Humans are terrible drivers, and even the human brain's reasoning capability is still light years ahead of anything Tesla is capable of shipping.
The advantage of machines is not that they have better brains than humans, but that they have better senses than humans, which is an advantage that goes out the window when you obstinately refuse to use better sensors than merely cameras "because that's what humans use".
That hasn't been my experience in a self driving Tesla. Against a setting sun in stop and go traffic on the freeway it was far better able to sense the road than a human alone and I think it has a lot of redundancy as well as views into all directions.
The goal is to be better than, not equivalent to, humans-- right?
I work on a synthetic aperture radar system that is high-resolution enough to "see" the painted stripes on roads through fog and a thin layer of snow.
It's not for automotive use and would increase the price of every car by several hundred thousand dollars but a fusion of multi-spectrum sensors should be the direction we are headed-- not a minimally-viable mono-sensor system.
Its enough to be as good as a responsible human driver, but consistently. The AI is never going to be tired, distracted, angry, drunk, and so on. Drivers not bringing their A-game is probably the most common reason for accidents.
New automobiles are available for the same price they’ve always been.
For proof I offer the price of the 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, the least expensive new car for sale in the US market for almost its entire sales history: $1800. That’s for one with zero options. A rolling chassis with four seats and a motor.
That’s $16k today. Coincidentally the same price of the Nissan Versa or Mitsubishi Mirage: with backup camera, air conditioning, and airbags.
People don’t WANT the cheap cars, though.
I know the average price of a new car has exploded.
That is a conscious choice by the consumer.
When production of autonomous tech scales it won’t increase costs as much as people assume.
And a human with centimeter depth perception could drive far better. The goal of an autonomous car isn't to replicate human driving, it is to drive safely, accurately and in accordance to the laws.
This is extremely important to remember, especially when Tesla describe their neural net approach as being easily fine-tuned to different jurisdictions.
I’ve seen the “human-like” behaviour of FSD 12.x praised a lot by channels like this, particularly where the car is breaking the rules in a way they consider “normal”. And it’s a fair argument that predictable behaviour improves safety.
However, behaviour that is common in the US - like making a turn into a side street while a pedestrian is beginning to cross - would be considered exceptionally aggressive and reckless here in Australia. It’s a cultural difference I’ve adapted to when moving back and forth.
At the end of the day though, when I walk across a street, I don’t want to have to worry if Tesla has fine tuned their model correctly to match our local expectations of yielding. I’d rather they just followed the law as closely as possible - because that’s the most predictable behaviour of all.
