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Self-Driving Tesla Owners Share Videos of Reckless Driving (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The driver killed in a Tesla car accident "celebrated the Autopilot feature that made it possible for him to cruise the highways, making YouTube videos of himself driving hands-free," reports the New York Times, adding that one of his videos of a near-miss went viral just 11 weeks before his death -- after it was shared on Twitter by Elon Musk. But USA Today reports that Tesla drivers have also filmed themselves playing Jenga and Checkers or sleeping while using the autopilot feature. "Even though Tesla tells drivers to 'keep your hands on the wheel at all times and stay alert,' the temptation to test a no-hands drive is just too much."
In April, a Volvo driver had criticized Tesla for releasing a dangerous "wannabe" Autopilot system. But when Tesla introduced the self-driving feature in October, Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never gets tired, never has something to drink, never argues with someone in the car." He had also said that within three years Tesla cars should be able to drive a sleeping driver in to work -- but that that functionality is not currently supported.
In April, a Volvo driver had criticized Tesla for releasing a dangerous "wannabe" Autopilot system. But when Tesla introduced the self-driving feature in October, Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never gets tired, never has something to drink, never argues with someone in the car." He had also said that within three years Tesla cars should be able to drive a sleeping driver in to work -- but that that functionality is not currently supported.
Assholes don't know they're assholes. Film at 11. Brought to you by frosty piss!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We should make our public transportation better, then we can all just sleep on that on the way to work.
to protect people from their own stupidity.
I mean it is almost like having a self-driving car that you do not need to pay attention to the road most of the time and the car will not go into a ditch or rear-end another car.
So you can get bored by having absolutely nothing to do, so the temptation of doing something is just too great. And it works most of the time, the autopilot keeps the car on the road and avoids danger.
Except for that 0.01% when it fails and you have to react as quickly as if you have been driving all this time.
When driving regular car, you have to make frequent minor adjustments to keep the car on the road (the road isn't straight after all), so there is less time to get as bored as when you have nothing to do.
My grandfather worked as a bus driver for a while (driving between cities), he told me that the road from Kaunas to Vilnius (in Lithuania) was too straight for him and he had trouble not falling asleep at the wheel (so he used to talk to the passengers etc and never actually fell asleep), while driving to other cities was easier because the road is not as straight.
Using the autopilot most likely looks like driving on a completely straight road with a car that does not veer to any direction by itself.
What do they expect people to do, when everyone hears autopilot they imagine airplanes and what they see from movies, set on autopilot and fly 99% of the journey...
A few more incidents like this and there'll be a ban on self driving/lane keeping cars until it can be proven they can avoid every conceivable accident.
Car manufacturers are criticising Tesla for it's Autopilot feature while at the same time their own autopilot features accomplish the same feat only with less sensors. Their systems are identical but they consider them safe because it disables if people take their hands off the wheel, .... except it is defeated with something as easy as strapping a can of coke to the steering wheel.
Tesla owners doing stupid shit with self driving cars was inevitable, and they are far from the first car makers to be plagued by this. Even when you add fancy words like "self-driving" they are still not the first.
Teslas autopilot uses cameras and it should be using LIDAR (lasar radar). You can see it in the autopark fail videos where its get confused by lights coming on and in the video where it reverses and hits the kid, because he was below the camera levels.
So not to bright, AND doesn't have "street-smarts"?
Well, should you at least need to have a decent EQ to get a license?
I take the train every day to go to the office, and people often sleep in it. What you describe never happens. the vast majority of people are honest and don't steal from other people. Especially the kind of persons that takes the train at 7:30 in the morning. And even if a thief wanted to steal someone's shoes, many other honest people are in the train watching and prevent the thief from even trying. The train is way better than a car: it goes faster; I can read, sleep, or work; I have a power outlet for my laptop; the journey is much less painful for my back; there is no traffic jam, and it's way cheaper than the car.
.. will drive a sleeping owner to work, and they'll never wake up since the car will have hit a truck on the way in, and the owner will be dead.
Hey Elon, how about you get your shit to actually work before you dump it on the buying public?
... if there is a train that takes you from your home to your workplace
isn't that they're limited, it's that the user can't know exactly where the limitations are. When you know where the limits of a system are exactly, you subconsciously plan its usage to stay within its perimeter of competences. When you can't fully rely on a system to perform in certain conditions, and not to perform in other conditions, 100% of the time, you have to stay alert all the time to take over in case it craps out.
That's precisely what's self-defeating in today's fledgling autopilot systems. A real autopilot should let you sleep in the back, read the paper of drink a coffee while it drives. Or at least, it should reliably tell you when and in what conditions it won't be able to let you do that. Joshua Brown's mistake is that he failed to realize today's systems - Tesla's or others' - aren't remotely that predictable.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I believe self-driving cars will eventually take over. However, this accident does highlight one fallacy, namely the idea that a human driver can be expected to supervise a near-perfect self-driving car.
Just think about it: If your car has been driving perfectly for a whole year, would you find it easy to keep your eyes glued to road and your hands to the steering wheel, just in case the car’s computer has a nervous breakdown? Wouldn’t you start playing with your smartphone, eat a sandwich or even doze off for ten minutes?
What this accident shows is that Google’s model (where the car is fully autonomous and the passengers don’t even have access to a steering wheel) is correct, and Tesla’s is doomed. If a car is driving on its own, nobody should pretend that a human is ultimately in charge.
The marketing monster in Elon overwhelmed the cautious scientist, and he killed a loyal subject.
(||) Nehmo (||)
On the Caltrain in San Francisco? Totally agree. It's cordial, straightforward, and the only assholes in the train are Caltrain employees.
In Chicago, on the CTA? Watch your shit.
In April, a Volvo driver had criticized Tesla for releasing a dangerous "wannabe" Autopilot system.
No, a Volvo engineer as the linked article (and its URL) says.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Cruise control scares the crap out of me.
I've had a couple of times where I've had it turned on and, yes, you sort of "forget" that it's doing things for you.
