[oaw-bct-ar-bamf]

In my opinion the underlying assumption autopilots are built with are wrong. It is assumed that the road is free to drive on.

Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around.

I would feel safer if the algorithm would assume the negative case as default and only give the „green light“ once it determined that the road is free to drive on. In case of unknown (not yet supervised) road obstructions the worst needs to be assumed.

That’s where the ‚unexplainable‘ crashes are coming from. Something the size of an actual truck is obstructing the road. But couldn’t quite classify it because the truck has tipped over and is lying on the road sideways. Not yet learned by the algorithm. Can't be that bad, green light, no need to avoid or brake.

[sangnoir]

> Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around.

The problem with Tesla's "No LIDAR ever, cameras are good enough" approach is that it fails to detect emergency vehicles: they filter out stationary items out of radar signal as noise[1],and Tesla's ML models probably can't reliably identify oblique vehicles and semi trailers as obstacles.

1. Makes sense in isolation: frequent radar returns from roadside and overhead signs would be a pain to deal with

[je42]

Probably an artifact of the older versions.

See the Tesla AI Day. I expect the new stuff to deal with this a lot better.

[Varriount]

What is the reasoning behind "no lidar"? Cost?

[MaxikCZ]

The stated reason is "your eyes dont shoot lasers, so a camera is good enough". But the implied reason is cost for sure. With how fast the price of lidar drops, and its abilities increase (think solid state lidar), I wonder how long until first tesla with lidar rolls down the production line, or if Elon is too proud to ever allow that

[quartesixte]

> It is assumed that the road is free to drive on.

Trying to remember if the opposite of this is how human drivers are taught, or if this is implicit in how we move about the world. My initial gut reaction says yes and this is a great phrasing of something that was always bothering me about automated driving.

Perhaps we should model our autopilots after horses: refusal to move against anything unfamiliar, and biased towards going back home on familiar routes.

[cameron_b]

In my high school’s Drivers Ed class I distinctly remember the one-question pop quiz: “What is the most dangerous mile of road?”

The answer was “the mile in front of you”

Additionally there was some statistic about the frequency of accidents within a very short distance of the drivers residence, which seemed to underscore the importance of being aware of just how much your brain filters out the “familiar” in contrast to a newly stimulating environment.

[jiscariot]

I had always assumed the "close to home" numbers were just bad statistics, because I never saw them control for % of driving that was done "close to home".

If I google it, I get like three pages of law firms.

[Animats]

In my opinion the underlying assumption autopilots are built with are wrong. It is assumed that the road is free to drive on. Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. I would feel safer if the algorithm would assume the negative case as default and only give the „green light“ once it determined that the road is free to drive on.

I agree, but it will up the false alarm rate in a system without good depth perception for all objects. This is tough with cameras only. Reflective puddles are a problem; they're hard to range with vision only. Anything that doesn't range well, which is most very uniform surfaces, becomes a reason to slow down. As you get closer, the sensor data gets better and you can usually decide it's safe to proceed.

Off-road autonomous vehicles have to work that way, but on-road ones can be more optimistic.

Waymo takes a hard line on this, and their vehicles drive rather conservatively as a result. They do have false-alarm problems and slowdowns around trouble spots.

[oaw-bct-ar-bamf]

Would you rather optimize for a faster overall fleet, or a fleet with stress free driving, no incidents, no need to intervene or be to be worried.

If the system gets faster over time, even better. But I cannot imagine huge adoption unless the system gets actually reliable. I am pretty much in favor of the Waymo approach.

[oaw-bct-ar-bamf]

Having high false positive results with only single or dual sensors only shows how ‚bad‘ we still are with controlled secure automated driving.

[willcipriano]

I agree. In the north east at least pothole avoidance is a critically important skill. Any "autopilot" without it would be fairly useless around me as I'd have to take over every 30 seconds to not end up with a flat tire. I have adaptive cruse control and that's about as far as I'll trust a computer to drive given the current tech.