Tesla releases new videos demonstrating their fully autonomous driving technology

https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware-neighborhood-long

Since the surprise announcement about a month ago that every car that Tesla produces from that date forward will have the hardware to eventually allow fully autonomous driving, some info has been trickling out. Cars that have been produced with the new hardware are starting to appear in the wild (with autopilot currently disabled, although the earliest iterations of it should be enabled through software downloads starting next month), and Tesla has released a few videos showing off the technology in action. Telsa also announced their own ride sharing network that would allow owners to add their cars to a fleet to of self driving cars so that their car can earn money for them while they are at work.

The above video is particularly interesting as it shows off the AI's object recognition, identifying lane lines, objects both in and outside the car's path including other cars/pedestrians, road signs, etc.

What do you think? Personally I can't wait to get my hands on this technology.

-Byshop

No no no my friend, such technology is very much still in it's infancy.

At their present state they are not only extremely dangerous but also ridiculously expensive.

You gonna pay 1 million for your next car?

I will let the bugs to come out, for people to get hacked and die and then I might try it 5 years after it is deemed safe by 90% of the country.

But that's just me, I'm risk averse.

I don't think the technology is up to it yet by a long shot.

It's all very well that it can detect lanes, people, other cars etc. but there's so much more to driving than that...

Your data is off. The Tesla Model S starts in the mid 60s plus 8k for the full autonomous option package. The average price of a Model S or X is around 100k, so while it's not cheap its in the price range of a high end luxury car and not some crazy expensive concept car. The Model 3 comes out late next year, will have the same autonomous driving hardware and start in the mid 30s, which is pretty damned affordable.

As for Autopilot, in the current generation the Teslas do level three autonomous driving and it works pretty well with over 200 million miles driven across the cars they have sold. They'll keep in lanes, follow a safe distance behind the next car even in stop and go traffic, perform lane changes (initiated by the driver with the turn signal), and it can even read Speed Limit signs using the optical camera and automatically adjust the speed of the vehicle. Tesla's not the only car company to offer features like this, either, but they are typically only available in higher end cars.

-Byshop

Here's the video reduced to "normal" speed for anyone interested:

-Byshop

They could kill hundreds of people over the next five years, and still not kill as many people as GE had done without action.

The monitor showing grids over object should make people feel safe. I don't think I'm ready to hop in an autonomous vehicle going 70MPH. Unless all cars on the road were autonomous.

I can barely let another human being drive a vehicle I'm in, there is no way I'd ever let a computer control it.

It certainly takes some getting used to but the current systems are actually specifically designed for highway driving, which is comparatively much easier than the intricacies of city driving. There are lots of forms of adaptive cruise control that exist today and work pretty well.

-Byshop

Ok, saw the video. Impressive technology. Why wouldn't Tesla provide the footage at normal speed in addition to the accelerated one which is done I guess for casual short attention span people?

Some of those moves feel unnatural (of course). Stopping 10 feet before a stop sign or stopping in the middle of the road for no apparent reason will cause accidents.

I just don't see myself letting being driven by one of these anytime soon.

No idea, but at regular speed the car does appear to do a few things that a normal driver might not do. However, this feature is still probably a year out and they have a lot of data to collect. Each car in their fleet collect data when they are on the road and that data is used to refine the driving AI. As the new Autopilot cars start getting delivered, they'll collect data for a lot of months before they start rolling out these features. The cars will work in "Shadow Mode" which means they'll record driving events and log what they would have done at any given point (like decide if they car were driving if it would have caused an accident or not).

-Byshop

I'm gonna say that looks pretty awesome, but there is a moment at 2:34 where the car seems to stop in the middle of the road for no reason. Is anyone else seeing this or am I missing something?

The boxes around the cars in the opposite lane flashed green, so it looks like they briefly were detected as "in path" objects. This is the kind of stuff that they'll likely work out over the course of the next year before the feature goes live.

-Byshop

i didnt see it stop at any red lights or did i miss that?

It did but there weren't many on the route. I was curious about that too so I kept an eye out for it.

-Byshop

I understand there's a certain irony in saying this, in the context of the fact that there are literally thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of fatalities and injuries from humans driving every years...

...but I am just not comfortable with this technology yet. Seems a bit too much, too soon.

Specifically, it's more the human-machine aspect that concerns me; if every single car was automated and they were all talking to each other that'd be awesome but right now we have a few cars that are probably driving, technically, the right way sans judgement and we have a whole lot of people out there driving maybe not technically correct but with judegement.

*shrug*

Idunno. Definitely interesting times, that's for sure. I am not against it, however.

Okay, perhaps I overestimated how expensive all those sensors and stuff are but I'm still quite wary of the technology.

With road rage and all that, surely you'd at least like to have full control... I just don't see these "computers" doing complex inner city driving any time soon, sorry.

It's fair to be wary. All this stuff is pretty new and radically different from anything that has come before but it's starting to become more and more available to the average consumer. As for the road rage comment, sure maybe this thing won't drive exactly like how a human might drive but that might be a good thing. If every car on the road is eventually driving itself then the road will probably get a lot safer. As far as I know, Tesla's version of full autopilot will still allow the driver to manually take control, although probably not when it's participating in the ride sharing network.

Admittedly, it's pretty freaky to think that literally in a couple years there could be half a million of these cars on the road (after the Model 3 releases).

-Byshop

@Byshop:

Admittedly, it's pretty freaky to think that literally in a couple years there could be half a million of these cars on the road (after the Model 3 releases).

