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Tesla Autopilot 'Predicts' Accident Before It Happens (engadget.com)
A dash cam footage suggests a Tesla on Autopilot may have predicted a nearby freeway crash before it actually happened. A video showed that a Tesla car driving on a highway in the Netherlands started to beep a few seconds ahead of two cars colliding with each other in front of it. A Tesla representative confirmed to media that the beeping heard in the video is indeed the sound of Autopilot's Forward Collision Warning. Elon Musk tweeted a news article about the incident, adding more credibility to the matter. From a report on Engadget:Tesla's Autopilot 8.0 has a particularly clever feature: it uses radar to track road activity two cars ahead, helping it avoid danger that you wouldn't normally see. And it now appears that this tech just averted a disaster. Dutch Model X owner Frank van Hoesel has dashcam footage showing his electric crossover reacting to a bad highway crash before it even starts. As you can hear in the video, the Model X's Forward Collision Warning system starts braking when it detects the SUV two vehicles ahead coming to an abrupt stop, even though the driver of the car directly behind it is unaware. The result? Van Hoesel's EV remained untouched when it could easily have contributed to a pile-up.
Beeping Tesla car cause accident!
Folks, the Tesla is a psychic beast ok, it knows when all accidents will occur due to it's 100% accurate foreseeable prediction unit (FPU). You just need to let the autopilot take you everywhere you want to go in life - no worries mate! Just hope that no one rear-ends you while it stops right in the middle of the lane on the highway ;)
It reacted when there were "obvious" signs of trouble, and it didn't "predict" anything. The 2nd car in front was slowing fast enough that the Tesla would have started to brake on its own -- just as happened here. Would a person have noticed and reacted in the same way? Maybe; probably not. What I'm saying here isn't dismissing what the Tesla did...but the Tesla also didn't "predict" anything or see into the future; it reacted to inputs that were already present, and a good and attentive human driver might have done the same thing. Once perfected, self-driving cars and accident avoidance technology will make the roads safer â" but let's not make them seem magical, because they aren't.
So we live in an age where the only acceptable stories that can be reported in the media are negative ones?
No, this is a Tesla driver in the Netherlands, who made a dashcam video.
these tech morons, long known for predicting and claiming the impossible (and failing to deliver) are outdoing even themselves.
next i want to hear the alert for missile lock and see it auto deploy counter measures..
Just pay no attention to the other non-Tesla cars in the video that were also able to stop on the side of the road without hitting anything...
Musk is not exactly an unbiased observer.
Maybe he should be a "journalist" for true "fake" objectivity.
Did Tesla also report any/all instances where the forward collision warning sounded, regardless of whether or not a crash subsequently occurred? Otherwise this is just PR.
First off, an erratic driver is obviously worth paying attention to, so it's worth having the beep for near-crashes as well.
Also, in terms of the warning system's efficacy effects this probably isn't relevant unless it beeps so much as to cause drivers to ignore it. The false positive rate could be 75% and it still probably wouldn't beep more than once a week at the most (depending on where you live / Boston joke goes here.)
Wake me up when my Tesla can predict tonight's Lotto numbers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
would be for the small car in front to be piloted by a non-human.
Interesting, so you're saying what happened in the video didn't happen because... PR.
I'm glad these forums are full of intelligent people such as yourself.
Did Tesla also report any/all instances where the forward collision warning sounded, regardless of whether or not a crash subsequently occurred? Otherwise this is just PR.
Tesla never reported any instances where the forward collision warning sounded. It's hard for it to be PR when it's not Tesla doing the reporting.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
On a scientific or engineering level? You sure as hell bet that confirmation bias should be a serious consideration. Either you don't understand the concept or you don't care until it happens in a way that negatively affects you. In either case, there needs to be a serious study into the incidents both positive and negative before anyone goes tooting their own horn.
Elon Musk tweeted a news article about the incident, adding more credibility to the matter.
