Tesla "Full Self Driving" not capable of autonomous driving

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

Level 5 isn't coming any time soon. Decades maybe. Advances have been huge in last 1-2 decades but it's easy to get to 90 or 95% of what's needed for Level 5. The last 5% is extremely difficult to achieve and without it you might as well be at 0%.

Not happening. Of course the ignorance of the general population shouldn't be surprising. I'd imagine that half of Gen Z'ers don't even know what information a tachometer conveys. My last gf didn't even know why a car needed gears (and she's a millennial).

It is already here bro. Check out the video above from AutoX in China. As more and more cars start using this technology, which is already up to par enough to be available for public use, the rate of data streaming into the neural net will accelerate the learning curve so fast that the computer driving skill will surpass the average human, assuming it hasn't already, yet all the evidence so far suggests that autonomous cars are already safer drivers. That doesn't mean they are better drivers, but they are definitely safer.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/30/...phoenix-google

I think you are mistaken about the timeline. Many cars could be driverless if they simply had a software update, and many cars in production could be retrofitted with this technology. Tesla, Waymo or AutoX could license their software, so I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of new cars being sold within the next decade is capable of autonomous driving. When the safety is blatantly obvious, and the demand spikes in the S-curve or legislation is passed, the move to autonomous vehicles from new car sales would come fast.

[Irace86.2.0]

Seems weird that so much with autonomous cars is going on with no demand for autonomous cars:

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-ne...-roads-by-2021

Fully autonomous cars will be on UK roads as early as 2021, according to Secretary of State for Transport.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-industry-risk

Self-driving cars could be allowed on UK motorways next year

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19...ure-transport/

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/...arch-in-the-UK

https://europe.autonews.com/automake...f-driving-cars

Honda to sell limited batch of Level 3 self-driving cars

https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...ss-cars-vegas/

A self-driving joint venture with Hyundai says it’s been running safety tests for future robotaxis

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Who says you will pay? The insurance company will pay, and if the system fails then it wasn't your fault, right?

If I'm paying for the insurance, then I am paying the car company's liability at the point where I am not responsible for driving the car.

What you are saying is the equivalent of my auto insurance having to cover the cost of a bus accident, if I'm a passenger.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

If I'm paying for the insurance, then I am paying the car company's liability at the point where I am not responsible for driving the car.

What you are saying is the equivalent of my auto insurance having to cover the cost of a bus accident, if I'm a passenger.

Exactly, if you are in the back seat and the car crashes, and your vehicle is found at fault then that might be on Tesla or Waymo or whomever, no different than if you were in the back seat of a taxi or bus. Your insurance might pay to get your property fixed, but then they won't raise your rates for not personally being at fault, and they may or may not pursue Tesla or Waymo.

I wouldn't be surprised if the insurance rates eventually plummet for owners of autonomous cars and increase for drivers of regular cars. I wouldn't be surprised if insurance rates go down for everyone, as a result of a huge drop in car accidents and deaths in the future. We will see what happens, but it isn't hard to see where the future is rapidly headed.

[RToyo86]

I am mainly curious in how autonomous vehicles plan to tackle degrading road conditions?
Snow storm with 20cm where the ditch and the road look the same.
Or where you can't tell the difference between two lanes on a road etc.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by RToyo86

I am mainly curious in how autonomous vehicles plan to tackle degrading road conditions?
Snow storm with 20cm where the ditch and the road look the same.
Or where you can't tell the difference between two lanes on a road etc.

The same way you would have to figure it out. Tesla is taking a more human vision concept where they don’t want to rely on anything other than vision like humans do. Other companies are using lidar, which may be able to calculate lanes distances from objects at the shoulders or based on other traffic positions on the road. Some Robotaxis on level 4 autonomy might refuse transport to areas outside of their gps and mapping areas, and in that way, they only stick to areas that have been precisely mapped with lidar and gps, and their vision is coupled with that data to maintain lanes positions.

It seems pretty clear that machines have the data capacity and extra sensory technology to outperform humans given the neural network is equally as robust.

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

...the man has shown many instances of humanity and empathy...

I admire your great sense of humor!!!!!

[Ohio Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Why eliminate a competent human completely as a "safety driver"?

Because humans suck at being a safety driver. The more automated a task is, the less attention the human pays to said task. A safety role typically involves throwing the inattentive human into an emergency situation where the automated system has failed, necessitating quick and drastic action.

For a field where autonomy has been increasing over the past decades, consider airline pilots. Over the years pilots' ability to handle emergencies deteriorated with the use of auto-pilot on airliners. The same is shown in emergency autonomous driving simulations.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

I admire your great sense of humor!!!!!

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Sociopaths can imitate many seemingly human emotions. Often quite convincingly. It's one of the reasons they accumulate power and diehard zealots.