Now I'm inherently distrusting of automated controls (I've worked in IT far too long) so my testing of them with a new car I got earlier in the year, the first I've had with such unnecessary "features" because they now come as standard, was extremely distrusting and careful. Hell, I've tested the electronic handbrake dozens of times just to reassure myself that it does what it's supposed to and I can hope to rely on it in an emergency.
But cruise control scares the shit out of me. I can't control the speed at which it accelerates to the target speed (if you slow for traffic and then resume, it appears to accelerate much faster than necessary to get back to speed). And, when driving long distances, it's too tempting to be complacent.
I have to turn it off and stop myself getting lazy, and I'm someone who doesn't answer phones while driving (handsfree or not), doesn't have anything in my windscreen (none of this satnav above the wheel shite), will tell passengers to shut up so I can concentrate on tricky junctions, etc. Not because I get distracted, but because driving takes priority over anything else.
And this is a feature with acceleration, one that won't stop if the driver passes out (no fancy hand-on-the-steering-wheel sensors on my car), and no lane-control / steering options. Literally it will just keep going forward even if I do nothing.
As such, my use of it is absolutely minimal. But self-driving cars? That just scares the crap out of me that those people are on the road and not properly driving.
Especially the kind of persons that takes the train at 7:30 in the morning.
That's because the criminals are still asleep after the previous night's activities. It's the same reason I go out and take pictures early in the morning. The chances of being attacked are greatly reduced when the criminals are still in bed.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Elon Musk, in the person of his company, explicitly said this was not a hands-off system. The only assholes here are the people moaning about the moron who used it hands-off and got himself killed, Darwin-award-style.
1) Tesla: "Do not drive hands-off, maintain attention"
2) [Moron drives hands-off, or worse, attention off] FATAL ACCIDENT
3) Moron elements of society: have meltdown over perceived shortcoming, "investigation launched" by moron elements of government
The only useful thing that can be learned here for those of us who didn't already know, yet are able to learn, is that there are some morons out there with enough money to buy a Tesla and kill themselves by directly going against the manufacturer's instructions for safe use.
Well, okay, also, for those of us who didn't already know, yet are able to learn, there are other morons out there who are so blindingly stupid as to try to place the blame for this at Musk's / Tesla's feet. Some of those morons are in government.
I'm not entirely sure how, exactly, anyone could not already know these things unless they've been locked in a windowless room without human contact all their lives, or suffers an IQ less than their shoe size, or both, but... yet it is so.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Go see the videos for yourself
...adding that one of his videos of a near-miss went viral.
Context mincing BS, the near miss was a truck haphazardly changing lanes without looking into the teslas lane... the tesla avoided the accident, but this is phrased to be intentionally interpreted as the exact opposite.
His other stupid video showing "reckless" driving is pretty stupid looking and cringeworthy but it's actually on a private road. I think the autopilot is actually pretty dangerous and incorrectly interpreted as "self driving" as others here have stated, but that's no reason for this crude BS article that reads like it's been paid for by the defence lawyers.
This comment says it like it is - the Tesla autopilot lulls the driver enough that when he must intervene, he is unprepared (And intervene he must -- the Tesla autopilot does not use LIDARs, as Google's cars do. Musk pooh-poohed that approach as unnecessary and went with a cheaper camera and computer vision based approach.).
I hope he reverses course. Tesla needs inward-facing tech - cameras and FLIR sensors, gaze detection algorithms, steering-wheel grip sensors - to ensure the driver is 'driving'.
Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never ..... argues with someone in the car."
But then :-
Tesla tells drivers to 'keep your hands on the wheel at all times and stay alert'
Because it can argue with you then.
Survival of the fittest...
While the robbery explained is an exaggeration. However someone who fell asleep with their phone dropped beside them could be easily snagged and not noticed by people. Or the thief could sit next to you and just get up with your laptop bag.
However the real problem with public transportation is the fact enough people don't live in cities that will keep the damand up. I live 30 miles away from my office. On my commute there is a 1/6 the car in front of me or behind me will go to the next urban center I am traveling too. The US is too wide spread. And have lived in a city it just plain sucked. Noisy all the time police who don't do their jobs attempts to beuitify your property gets abused by the feral kids. I am much happier living further away from work in my tiny hybrid car to go home to a place I don't need to feel on the edge all the time.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think AutoPilot should be automatically disengaged after 3 minutes with a loud beep beep beep, to stop assholes from watching Harry Potty for a full hour.
This should prevent idiots from taking advantage of AutoPilot and doing whatever they want.
Self driving cars are 3,000+ lb drones! Carnage to follow before regulatory capture ensues!
Remember when I said that? Remember when I got mocked for saying that? Are you going to remember I said that when it turns out I'm right? Of course you won't.
..and YES, I AM RANTING. It's about all I can do about any of this, apparently.
..but I'll say it again, now, anyway: Too much automation will make people dumber, less skilled, and lazier overall. Some of them are practically chomping at the bit for the opportunity to become lazier and stupider. Should we just call this Evolution in Action? Or should we do something to save people from themselves? Oh, wait, it's not just the stupid and lazy that will get themselves killed, now, is it? They'll get someone else killed right along with them, won't they?
Screw you people and your gods-be-damned 'self driving' cars. I don't even CARE that this instance wasn't even an actual 'self-driving car', it's foreshadowing of the future of the whole stupid subject, and I'll have the privilege (said with seriously sarcastic overtones) of living through the whole gods-be-damned thing, and it'll be just so fucking much fun the whole time knowing that I Saw It Coming.. along with the rest of the stupid shit that Humans are doing right now in the gods-be-damned world.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
First off this system was intended to assist the driver not replace the driver. Second, Musk is an idiot for giving the impression the system is better than it really is. This is an over confidence in technology that is scary wrong for such a new technology. This reminds me of a trucking company that actually removed cruise controls in their trucks because too many drivers fell asleep and crashed. Because the cruise was engaged the truck never slowed down which caused the crash to be more severe. The Pandora's box here, is that many people will take advantage of this in the wrong way and defeat it's safety advantages. I think we are a long way from having complete auto drivable cars just as we still need pilots in aircraft. The systems are not capable of handling every situation properly.
