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Tesla Angers Autonomous Vehicle Experts By Promising 'Full Self-Driving' Model 3 (cnn.com)
Tesla's now taking orders for Model 3's with a "full self-driving capability" -- meaning "automatic driving on city streets." CNN reports that experts on self-driving technology "say CEO Elon Musk is playing fast and loose with definitions, overselling the technology and potentially creating safety issues."
Experts say Tesla's "full self-driving" feature is really a partial self-driving feature that handles minor driving tasks such as keeping pace with other cars on a highway and still requires diligent human oversight. To most autonomous vehicle experts, "full self-driving" means a car in which a person could safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and the steering wheel and pedals aren't even needed...
Dean Pomerleau, of Carnegie Mellon University, who in 1995 drove a minivan that steered itself across the country, told CNN Business he has "grave concerns" about Tesla's practices on autonomous driving. "Claiming its vehicles will soon be 'feature complete' for full self-driving is one more step in the unconscionable practices that Tesla is already engaged in with Autopilot -- overselling its capabilities and reliability when marketing its vehicles and then blaming the driver for not reading the manual and paying constant attention when the technology inevitably fails," Pomerleau said.
CNN notes a 2018 study which found that 71% of drivers believe they could already purchase a self-driving car today -- despite the fact that currently there are no such fully-autonomous vehicles. "Experts warn that this lack of understanding could be deadly as humans may put too much trust in systems like Tesla's, leading to crashes...."
"A Tesla spokeswoman declined to comment on details around the automatic driving option, and pointed CNN Business to fine print on Tesla's order page that tells buyers the currently enabled features require 'active' driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
Dean Pomerleau, of Carnegie Mellon University, who in 1995 drove a minivan that steered itself across the country, told CNN Business he has "grave concerns" about Tesla's practices on autonomous driving. "Claiming its vehicles will soon be 'feature complete' for full self-driving is one more step in the unconscionable practices that Tesla is already engaged in with Autopilot -- overselling its capabilities and reliability when marketing its vehicles and then blaming the driver for not reading the manual and paying constant attention when the technology inevitably fails," Pomerleau said.
CNN notes a 2018 study which found that 71% of drivers believe they could already purchase a self-driving car today -- despite the fact that currently there are no such fully-autonomous vehicles. "Experts warn that this lack of understanding could be deadly as humans may put too much trust in systems like Tesla's, leading to crashes...."
"A Tesla spokeswoman declined to comment on details around the automatic driving option, and pointed CNN Business to fine print on Tesla's order page that tells buyers the currently enabled features require 'active' driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
Alternative:
2. Discover it does not, in fact, do that, by having a nasty accident
3. Sue Tesla for personal injury
4. More profit and Tesla's reputation is in the gutter
C - the footgun of programming languages
The silly part is this:
1) They're describing AP/EAP as a level 1-2 system. It's actually a level 3 system with Navigate on Autopilot (e.g. makes lane changes, takes exits, etc).
2) They're describing what's presently available, which is not FSD, as if that's what's being offered as FSD. Which is just ridiculous. What's currently being offered is AP/EAP, not FSD. Heck, they don't even run on the same computer. AP/EAP is HW2, FSD is HW3 (HW2 = GPU, HW3 = custom neural net chip, about 20x faster).
3) What was targeted for the end of this year has been clearly described, both by Musk in interviews, and in the description of the product: that the car can drive in all situations on its own, but you still need a human monitoring it (aka, level 4 autonomy), with an intent to eliminate the driver requirement as soon as is allowed thereafter (level 5 autonomy). The monitoring requirements will remain until regulators are satisfied that its safety record exceeds that of humans. Musk stated that he expects this to require 10 billion or so miles of data.
4) This isn't coming out of the blue. Tesla's internal builds already handle city driving (including Musk himself). You don't have to take their word on it - customer cars are already doing detections required for city-driving in shadow mode (same, but at night here) (These aren't Tesla vids - they're from people hacking the AP system to see what data it's detecting and processing).