These kind of statements should absolutely be scrutinized on a higher level. It has all the trappings of oil companies doing their own global warming research. You know, the kinds of things that Slashdotters normally howl and scream over but since it's Elon... you know... it's all good.
Right?
Like the guy and his product all you want but if this is a one in ten thousand case of a positive in a sea of negatives then that needs shook out so that people understand that it's nothing more than an outlier.
So we live in an age where the only acceptable stories that can be reported in the media are negative ones?
No, that's not true at all....
It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative.
No, but to me this doesn't mean anything. Countless times a day real drivers think to themselves "oh shit, looks like those two cars are going to crash". Sometimes they do crash sometimes they don't. But just because a computer can do the same thing isn't all that impressive. It seems like a MINIMUM standard to meet if self driving tech wants to be better than humans because right now humans that pay attention are doing the same thing. Humans don't just look straight ahead and avoid rear ending the car in front.
Calling it a "prediction" is technically accurate but has a different connotation than normal usage. Humans make countless "predictions" every day. In fact, all but the most basic jobs are just series of predictions, about predictions that are about predictions. But we typically reserve the word "prediction" for when the odds of being correct are skewed against us or when intuition is involved. We don't say "I predict when I apply the brakes my car will slow down" because we know with a high degree of certainty that the event will happen. When we see two cars about to ram one another we don't think "I predict those two car will collide" we think "those two cars ARE going to collide".
"Prediction" in common language usage would mean something like two random cars not about to collide but then they suddenly DO collide. But that is NOT what the Tesla did even though that is sort of the implied meaning here. This language was used to purposely confuse the common usage and technical usage to put a mental picture of what the Tesla did being a "correct guess on a hard to discern event" when in reality it was a "correct guess on an inevitable event".
It can see the cars ahead and it saw the SUV breaking so it reacted. It did not predict anything other than a vehicle in front is breaking and it started breaking faster than a human can react.
Tomorrow on slashdot..... "Scientists perform witchcraft by telling us that we will have a solar eclipse this next summer, and your jaw will drop and be speechless with a blown mind"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Gee, the comments on this so far stink. People seem to be prejudiced.
First, the dashcam video presented is not from Tesla, it's from an independent car fan who seems to have gotten it from the driver. It was then retweeted by Elon Musk.
The activity demonstrated is the Tesla Autopilot triggering on sudden deceleration of the second car ahead, which is not clearly visible from the dashcam view (and presumably equally not clearly visible to the driver). It appears that autopilot warns and brakes.
Autopilot does not predict what happens to the cars ahead (although in second-car detections it's probably implied) and "anticipate" would be a better word anyway. Autopilot anticipates that the Tesla will hit something if it doesn't brake.
Soneone on twitter pointed out that he heard the "disengage" sound after the warning sound, indicating that the driver brakes. I don't hear if, but I don't know what it sounds like. Does anyone else hear it?
Someone pointed out that the Joshua Brown accident might not have happened if the radar had worked then. Yes, it might not have. One should also point out that Brown was speeding and apparently not looking. Despite its name, "autopilot" is not ready for the driver to disengage.
Bruce Perens.
calling 911
I agree that the Hyperloop is cynical B.S. that Musk meant to deter the California high-speed rail project, and the semi-annual tunnel tweet is just naive. But he's doing pretty well with rockets. F9 first stage landing is a real coup.
Bruce Perens.
Exactly, the Tesla wasn't rear ended. Either was an other Tesla behind it or a mere human that did the same as the Tesla infront of it or the human kept an acceptable distance instead of tailgating.
This requires some basic independent critical thinking
Wow, talk about a real "physician heal thyself moment".
really isn't all that fast (only 2x Maglev),
A 2x speed improvement is a huge deal for any traveller.
won't be cheap (a jet engine, linear motor AND an airtight tube instead of a track? And how many ticket-paying people can cram into these cars vs. traditional rail?)
It may not be cheap but it uses a lot less energy per trip, and requires less maintenance, AND has dramatically safer failure mode (i.e. no multi-thousand foot drop), has no steering components to wear out/break, so over the long run it's probably as economical as a jet.
