FSD should face the same punishment a human would in these situations and have its rights to drive any car revoked.
- sandworm101 1y ago
  Or they would hit it if they were busy fiddling with the car's autodrive system. These humans would have avoided it had they not wasted time speculating about whether the autodrive system would save them. They would have been safer in literally any other car that didnt have an autodrive.
tptacek 1y ago
Humans routinely drive from LA to NYC without wrecking their cars. In fact, that's the normal outcome.
- foobarian 1y ago
  I've been driving on local and highway roads for 30 years now and I have never come across a piece of debris so large that driving over it would damage my car. Seeing that video, I don't have high confidence that I would have dodged that hazard - maybe 70% sure? The thing is, usually there is plenty of traffic ahead that acts very obviously different in situations like this that helps as well. All that to say that I don't feel this is a fair criticism of the FSD system.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    > All that to say that I don't feel this is a fair criticism of the FSD system. Yes it is because the bar isn't whether a human would detect it, but whether a car with LiDAR would. And without a doubt it would, especially given those conditions: clear day, flat surface, protruding object is a best case scenario for LiDAR. Tesla's FSD was designed by Musk who is not an engineer nor an expert in sensors or robotics, and therefore fails predictably in ways that other systems designed by competent engineers do not.
    - foobarian 1y ago
      I don't disagree with that characterization of the technical details. However I felt the task those drivers set out was asking a different question: how good would the FSD system be at completing a coast-to-coast trip? I don't think this can be answered after hitting a singular, highly unlikely accident without a lot more trials. Imagine there was a human driver team shadowing the Tesla, and say they got T-boned after 60 miles. Would we claim that human drivers suck and have the same level of criticism? I don't think that would be fair either.
      - ModernMech 1y ago
JimmaDaRustla 1y ago
Literally the passenger saw it and leaned it, the driver grabbed the steering wheel to brace himself it seems. That object on the road was massive, absolutely huge as far as on road obstacles go. The camera does not do any justice - it looks like it's 3 feet long, over a foot wide, and about 6 or 7 inches high laying on the road. Unless a human driver really isn't paying attention, they're not hitting that thing.
samrus 1y ago
Bullshit. Some humans might hit thay because they werent paying attention, but most people would see that, slow down and change lanes. This is a relatively scenario that humans deal with. Even the passenger here saw it in time. The driver was relying on FSD and missed it I dont think FSD has the intelligence to navigate this
palmotea 1y ago
> Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, This was not one of those situations. and some debris large enough to damage your car showing up from out of nowhere after several hours of boring driving along a largely straight highway with little traffic is definitely one of these situations. Again, this was definitely not one of those situations. It was large, it was in their lane, and they were even yapping about it for 10 seconds. > But a self-driving system worth its salt should always be alert, scanning the road ahead, able to identify dangerous debris, and react accordingly. So, different pair of shoes... This is what humans already (and if we didn't do it, we'd be driving off the road). Based on what you're saying, I question that you're familiar with driving a car, or at least driving on a highway between cities.
jjav 1y ago
> Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, and some debris large enough to damage your car showing up from out of nowhere I read this comment before seeing the video and thought maybe the debris flies in with the wind and falls on the road a second before impact, or something like that. But no, here we have bright daylight, perfect visibility, the debris is sitting there on the road visible from very far away, the person in the car doing commentary sees it with plenty of time to leisurely avoid it (had he been driving). Nothing unexpected showed up out of nowhere, it was sitting right there all along. No quick reaction needed, there was plenty of time to switch lanes. And yet Tesla managed to hit it, against all odds! Wow. My impression of Tesla's self driving is not very high, but this shows it's actually far worse than I thought.

by rob74 1y ago

agildehaus 1y ago

The humans in the vehicle spotted it fine, and we should not tolerate self-driving systems that are only as good as the worst of us.

mynameisvlad 1y ago
> and we should not tolerate self-driving systems that are as good as the worst of us The person you replied to didn't do that, though: > But a self-driving system worth its salt should always be alert, scanning the road ahead, able to identify dangerous debris, and react accordingly. So, different pair of shoes...
- amelius 1y ago
  They never said they did.
  - mynameisvlad 1y ago
    I mean, those were direct quotes and it was literally half of their comment, but, sure, "they never said they did".
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      I think they meant the person you were responding to never claimed that the person they were responding to said that we should tolerate self driving systems that are no better than the worse of us, not that the person that the person you were responding to was responding to never said the thing you very clearly directly quoted.
    - orwin 1y ago
      I think you might have misunderstood someone here. The person you quoted made a generic statement about what we should expect from an autonomous vehicle, but never said (nor implied imho) that the person he responds to didn't expect the same.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
There’s thousands of examples where FSD seen something people did not. Sad to see HN to give up to mob mentality.

ape4 1y ago

And a self-driving car should have better sensors than a human (like lidar)

HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
Even with a single camera (no stereo vision) which is all a Tesla has, it's honestly surprising it didn't see that thing. It wasn't small. If it can't see something like that in ideal conditions, then god knows what else it'd miss in less ideal conditions.

root_axis 1y ago

I'm not convinced. The debris is clearly visible to the humans a long way off and the adjacent lane is wide open. Avoiding road debris is extremely common even in more congested and treacherous driving conditions. Certainly it's possible that someone texting on their phone or something might miss it, but under normal circumstances it could have been easily avoided.

