The Tesla Thread

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Consumer Reports calls on Tesla to disable "Autopilot" until it can be made safer.

"By marketing their feature as ‘Autopilot,’ Tesla gives consumers a false sense of security," says Laura MacCleery, vice president of consumer policy and mobilization for Consumer Reports. "In the long run, advanced active safety technologies in vehicles could make our roads safer. But today, we're deeply concerned that consumers are being sold a pile of promises about unproven technology. 'Autopilot' can't actually drive the car, yet it allows consumers to have their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time. Tesla should disable automatic steering in its cars until it updates the program to verify that the driver's hands are on the wheel."

http://www.consumerreports.org/tesla...nomy-too-soon/

I have seen how Tesla comes to an end, and it's when they get sued into oblivion for their self driving cars.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Consumer Reports calls on Tesla to disable "Autopilot" until it can be made safer.



http://www.consumerreports.org/tesla...nomy-too-soon/

I have seen how Tesla comes to an end, and it's when they get sued into oblivion for their self driving cars.

It really is the test for self driving cars for us to say the goal is less Fatalities than human driven cars as opposed to zero fatalities. If companies get sued every time someone dies it won't work.

[Azure]

So great quarter for Tesla. Along with announcing their self driving feature and sharing network I think they are in a pretty good position right now.

Tesla shares rose Wednesday after the electric-car and battery maker reported better than expected sales and said it is on track to meet its delivery targets for the year.

Revenue in the third-quarter was $2.3 billion, well above the $1.9 billion analysts expected.

The company reported a profit of $111 million, or $0.71 on an adjusted per share basis. That's its first quarterly profit since early 2013.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla...rnings-2016-10

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Consumer Reports calls on Tesla to disable "Autopilot" until it can be made safer.



http://www.consumerreports.org/tesla...nomy-too-soon/

I have seen how Tesla comes to an end, and it's when they get sued into oblivion for their self driving cars.

This is a really interesting topic. I would argue autonomous vehicles, and more broadly intelligent machines (and the companies who design and build them) will not just 'come to an end'. Liability isn't a slam dunk. We have laws that can determine fault if it can be proven the cause was design flaw or manufacturing issue, sure, but what if the machine made a decision to act, and did so outside of the 'rules' it was given?

Lots of questions are unanswered, but to suggest that will hold back the advancement of the technology isn't practical.

[Violator]

Originally Posted by Azure

So great quarter for Tesla. Along with announcing their self driving feature and sharing network I think they are in a pretty good position right now.



http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla...rnings-2016-10

First time in two years they turned a profit

Saw a black Model X for the first time on the weekend looked pretty descent in black looks almost identical to an Audi Q series though.

[HotHotHeat]

This Tesla Solar Roof tech seems to have surprised most analysts..

It wasn’t until about a minute into the speech that Musk casually let the crowd in on Tesla’s big secret. “The interesting thing is that the houses you see around you are all solar houses,” Musk said. “Did you notice?”
The answer, in short, was no. Like everyone else, I knew we were there to see Musk’s new “solar roof,” whatever that was supposed to mean. But try as I could as we walked in, I didn’t see anything that looked like it could carry an electric current. If anything, the slate and Spanish clay roofs looked a bit too nice for a television set. This is the future of solar, Musk proclaimed. “You’ll want to call your neighbors over and say ‘check out the sweet roof.’ It’s not a phrase you hear often.”

The Powerwall 2 may be the cheapest lithium ion battery for the home ever made when deliveries start in January. Tesla is selling the batteries at retail prices that are cheaper than the average manufacturing cost at most companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. We "certainly expect it will move the market prices downwards as we saw last year with the first Powerwall," said Yayoi Sekine, a BNEF analyst who covers battery technology.

“The future is going to overwhelmingly be solar plus battery,” Musk said. "They go together like peanut butter and jelly."

Spoiler!

And on a house ...

Spoiler!

[peter12]

Double post

[peter12]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

This is a really interesting topic. I would argue autonomous vehicles, and more broadly intelligent machines (and the companies who design and build them) will not just 'come to an end'. Liability isn't a slam dunk. We have laws that can determine fault if it can be proven the cause was design flaw or manufacturing issue, sure, but what if the machine made a decision to act, and did so outside of the 'rules' it was given?

Lots of questions are unanswered, but to suggest that will hold back the advancement of the technology isn't practical.

They are an incredibly, incredibly long way off. What we are running into now is probably the so-called AI winter. Prognostications about the technology have been made that cannot be adequately demonstrated. The engineering itself is dramatically simple from the perspective of just adding more computing power able to crunch more data, but is still incapable of the general intelligence that is natural to humans.