Traditional rail is as you said at least 2x slower...
cannot possibly be safer than or more convenient than air travel
1) If the tube is buried it's pretty damn safe from attack, even if elevated it would be hard to damage. But even if someone managed it would just stop the trip, it wouldn't kill anyone. Or maybe someone could get inside and kill some people but it's not like they could redirect the tube to a national monument or busy office building!
As for convenient, since there's no danger of the tube being aimed at anything but the end, there's zero need for anything more than standard bus terminal security, maybe an armed officer on board just in case though frankly I'd just let the passengers know safety was up to them, and let them carry,.
Just the fact you don't have to go through security means an automatic two-hour total reduction in travel time before you factor in actual trip duration. That's a pretty huge deal on any journey that's within two hours by air...
No a hyper loop doesn't make sense everywhere but something like the LA->SF corridor, or better yet baltimore/VA to DC.... it makes way more sense than a train because of the huge speed improvement. If you have dual tubes you could have really impressive throughput.
I'm no Musk groupee, I think he's fine but not any kind of genius. But the Hyperloop is an idea that makes a ton of sense because of the large spread of benefits it offers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"A dash cam footage"
Found the Indian!
Yes, SpaceX is doing alright. But he's still talking nonsense about establishing a colony on Mars as well, isn't he?
There are fantastic-seeming things that are plausible in our lifetimes. Like, say, general AI or the scaling up of countless nanotech technologies that are still in their infancy. It's a waste of street cred for him to talk about this stuff. It's not that I fear his failure; it's that I fear young geeks becoming disillusioned when they realize his failures were mostly due to him being full of crap. Why can't we give young people at least semi-realistic dreams?
If we wanted a Mars colony then it's all about biotech or maybe (if someone can invent some nanites) nanotech. The rocket to get us there should be at the bottom of our priority list.
Exactly, the Tesla wasn't rear ended. Either was an other Tesla behind it or a mere human that did the same as the Tesla infront of it or the human kept an acceptable distance instead of tailgating.
Or the Tesla autopilot gauged the distance to the trailing car and moderated its braking to ensure that the human behind had sufficient time to slow. That's exactly what I'd do in that position; any experienced heavy-traffic freeway driver knows that the first thing you do when you start braking to avoid something in front of you is check the rearview mirror so you can adjust your braking appropriately to avoid getting yourself rear-ended -- or to decide if you need to swerve into the emergency lane. Of course, the autopilot system has the advantage that it already knows the position and speed of the vehicle behind, because it looks in all directions at once.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The notion of prediction is not applicable to a partially observable, stochastic environment.
The car behind the Tesla could see the Tesla's brake lights. The car in front of the Tesla never braked.
And here come the Musk fanboys to mod me down.
So does that mean it also "predicted" that it would kill that driver who slammed into a transport at high speed?
That was before the 8.0 update. Unlike other cars, Teslas get updates. The old software just used a single radar beam, which passed underneath the high trailer in the accident you are refering to. The new software lets the radar beam scan around to create a point cloud, tracking multiple objects. In an identical scenario, it would have seen the trailer and braked in time. And it can also look two cars ahead by bouncing the radar signal on the asphalt, which is what saved it in this latest video.
> After all airbags and seatbelts have saved countless but we don't see an article praising how well it works
http://thetab.com/us/2016/06/10/seat-belt-saved-friends-life-14614
http://www.startribune.com/the-drive-how-wearing-a-seat-belt-saved-my-life/304053011/
http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/features.php?BlogID=448
http://www.ketv.com/article/teen-says-air-bag-seat-belt-saved-her-life/7647167
Musk picks terms to make things sound more impressive than they may actually be. I have seen accidents about to happen and avoided them many times in my many years driving, as I'm sure most of us have. In none of those cases did we go around saying we 'predicted' those accidents. We say we 'detected and avoided' them. That is exactly what this technology did. That should be impressive enough on its own, and its certainly useful, but its not as attention grabbing which is Elon's primary objective. You can argue over the term and say it is technically correct, but get real, its not how we ever describe such a thing in real life.
