Andrew ng was a board member at Drive.ai and also posted some very promising videos like driving in rain etc. Not sure what lead to this lukewarm exit.
For video, you don't need any 9s of reliability. For a product, you need to have a lot of 9s, and each nine is getting exponentially harder.
By that logic, perfection is not enough because perfect is better than humans.
I think we can get to human level, by pure fact that we computers don't get distracted (they only crash ;-) ) and can also pickup signals, we cannot, due to 360° sensors. But computers are still bad at dealing with cases that are obvious to humans, due to lack of context and awareness.
I don't think that public will accept technology like that. I think there'll be a lot of public backslash once videos showing crashes in cases that are extremely obvious to humans. Videos from avoided crashes, that wouldn't be that obvious to humans won't be enough to change the sentiment.
Distribution of headlines that say "car crashed" vs "car avoided a crash" will be the same as "someone does a bad thing" vs "someone does a good thing".
I might be totally off, though, since I've never heard of the nines being used in the context of autonomy but it does make sense in context of the conversation being had.
Tesla has a self-driving functionality in their cars right now on the market, and a quick youtube research will show you that it blows the competition right off, they are better by an order of a magnitude.
Now, it is nowhere near full (level 5 or whatever) self-driving, but noone says that it has to be. The point is that you bring up all other car manufacturers, and they all have obviously inferior products compared to Tesla's (if we are looking at commercially available general personal vechicles). The self-driving as it is right now (even though not level 5) is obviously very useful to many people, it is a good product, the market is right there. And yet these Every Automotive Companies have failed to produce something that Tesla already has on the market. So the problem is not that it is not an "unrealistic dream",(if it exists already), the problem is that other automotive companies are basically behind on this.
My guess is that they are not software companies, they have never had to develop really complicated software, and while having expertise on the mechanical side of things, they are ways behind on the software.
It’s semi-autonomous, requiring constant attention from the driver and operating in an extremely limited set of conditions.
Truly autonomous cars are decades away.
And Tesla’s assisted driving tech isn’t that much better than other manufacturers.
For example, Volvo’s current breed of cars has everything that Tesla has to offer. However, their approach is “no person killed by Volvo by 2020”, so their tech is rightly called assisted driving. Other manufacturers have similar tech and approaches.
A few years back European truck manufacturers even had a competition that involved autonomous driving on general roads across multiple state borders in Europe.
However, Tesla’s marketing keeps insisting that their tech is full autonomous driving, and their lawyers correctly insist that its not.
Now, back to the “not realistic to work on”. Because it’s not realistic. Real autonomous driving is decades away. And “state-of-the-art” is barely semi-autonomous (requires driver’s attention at all times), barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings), can barely handle a very restricted set of road and weather conditions etc. etc.
Have you actually tried it or did you just read it off some anti-tesla rant on the Internet? I desperately want to believe that statement because Teslas are very overpriced for the amount of comfort they provide, but every time I test any other car, the "lane assist" and similar things are nowhere near what Tesla offers. They are all "just as good" on paper, and then you activate lane assist and smallest problem like one small segment of the road line being off makes a Volvo or something else scream in panic and force you to take the wheel while Tesla gracefully doesn't even notices at as a problem and keeps driving. Just because the other manufacturers say on paper "we also have lane assist" does not mean it's the same function.
Look at this latest Audi e-tron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsfMmJ4AiM
When you say that other manufacturers are not doing as much marketing for this, you are right. But you got it the other way around: it's not that they are behind on the marketing, and that's why they are failing. They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in great quality on the mass-market, - and that's why they don't have the audacity to market those features, because they know that if they forced people to actually take their "lane assist" seriously, they would be scrutinized by the market even more and all those flaws would be brought to light.
Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive, and then go actually test a Volvo, VW, BMW, etc lane assist -and then come back and review your statement. Your mind will be changed.
> barely works under ideal conditions (read: sunny California weather with good roads, signs and road markings),
Watch more of videos on that channel. Many rain situations are fine, and barely some visible road markings is all that is needed. Yes level 5 might be a decade away, but even as it is - that's like 80% of driving time covered. What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?
I have.
> They are failing to implement these features that Tesla's already have in great quality on the mass-market
> Go actually test a Tesla autopilot, on a long drive
You keep buying into Tesla's marketing.
Here's a riddle for you: every time a Tesla fails and kills a person, Tesla quickly blames the driver. They say that the driver has to always keep watch and grab the wheel at the first sign of trouble.
Here's an official statement by Tesla in such an accident: "We also ask our customers to exercise safe behavior when using our vehicles, including following the car’s instructions for remaining alert and present when using Autopilot and to be prepared to take control at all times" [1]
Why is that, do you think?
Other companies are just less careless about human lives. They don't pretend it's a full autopilot. They don't pretend that the system can handle 100% of situations. They don't pretend that you can safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and nothing will happen. They call it what it is and introduce the features gradually because they are fully aware of the current capabilities of autonomous systems.
Tesla is fully aware of that as well, but their marketing is willfully engaged in deception tactics.
> What part of it is "unrealistic" when it already exists?
The part where it doesn't exist. In all cases it requires the driver to be fully engaged and alert at all times.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/teslas-autopilot-blamed-driver-acc...
A plan means either you have a division, or you have an agreement that you can use someone else's if it works out. Either works.
As car makers discover self driving cars are hard they worry less about the risk and put less into development.