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ModernMech 5 days ago

Eyes are not cameras they are extensions of the brain. That people can drive with one eye is not a "proof of concept" that cars should be able to drive with one camera. You'll need a human brain to go along with it. Unfortunately for Tesla, they seem to be short on supply of those at the moment.

rogerrogerr 5 days ago | parent [-]

So your assertion is that a human with access to arbitrarily good camera feeds could not drive a car at level 5? That something magical is happening because the eyes are close topographically to the brain? Sounds implausible.

ModernMech 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

How does the human consume the arbitrarily good camera feeds?

> That something magical is happening because the eyes are close topographically to the brain?

It sounds to me like you have to study what eyes actually are. It's not about proximity or magic, they are a part of your brain, and we're only beginning to understand their complexities. Eyes are not just sensory organs, so the analogy to cameras is way off. They are able to discern edges, motion, color, and shapes, as well as correct errors before your brain even is even aware.

In robotics, we only get this kind of information after the camera image has been sent through a perception pipeline, often incurring a round trip through some sort of AI and a GPU at this point.

> Sounds implausible.

Musk just spent billions of dollars and the better part of a decade trying to prove the conjecture that "cameras are sufficient", and now he's waving the white flag. So however implausible it sounds, it's now more implausible than ever that cameras alone are sufficient.

JumpCrisscross 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> your assertion is that a human with access to arbitrarily good camera feeds could not drive a car at level 5?

No. I live in snow country. Folks with vestibular issues are advised to pull over in snowstorms because sometimes the only indication that you have perpendicular velocity and are approaching a slide off the road or spin is that sense. My Subaru has on more than one occasion noticed a car before I did based on radar.

Vision only was a neat bet. But it will cost Tesla first to market status generally and especially in cities, where regulators should have fair scepticism about a company openly trying to do self driving on the cheap.

rogerrogerr 4 days ago | parent [-]

Teslas definitely have accelerometers/gyros, and have access to the torque and RPM on every wheel. It has a much better picture of the 3D motion of the car relative to the road than any human driver.

ModernMech 4 days ago | parent [-]

Dynamics don't help when you are blinded by the sun or can't discern the broadside of a firetruck.

rogerrogerr 4 days ago | parent [-]

Cameras can clearly discern the broadside of a firetruck. Whether some earlier build didn't detect one doesn't change that firetrucks reflect plenty of photons to be detectable.

I'm consistently surprised by how immune to sun-blindness my car is. It regularly reads traffic lights that have the sun right next to them; I've never seen any discernible degradation due to too much light, too little light, or bad contrast of any kind.

You're just bringing up a never-ending stream of but-what-abouts, so I'm done refuting them after this. It's not a good use of my time.

ModernMech 3 days ago | parent [-]

Your personal experience with your car doesn't change that Tesla is waving the white flag due to the fact the sensor system Musk insisted on has caused deaths and is too unreliable to deliver full autonomy. The sun has confounded Tesla autonomy since its inception, and its shortcomings caused multiple decapitations: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tesla-florida-acciden...

> You're just bringing up a never-ending stream of but-what-abouts

By "what abouts" you of course mean "shortcomings of camera-only systems that make them unsuitable for full autonomy."

> It's not a good use of my time.

No it's not, it's a losing battle, and Musk has admitted it. Camera-only systems will not enable full self driving. Y'all got scammed.