You know, it's really easy to attack someone when you render what they say into a straw man. "OMG, Musk is saying that a Level 1 system is FSD!"
I had issues with Tesla selling FSD a year ago, but then again, so did most people, which is why few bought it. Today? Not so much. They've made a lot of progress in the past year. I still think it's going to be a long time before Tesla's safety data is good enough to convince regulators to say, "Yeah, you don't need a human any more" (level 5). But with Navigate on Autopilot, and their clear progress on city driving, I have no issue with them stating that they expect to be level 4 by the end of the year.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
Again: Any experienced programmer with a significant driving history will tell you that full autonomy -- as in, get in the car, say "take me to work", and you never touch a control -- either won't ever happen or will take much longer than people like Musk are claiming.
Think about all the situations you've personally encountered as a driver in the last year. For me, that includes: Poorly/unmarked roads, missing/incorrect signs, very heavy rain, snow, black ice, police checkpoints, first responder vehicles on the median necessitating "slow down/move over" maneuvers, detours due to downed trees, and, of course, no end of bullshit from bad drivers the required me to take action to avoid an accident.
On that last point, how many times when driving have you noticed another driver playing with his/her phone or exhibiting poor lane discipline or who knows what that triggers your defensive driving skills, all things that a car won't detect and respond to on its own?
Oh, and as for mixing autonomous and human piloted vehicles on the same road? Yeah, nothing to worry about there.
The best we can hope for in the next couple of decades is very limited use of fully autonomous vehicles, as in special highway lanes. Non-highway roads are too irregular and too poorly marked to support full autonomy.
As a UK resident I have been brought up with mainly manual gearboxes on cars, on the odd occasion that I drive an automatic for a while the moment I go back to a manual I inevitable stall at the first dozen or so junctions as I have forgotten to use the clutch. While this is a minor inconvenience in the case of an automated gearbox it has the potential to be fatal when scaled up to other "semi autonomous" functions. I think we either have a car with no human input at all or a manual car otherwise people jumping in and out of cars with varying autonomy will start assuming the car will take care of differing things. If some cars brake for you and other models don't what sort of confusion is going to ensue?
> "full self-driving" means a car in which a person could safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and the steering wheel and pedals aren't even needed..."
AND can drive anywhere on its own, in any conditions, at least as safely as an average human driver. And that is not at all possible yet.
We are not to full self driving, but Automatic Emergency Braking falls under the category of useful "the moment something hairy happens," you may not even realize it is taking over- you get a chime or notification, but you're way too busy processing everything else. It is really about the difficulty of proving the absence of something- in this case, the absence of a collision.
From Consumer Reports:
IIHS data show rear-end collisions are cut by 50 percent on vehicles with AEB and FCW.
ABS was a technology many thought was lacking- and initially, it probably was. But today- I'm pretty sure the most experienced driver can not beat the most recent ABS, considering the ability to monitor/control the speed of each wheel separately.
For a moment, just one, think of what "autopilot" actually is. I mean the real thing.
Set a heading, set a speed, it flies in that direction and screams at you if something bad happens. Exactly what Tesla Autopilot does. In an aircraft, autopilot does not "fly the plane on its own" and it absolutely has to have a registered pilot present while it's engaged. Autopilot, in aircraft, is literally a pilot assist, just like Tesla's Autopilot is a driver assist.
...
What is your definition of "Autopilot"? Let's see what Wikipedia says:
An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the aircraft. This allows them to focus on broader aspects of operations such as monitoring the trajectory, weather and systems.[1]
The autopilot is often used in conjunction with the autothrottle, when present, which is the analogous system controlling the power delivered by the engines.
It sounds to me like like autopilot is a pretty accurate term to describe what a Telsa can do. Except the Telsa does more - the equivalent of autothrottle too. Let me guess, you would prefer "Pilot assist" instead of calling it autopilot for planes?