Well it worked great that one time out of a few hundred.
Tesla rarely has customer dashcam videos for every time it "has" worked...we mostly only get to hear about the failures, which given the number of Teslas on the road that used autopilot in 2016, are considerably few.
...airbags and seatbelts have saved countless but we don't see an article praising how well it works.
You mean we don't see them anymore...there are literally thousands of articles and advertisements about airbags and seat belts going over the past 60 years.
Getting lots of mass there cheaply lets the other solutions be a lot less fancy, though.
You're right. This wasn't a "prediction". The car's radar is able to see two cars ahead and saw that traffic was stopped so it put the brakes on and alerted the driver. Impressive performance but not psychic.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Cool video and the Tesla performed well.
As far as predicting the crash, I think it is more like the Tesla vehicle detected the lead car as an obstacle it needed to slow down to avoid.
None of the non-Tesla vehicles trailing vehicles contributed to the accident either.
That's SpaceX's *other* big myth, though: there's a pretty hard floor on how low the price can go on these things. Being good at shaving off some nickels and dimes here and there simply means you're competitive; it doesn't at all mean you're revolutionary. They're not (to my knowledge) building a space elevator or railgun launch system or something.
the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, and most importantly, Musk-hating Slashdot troll!
This story must just make it foam at the mouth!
And not just for Tesla either. Interesting how the video is published through the Twitter account of a personal injury consultant, no? It's not linked from the Tweet that's mentioned in the article and news outlets are actually conversing with this guy for the rights, even though their involvement seems lateral at best. Look for the video online and you find the same dude posting the tweet wherever they will have it (instead of just posting the YouTube copy that's also available, of course https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Also, is it really prediction, or is it just the Tesla noticing the car right in front of it suddenly breaking? Look at its break lights and course change (0:04 to 0:06).
Taking into account more of the available information, just not the car directly in front is just simply good driving whether it's a human or an AI vehicle. Happy to see this working in practice at least this time on a Tesla. One of the reason I hate riding with most drivers is that it seems very common to give driving only a minimal amount of attention and focus.
After watching that video, it's clear that "Autopilot" didn't predict anything. When the lead car suddenly stopped, it was obscured by the car in front of the Tesla. The Tesla detected the stopped car just before the second car collided with it, and warned the driver that they were approaching a stopped car too quickly.
This will save lives, full stop. You can crap all over Elon if you want, but the guy actually gets shit done. No it's not perfect, but it keeps getting better and it is at the point where it will save lives.
Can we please get some scientifically literate moderators in here? This is getting absurd. He thinks that the closer you are to the site of the breech the worse off you'll be. This is a blatant violation of conservation of momentum. What the hell is acting on the in-rushing air to slow it down to protect something that is "about ten feet away"? The 1/1000th of an atmosphere that's supposed to be in there?
If there's something wrong with the assertion that the air will accelerate up the tube (not travel constantly), I will be suitably chastened but still curious to hear the explanation of where and how that gravitational kinetic energy is being transfered. (Air pressure is created by gravity.) Post AC if you've already modded.
I have seen accidents about to happen and avoided them many times in my many years driving, as I'm sure most of us have. In none of those cases did we go around saying we 'predicted' those accidents.
This may say more about your use of english language than anything else.
You saw something about to happen did you?
predict:
verb
say or estimate that (a specified thing) will happen in the future or will be a consequence of something.
English is a rich language. Why use a word like "detected" when you are describing an event that hasn't happened yet? If you're talking about traffic abnormalities then yes you "detected" it. If you're talking about the impending collision then you "predicted" it and then "avoided" it.
But my guess is you were more concerned with heaping shit on Musk / Tesla, which is a shame because all you showed is that his language skills are more impressive than yours may actually be.
You can't just say, "Hey, that's impressive." You have to find any little thing to shit on, don't you?