wlesieutre 1y ago
Even if there wasn't space to swerve, a human would've hit the brakes and hit it much slower
newyankee 1y ago
I feel Waymo's LIDAR might have worked here
- ModernMech 1y ago
  100% it would have. One of the main things the LiDAR system does is establish a "ground plane", which is the surface on which the car is expected to drive. Any hole or protrusions in that plane stick out like a sore thumb to a LiDAR system, you'll be able to see it in the raw data without much of a feature detector, so detecting them and reacting is fast and reliable. Contrast with Tesla's "vision-only" system, which uses binocular disparity along with AI to detect obstacles, including the ground plane. It doesn't have as good a range, so with a low- profile object like this it probably didn't even see it before it was too late. Which seems to me a theme for Tesla autonomy.
  - Der_Einzige 1y ago
    Elon's Musk believes that sensor fusion doesn't work and is a fake science. This is why FSD is still shit in late 2025 and drives like it's drunk.
  - xnx 1y ago
    In addition to detecting the object, Waymo has to make some determination about the material. Rigid heavy metal = slam on the brakes and/or swerve. Piece of tire or plastic bag = OK to run over if swerving or hitting the brakes would be more dangerous. Really hard problem that they're concerned about getting right before they open up highway driving.

close04 1y ago

> I have to admit that your friend has a point Do they? "Many humans" would hit that? The humans in the car spotted the debris at least 8s before the impact. I don't think any humans would hit that in broad daylight unless they were asleep, completely drunk, or somehow managed to not look at the road for a full 10s. These are the worst drivers, and there aren't that many because the punishment can go up to criminal charges. The argument that "a human would have made that mistake" backfires, showing that every Tesla equipped with the "safer than a human driver" FSD is in fact at best at "worst human driver" level. But if we still like the "humans also..." argument, then the FSD should face the same punishment a human would in these situations and have its rights to drive any car revoked.

sandworm101 1y ago
Or they would hit it if they were busy fiddling with the car's autodrive system. These humans would have avoided it had they not wasted time speculating about whether the autodrive system would save them. They would have been safer in literally any other car that didnt have an autodrive.

tptacek 1y ago

Humans routinely drive from LA to NYC without wrecking their cars. In fact, that's the normal outcome.

foobarian 1y ago
I've been driving on local and highway roads for 30 years now and I have never come across a piece of debris so large that driving over it would damage my car. Seeing that video, I don't have high confidence that I would have dodged that hazard - maybe 70% sure? The thing is, usually there is plenty of traffic ahead that acts very obviously different in situations like this that helps as well. All that to say that I don't feel this is a fair criticism of the FSD system.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  > All that to say that I don't feel this is a fair criticism of the FSD system. Yes it is because the bar isn't whether a human would detect it, but whether a car with LiDAR would. And without a doubt it would, especially given those conditions: clear day, flat surface, protruding object is a best case scenario for LiDAR. Tesla's FSD was designed by Musk who is not an engineer nor an expert in sensors or robotics, and therefore fails predictably in ways that other systems designed by competent engineers do not.
  - foobarian 1y ago
    I don't disagree with that characterization of the technical details. However I felt the task those drivers set out was asking a different question: how good would the FSD system be at completing a coast-to-coast trip? I don't think this can be answered after hitting a singular, highly unlikely accident without a lot more trials. Imagine there was a human driver team shadowing the Tesla, and say they got T-boned after 60 miles. Would we claim that human drivers suck and have the same level of criticism? I don't think that would be fair either.
    - ModernMech 1y ago

JimmaDaRustla 1y ago

Literally the passenger saw it and leaned it, the driver grabbed the steering wheel to brace himself it seems. That object on the road was massive, absolutely huge as far as on road obstacles go. The camera does not do any justice - it looks like it's 3 feet long, over a foot wide, and about 6 or 7 inches high laying on the road. Unless a human driver really isn't paying attention, they're not hitting that thing.

samrus 1y ago

Bullshit. Some humans might hit thay because they werent paying attention, but most people would see that, slow down and change lanes. This is a relatively scenario that humans deal with. Even the passenger here saw it in time. The driver was relying on FSD and missed it I dont think FSD has the intelligence to navigate this

palmotea 1y ago

> Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, This was not one of those situations. and some debris large enough to damage your car showing up from out of nowhere after several hours of boring driving along a largely straight highway with little traffic is definitely one of these situations. Again, this was definitely not one of those situations. It was large, it was in their lane, and they were even yapping about it for 10 seconds. > But a self-driving system worth its salt should always be alert, scanning the road ahead, able to identify dangerous debris, and react accordingly. So, different pair of shoes... This is what humans already (and if we didn't do it, we'd be driving off the road). Based on what you're saying, I question that you're familiar with driving a car, or at least driving on a highway between cities.

jjav 1y ago

> Well, I have to admit that your friend has a point. Humans are bad at reacting quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, and some debris large enough to damage your car showing up from out of nowhere I read this comment before seeing the video and thought maybe the debris flies in with the wind and falls on the road a second before impact, or something like that. But no, here we have bright daylight, perfect visibility, the debris is sitting there on the road visible from very far away, the person in the car doing commentary sees it with plenty of time to leisurely avoid it (had he been driving). Nothing unexpected showed up out of nowhere, it was sitting right there all along. No quick reaction needed, there was plenty of time to switch lanes. And yet Tesla managed to hit it, against all odds! Wow. My impression of Tesla's self driving is not very high, but this shows it's actually far worse than I thought.