
Musk: Tesla Full Self-Driving is going to have 'quantum leap' with new rewrite - evo_9
https://electrek.co/2020/08/14/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-driving-quantum-leap-new-rewrite/
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jklm
I find it interesting that people equate/equated Elon Musk with Tony Stark.
Years in the future, I think there’s a good chance people will look back and
instead recognize him as an incredibly talented salesperson.

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electriclove
I find it interesting how polarizing he is to many people. Why is it hard to
accept he has many flaws and strong suits?

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api
Years ago when he acquired a cult of personality and could do no wrong, I knew
it was going to swing the other way.

I never subscribed to either view. He's a brilliant engineer and a talented
businessman with some apparently significant personality flaws or emotional
regulation issues. In other words he's human.

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xkjkls
The problem with alot of people isn't the emotional regulation; it's the way
he runs his businesses. He embraces a fake-it-till-you make it mindset to a
huge degree. He's done so many things that are either fraud, near-fraud, or
completely dishonest that it makes it impossible to support someone like that
in his position.

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solidasparagus
Musk makes me nervous that he and his team are going to push too far and too
fast with putting self-driving in the hands of real users and the ensuing
disaster/public outcry is going to be cataclysmic to the self-driving field.
The whole "automatically have your car come to where you are in the parking
lot" was a great example of an obvious disaster in the making that they made
public anyway. I hope I'm wrong.

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canada_dry
While the potential excites me (self-driving cars can't come fast enough IMHO
- I despise driving) I agree.

Tesla has been given an incredibly _long rope_ by regulators and it'll just
take a really terrible accident or two to bring it all to a screeching halt.

It's hard to imagine Elon _not_ realizing this, but the incessant drive to the
endgame may cloud his judgement.

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toomuchtodo
~33k people a year (About 90 per day) die in car accidents in the US because
of humans. It’s us who have been given the long rope

There have been _four_ deaths while Autopilot was engaged [1], almost all
because the drivers weren’t paying attention. Autopilot has been used for 3
billion miles, 1 billion with Navigate on Autopilot (automatic passing and
interchange routing), and 200,000 automated lane changes [2]. Is this not
impressive?

Yes, self driving is hard. Yes, there will be fatalities due to edge cases. It
is unreasonable to confine the tech to a test track until it’s perfect,
considering the human incurred death rate as it stands. We should be racing to
take the person out of the driver’s seat.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-
driving_car_fatal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-
driving_car_fatalities)

[2] [https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-
data-3-billio...](https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-
data-3-billion-miles/)

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thebruce87m
The stats you give for human-driven deaths are for all conditions and all
roads. Autopilot does not work in all conditions and all roads, so it’s not
really a fair comparison.

Further to that, human deaths will be skewed towards drunk drivers and other
“bad” drivers. Autopilot deaths will be “random”, so public perception will be
worse even if the figures were exactly the same.

The other problem is complacency - the Apple software engineer had 2 seconds
from his Tesla leaving the road to it hitting the gore point - and this was a
bug he was aware of. If the car looks like it’s 100% infallible then peoples
attention will naturally waver. How long does it take to react to a situation?
Feel the weight of the steering again? Calculate the appropriate correction?

I think the system that replaces human drivers has to be 100 times better in
terms of fatalities in order to be accepted by society.

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chub500
Although I am concerned about safety and deeply skeptical of the Tesla self-
driving claims, if the stats GP presented are to be believed at face value
then a lot of your points are irrelevant. While society may not accept self
driving until it is 100x safer it would be to their own deadly detriment...
human beings are extremely bad at rationally managing risk.

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peacefulhat
> Almost at zero interventions

"Almost" doing a lot of work here.

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jasongill
Plus, it seems like the fewer interventions are needed without being zero, the
more dangerous the system might be. I can see being lulled into a false sense
of security if you have to do nothing most of the time - it's the times you
need to do something (especially quickly) that you won't be paying attention
and you end up under the semi or in the barrier.

Exciting, but literally "bleeding edge" stuff here.

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gundmc
This is why I think Waymo got it right that they were never going to market
with level 3 self driving. You can't reasonably expect people to pay attention
all the time when it works on its own 99.7% of the time.

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iamleppert
What is the legality of using an alpha quality build of autonomous driving
software on a public road? The other drivers on the road obviously haven’t
given their consent.

If I could prove I was on the road when he was and he passed me while his
alpha software was running could I get a lawyer and sue?

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gundmc
IANAL, but I don't see how you would have standing to sue if he simply passed
you on the road. If he crashed into you, sure.

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dopylitty
Quantum leap straight into the side of a firetruck.

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tdeck
The Sinclair QL was the first thing I thought of.

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Cactus2018
> “The Full Self-Driving improvement will come as a quantum leap, because it’s
> a fundamental architectural rewrite, not an incremental tweak. I drive the
> bleeding edge alpha build in my car personally. Almost at zero interventions
> between home & work. Limited public release in 6 to 10 weeks.”

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patagurbon
>Limited public release in 6 to 10 weeks

The degree to which he is willing to let the public test this software is
disturbing. Sure, on the highway it may be safer than the average human. But
going from any sort of alpha to a public release in 6-10 weeks on something
this dangerous is nothing short of insane.

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enchiridion
Why? It seems that number of miles, not time alone, should dictate when it is
released.

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anongoesprivate
i dont know the legal barriers or if some one tried it before, but self
driving cars should train their model in Indian traffic with a human
supervision , the traffic is very unpredictable and mostly experienced humans
who have driven there long has nailed how to drive there, it will give some
interesting data points

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jelder
So, the smallest measurable change?

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chmaynard
Note to Tesla board: Your CEO stopped taking his meds again. Time to change
the password on his Twitter account.