SpaceX is building a modular re-usable heavy lift vehicle. Rocket fuel is cheap. Re-certifying components and engines may or may not be cheap, but if they can pull it off then they have the potential to save quite a bit of money -- to knock the floor out of the market.
Or maybe you completely missed my point, I never said the term was not technically correct, I even said you could argue it was. I bet you wouldn't use that term if you had just avoided an accident.
Fun fact: a lot of accidents with moderate damage occur where the driver presses the brakes deeply, then releases because he or she realizes someone might be behind them, and THEN collides with the car in front. Mercedes specifically created an emergency brake system to counter this. It would keep applying the brakes when pressed "vigorously" for a few seconds after the driver released them. Gives you a hell of a surprise the first time you feel it...
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Fun fact: a lot of accidents with moderate damage occur where the driver presses the brakes deeply, then releases because he or she realizes someone might be behind them, and THEN collides with the car in front. Mercedes specifically created an emergency brake system to counter this. It would keep applying the brakes when pressed "vigorously" for a few seconds after the driver released them. Gives you a hell of a surprise the first time you feel it...
Ouch. That seems like a cure worse than the disease.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If the driver behind the Tesla was any good, they were looking well beyond the collision and reacted before seeing any brake lights on the Tesla.
Slams on brakes. Car behind rear ends. Real prediction, and correct.
[Get Smart, with a psychic that KAOS wants to kidnap.]
The Tesla: I Predict Therefore I Predetermine.
Musk picks terms to make things sound more impressive than they may actually be. I have seen accidents about to happen and avoided them many times in my many years driving, as I'm sure most of us have. In none of those cases did we go around saying we 'predicted' those accidents. We say we 'detected and avoided' them. .
Yes but it detected the braking of the car ahead of the car in front, which didn't seem to brake at all until the crash. From the video the braking car was barely visible. That's pretty impressive.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
The car merely noticed a speed difference with the car in front and started to brake. As the distance grew smaller and speed difference grew the braking became harder. Standard feature on that car.
If you watched the video, you'd know that it wouldn't have helped in this case. That the vehicle in front stopped is not visible until after the car between it and the Tesla crashed into it.
No, just the people who know physics. The experiment in video you have shown ignores basic physics: 1. Hyperloop doesn't need the tube to be tight around the train, so the air can travel around the train thus reducing pressure differential 2. Pressure grows squared, but the effect of mass is in third, so the air wouldn't even budge a train. Nothing to do with Musk, it simply seems that some people know physics :)
I bet you wouldn't use that term if you had just avoided an accident.
That depends entirely if I "predicted" the accident before it happened or simply "avoided" it once two cars hit themselves. That's how english works. We don't adjust the language to suit context. The language itself is clear.
The video is a low res version of what the actual driver experiences in the driver seat. Stop being a tesla fanboi and apply proper perspective.
... It's real news!
The language itself is clear.
No, the english lanquage can convey different meanings with the same words, and choice of words in a particular context can convey different meanings or impressions. "predict" sounds a lot more impressive that "detect". If you saw two cars obviously about to collide and reacted accordingly, you would not go around telling people you predicted the accident.
If it detected and avoided, then it predicted what would likely happen. It acted in a nominally suitable manner, which demonstrates the incremental improvements made over the years, using applied research methods. Cool - esp. for the driver - but nothing to gush over. YMMV.
If it detected and avoided, then it predicted what would likely happen. It acted in a nominally suitable manner, which demonstrates the incremental improvements made over the years, using applied research methods. Cool - esp. for the driver - but nothing to gush over. YMMV.
I should have inserted "a priori", after the word "avoided" (or before "detected" - I blame beer).
One paradigm is to take power out of the hands of everyone and put it only in the hands of machines. That also takes capacity for joy, engagement, or life from them. It enforces severe stagnation, and pre-supposes that no growth is ever possible.
