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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.
"predict - say or estimate that (a specified thing) will happen in the future or will be a consequence of something."
"Predict" is exactly what it did. "Predict" doesn't mean the mystical fortune-telling you seem to think it means.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There is such a thing as predictive modeling. Maybe the word "predict" bothers you somehow, yet the computer may have understood there was likely to be a crash before it happened. Maybe it only understood that it was a good time to brake. Giving probability to a future possibility sounds like prediction to me.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
Yes, it did predict trouble. It did not necessarily predict that the second car would hit the first (the accident that happened), but it predicted that it would hit the second car either way if it did not react, so it reacted to that prediction and protected itself.
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.
But - but - but - Elon Musk tweeted a news article about the incident, adding more credibility to the matter!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It predicted that *it* would crash if it didn't slow down. It didn't predict jack about the collision between the other cars.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
next i want to hear the alert for missile lock and see it auto deploy counter measures..
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.)
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.
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.
You mean the ones that had the advantage of having both cars in view, instead of a blocked view like the Tesla (driver) had. Ah, those cars.
Bert
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
Did he tweet it before the event?
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.
Of course it didn't predict the actual accident, but it did see the car two cars ahead abruptly slowing down (by bouncing the radar signal underneath the car in front) and reacted by braking in time. The car directly in front of the Tesla never even touched the brakes.
That's pretty impressive, and the model S and X are the only cars with that capability.
The car directly in front did not even touch the brakes. It was a very sudden and unexpected deceleration two cars ahead.
Sure, I try to keep track of multiple cars in front, driving at the far left of the left lane so I can see any brake lights come on ahead, but sometimes you just can't (behind a large van, for example) and noticing such a sudden stop while the car directly in front of you keeps going... no, most people would just have crashed into it. Hell, most people can't even stop in time if the car directly in front suddenly brakes, let alone the car in front of that car.
The car behind the Tesla could see the Tesla's brake lights. The car in front of the Tesla never braked.
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.
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.
They updated the radar software. Instead of using a single beam, it now scans around and tracks multiple objects. Uses a constantly updated database to avoid false alarms for street signs and such. Free over-the-air update for all autopilot Teslas. It would now see that truck and react accordingly.
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?
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.
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.
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.