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Comment by CookWithMe | Hacker News Reader

Their marketing claim of "Full Self-Driving Hardware" is evil-genius - it's very similar to the Halting problem[0] - Turing proofed that we can not develop an algorithm that can predict whether any program will eventually halt.

It's very similar with this marketing claim. We can never show that the hardware is not capable of being self-driving. Maybe, someone, at some point in the future, could pull it off. Even if the rest of the industry uses Lidar, beefier chips etc., it is not proof that it can not be done with that hardware. Tesla can keep playing that game, until virtually no one owns the current generation of cars anymore.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

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I think it's very different from the halting problem because there is no perfect solution (like there is with "either the problem halts or it does not"). A self-driving car just needs to be good enough, where "good enough" means X% more reliable than the average human driver.

I personally am terrified of human drivers and will not walk close to the edge of a road because I don't trust them to be paying attention. As shown recently, self-driving cars appear to not yet be at that level (though I don't know the numbers - perhaps they are).

When self-driving cars reliably have same-or-few accidents per year (by volume) then I think they can claim "Full Self-Driving".

Humans write the software the power those self driving cars... was it an error that always repeated it self or did only happen every billion iterations? I’m all for self driving but it’s still horrifying to think of the edge cases with software touching the physical world...

It's moreso the cases where the ML model(s) fail(s) to perform the correct action. Essentially the inputs after being passed through the weighted neural network fail to sum up to the correct number == rip pedestrian/passengers.

What's really scary about self-driving cars is that defects can be global.

One software bug can make every Tesla go into casual murder mode on a similar piece of road.

No, it isn't related to the halting problem. Sigh.

Right, it's just a plain old unfalsifiable claim. Sure, still pretty fishy but not related to the halting problem.

Eh. The phrase "technically correct" comes to mind. Sure, it won't be formally disproven, but if Tesla doesn't deliver FSD while these cars are on the road, that will definitely (and very rightfully) be seen as an inability to deliver.

Also, I think the conversation about Lidar in this article (and perhaps among some readers here) misses a key point. Elon doesn't think merely that one can build a Level 4 car without Lidar; he thinks it's vastly preferable for a Level 4 car not to have any dependency on Lidar -- not only for cost reasons, but also for performance in degraded atmospheric conditions (rain, snow, fog, etc.). It's a difference in strategy, not merely an attempt to do more with less.

Visibility range and quality of pictures in degraded atmospheric conditions also goes down significantly. Not sure if it can be an argument for Lidar vs Cameras discussion.

You used the work Marketing. The moment it is called Autopilot, the general population will believe it is so.

A thousand disclaimers and alerts will not be remembered 10 days later, but the word Autopilot will stick. People hear auto-pilot and they think airplanes flying 100% autonomously (which of course is not the case).

As long as that name stands, people will be doing stupid and dangerous things like watching Harry Potter, or anything-but-looking-at-the-road.

I would call it "enhanced cruise control", but hey, that doesn't sell as much as "Autopilot", does it?

If a human can look at the camera and sensor feeds and drive, to my mind that is a good proof that the car has full self driving capable hardware.

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