Still A Few Bugs In The System!

[Minimalist]

Self Driving car causes crash......


https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesl...autopilot/

Surveillance Footage of Tesla Crash on SF’s Bay Bridge Hours After Elon Musk Announces “Self-Driving” Feature

Musk has said Tesla’s problematic autopilot features are “really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”

You couldn't get me on Musk's space ship for all the gold in Fort Knox.

[Fireball]

That's far from the first time the auto-driving-auto has been in a crash. Credit where credit is due, Musk seems to be able to get some really talented people to work on things. He's stood on the shoulders of giants, most of the time. One thing that stands out is landing a launch booster back on earth, autonomously. I would venture to guess that he was only the person providing the capital, but that's Buck Rogers- worthy cool.

[Thumpalumpacus]

That's far from the first time the auto-driving-auto has been in a crash. Credit where credit is due, Musk seems to be able to get some really talented people to work on things. He's stood on the shoulders of giants, most of the time. One thing that stands out is landing a launch booster back on earth, autonomously. I would venture to guess that he was only the person providing the capital, but that's Buck Rogers- worthy cool.

Predicting the actions of other human drivers has got to be a lot harder than predicting Earthly rotation and measuring windspeeds and descent velocity.

[airportkid]

Self Driving car causes crash ...

The video shows the Tesla slowing down, signaling its change to the closest outer lane (adjacent traffic only on one side), and coming to a stop.  It behaved exactly as a driver with a stalled engine would (and should) react.  The following car, which was following too closely, struck the Tesla, but not violently, as its driver was already aware of the impending obstruction and trying to stop.  The rest of the pileup was NOT caused by the Tesla, but by idiot drivers following too closely at speed NOT paying attention to conditions BEYOND the vehicle immediately in front of them and being surprised by the abrupt obstruction.  Pileups like this are very common and cannot be blamed on the fact that a car had a problem and was forced to a stop.

Jeering at the concept of a driverless car reflects the same myopic cynicism that aircraft autopilot development faced.  Today autopilots are BY LAW required to make the landing in visibility conditions beyond the human ability to react properly.  Driverless vehicle technology will, I hope, eventually prove so superior to human drivers it will be illegal to manually drive a car in certain congested traffic areas.  Only a moron with a death wish would insist that keeping all car operation in human hands is better than having computer controlled traffic management.

[no one]

Poor car has ants in their pants.

[Minimalist]

The video shows the Tesla slowing down, signaling its change to the closest outer lane (adjacent traffic only on one side), and coming to a stop.   It behaved exactly as a driver with a stalled engine would (and should) react.

Well, except for the fact that the human "driver" did not report that the car stalled.  He said "The driver told police that he had been using Tesla’s new “Full Self-Driving” feature, the report notes, before the Tesla’s “left signal activated” and its “brakes activated,” and it moved into the left lane, “slowing to a stop directly in [the second vehicle’s] path of travel.”

They were all lucky that the second car was paying attention.  Suddenly moving into the fast lane can have devastating consequences.... especially since human drivers can be just as distracted as computer-controlled ones.  I suspect there will be some lawsuits filed against Tesla.

[Bucky Ball]

I've only ridden in a Tesla, and the driver kept his hands on (sort of) the wheel. He wouldn't have had to.
It performed well, and the screen in the front did show where everything in the vicinity was, and was moving.
It seems it's a work in progress, but personally I would never trust it to see every eventuality.
I don't really get the "point", except as an aide to all the inattentive drivers.
EVERY time at a stop light when traffic doesn't start moving, without fail, someone is on their FUCKING PHONE.

[rocinantexyz]

Teslas don't use radar. They try to identify everything visually with a computer, so when that fails, sometimes they ram at full speeds into solid objects that cheap radar could have easily detected. The unadvertised features of my budget Hyundai are better at recognizing other cars than a Tesla, imo.

[skyking]

Our 2019 VW has adaptive cruise control and early on, the radar was defeated by heavy rain. YMMV on all this tech.
Once I shut it off and started again the system worked and the caution light went out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You couldn't get me on Musk's space ship for all the gold in Fort Knox.

You made me sad.

[Cavebear]

Self Driving car causes crash......


https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesl...autopilot/

Surveillance Footage of Tesla Crash on SF’s Bay Bridge Hours After Elon Musk Announces “Self-Driving” Feature

Musk has said Tesla’s problematic autopilot features are “really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”

You couldn't get me on Musk's space ship for all the gold in Fort Knox.

Nor could you get me in a self-driving car!

[Cavebear]

That's far from the first time the auto-driving-auto has been in a crash. Credit where credit is due, Musk seems to be able to get some really talented people to work on things. He's stood on the shoulders of giants, most of the time. One thing that stands out is landing a launch booster back on earth, autonomously. I would venture to guess that he was only the person providing the capital, but that's Buck Rogers- worthy cool.

Some day, but not in the next few years. I'm still waiting for the really good EV. They are getting better, but not quite there yet. Tech has to improve and costs come down. More fast-charging stations are needed. And I need towing-capacity. Some of that is real but needs improvement. But I feel very hopeful for the near-future. My last car will almost certainly be an EV at an affordable price.

[Bucky Ball]

Our condo doesn't have a recharge post yet, to say nothing about many.
Every time I bring it up at association meetings, I get the evil eye.
Is this normal, in other's experience.

[airportkid]

... Nor could you get me in a self-driving car ... !

Do you avoid flying in airliners with autopilots?  Do you avoid medical practitioners who use diagnostic software?  Do you avoid automobiles with computer controlled anti-skid braking?  Do you avoid financial transactions that are conducted by computers?