Sure is!!!

As far as I know, Tesla's version of full autopilot will still allow the driver to manually take control, although probably not when it's participating in the ride sharing network.

Well that's another thing I'm wary of. The idea of having optional manual override isn't exactly a huge comfort - because if the on-board computer does something stupid it might be too late to correct it in time.

My scepticism arises from the FACT that a.i. is not even close to being able to make all the mental decisions involved in inner city driving.

Not to mention all the other possible flaws/dangers that could arise.

@Byshop: Truck drivers can benefit from this tech. I don't know if I would let go of the steering wheel just yet.

fantastic.

one of the biggest obvious benefits of technology like this is more advanced driver assists. still allowing a drive control of the car near to the point they're going to do something really fucking stupid then the car can fully take over. things like this already exist on cars like stability control or automatic braking.

having a fleet of thousands cars all sending data back on millions of miles driven will only speed up the time to refine the algorithms as well. pretty cool

as with anything, it will only get better with time.

Well, yes and no. Sure, an AI isn't as smart as a person but it doesn't necessarily need to be in order to be a safe driver. A car AI system like Tesla's has some specific advantages over a human driver:

1. The system can see in 360 degrees all the time. It has one forward facing radar and eight optical cameras surrounding the car with overlapping sightlines. No matter how good a human driver is, they will always have a blindspot of about 180 degrees at any given point. Even to use mirrors you have to look at them to some degree and human vision only really works well at the specific point you are looking at and everything else starts to blur as you move away from the focal point.
2. The system has access to "senses" that humans do not. A human driver relies on two things primarily for driving/navigating, vision and hearing. The Tesla system relies on the cameras I mentioned, a series of ultrasonic sensors that cover the car in a 360 arc around the car that act as parking sensors and redundant proximity sensors, as well as the forward facing radar which can "see" better than a human eye in low visibility.
3. The car will have knowledge of locations you might never have been to. This is part of the fleet learning. The car can already understand how to deal with a particular segment of road because -other- drivers have been on it before.
4. The system gets smarter even when you aren't driving. It's like a giant Borg hive mind.

Yeah, the current system is very specifically a driver assist, and it's a great driver assist. It's really handy to be able to drive while not paying 100% of your attention to tailing distance or staying in your lane.

As for the liability of the thing, I'm really not sure what they'll end up doing. The goal is full autonomy to the point that your part can drive people around for you and earn money, so obviously it's supposed to be a situation where the car is really doing all the driving and not a driving assist feature with the current AP. Does that mean you can take over? Can you get in the car drunk if its driving for you?

-Byshop

@Byshop:

Well, yes and no. Sure, an AI isn't as smart as a person but it doesn't necessarily need to be in order to be a safe driver. A car AI system like Tesla's has some specific advantages over a human driver:

1. The system can see in 360 degrees all the time. It has one forward facing radar and eight optical cameras surrounding the car with overlapping sightlines. No matter how good a human driver is, they will always have a blindspot of about 180 degrees at any given point. Even to use mirrors you have to look at them to some degree and human vision only really works well at the specific point you are looking at and everything else starts to blur as you move away from the focal point.
2. The system has access to "senses" that humans do not. A human driver relies on two things primarily for driving/navigating, vision and hearing. The Tesla system relies on the cameras I mentioned, a series of ultrasonic sensors that cover the car in a 360 arc around the car that act as parking sensors and redundant proximity sensors, as well as the forward facing radar which can "see" better than a human eye in low visibility.
3. The car will have knowledge of locations you might never have been to. This is part of the fleet learning. The car can already understand how to deal with a particular segment of road because -other- drivers have been on it before.
4. The system gets smarter even when you aren't driving. It's like a giant Borg hive mind.

Well I wouldn't mind that stuff so much if it was just the transportation of goods and no people were involved...

I was also thinking more of common-sense type stuff, like giving way. How could a computer possibly judge such a thing?

There are also potential dangers in the form of system malfunctions, hacking and people becoming overly complacent to the point of almost going to sleep at the wheel.

I also wonder alot about the route-to-destination algorithms, because as we well know those things have been known to arrive at some ridiculous conclusions at times.

...

And let's say something unexpected happens like a road block of some sort or an accident or whatever - then the computer would have to be adjusted mid travel in order to keep it on auto pilot... and the last thing we need is people fiddling around with their on-board computers when they should be focusing on the road...

I can't really see it taking off...

all things that will need to be figured out in time, no doubt.

if i had to guess initially there will be common sense laws like a drive MUST be present and attentive ( uninebriated ) at all times when the car is operating in autonomous mode ( which initially would preclude the car driving off on its own to work for you ). i'm assuming there will also be new forms of insurance owners will have to carry to cover autonomous driving. there will be lots of legislative activity in this area in the coming years to get it all sorted.

to be fair there was a time people thought computers couldn't master chess or fly an aircraft..

No,I want to retain the skill, knowledge and ability to drive and go where I want, when I want.

"OOHH you want to avoid heavy traffic? You can if you purchase the "Smoother Traffic DLC" patch to our autonomous system!"

Seriously though, things that takes away control FULLY from us is not good, it open a can of really ugly and stinky worms. I accept tech that ASSISTS us but not take away, in this case, our freedom of movement.

Computers all eventually fail

I'm sure we'll see plenty of reports of dumbasses intentionally going to sleep behind the wheel and then their car drifts into oncoming traffic.