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Comment on Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day

LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I am entirely opposed to driving algorithms. Autopilot on planes works very well because it is used in open sky and does not have to make major decisions about moving in close proximity to other planes and obstacles. Its almost entirely mathematical, and even then in specific circumstances it is designed to disengage and put control back in the hands of a human.

Cars do not have this luxury and operate entirely in close proximity to other vehicles and obstacles. Very little of the act of driving a car is math. It’s almost entirely decision making. It requires fast and instinctive response to subtle changes in environment, pattern recognition that human brains are better at than algorithms.

To me this technology perfectly encapsulates the difficulty in making algorithms that mimic human behavior. The last 10% of optimization to make par with humans requires an exponential amount more energy and research than the first 90% does. 90% of the performance of a human is entirely insufficient where life and death is concerned.

Investment costs should be going to public transport systems. They are more cost efficient, more accessible, more fuel/resource efficient, and far far far safer than cars could ever be even with all human drivers. This is a colossal waste of energy time and money for a product that will not be par with human performance for a long time. Those resources could be making our world more accessible for everyone, instead they’re making it more accessible for no one and making the roads significantly more dangerous. Capitalism will be the end of us all if we let them. Sorry that train and bus infrastructure isnt “flashy enough” for you. You clearly havent seen the public transport systems in Beijing. The technology we have here is decades behind and so underfunded its infuriating.

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ComfortablyDumb@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This technology purely exists to make human drivers redundant and put the money in the hands of big tech and eventually the ruling class composed off of politicians risk averse capitalists and beurocracy. There is no other explanation for robo taxis to exist. There are better solution like trains and metros which can solve the movement of people from point A to point B easily. It does not come with a 3x-10x capital growth that making human drivers redundant will for the big tech companies.

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- Red_October@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  This technology purely exists to make human drivers redundant and put the money in the hands of big tech and eventually the ruling class composed off of politicians risk averse capitalists and beurocracy. There is no other explanation for robo taxis to exist.
  
  There is another reason, though, and it’s much simpler. Basic greed.
  
  There are people who see the opportunity to make more money for themselves, so they’ll do it. When it comes to robo taxis, they’re not interested in class struggles, it’s not about politics, their interest in making human drivers redundant extends only so far as increasing their customer base. These aren’t Machiavellian schemers rubbing their hands together and cackling at their dark designs coming to fruition, it’s just assholes in suits who’s one and only concern is “number go up.”
  
  Even when it comes to their politics and to the class dynamics, their end goal is always the same. Number go up. They don’t care about what harm it could do. They’re not intent on deliberately doing more harm, they give no thought to doing less harm, they do not care. All that drives them, ever, is Number Go Up.
  
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  - baggachipz@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    You got downvoted but you’re right. The only cabal at work here is basic human greed. Anytime you want to know why people do something, consider the motivation of the person and the incentives. Musk constantly talks about how autonomy will make his company worth “trillions”, and he wants that because he’ll keep maxing the high score in Billionaire Bastard Bacchanalia.
    
    He can claim noble intentions, but as you said, the game is simply to make Number Go Up. That it causes untold harm to others isn’t even an afterthought.
    
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Ronno@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Public transport systems are just part of a mobility solution, but it isn’t viable to have that everywhere. Heck, even here in The Netherlands, a country the size of a post stamp, public transport doesn’t work outside of the major cities. So basically, outside of the cities, we are also relying on cars.

Therefore, I do believe there will be a place for autonomous driving in the future of mobility and that it has the potential to reduce number of accidents, traffic jams and parking problems while increasing the average speed we drive around with.

The only thing that has me a bit worried is Tesla’s approach to autonomous driving, fully relying on the camera system. Somehow, Musk believes a camera system is superior to human vision, while it’s not. I drive a Tesla (yeah, I know) and if the conditions aren’t perfect, the car disables "safety’ features, like lane assist. For instance when it’s raining heavily or when the sun is shining directly into the camera lenses. This must be a key reason in choosing Austin for the demo/rollout.

Meanwhile, we see what other manufacturers use and how they are progressing. For instance, BMW and Mercedes are doing well with their systems, which are a blend of cameras and sensors. To me, that does seem like the way to go to introduce autonomous driving safely.

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- sykaster@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  There’s usually buses from villages into the major cities though, it live in one and there’s a bus every hour to go to a nearby city, from where I can then take a train. I wouldn’t say it’s that bad
  
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  - Ronno@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Depends on how far you live from the city I guess, where I live it’s 2 hours to major cities. But anyways, 1 hr wait to get somewhere doesn’t feel desirable to me. It just doesn’t provide enough coverage to fully replace a car.
    
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- bitwolf@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I believe Austin was chosen because they’re fairly lax about the regulations and safety requirements.
  
  Waymo already got the deal in Cali. And Cali seems much more strict. Austin is offering them faster time to market as the cost of civilian safety.
  
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jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’ve been saying for years that focusing on self driving cars is solving the wrong problem. The problem is so many people need their own personal car at all.