I almost got in an accident with a 2003 Subaru WRX some time ago. The antilock brakes, which you can't disable without some trivial modifications to the car, become activated by hitting even a single pothole (not even a deep one) on a clean dry road, then stay activated for around 2 seconds. This had always bothered me as you then were only able to brake at about 60% of normal and happened often. One day I hit a pothole as the car in front of me quickly slowed down on a turn ramp for no apparent reason. I went to apply the brakes and couldn't because of the ABS. I didn't hit them but it pissed me off enough to install a switch that disabled ABS so I didn't have to use it again unless it actually was slippery out.
Smart systems need to be well designed and not just the least featured semi functional system. In the case above a simple sensor on the suspension could detect if the "slippage" was due to an actual difference in road length between the wheels or was due to slippage. They already take steering into account so this should have been no big deal and I'm pretty certain there is a good chance that craptastic ABS system has actually contributed to some accidents.
But what about all those incidents of Japanese schoolgirls being groped (or even worse) by strangers while nobody else in the wagon or bus says a thing? Hundreds of those cases are documented on pornhub.
lucm, indeed.
Face it. People are limited and stupid. This is not a great secret to life. If you design a system in a car, it has to work with the most limited and stupid of all people. Again, this is something that has been learned by the automotive industry over years and years, it's no secret. I personally believe Tesla was wrong to sell this system in their cars, because if you leave the door open for people to abuse anything then people will. They tried to design a system that augmented the ability of humans without thinking about how humans would use it, which is a total failure. If a car didn't need to work with all manner of humans, then designing a self driving car would be easy and everyone would be doing it. All Tesla did was ignore the human factor in this case, rather then do anything particularly amazing. It's not illegal to be stupid but it is illegal to make a car that kills people.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Pretty much every big city has adequate public transportation. It doesn't work well at all in less congested areas because there will never be enough riders on all the different routes that would make it useful.
TESLA should rename their software system Driver Assist - as noted at the death of the person impacting into an 18-wheeler at full speed,
to call it 'Autopilot' assumes it will counter all situations - and it did not.
I drove my Tesla with autopilot for a month. It works great in 2 situations: 1) wide open road, good lane markings, light traffic and 2) stop and go in traffic jams.
It truly is horrible in the following situations:
1) where lane markings are faded or confusing (road construction, lanes have been moved)
2) where traffic is moderately dense, and there are curves - the system cannot see far enough ahead to anticipate the curves, so you wind up with abrupt maneuvers
3) where someone is merging from either side - sometimes it works , sometimes it freaks out
4) on twisting mountain roads, with good lane markings
5) where you are right next to the median barrier (e.g. carpool lanes)
In the latter case, small lateral changes in the barrier position (e.g. from a overpass column embedded in the median barrier) can trigger *exciting* steering wheel inputs as the car attempts to avoid running into the barrier. If one is commuting in the carpool lane at reasonable speeds (>40 mi/hr), one had best keep one's hands on the wheel and one's eyes open waiting for the "ding dong" that tells you the autopilot gave up and it's "Jesus take the wheel" time.
I found it more stressful to drive with autopilot on than with it off.
The big flaw is that the forward looking system isn't smart enough - it does not anticipate turns far enough ahead - this is really obvious on a mountain road with lots of turns: it goes into the turn fast, realizes that the road bends, and tromps on the brakes to get the speed down so it can make the turn. Then it speeds up coming out of the turn. You're never sure if it's going to be able to do it.
In traffic, it tends to "follow the car in front", which is good if the lane markings are poor, but if there's a bend in the freeway, it's not so good - again, it's the abrupt "I've got to turn now" action.
The adaptive cruise control is awesome - smooth handling of speed in heavy traffic from 0 mi/hr all the way up to 70-75 mi/hr. The lane guidance not so much.
This has to be updated: http://www.snopes.com/autos/te...
Did anyone bother to look at the graphic (top of page here: http://www.nytimes.com/interac...) ?
I would assume that if there were traffic control at this intersection it would show limit lines. Without traffic control, it looks like the truck clearly failed to yield right of way. Many times unsafe truck drivers use their size as intimidation to passenger vehicles, failing to yield right of way and just being unsafe. Try to drive 10 miles over the posted speed limit on the Garden State Pky (even in the "slow" lane) without having a 9 ton tractor 1 foot off your bumper and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Situations where the opposing traffic makes a left hand turn (stateside) kills many, many human drivers No one can assume that even a human here could have avoided the collision except for the truck driver who clearly failed to yield right of way.
Smells like media bullshit to me.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
But the context of the thread wasn't whole human intelligence, but being able to ever "outsmart" a human. Chess was given as an example of where a computer could outsmart a human. The counter was essentially if you gave the computer the equivalent of brain damage, it wouldn't be able to play properly except the person didn't see it as the equivalent of brain damage. The response was a bit vague, but what I got was that if you caused the human to malfunction, the human wouldn't be a good chess player either. Thus, your statement is irrelevant to the context of the thread. And I interpreted the reason the original poster chose "outsmart" is because computer driving can be considered a situation where the computer could outsmart human drivers.
Those are about as representative of reality as the live-action tentacle porn is.
That's just Japan though, no one will interfere until someone asks for help. The moment the girl shouts "Chikan!" you bet your ass the entire train car is going to be on that guy, and the police waiting at the next stop.
I fully support these idiots wrapping themselves around a tree and dropping out of the gene pool, but you know its the innocents they will hurt and kill instead.
asshats.
"Book learning people rightly cherish, but gumption is best for thee, without gumption you shall perish, like the lion makers three."
Three dervishes were walking down a road an came upon a recently dead field mouse. One of the dervishes insisted that his incantation could bring the mouse back to life, and so he started chanting. Shortly thereafter, the mouse began to twitch and move and gradually came alive. It finally woke up and ran off into the grasses.