Better known as 318230.
Just look what is touted as "AI" today, or all the things that are "revolutionary". Sure, these people corrupt the language, but the real problem is the morons that are their target and believe all that crap.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
NO THAT IS NOT WHAT PEOPLE THINK.
"just like Tesla's Autopilot is a driver assist."
Then call it DRIVERS ASSIST. The connotation is that is isn't automatic and needs drivers assitance.
Someone who was very careful about what they say and do, someone concerned about risk, would not have built SpaceX and Tesla into what they are, in such a short time. Musk is not a careful person, he's a daredevil.
> Every other car company seems to be more responsible than Tesla
Every other car company sells MILLIONS of cars. They want to protect their highly successful companies. Tesla sells THOUSANDS of cars and wants to sell millions. Tesla want to increase their sales a thousandfold, and they won't do that by be being careful.
Musk doesn't mind taking risks, and often doesn't even speak time thinking about the risks before he does or says something. That's part of his success and will probably be his downfall, unless he hands control of the companies over to more careful people, as they transition from "trying to become a major car company" to "is a major car company".
Assuming you survive... It looks like there was yet another case of Autopilot decapitating a driver due to not seeing a trailer last week.
Calling it "autopilot" was a mistake, calling this "full self driving" is just reckless. Let's level 2 autonomy, you have to not only be ready to take over, but actively monitor it for failures.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's not known if the person in the first link was on AP. It's at least possible that they were, unlike the latter case. The person in the second case almost certainly wasn't (they were estimated to be driving 70-90 mph on a city street; AP can only be set to 5mph over the speed limit on city streets).
I'd also like to know what car you think can plow through three palm trees in a row and have the occupant be just fine.
As far as I and anyone else I've talked have been able to ascertain, the first case appears to be the first case ever of someone dying in a Model 3. And it took being split in half by a semi to do it. Guess what? For the foreseeable future, people will continue to die in car accidents. What matters is the rate per unit distance driven.
The only thing I'm mad about in the first case is the fact that the US inexplicably does not require side crash guards on semi trailers like we've have in Europe since the 1980s.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
Autopilot works in California, Arizona, new mexico where the weather is perfect. I can tell you in Ohio (with newer Honda Civic) my assist features are fooled and/or disabled all the time by snow and rain and metal plates on the road (wants to stop). There is salt residue all over the roads and the lines are hard to see, so the lane assist is messed up also. They have a long ways to go before I trust any kind of autonomous vehicle in this area
Lane assist doesn't even work in the winter here, even if there is a frosty/gravelly haze on the road in the middle. And winter is ALWAYS. Fail!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So people think they can get in their car and set a direction and set a speed and it will go there. Thus making Autopilot a BAD FUCKING NAME.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It's actually a level 3 system with Navigate on Autopilot (e.g. makes lane changes, takes exits, etc).
No. That's not level 3. Level 3 is where you don't have to pay attention to it any more. You can read a book or watch a movie while it drives, and when it needs you to take over it will notify you and you have a reasonable amount of time to stop whatever you are doing, take in the situation and start controlling the car.
They're describing what's presently available, which is not FSD, as if that's what's being offered as FSD. Which is just ridiculous.
No. Tesla are selling "Full Self Driving" today. You can go and buy a car with it on their web site right now. And this is how Tesla describes it:
- Navigate on autopilot
- Autopark
- Summon
- Recognize traffic lights and stop signs (coming "later")
- Automatic driving on city streets (coming "later")
That last one is untrue. It will be level 2, drive required to pay babysit it at all times. And none of it is "full self driving".
It seems like they are doing this to try to avoid the lawsuits over not delivering the full self driving that they started selling way back in 2016. They promised you could summon the car from the other side of the country, and it would drive thousands of miles and recharge itself. They promised you could get in, do nothing and it would take you to work, then go off and find a parking spot.