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- LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Exactly. Bring back trams, build less suburbs, better apartment housing. If we want a society reorganized around accessibility then let’s actually build that.
  
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markovs_gun@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
While I agree focusing on public transport is a better idea, it’s completely absurd to say machines can never possibly drive as well as humans. It’s like saying a soul is required or other superstitious nonsense like that. Imagine the hypothetical case in which a supercomputer that perfectly emulates a human brain is what we are trying to teach to drive. Do you think that couldn’t drive? If so, you’re saying a soul is what allows a human to drive, and may as well be saying that God hath uniquely imbued us with the ability to drive. If you do think that could drive, then surely a slightly less powerful computer could. And maybe one less powerful than that. So somewhere between a casio solar calculator and an emulated human brain must be able to learn to drive. Maybe that’s beyond where we’re at now (I don’t necessarily think it is) but it’s certainly not impossible just out of principle. Ultimately, you are a computer at the end of the day.

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- LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I never did say it wouldn’t ever be possible. Just that it will take a long time to reach par with humans. Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different. Theres more than just the mechanical act itself.
  
  The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant. With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.
  
  I just don’t see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.
  
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  - markovs_gun@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different
    
    This is one of the problems driving automation solves trivially when applied at scale. Machines will follow the same rules regardless of where they are which is better for everyone
    
    The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant
    
    You’d shit yourself if you knew how many life threatening machines are already controlled by computers far simpler than anything in a self driving car. Industrially, we have learned the lesson that computers, even ones running on extremely simple logic, just completely outclass humans on safety because they do the same thing every time. There are giant chemical manufacturing facilities that are run by a couple guys in a control room that watch a screen because 99% of it is already automated. I’m talking thousands of gallons an hour of hazardous, poisonous, flammable materials running through a system run on 20 year old computers. Water chemical additions at your local water treatment plant that could kill thousands of people if done wrong, all controlled by machines because we know they’re more reliable than humans
    
    With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.
    
    A machine can’t drink a handle of vodka and get behind the wheel, nor can it drive home sobbing after a rough breakup and be unable to process information properly. You can also update all of them all at once instead of dealing with PSA canpaigns telling people not to do something that got someone killed. Self driving car makes a mistake? You don’t have to guess what was going through its head, it has a log. Figure out how to fix it? Guess what, they’re all fixed with the same software update. If a human makes that mistake, thousands of people will keep making that same mistake until cars or roads are redesigned and those changes have a way to filter through all of society.
    
    I just don’t see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.
    
    This is a valid point, but this doesn’t have to be either/or. Cars have a great utility even in a system with public transit. People and freight have to get from the rail station or port to wherever they need to go somehow, even in a utopia with a perfect public transit system. We can do both, we’re just choosing not to in America, and it’s not like self driving cars are intrinsically opposed to public transit just by existing.
    
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    LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    What are you anticipating for the automated driving adoption rate? I’m expecting extremely low as most people cannot afford new cars. We are talking probably decades before there are enough automated driving cars to fundamentally alter traffic in such a way as to entirely eliminate human driving culture.
    
    In response to the “humans are fallible” bit ill remark again that algorithms are very fallible. Statistically, even. And while lots of automated algorithms are controlling life and death machines, try justifying that to someone who’s entire family is killed by an AI. How do they even receive compensation for that? Who is at fault? A family died. With human drivers we can ascribe fault very easily. With automated algorithms fault is less easily ascribed and the public writ large is going to have a much harder time accepting that.
    
    Also, with natural gas and other systems there are far fewer variables than a busy freeway. There’s a reason why it hasn’t happened until recently. Hundreds of humans all in control of large vehicles moving in a long line at speed is a very complicated environment with many factors to consider. How accurately will algorithms be able to infer driving intent based on subtle movement of vehicles in front of and behind it? How accurate is the situational awareness of an algorithm, especially when combined road factors are involved?
    
    Its just not as simple as its being made out to be. This isnt a chess problem, its not a question of controlling train cars on set tracks with fixed timetables and universal controllers. The way cars exist presently is very, very open ended. I agree that if 80+% of road vehicles were automated it would have such an impact on road culture as to standardize certain behaviors. But we are very, very far away from that in North America. Most of the people in my area are driving cars from the early 2010s. Its going to be at least a decade before any sizable amount of vehicles are current year models. And until then algorithms have these obstacles that cannot easily be overcome.
    
    Its like I said earlier, the last 10% of optimization requires an exponentially larger amount of energy and development than the first 90% does. Its the same problem faced with other forms of automation. And a difference of 10% in terms of performance is… huge when it comes to road vehicles.
    
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bitwolf@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I always have the same thought when I see self driving taxi news.

“Americans will go bankrupt trying to prop up the auto/gas industries rather than simply building a train”.

And it’s true. So much money is being burned on a subpar and dangerous product. Yet we’ve just cut and cancelled extremely beneficial high speed rail projects that were overwhelmingly voted for by the people.

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