The dervishes congratulated their partner and lauded his skills, and then set off again. They next came upon a dead bird a sooner than spit, the second dervishes decided to taken on the challenge of reviving it. He started a loud and strongly worded incantation of his own, and although it took some time, the bird too came to life and sprang up into the air. It flew off to feed on worms in a field.
Again, the second dervish was lauded for his skill, and smiles and applauses abounded. They continued walking and came upon an awesome sight, that of a big, old lion that had died as well. The first two dervishes looked at the third, and he was happy to try his incantations on the challenge. Again, a louder and stronger incantation could be heard and through strength of will, the third dervish brought the lion back to life.
The lion leapt up hungry and thirsty and killed the three dervishes for their meat and their blood.
---
Joshua Brown was an intelligent man, who understood danger better than most people. In learning that he had worked on disarming bombs, that lends further proof he was not rash and knew the importance of precision. Yet he trusted a machine that was imprecise, and which could not predict the imprecision of other drivers and vehicles.
I'm a fast cyclist and the degree of attention that I pay to the road and other vehicles surpasses any other cyclist that I've seen. Sometimes, I ride with my helmet off, at night, to remind myself that I am vulnerable, but my degree of attention and impulse control goes even higher. I've taken the middle lane of 5th Avenue (NYC), only to watch some fool riding a single speed pass me, and split lanes next to a bus. Or watched some middle-aged woman pass a bus just seconds from it making a stop, by riding the painted line.
No machine can make up for people's hubris or their stupidity. No machine can intuit that when I extend my hand 12 inches from my right hip ("I need a little clearance only"), it is different than when I extend it 90 degrees full out ("changing lane"), and that's different from full out and the numeral "1" with a finger (Changing one lane at a time).
More on topic, Joshua Brown owned a business that required him to drive long distances often. Well, that was his choice. Same way that truck drivers are required to get rest, if you need to function well at your job and driving, then get some sleep. Suck it up, or get off the road. I don't ride if my attention and recovery level are not up to snuff.
The same way that Tesla's system can only be activated while on a multi-lane highway, it should only work if a sensor on the dashboard and see a human iris from the driver. Cook in other safeties like obstacles on the dash. I can see a human placing a tablet on the dash to fool the iris scanner.
Tesla's self-drive mode must *force* the driver to hold the wheel and potentially do other actions to ensure their complete attention. And if they can't do that then they have no business putting such a feature into the car. And that's assuming the feature works as intended, which it clearly doesn't if it ends up hitting another vehicle that it can't "see".
So there are two serious errors here, in the enforcement of driver attention and in the actual function. Tesla should withdraw or limit the mode until they fix both.
At least Tesla's ambitions are fairly modest - track lanes, model cars going the same direction, plan lane changes. The problems that mostly or fully autonomous vehicles face on the open road are far worse and far more intractable. If the car is going to take over all function then it *must* be safe in all circumstances and conditions. But being safe is orthogonal to other requirements like making good progress (i.e. driving at the correct speed, not blocking other vehicles). I don't see it happening tolerably or safely any time soon.
To be clear, no company should be held liable for moronic use of their products, including gun manufacturers, yes?
...another city centric response. It seems all problems are now solved by narrow approaches to city folks concerns. One day you'll look up and wonder where your food and other products come from - here's a clue - it's not the grocery store or costco.
Elon Musk, in the person of his company, explicitly said this was not a hands-off system.
The problem is that Eton Musk is a high-voltage promoter. There is very little caution in what he says or implies as an individual. I am not af all surprised that people believe his Autodrive system is more mature and capable than it really is.
i don't understand why this is a big deal. the guy was using the system in a way that is expressly advised against by the company. and it was still the other driver's fault anyway.
there have doubtless been thousands of fatal collisions caused by human error since this accident. i don't really get how even an ounce of blame is being put on the Tesla's system (which was being blatantly misused). it's still probably safer than most other cars (which are involved in fatal accidents every day)
i could live a little longer in this prison
cars need to be pulled from the road. thousands of fatalities a day. obviously not ready for prime time.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Please stop referring to Tesla's autopilot feature as "self-driving". It is not. At best, it is an adaptive cruise control with lane keep assist and some basic collision avoidance capability.
We don't know what the right path to fully autonomous self-driving cars is, but that is almost certainly the long-term solution. I expect the legislative issues to be far more difficult to resolve than the technical ones, and we'll have enough difficulty with it as is; we don't need people muddying the waters by claiming Tesla's autopilot feature is anywhere near an autonomous self-driving vehicle controller.
If you gave a person a book containing a table of every possible chess game outcome and let them reference it during the game with no time limit, the human could do what the computer does: look up its moves in that table.
That's not being "smart", that's having the answers handed to you.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Unless you live in DC - then you have to make sure and check that the train is not on fire before you go in to work:
https://ismetroonfire.com/
That's entirely because the system was poorly planned and underfunded though. A proper train/subway system, like in say Tokyo or Seoul, is amazing in how efficiently it can move people around the city.
Human chess champions ALSO learn myriads of chess games from the past, and often base themselves on those. In reverse, current high level chessprograms also 'calculate' a position and give a certain amount of points to certain moves, and take the best out of those. You even have those that actually *learn* from their own play, and some who offer some randomness when they have two options that are equal, making them far more unpredictable, even when in the exact same situation.
Now, I know what you want to say: a computer prog can't really 'understand' the game like we do, and in a certain way, this is true; look at Deep blue versus Kramnik in 2006 during some games. Sometimes, the computer just doesn't realise he's being defeated until the very end. But, of course, that's because some minor things have been overlooked in its programming, like positional advantages of the pawns while standing at the kings' wing. One could say that, if the same 'education' was overlooked with human players, they would exhibit the same thing. Only, humans have more ways of learning things (as of yet), so 'overall' there is less they would have omitted in their chess-education.