Your prejudice is not supported by facts.

Perhaps the predominant argument levied against computer controlled driving is that the programmers (and therefore the computer) can't foresee every contingency.

That's very true.

People can't either!

Not only can't people foresee every contingency, our brains aren't structured to do it effectively.  We are easily distracted.  We often see what we expect to see, not the actual situation.  We believe a deadly myth that we can "multi-task".

A computer is not crippled by these factors.  So while on rare occasions a computer would be confronted by a novel circumstance, it doesn't get distracted, it isn't blinded by emotion or expectation, and, most important, its judgement is objective, and fast.

Most mishaps involving people in control are the product of bad judgement, incorrectly assessed measures such as speed and distance, and decisions based on belief and emotion.  A computer is hampered by none of these.  Plus it has virtually instantaneous reaction time, and precise application of just the correct amount of control deflection.

Yes, there will be accidents whose source is the fact that a computer was in control.  But such accidents will be very rare.  Meanwhile tens of thousands of accidents WON'T happen because a computer was in control.  That's the trade-off.  Few accidents, or what we have now, tens of thousands of them.  Your prejudice would preserve the status quo and accidents would continue to pile up.

[Cavebear]

... Nor could you get me in a self-driving car ... !

Do you avoid flying in airliners with autopilots?  Do you avoid medical practitioners who use diagnostic software?  Do you avoid automobiles with computer controlled anti-skid braking?  Do you avoid financial transactions that are conducted by computers?

Your prejudice is not supported by facts.

Perhaps the predominant argument levied against computer controlled driving is that the programmers (and therefore the computer) can't foresee every contingency.

That's very true.

People can't either!

Not only can't people foresee every contingency, our brains aren't structured to do it effectively.  We are easily distracted.  We often see what we expect to see, not the actual situation.  We believe a deadly myth that we can "multi-task".

A computer is not crippled by these factors.  So while on rare occasions a computer would be confronted by a novel circumstance, it doesn't get distracted, it isn't blinded by emotion or expectation, and, most important, its judgement is objective, and fast.

Most mishaps involving people in control are the product of bad judgement, incorrectly assessed measures such as speed and distance, and decisions based on belief and emotion.  A computer is hampered by none of these.  Plus it has virtually instantaneous reaction time, and precise application of just the correct amount of control deflection.

Yes, there will be accidents whose source is the fact that a computer was in control.  But such accidents will be very rare.  Meanwhile tens of thousands of accidents WON'T happen because a computer was in control.  That's the trade-off.  Few accidents, or what we have now, tens of thousands of them.  Your prejudice would preserve the status quo and accidents would continue to pile up.

I would have avoided those things when they were new and unproven. I'm not an Alpha user, nor even a Beta. I'm more of a Gamma... And the closest I get to multi-tasking is listening to the TV news while eating dinner. I have never used my smartphone while driving (except for spoken GPS directions). I may be one of the most defensive drivers you will ever know.

[Chas]

Our 2019 VW has adaptive cruise control and early on, the radar was defeated by heavy rain. YMMV on all this tech.
Once I shut it off and started again the system worked and the caution light went out.

Software by Microsoft? 

[Fireball]

Microsoft.  iTunes quit working the other day and I went through several hoops to get it working, to no avail. The system updated and rebooted; iTunes works again.

[rocinantexyz]

I have never used my smartphone while driving (except for spoken GPS directions).  I may be one of the most defensive drivers you will ever know.

I tried to read a text while idling at about 5mph in a parking lot; I almost crashed. I don't use my phone while the car is moving anymore.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Speaking of bugs in the system:

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (AP) — SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off Thursday on it first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites.

Images showed multiple engines weren’t working on the 33-engine rocket as it climbed from the launch pad, reaching as high as 24 miles (39 kilometers.)

The flight plan had called for the booster to peel away from the spacecraft minutes after liftoff, but that didn’t happen. The rocket began to tumble and then exploded four minutes into the flight, plummeting into the gulf.

https://thehill.com/homenews/space/space...st-rocket/

Good luck synchronizing 33 engines.

[Minimalist]

BA-BOOM!!

What can you expect from the asshole who blew up Twitter?

[Inkubus]

Reusable rockets are indeed a pretty neat idea but when you need to rebuild the pad after every launch, not so much.



And that's with at least 8 of 33 engines failing to ignite, if they had all fired then the acoustic shock waves would have destroyed the thing, and this is after the dumb bastard was repeatedly told it needed a flame trench and water deluge suppression.

[Rhythmcs]

Elon is directly responsible for the decision to build a substandard pad just as he's directly responsible for reducing the sensor package of teslas leading to a high rate of autonomous accidents. In both cases he very publicly overrode his own engineers. It's funny, the myth of Elon is built out of the idea that he genius brains over the whining of his employees but in any actual example of that, it's a shitshow.

[Inkubus]

I wonder if some time in the future there will much debate:

Historical Elon, Mythical Elon.

Are they one in the same, the same thing.
I believe they are the same thing.
any dissenters?
please explain.

[Cavebear]

I admire the attempt (and with private money too). But until it works 10 times perfectly, it's a "no-go" for human launch...

[rocinantexyz]

Predicting the actions of other human drivers has got to be a lot harder than predicting  Earthly rotation and measuring windspeeds and descent velocity.

It is a lot easier if the computer knows (can measure) where the other cars/obstacles are (with radar). Tesla's don't use radar, they have an AI that tries to identify everything visually with a camera, and when that inevitably fails...