So a car can move along a pre-mapped route fairly well, but put it into an uncontrolled environment, and it consistently underperforms the average human driver.

Throw in all of the regulation and ethical issues, and you are looking at a very rough road for autonomous vehicles.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...f-driving-car/

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by peter12

They are an incredibly, incredibly long way off. What we are running into now is probably the so-called AI winter. Prognostications about the technology have been made that cannot be adequately demonstrated. The engineering itself is dramatically simple from the perspective of just adding more computing power able to crunch more data, but is still incapable of the general intelligence that is natural to humans.

So a car can move along a pre-mapped route fairly well, but put it into an uncontrolled environment, and it consistently underperforms the average human driver.

Throw in all of the regulation and ethical issues, and you are looking at a very rough road for autonomous vehicles.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...f-driving-car/

The majority of your post I get - but ethical issues? You mean putting truckers out of work?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

No, he means when the car is advanced enough to be able to detect things like kids chasing a ball into the street, and how it decides whether or not to try to swerve to avoid the kid and thereby cause a head-on collision with an oncoming minivan, potentially killing its occupants.

But yeah, putting all truckers out of work is also a thing worth being concerned about. Automation on such a large scale is going to do some pretty screwball things to the economy.

[HotHotHeat]

The US Secretary of transportation did an interview with the Verge.

By 2021, we will see autonomous vehicles in operation across the country in ways that we [only] imagine today… Families will be able to walk out of their homes and call a vehicle, and that vehicle will take them to work or to school. We're going to see transit systems sharing services with some of these companies. It's not just autonomy in the vehicles. You're going to see trucks running more closely together, which result in fuel savings and positive climate impact. You’ll see companies that will start to use unmanned aircraft to deliver products to us. My daughter, who will be 16 in 2021, won’t have her driver’s license. She will be using a service.

http://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021...y-anthony-foxx

[peter12]

The first line from that quote should be enough to discount the rest of that interview. Good lord.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

No, he means when the car is advanced enough to be able to detect things like kids chasing a ball into the street, and how it decides whether or not to try to swerve to avoid the kid and thereby cause a head-on collision with an oncoming minivan, potentially killing its occupants.

But yeah, putting all truckers out of work is also a thing worth being concerned about. Automation on such a large scale is going to do some pretty screwball things to the economy.

Not even that. A human could see a toy truck, and just automatically associate that toy truck with a probability of a child nearby. We don't even know how to program that into a car.

And yes, the above ethical issue is huge. Too bad many manufacturers have said that they will solve it by protecting the consumer of their product. So bye-bye kids, Donnie just bought a Mercedes.

The second is also significant - particularly since we are nowhere understanding whether or not significant automation will lead to significant productivity gains in the overall economy.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by peter12

Not even that. A human could see a toy truck, and just automatically associate that toy truck with a probability of a child nearby. We don't even know how to program that into a car.

And yes, the above ethical issue is huge. Too bad many manufacturers have said that they will solve it by protecting the consumer of their product. So bye-bye kids, Donnie just bought a Mercedes.

I guess it comes down to weighing the likelihood of various scenarios and looking at the benefits of drivers vs. computers. Is a human who can recognize a toy truck but travels about 30 feet before they even touch the brakes (assuming a speed of 45 km/h) going to be safer than an autonomous vehicle which will apply the brakes the moment anything appears in front of it?

And it's not like humans apply any kind of real reason or logic to most emergency driving situations anyway; there simply isn't the time. Plenty of people have killed themselves swerving off of cliffs trying to avoid an animal that would only cause moderate damage to their car if they just kept driving straight and hit the brakes. You could literally program a car to do nothing other than brake or to brake and turn in a random direction when there's an unavoidable accident and it'd still come out safer than a human driver.

[Wormius]

I think most humans can apply proper reason to driving behaviours. How would a computer treat a crosswalk at an intersection with people milling around? What does the computer do when faced with a cow on a rural road? Does a computer allow the car to drive over the ball that rolled into the road. What is considered unimportant? Who tells the computer what it should or shouldn't give priority to?

Even under the best conditions, a train with a fixed path, it still needs a human to control it and make judgement calls.

The self-driving cars people want and expect is a fiction. If Elon Musk and others think this is going to be a fruitful endeavour, good luck is all I can say. I am not holding my breath for the day that I can recline in the back seat of my car and sleep while I am driven to Vancouver - and if I can't, what am I paying for?