Just like you, I used to think it's that 'awareness' that makes the difference, but truth be told, it's not. I realised some time ago that, within the domain of chess, it doesn't really matter *how* you get that awarness; ultimately, the computer/program will be able to simulate awareness of chess that equals or surpasses everything a human can do. That's because it continues to learn and be 'educated', without limit, while a single human can't.
In essence, the single human isn't loosing to the computer, but to the gathered knowledge and effort of thousands of grandmasters and dozens of programmers.
Of course, in the end, it's the computer delivering it.
So one can as well argue it is, or it's not, 'loosing against the machine'. But loosing it is, and the more it becomes self-learning, the less the difference makes any sense anymore. It's just that a human can learn less, and has less time and had less 'educators'. A human also bases himself on other games, only his 'database' is a million times smaller than that of a chess-computer, he also calculates moves and positions, but he does it a million times slower, and he also is self-learning, and there he's still a bit in the lead. But won't be for long.
So, I'm not sure their is an intrinsic difference anymore. It becomes a bit of semantics. When is one 'smart'? In fact, if I would beat you in chess, am I then 'smart' and you not? that would depend on how you measure 'smartness'. Idem with the computer and man debate. But as far (and only) the domain of chess goes, one can as well acknowledge the computer is better at it by now.
And so will it go with every domain.
and the last domain for an AI, will be what we call 'self-awareness', and there you'll have the same discussion in the far future: is it really self-aware, or does it give a perfect imitation of self-awareness?
And there too, one will come to a point where it doesn't matter anymore. If you can't distinguish anymore between the imitation and the real thing, the point becomes mute.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
You even have those that actually *learn* from their own play, and some who offer some randomness when they have two options that are equal, making them far more unpredictable, even when in the exact same situation.
Are those the programs that play better than their human counterparts? Or is it the ones "reading from the playbook"? I know the answer. Do you?
Just like you, I used to think it's that 'awareness' that makes the difference
Does awareness make a difference in chess when you have a playbook of every possible outcome? No. Does it make one smarter? Yes. There's a huge difference between having the smarts to figure something out (that's intelligence) and having the ability to, essentially, read a map and skip routes that won't take you where you want to go. The computers that "beat" the best human players do the latter; the ones attempting to do the former don't fare quite as well.
In fact, if I would beat you in chess, am I then 'smart' and you not?
It would depend not only on how you define "smart" (as you state), but also how you beat me. Did you beat me because the reference of past games that was handed to you was more complete than the one that was handed to me? Because that's how the computers that routinely beat the best human players do it; they run, essentially, on cheat sheets. Did you beat me by studying my prior games and learning my habits so you can counter them? You might be smarter. Was it chance? We'll have to play again to find out.
Arguing on Slashdot is very much akin to chess and I don't often lose. I've had a stalemate on occasion, and I've encountered the odd opponent who refused to realize his king was in jeopardy, who I decided it would be entertaining to string along, but a loss is very rare. You might prefer Global Thermonuclear War.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
My experience on public transit is that if you drop your phone, somebody will tell you, but if you drop it in the grocery store people just pretend they didn't see anything.
"Did you beat me because the reference of past games that was handed to you was more complete than the one that was handed to me?"
The point I was making was exactly that humans do that as well, and one can doubt if using that knowledge shouldn't be considered smart (or not). ALL play is learned, and it's by further study and experience that one gets better. Experience being: also learning, but in the practicality of it. If I do a fork to you, it's a tactic I can use because I learned about it, and/or saw and experienced it before. If I learn EVERY move of a given situation (can only be done in a certain situation, since there are almost unlimited 'free' moves) I can apply every move in it. But it still means I learned it.
So I'm not seeing much of the difference between learning one tactic, or several tactics. As long as you know when to apply (and see that it *is* applicable), one can already consider that 'smart'.
One could also argue - as you do, I think - that knowing the rules is one thing, but it's knowing how to apply them to 'unforeseen' situation that makes you smart. However, then you're merely applying a given set of rules, only apply them to a novel situation. that, a computer can do too. The only times this falters, is where the rule isn't precise, or not precise enough, so it gets stuck in a situation where it doesn't know what else to do.
But the later isn't really indicative of computers alone. If one is a mediocre player, one will not know every nuance of a given situation neither, nor be able to calculate the best move, nor know what to to outside the rules one knows. This is the 'chess'-awareness I talked about, which is still a bit better with humans (at least, the top players), but not by much. Since computers/programs continue to improve at a faster rate than any single player can, I doubt this will last long, if it ain't already so. With every match, a horde of chess-players improve upon the program, noting little differentiations and fine-tuning it evermore, making the knowledge of all the rules immer better. Which is why I said a champion is, in a certain sense, playing against hordes of chessmasters from the past to the present.
Now, one can say the part of just 'comparing' against a database isn't 'smart' and shouldn't be considered part of the chessgame, but that would be faulty. Chessplayers, and certainly the top-players ALSO learn and know myriads of games that were played in the past, and also fall back on that when it can be applied. We didn't use to have any problems with that, and also considered it part of their prowess in chess, so I don't see why we should now deny that, because computers do it a millionfold better.
To be fair: if you don't allow it for computers (in regard to evaluate how 'smart' one is), one shouldn't allow it for humans neither. However, while computers would be affected by that more, it would also mean a drop in ELO for the better players among us. It would sort of mean you'd only allow a comparison between a database-less computer and those humans that know the rules, but never have studied and learned any prior openings, middlegame and endgames, for instance. I hardly think you'll find any master, let alone grandmaster, who knows NO openings and thus doesn't have any 'database'. You'd be back to the lower tier, meaning an average of, say, 1300 ELO. Well, let someone of 1300 ELO play against a computer (without database too), and the computer will still beat them. That's because even based on mere *calculation* (aka, only knowing the rules, not literally past games or situations), a computer will win against a human without *his* 'database'. You have chess programs that reach 2000+ ELO, yet have no database to fall back on. I don't think you have any human player of 2000+ who has *no* prior knowledge of past played games or openings. So if you comapre oranges to orangs, and not apples, I would still claim a computer is better these days. Does it really understand all the fine nuances of chess? Probably not. But does a 1300
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Since you like arguing about the computer knowing every possible outcome for chess and following a map, what is your opinion of the AI that just beat the grandmaster in Go, a game that's long been considered impossible for a computer because it couldn't know every possible move?
