I've never understood the argument against lidars (except cost, but even that you can argue can come down).

If a sensor provides additional data, why not use it? Sure, humans can drive withot lidars, but why limit the AI to using human-like sensors?

Why even call it a crutch? IMO It's an advantage over human sensors.

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bayindirh 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Sure, humans can drive without LIDARs...

That's because our stereoscopic vision has infinitely more dynamic range, focusing speed and processing power w.r.t. a computer vision system. Periphery vision is very good at detecting movement, and central view can process tremendous amount of visual data without even trying.

Even a state of the art professional action camera system can't rival our eyes in any of these categories. LIDARs and RADARs are useful and shall be present in any car.

This is the top reason I'm not considering a Tesla. Brain dead insistence on cameras with small sensors only.

	▲	iknowstuff 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		their cams have better dynamic range than your eyes, given they can just run multiexposure and u gotta squint for sunlight. focal point is infinite for driving. You’re not considering them even though they have the best adas on the market lmao suit yourself https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5Oqg15VpQ

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IgorPartola 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don’t work in this field so take the grain of salt first.

Quality of additional data matters. How often does a particular sensor give you false positives and false negatives? What do you do when sensor A contradicts sensor B?

“3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible.”

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giveita 5 days ago | parent [-]

You can say that about human hearing and balance. What if they conflict with visual? We are good at figuring it out.

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ben_w 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

We throw up, an evolved response because that conflict is a symptom of poisonous plants messing with us.

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IgorPartola 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Humans can be confused in a number of ways. So can AI. The difference is that we know pretty well how humans get confused. AI gets confused in novel and interesting ways.

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giveita 5 days ago | parent [-]

Does removing a sense help in that regard (for car driving?).

Probably comes down to lidar (and Ai) failure modes.

	▲	IgorPartola 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I suspect it helps engineering the system. If you have 30 difference sensors, how do you design a system that accounts for seemingly random combinations of them disagreeing with an observation in real time if a priori you don’t know the weight of their observation in that particular situation? For humans for example you know that in most cases seeing something in a car is more important than smelling something. But what if one of your eyes sees a pedestrian and another sees a shadow of a bird? Also don’t forget that as a human you can move your head any which way, and also draw on your past experiences driving in that area. “There is always an old man crossing the road at this intersection. There is a school nearby so there might be kids here at 3pm.” That stuff is not as accessible to a LIDAR.