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by peter12

Not even that. A human could see a toy truck, and just automatically associate that toy truck with a probability of a child nearby. We don't even know how to program that into a car.



And yes, the above ethical issue is huge. Too bad many manufacturers have said that they will solve it by protecting the consumer of their product. So bye-bye kids, Donnie just bought a Mercedes.



The second is also significant - particularly since we are nowhere understanding whether or not significant automation will lead to significant productivity gains in the overall economy.

No doubt there will be unfortunate cases where the technology is responsible for causing or not preventing a tragic accident. At the same time fatalities from car accidents will plummet.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Who tells the computer what it should or shouldn't give priority to?

Who tells you? Why can't a computer have the same set of rules that you follow?

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by photon

Who tells you? Why can't a computer have the same set of rules that you follow?

It's a good question. I guess there is a combination of emotions, past experiences, empathy. I am trying to imagine how do you weigh driver comfort, public safety, property damage concerns all together. Should my car drive into a large pothole, causing my discomfort and possible damage to avoid hitting a rabbit or a ball or what? Should it drive through a huge puddle and soak pedestrians waiting for a bus? I know that a drive by soaking of pedestrians is wrong, but what is more or less wrong? And that is assuming my cars computer has all of the data to make that decision. I guess there is some conscience aspects involved too. I might be "okay" hitting a rabbit, but not a cat or dog, but how does my cars computer quantify how much I want to avoid those things? Enough to allow damage to mine or somebody else's car? Should it weigh the life of an animal vs a human maybe having their leg broken?

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Wormius

It's a good question. I guess there is a combination of emotions, past experiences, empathy. I am trying to imagine how do you weigh driver comfort, public safety, property damage concerns all together. Should my car drive into a large pothole, causing my discomfort and possible damage to avoid hitting a rabbit or a ball or what? Should it drive through a huge puddle and soak pedestrians waiting for a bus? I know that a drive by soaking of pedestrians is wrong, but what is more or less wrong? And that is assuming my cars computer has all of the data to make that decision. I guess there is some conscience aspects involved too. I might be "okay" hitting a rabbit, but not a cat or dog, but how does my cars computer quantify how much I want to avoid those things? Enough to allow damage to mine or somebody else's car? Should it weigh the life of an animal vs a human maybe having their leg broken?

These trivialities are actually an argument in favor of autonomous vehicles. If they can dramatically reduce human injuries and fatalities to the point that the biggest concern of driving is whether you drive over a pothole, soak pedestrians, or run over an animal then they will be one of the most important technological advances in recent history. None of that stuff is remotely as important as the reduction in stopping distance and the decline of drunk and fatigued drivers that would come with self driving cars. Even imperfect autonomous vehicles have the potential to be miles safer than cars controlled by human drivers.

As for specific scenarios I assume the car will do what humans try to do and that's prioritize their own safety and attempt to stop as soon as possible when something comes into their path of travel. If someone walks in front of your car it'd try to stop as quickly as possible and swerve if there's a clear path. And if there isn't then the person gets hit just like they do now. And again, no matter what it does, simply by reducing the stopping distance by 30-50% they'll lower both the number and the seriousness of these kinds of incidents. An autonomous car driving 30-50 km/h would've likely made a decision and come to a complete stop before a human would even have time to press the brake pedal in response to something in front of the car.

[photon]

Yeah I'm kind of running on the assumption that the car would have all the relevant data (which is a big assumption I agree, but in principle there shouldn't be any reason it doesn't and it should in fact have far more information).

I know I've almost caused an accident because I braked to avoid hitting a dog, if I'd had eyes on the back of my head and had seen how close the car was behind me I might have opted to definitely injure or kill the dog instead of risking injuring the people in the cars behind me. Maybe, though I don't know if I could have. Similar thing happened with a mom and baby ducks, though not nearly as close, just got honked at.

So yeah I agree that there's a ton of situations, but I think when it comes down to your decision making all these things get abstracted out and processed quickly in our minds, and I don't see why there couldn't be a similar set of rules for the car. A decision tree is something a computer would be very good at.

On a basic level I could imagine a standard (maybe even legally mandated) set of rules that governs all those decisions (i.e. steer around the puddle to avoid splashing people, but don't steer but brake if there's a car in the neighbouring lane, don't brake and splash if there's a car too close behind, etc). It'd be a lot of work to establish, but it'd also be something that could improve over time with both simulations and real world data.

You could even mount equipment on millions of human driven cars to collect the data for a baseline.

But you raise an interesting question too, should I be able to tweak the priorities of my car based on my desires? That's interesting.