None of what they have announced is "full self driving" by their own standard, let along any reasonable person's definition.
that the car can drive in all situations on its own, but you still need a human monitoring it (aka, level 4 autonomy),
That's level 2. To get above level 2 the car has to be able to operate without supervision. Furthermore, to be able to handle "all situations on its own" is level 5. That's not what Tesla are offering, they are only claiming city streets, and even that isn't true.
Also note that in their last filing Tesla said they did zero autonomous miles in the last year.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Musk doesn't mind taking risks, [with other people's lives]
FTFY
I'm sure it works reliably. The problem is that it is the worst kind of automation. It doesn't require your attention until something urgent happens, which means you're very likely to be fatally distracted doing something else. And it will de-skill the operators so they will quickly forget how to actually drive on the highway themselves.
Anyone using these self-drive systems is setting themselves and people around them up to die.
Assuming you survive... It looks like there was yet another case of Autopilot decapitating a driver due to not seeing a trailer last week.
That's a bit one sided. Last week there were 35 deaths in the UK on the roads caused by good old-fashioned human drivers.
Self driving cars are *never* going to be perfect. And they're going to make mistakes that a fully alert, attentive, skilled driver would never make. But overall how many drivers are any of those things? What about all those overconfident[*], sleep deprived drivers yelling at their kids?
What you never hear of is the time when the human driver would have got decapitated by a trailer due to not watching the road, but the autopilot didn't make a mistake and everyone carried on as normal not noticing.
Statistics will tell us if self driving cars or even autopilots are better than human drivers. I *strongly* suspect they are. Every time I venture on to the road and encounter the usual array of the clueless, the careless, the phone-users, boy racers, texters, fuckwits, arsholes, dickheads, white van men, and Audi drivers I can't help thinking that even crappy autonomous cars would be a step up.
Calling it "autopilot" was a mistake,
In hindsight perhaps? In practice it does much of what an autopilot does. You set it, and it basically flies/drives the thing for you except you're supposed to be paying attention and in control all the time, it can't do every situation and you're meant to take over if things get too hard. Apparently though most people don't know what autopilots in aircraft do.
[*]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority#Driving_ability
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's a shame they don't release any stats on how often people have to intervene to stop Autopilot killing them. Maybe it is reasonably safe, but it seems to have persistent problems with two things that Tesla has been unable to fix.
1. Trailers, just can't see them it seems
2. Forks in the road, it picks one way at random and occasionally goes down the middle
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Ok well I guess we'll see how they do first blizzard then. They may be in the ditch with the first and second year drivers.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
No. $35k before gas savings and credits. For a US buyer the MSRP minus credits is at most $31250, and depending on state credits, as little as $26250 (Colorado has the best state credits in the US). Then there's gas savings on top of that.
See for yourself. "LOL".
All of you people who've been shouting for the past year, "Tesla will never release a $35k MSRP Model 3!", take a lesson in humility from this.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
No. That's Level 4. Level 3 by and large drives on its own, but can require the driver to take over at a moment's notice. Level 4 can encounter situations where it doesn't know how to handle them, but can safely get out of them without driver intervention. Level 5 never encounters situations that it doesn't know how to handle.
You cannot "read a book or watch a movie while it drives" in a Level 3 system. Quote: "Able to detect the environment around them, level 3 vehicles contain the lowest-tier system that is classified as an automated driving system as opposed to a manual system. With this more advanced technology, level 3 vehicles can make informed decisions for themselves such as overtaking slower moving vehicles. However, unlike the higher rated autonomous vehicles, human override is required when the machine is unable to execute the task at hand or the system fails."
EAP is a Level 3 system, and has been since NoA was released. Tesla states that it expects to be to level 4 (not 5) by the end of the year.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
The woman who drove into the parked fire truck at highway speeds did not die, she had only a broken ankle - which is a remarkable testament to how safe the vehicle is built.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?