Now, one can say the part of just 'comparing' against a database isn't 'smart' and shouldn't be considered part of the chessgame, but that would be faulty. Chessplayers, and certainly the top-players ALSO learn and know myriads of games that were played in the past, and also fall back on that when it can be applied. We didn't use to have any problems with that, and also considered it part of their prowess in chess, so I don't see why we should now deny that, because computers do it a millionfold better.
That's not what I'm referring to. I'm not saying computers that learn from past games aren't "smart", but they're also not the ones who beat grandmasters. Computing (or having pre-computed) every possible outcome into a lookup table is the only strategy thus far that can consistently beat a grandmaster, and that's not smart, it's somewhat of a cheat. And no, no human can do that.
I'm actually reasonably content if I find someone on slashdot or another forum, who's willing to debate in a calm and reasonable manner. Sometimes ideas just differ, and sometimes the premises one start with is too divergent to come to any fruitful conclusion, but it's highly preferable to just the nonsensical flamefests one sees all too often these days.
Likewise; of late though, I'm running thin on the patience to find that.
I would diverge opinion with you, thus, that slashdot is like chess.
I can agree to disagree but, first, I would like to explain my point.
There is a fair amount of strategy involved in entering a debate, just as there is in a game of chess. Sure, there are differences; especially when you know there is a high probability the your opponent is simply a troll. As for rules, standard debate rules apply[1] and when the opponent fails to render an argument or works to degrade the conversation into one of the aforementioned flamefests, they're showing that they've ceded the debate and are simply being a poor sport (e.g. you've won at that point); sometimes they don't even know they've done it and won't admit defeat, but if they've stopped posing arguments to defend their point they've lost, just as you've lost when you've run out of pieces with which to defend your king. Indeed, there are enough parallels that can be drawn that you can treat the two as similar.
Ultimately, the victor is made clear and accepted by BOTH parties
That assumes that both players are mature and experienced enough to recognize the loss. I haven't played much actual chess since I was a kid playing against my dad, mostly because the people I can find to play with tend to refuse to accept the loss even when they clearly have no viable moves. Checkmate, but the king still stands. It's clear, when someone has no move left but to call names and make personal attacks, they've lost. So yes, there's a clear victor in a debate, even an online debate: either the two parties agree that one won, or one concedes the match. Yes, stalemates also happen; sometimes, both opponents cede the argument and resort to name calling and personal attacks; sometimes there is no winner, just as with chess.
and in the very exceptional case where there is dispute, it's the tournament leader that decides who's the victor
You can only make that argument if you artificially restrict the definition of "chess" to only include tournament play. Even then, the moderation system serves that purpose, to a degree.
Check.
[1]: Of course, it's not formal, there's no official Slashdot rulebook. However, as someone who seems to appreciate a good debate, you might appreciate this, as well.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Impressive, if repeatable. Chance (people make mistakes) if not.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Yes, white tractor-trailers are invisible. This is the bullshit everyone seems to accept: that because "Autopilot" didn't see the truck, the human shouldn't have been able to, either. What about the big black tires? What about the cab? Shiny bumpers! No matter what color the trailer is, I always seem to be able to see those things. Elon Musk tells you an 18 wheeler 50 feet long, broadside across the road in front of you, big black tires and all, might be difficult to see. Have you ever even driven a car?
Sheesh! Tesla fanboi's are worse that Apple fanboi's.
Music? That's not Music, it's cRAP!
"And no, no human can do that."
Agreed, but you can look at that as a deficiency of humans, which computers don't have. Grandmasters do it too, but with less success, because they can't remember every game and every position. (Strictly speaking, neither can computers as of yet, because there are near infinite amount of moves and positions, in chess (contrary to, say, draughts).) but of course, not all moves and positions are good, so in reality, if you know a billion openings, midgames and endgames, you'll go a long way, especially if your human opponent has only a few thousand that he can use.
Now, is it smart to use such a 'mapping'. Well, that depends on your definition or the semantics of it. I would certainly claim it's smart to follow it, if you know it'll lead to victory. ;-p
Is it smart in the sense that solely based on that, one can say one can play chess? I think I would have to agree that I don't think it does. Basically, when talking of playing chess, it amounts to knowing the rules itself and how/when to apply them - and calculating what is the best move. Note, however, that computers are getting pretty strong in this area too. The problem for knowing if humans are still stronger in that respect, would be that any player with some strength also knows a repertoire of games (aka, has a database), which he also uses when he can. And if you allow it with a human, you should allow it with a computer. So you'd need a grandmaster that doesn't know any prior games or positions. ;-)
"That assumes that both players are mature and experienced enough to recognize the loss."
Which always happens, the moment players actually know how to play. The only times I ever experienced discussions as a tournament leader is with the -8, -10 and -12 years olds. Starkly decreasing with the respective age-groups. Once you get to the -14 years old, you never have a discussion anymore. I would claim, thus, that the people who didn't accept their loss, didn't know squat about it. I mean it's VERY unambiguous: if they're checkmate, they lost. It's also very clear *when* you're checkmate: if your king is under attack, but you can't move him out into safety or can't do anything else to go out of the line of attack. If one claims one isn't checkmate, one just has to prove one can put their king out of harms' way.