An alternate is to inform. This Tesla device is wonderful. Unlike the self-driving car that has no steering wheel, the car that takes the human out of the equation, this tool make the human greater and involves the human. It presupposes that growth is possible, and desired. It empowers super-humanity. This is the winning approach.
I wish that auto-makers would consider this sort of improvement to a car long before they take away the steering wheel. The wheel-removed cars are going to put amazing legal culpability on the manufacturer, and this keeps it on the insured individual. The wheel-removed cars are going to have quite dismal sales, because the experience is what is sold, not the object itself. They could learn from Steve Jobs that a computer or software is not a machine, and it is not code, in the eyes of the purchaser, it is an outcome and an experience. By maximizing the quality of the experience the manufacturer can improve market-share and product value.
I think all nearby cars should be able to be alerted. I think there are going to be limits to "'scale of alert" to keep hacking, and traffic jams from false-positive candidation.
Tesla does a great thing. I think that this sensing and alerting, with an extension to networked automobiles, should be mandatory in new cars. This did save a life, and this would save a lot of lives. This would also give specific metrology on drivers who are actual sources of risk. If you want to cut down the automobile death rates hugely - this is a good way to go.
-EngrStudent
Not even particularly impressive. The autopilot was allowing plenty of following distance, even a human could have reacted in that timeframe. I could see the back corner of the black SUV stop the same second in the video that the beeping started. I would have reacted in exactly the same way.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Dumb luck causes Tesla's "autopilot" to look more ingenious than it actually is.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I think you need to suck musk's cock just a little harder.
I live in the Boston area, and I had a vehicle with a similar radar system for emergency braking for about 6 months. It beeped at and/or braked for me maybe half a dozen times during that period (so about once a month), and about half of those were actually instances where I might have actually gotten into an accident without it (one would have certainly been an accident, or very close to it). So, it did a pretty good job, and wasn't providing false positives at a rate that would even approach annoying.
Yay! Cancer for all!
This ignores the fact that it is a *wall* of air with literally miles and miles (i.e. tons and tons) of air behind it. If the air isn't traveling at 600+MPH, it will be relatively incompressible. If it *is* traveling at 600+ MPH and the car traveling at around the same speed, it will be somewhat compressible but I suspect the deceleration forces would still be extreme.
/r/AskPhysics.
If you're interested in an actual answer here (as opposed to mere smugness or hero worship), I've just taken up the matter at
and choice of words in a particular context can convey different meanings or impressions
Welcome to my point.
"predict" sounds a lot more impressive that "detect".
Indeed because the act of predicting is more impressive than the act of detecting. Now if you want to take issue with the specifics of the instance and call Musk a liar then be my guest. But what you are claiming is that people don't use words like "predict" to describe accidents which either means they didn't "predict" them or they don't have a sufficient grasp of the English language to make their point correctly.
If you saw two cars obviously about to collide and reacted accordingly, you would not go around telling people you predicted the accident.
I would, because I'm not an idiot who dumbs down language to borderline newspeak for shits and giggles. I may describe the act of predicting by saying something like "I saw it coming" depending on how much alcohol I've had but to say I "detected" it would be wrong. The wrong word describing an action I didn't do.
air can travel around the train thus reducing pressure differential
Not something you can hand wave away, by the way. You're talking about aerodynamic displacement around and behind the vehicle generated from forward momentum. We can't assume this displacement will just automatically happen at a fast enough rate to ensure that the vehicle doesn't fatally decelerate.
It's seeming as though things are a bit more complex than I initially thought, but that doesn't give you any points for your hand-waving dismissals. In particular, anyone who flatly says that the air wouldn't even budge the vehicle is full of shit.
So the Tesla is just more able to strictly enforce a distance in front of itself than human drivers are able to. This is why: Human emotions.
Accurately maybe. Strictly? I'm strict about it to the point of practicing the martial art of antitrafic (when in a jam, slow down to 5mph below average speed, to build a space in front of you and avoid stop-and-go starts). I wish more people knew about it, there would be far fewer accidents and we'd all get where we need to go faster.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.