Lol apparently reasoning by analogy is first principles to him -- see human drivers using only vision therefore no lidar somehow being "first principles".

▲ godelski 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

  > see human drivers using only vision

Which is such a naive assumption too! Do you not feel the road? Listen to the road? I mean you might not think you do the latter but I bet if you closed your eyes you could get a decent estimate of how fast you are going.

▲ naasking 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe I missed it, but I've never seen him claim that using only vision is "first principles" thinking. However, relying only on vision can make sense once you realize that roads and signage and everything is literally designed around vision. Any system that does not prioritize vision cannot deal with unexpected obstacles, like new signage. If your vision is good enough to see obstacles and understand signage, the added usefulness of lidar relative to the cost seems pretty low, and if you don't have vision and have only lidar, then your system will not be flexible enough, and if you have lidar and vision, then your system will be more expensive than a system without lidar.

	▲	godelski an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Lidar is cheap now. But no, roads are not designed with just vision in mind. Designers use tecture not just for grip but to help communicate things to the driver. There's many subtler ones, but the most obvious one is the grooves you often find on the edge of highways that are used to warn you if you're veering off. This vibrates the car and creates a loud noise. That's two more senses that you're constantly using while driving even if you don't recognize it. Sure, I wouldn't rely on smell, but it is also a useful sense for some diagnostics and may help in some edge cases. But my point is that we're not just vision based creatures. You think about vision more, but the others are very important.