And, as said, if there REALLY is discussion, it's for a third party - who actually knows the game, of course - to decide who has won. In an official setting, that is the tournament leader, and his decision is final, and both parties have to agree to it, whether they want to or not. I can hardly see happening the same on slashdot. ;-)
With a debate, it's far less clear. Yes, you can say 'standard debate rules' apply, but the first problem already arises that there is no true 'standard' concerning rules of debate. You have a lot standard *formats* of debate, where in a given setting, people agree to, but I can't find a generally accepted, official set of debate rules that allows you to actually decide on a winner. That's not to say one can't find rules, it's that they aren't standard. So it would start with agreeing what set of debate rules one is actually going to follow. Secondly, the rules are far more ambiguous than in chess, which means you'll have a lot more doubt and discussion about who 'won' the debate as well. This is inherently true, since those rules leave open much more leeway for interpretation. And finally, you don't have a third party which is officially in a position to decide the winner (at least, not on slashdot) , or where both parties will accept someone as the final arbitrator.
Look at this very same discussion. How is anyone going to decide who is right in the debate and on the question if the comparison of a slasdot-discussion and chess is similar? If I say I'm right that it has little resemblance, and you say it does, and we can't agree on it: what rules will we apply to decide who's right? And if we can't
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
And the train drives itself also almost automatic. However even there the driver needs to be alert and reacts. They have a dead mans switch. Perhaps something theu should need to add in the Tesla.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's for cases like this that Google has decided that "Self-Driving" should be an all or nothing affair. The failure from what I read was the self-driving system was unable to tell the difference between the white transport truck and white overcast sky which is understandable. AI Optical Recognition systems are not perfect, heck even as humans we're prone to "optical illusions" so there's NO way a self-driving system using cameras is going to work 100% flawlessly. Granted from the speed this guy had the system set to and the fact he was watching Harry Potter is just asking for trouble. Google's system uses a LiDAR scanner which is an extremely expensive sensor system that Tesla doesn't have and isn't really found on production vehicles. Without that I wouldn't trust my life on an optical camera system only. This isn't a fault of the system but the fault of someone who doesn't understand the technology sadly.
Yes, a lot of times it is a pain-in-the-ass to do certain things with a giant lumbering truck. Not impossible, mind, and if it was then maybe the *proper* solution would be to install proper lane control (turning lights etc) rather than have vehicles break the law.
I see the same thing around here, where very large trucks run lights which are sometimes significantly into the red. Yes, it would be a pain to get going with multiple reds in a row, especially on the last light which precedes a fairly steep grade hill, but blowing through a red light is not the solution to this.
This is a clear engineering failure and it's resulted in two high-profile accidents. One where a parking car damaged the windscreen and this one.
The flaw is already known. The Tesla's sensors don't see anything high up enough to prevent these beheading accidents.
Fools will be fools, so as engineers it behoves us to expect that. Give someone something called cruise control, and an old man will walk to the back of his Winnebago to make coffee on a long straight stretch and end up in an accident when the road turns (This happened).
Give people auto-steering called auto-pilot and they'll surely be negligent. I'd say Tesla bears part of the blame here but of course I'm going to be voted down by those who think highly of themselves and their levels of silliness at all times, until it's them making a fatal mistake.
Parent is far more informative than most "+5 Informative" posts.
This is why scores should not be capped at +5 -- so we have a way to distinguish between really good posts, which are written many times per day, and outstanding posts, which come along more rarely.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I'm not sure of the value of Fleet Learning.
If 1000 Teslas follow almost exactly the same course down a particular stretch of road, and then some road construction workers put down temporary paint that shifts the lanes, will the next Tesla smugly take the old course (knocking down traffic cones, or worse, in the process) ?
Tell me something reassuring about this.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I don't see how he's in the equivalent of check in your debate. I think I had the same misunderstanding of what you were arguing as he did and I'm not sure what various bystanders of various backgrounds might understand. You've finally made your point clear enough, but I don't see if the endgame is in sight.
I said check, not mate.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I don't play chess very much and was never very good from a winning standpoint because I played to see what would happen. I have no definite idea how my personally favored opening (one of the knights towards the center) fared against others, and I tried backing each move of a more powerful piece with having a pawn or otherwise least powerful piece in position to capture any piece that attempted to capture the powerful piece. I'm not sure what other rules there are like that which can be made, but neither of you actually seemed to be talking about following rules set out like that.
I know you said check and not mate, but that implies he has to move his king in order to prevent it from being taken by one of your pieces and while you have now made clear what all your other moves were for, maybe you have taken his queen, but I hardly see what amounts to him having to move his king. Admittedly I am not the greatest at chess metaphors and hope to get better and that is in part why I've piped up in this very interesting exchange, but most of the other part is my curiosity is why you think your position so strong. Or is capturing the queen actually a stronger position than having a king in check. I suppose if you have his ki... I just remembered, the other way to get a king out of check is to use any piece including the king itself to capture a piece... so maybe having a king in check isn't that great a feat, especially when compared to actually capturing a piece. Unfortunately I have mostly lived in flyover country and in rural areas, so I have never been in an area where I heard of a chess tournament in the vicinity. I was in Virginia Beach my senior year of high school and was on a QBASIC regional programming tournament team and got first place, but there was no higher level tournament to advance to. There was no mention of a chess club at that school that I heard of, bout you'd think there would be. My junior year was spent in rural Oklahoma and oddly enough there was a class that had delivering skits and having debates at regional tournaments and I lost my first debate despite my opponent talking so fast as to be barely understood and using every turn to declare himself the victor instead of advancing the topic. Stupid rural areas!
You haven't described what humans do in such a way to rule out that they aren't actually using what amounts to a compressed look up table, no matter how they perceive what they are doing.
It sounded like what he meant by lost is knowing when, even though there will be several moves to go before checkmate, checkmate is inevitable, yet you seemed to accept knowing that you are actually in checkmate (admittedly for the very young) as knowing you've lost. I thought the examples of the computer not knowing it lost was about the former.
