Can any engineers in the field comment on whether the [very cool!] Waymo vs Cruise performance anecdotes being discussed here would have been the result of Google's millimeter-level scanning of SF? Or is it just better algos only? Or both?
A driver (bot or not) needs very good reactions to bad situations observed in the field. And ideally a good sense for when a situation is one step from trouble. As a driver, if I can’t see through a bus then I’m going to assume a crazy pedestrian is waiting to jump in front of me.
(A lot of drivers are quite bad frankly and don’t do most of the stuff you’d want someone to do if they’re directing a one-ton blunt weapon around town at 35mph.)
I'd say 90% of driving is good/safe driving is mental, with at least half of that bening based on the decision making capability. Yet our tests are mostly focused on physical ability with a small amount of memorizing a subset of the rules.
The multiple choice and practical exams are not done by the school, but by an accredited / governmental institution. Each have a ~30% failure rate.
Counting 1 lesson unit as 45 minutes it’s definitely not quite as rigorous as a PPL, but certainly in the same spirit, I’d argue.
Being completely honest, I did not feel totally comfortable behind the wheel until maybe a week or of actually driving myself, post-license. (Not that I didn't have a lot more to learn, obviously)
During that week, I could have easily gotten into an accident and did have one or two closer calls.
I would not all be opposed to maybe an additional ~10 hours of more rigorous behind-the-wheel driving, or a very good-quality sim for that same amount of time.
But realistically, I'd imagine making this a hard requirement would hit some massive walls. Good simulators are expensive, everyone wants to drive, and states have very limited budgets for this sort of thing.
Why do you believe that Tesla vehicles are driving millions of miles a month on autopilot?
I suspect that autopilot accounts for a vanishingly small percentage of Tesla miles-driven. Mostly because it sucks, but also because of how hard it is to not miss a nag on a long road trip, with the result that you are locked out of autopilot until your next stop.
(Yes, even when paying attention to the road, with your hands on the wheel. Hell, autopilot locks you out if you exceed 85 mph for more than a few seconds by pressing the accelerator, such as when passing. This is true even in places where the speed limit is 85 mph, and the slower end of the flow of traffic is 95 mph.)
I love the performance of my Model S Plaid. Autopilot, however, is a joke.
Where do you drive where the speed limit is 85 mph?
Once traffic rules are enforced by autonomous cars that don't let you go over the speed limit, we can start raising the limit to more realistic levels. I guess currently it is priced in that everyone goes over by x km/h.
Bloody noghtmare fuel that, but it's been the inexhorable direction manufacturers and Governments have been pushing for for a while.
Stop making things that enable people more than it constrains them. The act of velvet glove societal manipulation is pretty damn obnoxious once you realize it's a thing.
Edit: Looks like back in January they were adding 10M cumulative miles driven per month (roughly) - https://insideevs.com/news/633328/tesla-fsd-beta-now-active-...
Surprising, but it is what it is.
Millions of miles per month doesn't surprise me at all.
This has been my gripe for a long time. I feel like many in tech have conflated two problems. With current software the problem of perception (ie "understanding its surroundings") is largely solved*, but this shouldn't be conflated with the much more difficult problem of self-driving.
*for sure, there have been issues with perception. A glaring example is the Uber fatality in AZ.
Also, we can drive just fine with two cameras and a neural net, no LIDAR.
In engineering, you don't add something unless it's necessary, not because "well we may as well have it."
And no, a neural net and two cameras are not "just fine". The day cameras will be as good as your eyes and your neural net will be on the level of human intelligence (AGI) then maybe it would be possible. But until then you will need to rely on extra hardware to get there.
Go check on youtube how FSD behaves in city with 1/10th the complexity of SF/Waymo. And remember the difficulty is with the long tail of unexpected events.
Even your basic non-fancy non-AI car these days have a variety of sonar/radar assists to help out their cameras. Tesla is just being cheap (and getting people killed because of it).