I once worked for a person like that. I saw firsthand the astonishing differences between what he would seem to convey to an audience, giving speeches and presentations, and then the shocking reality just a few seconds later when he came off-stage. The differences in what he said, how he spoke about the people he just presented to, and the real him, were unimaginably disturbing and shook me to my core.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Ohio Enthusiast

Because humans suck at being a safety driver.

Agreed, which is why I used the word "competent" and said we may need to change the definition around who can be driver. I'm just not willing to accept that it's OK to not have a fail-safe when the automation fails, and it will fail, even if everyone around me is willing to accept it.

[Ohio Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Agreed, which is why I used the word "competent" and said we may need to change the definition around who can be driver.

Thing is, most people aren't really "competent", or don't care to be so. So you'd need to provide an alternative means of transportation for people who don't care about driving and would prefer napping in their Level 2 cars.

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

I'm just not willing to accept that it's OK to not have a fail-safe when the automation fails, and it will fail, even if everyone around me is willing to accept it.

Yep, that's the crux of the autonomous vehicles issue - the intermediary steps are really problematic. Ideally we'd jump straight from Level 2 to Level 5.

So how do we have the cake and eat it too? That's a really tough question of technology, politics and human nature. I honestly don't know what's the best approach, but I think it will just sorta happen while nobody notices.

[Dzmitry]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

Sociopaths can imitate many seemingly human emotions. Often quite convincingly. It's one of the reasons they accumulate power and diehard zealots.

I once worked for a person like that. I saw firsthand the astonishing differences between what he would seem to convey to an audience, giving speeches and presentations, and then the shocking reality just a few seconds later when he came off-stage. The differences in what he said, how he spoke about the people he just presented to, and the real him, were unimaginably disturbing and shook me to my core.

Though I'm not a fan of Musk, you can't be so sure he is the same kind of person you worked for, and could be wrong in judging him so. It seems more that you just don't like him much - which is perfectly fine.

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Dzmitry

Though I'm not a fan of Musk, you can't be so sure he is the same kind of person you worked for, and could be wrong in judging him so. It seems more that you just don't like him much - which is perfectly fine.

I don't know Elon Musk, and I'm certainly no psychologist (though I could probably use one myself) and of course not qualified to give any kind of psychiatric diagnosis.

I invariably root for underdogs, and applaud and admire anyone with the brains and courage to start a company in one of the least start-up friendly industries imaginable - cars. I think the world could use more people like Preston Tucker and cars like the Tucker.

Several years ago, I happened to be in a rather posh restaurant in San Francisco. We couldn't score a table, so we were drinking at the bar. Musk came in, with a staggeringly gorgeous girl on his arm (I have no idea who she was). His table was close enough that I could hear much of the conversation (it was hard not to, he was talking so loudly). I was fascinated, and stayed for about an hour and a half, just to listen.

Anyone can have a bad night. Maybe he was just grandstanding, showing off for his jaw-droppingly model-beautiful date. But in over an hour, I didn't hear anything that remotely resembled anything approaching humanity or empathy.

What I heard was an endless, loud stream of self-aggrandizing, pompous, egomaniacal bragging. It seemed like every third word out of his mouth was "I" or "me". I don't think I heard his date utter a sound the entire time. It was all about him, how great he was, what a genius he is, how Tesla is going to take over the world, crush everyone in its way, put all the other car companies out of business, how anyone who didn't see things his way was obviously an idiot, how he knows better than anyone else, etc. etc. The derisive, disdainful way he referred to seemingly every other human in the world except himself, including being needlessly disrespectful and disparaging of the waitstaff, struck me. According to him, everyone was a moron except him. I didn't catch anything about Tesla cars being better for the plant or less polluting or anything other than how Tesla is the 'future' and everyone has to get on board with his vision of it.

Maybe he's just a crass egomaniac, but his manner of speaking was to me so similar to my old boss (and also seemed to me like a vastly more intelligent version of a certain recently former president). He was unscripted, not making a presentation or video, just being himself for his date. I suspect it was as close to the 'real' him as one was likely to see.

Whether I "like" Musk (or anyone else in the world) is irrelevant (though it's hard for me to find anything 'likable' about someone after seeing that kind of behavior). When it comes to companies, they should be judged objectively, on what they do (and don't do), their products, their financial performance, and their corporate behavior.

But one can get some interesting insights into a company from its leadership. Especially in the case of Tesla, where one person so totally dominates the company, its culture, and its actions. From the little snippet I saw that night, combined with Tesla's corporate behaviors (all the previous discussion regarding AutoPilot, Full Self Driving, etc.), I see it as being driven entirely by Musk's narcissism, greed, and ego and not any kind of humanitarian or empathetic motives.