I don't care how many wrecks there are because I know the percentage is much smaller than with humans. And to be perfectly honest, most of us drive like crap sometimes. I do. I'd rather get some work done during the commute while the car drives itself. Like I do on buses. I'll wear a seatbelt. Carry on, GoogleCar. Carry on, Tesla. Carry on, Jeeves. Jolly good.
http://www.michaeledits.com
And this is why we can't have nice things... 4 replies from a "debate moderator" of sorts where no moderation is required. But, then, it's a public forum, I suppose that is to be expected.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I'm sure the person I'm debating can stand for themselves. As such, I will rather save my mental capacity for the code I am working on writing, and for replying to the person with whom I am debating and will not engage your line of argument. That said, thank you for the interest; please, feel free to follow along. In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure where my argument is going; I can't see that many moves into the future and what is being debated here is philosophy, rather than fact.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I take that back... after having read through those posts once more it seems we merely have an interested observer. I've got a fair bit going on at the moment and can't really take in all of your reply, so I'll come back to it when things slow down (unless I forget).
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I need a computer to identify long, off-topic arguments and then collapse those so I don't have to scroll for hours trying to read comments on a smartphone; chess has been solved.
I do, and I've done so for years, also in official competition. These last years I've took it back a little and mainly just give chess-lessons to kids. I could have said so to the former poster as well, but I don't like to argument from authority, since that's one of the weaker ways of argumenting.
Ihmo, though, discussions on slashdot have *very little* in common with chess. ;-)
Which doesn't mean all comments are worthless, but... well, there can be awful 'debates' full of diatribe, trolling and flamefesting all over the place, and some reasonably pleasant and calm/polite debates (occasionally). I'm no saint nither in this respect: I'm usually always composed and use logic in my arguments, but if the other party gets personal and what not, I don't have the tendency to back down neither.
But even in a calm and logical debate, it's sometimes clear to point out a 'winner' in the sense one can do it in chess.
BTW, the way you play works, but only at a beginners level. For instance, if a piece of lesser worth takes your 'more worth' piece, even if you can take it back afterwards, you'd still have lost some 'points' (in value/worth). Loose a rook and gain a bishop for instance, and you've still lost about two points. Also, sometimes one makes a deliberate offer, where, indeed, you can take back the piece, but it's actually *meant* that way, and by moving your pawn or other piece for taking the others' piece, you open up a line of attack to create a position of checkmate, for instance.
Ah, well, we're diverging too much from the main topic. ;-)
Point is, it's actually debatable whether humans can still 'play better chess'. They certainly almost can't *win* against the best computers/chessprograms anymore. The question whether those 'understand' chess or are 'smarter' in chess is a difficult one, and mostly depend on semantics. From a meta-view, it's clear computers don't really understand chess the way we do. But from and within the strict domain of chess itself, it's clear that they've become better than us.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Well, I don't mind too much. I mean, this *IS* a public forum after all, so we can hardly complain if others give comments, thus. ;-)
It's the same as with the original debate viewed on itself: as long as people remain civilised and comment with reason, I can appreciate it.
Anyway, was nice talking with you. Hope we can keep the same up if there's a topic we REALLY strongly disagree at. ;-p
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Well, I don't mind too much. I mean, this *IS* a public forum after all, so we can hardly complain if others give comments, thus. ;-)
Agreed. I've got a bit of a head cold and that's made me somewhat irritable; I was a bit out of line in that reply. That's one of the reasons I haven't given a proper reply yet to your last post.
Anyway, was nice talking with you. Hope we can keep the same up if there's a topic we REALLY strongly disagree at. ;-p
I don't see why that would be a problem; I have no issue being uncivil with someone who is first uncivil with me, but I limit my incivility thusly. I don't think we'll have a problem. :)
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Ah, but any debate that serves only the two (or so) people debating is a very poor debate indeed, and I posted not for the benefit of the other debater, but for my own and as I made a post at the top of the chain of this debate, I believe my request not that far out of question.
Well, I consider myself a little more than merely an interested observer as I really do want the answers in your minds and to point out flaws and to maybe engage in a little bit of debate myself (Who says there only has to be two sides, and the presidential debate is still kind of a debate, though I may be kidding myself... still there's precedent). There's so much that I think I know in terms that I find hard to place when compared to the way the two of you think of things, such as the humans having "just a compressed lookup table" possibility I mentioned somewhere around here.
Any debate between, for example, a man and his wife, is a very poor debate? Say, debating over what should be had for dinner, or which car to buy (and why).
That said, I understand that there are several possible motives you may have had for posting and addressed this (though indirectly) in my reply. To clarify, my intent was not to deter you from watching (that's accomplished by my current workload effectively preventing me from putting forth the effort to continue the debate at this time).
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Exactly. Not only is it a poor way to decide what to have for dinner and what car to buy, it only enriches at most the man and his wife. I am 39 and live with my mom. There is no debate over what to have for dinner. Either she knows exactly what she wants and I decide whether or not to have the same, or she asks me to give her options or something along those lines. We rely quite a bit on what we had for dinner recently and how soon we want to repeat it. We make some decisions on what to buy at the grocery store in advance that influence our decisions later. I don't drive, but there are a number of factors that mean I should provide input, but the factors involved when mom buys a car are known in advance and the main factor left is whether to accept or reject the car the dealer offers us and if reject wait for the dealer to find us a better deal. None of this requires a real argument about the car itself. Any of my siblings know this as well. Arguing was a feature of my parent's breakup, though. Arguing is best done between people with vastly differing opinions/backgrounds/beliefs/ People talk about not arguing over semantics, but really that's one of the best reasons to argue, because I have found that semantics vary widely, which played a part in the current debate.
I agree about arguing; however, there is a huge gray area between arguing and debate. My wife and I certainly enjoy discussing dinner plans and a semi-formal debate procedure for major decisions like buying a car (that we're both paying for and will both be using) allows us to put our wants and needs on the table for consideration and, overall, increases our combined satisfaction with such decisions, as well as with each other.
Regarding couples arguing, the primary difference between argument and debate, in that setting, is respect. Once respect is gone, there's no hope for a relationship. There is no need for the debates my wife and I have over our household decisions to enrich anyone other than ourselves; but I don't think that makes them poor debates, as they serve a valid purpose, and they're certainly not arguments. And yes, semantics vary wildly; most of our misunderstandings come from the vast differences in our communication styles. It keeps things... interesting.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.