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Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day

Technology
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  • I don't understand the complaint. I mean given their track record, with a system like this, they wouldn't be on the road.

    You know, unless it all worked.

    I mean given their track record

    That's my point. Tesla (the company) has been notorious for pushing forward their deadly "self-driving" technology. It's one of the worst automated systems on the planet, with plenty of tests, reports, and real-world incidences to raise red flags all over the place.

    They SHOULD NOT be on the road, so are they only on the road because Musk was able to influence someone?

  • Yeah, it's a few years away from being ready. Plus the dumb shits need to backpedal on this "cameras for everything!" idiocy.

    I'm surprised the taxis aren't being driven remotely while Musk lies about their amazing AI or whatever.

    this “cameras for everything!” idiocy.

    That's why I'm so impressed with how well it's actually working. When they get off that really weird self-imposed restriction, it could be an interesting technology.

  • Imagine you're the guy who invented SawStop, the table saw that can detect fingers touching the saw blade and immediately bury the blade in an aluminum block to avoid cutting off someone's finger. Your system took a lot of R&D, it's expensive, requires a custom table saw with specialized internal parts so it's much more expensive than a normal table saw, but it works, and it works well. You've now got it down that someone can go full-speed into the blade and most likely not even get the smallest cut. Every time the device activates, it's a finger saved. Yeah, it's a bit expensive to own. And, because of the safety mechanism, every time it activates you need to buy a few new parts which aren't cheap. But, an activation means you avoided having a finger cut off, so good deal! You start selling these devices and while it's not replacing every table saw sold, it's slowly being something that people consider when buying.

    Meanwhile, some dude out of Silicon Valley hears about this, and hacks up a system that just uses a $30 webcam, an AI model that detects fingers (trained exclusively on pudgy white fingers of Silicon Valley executives) and a pinball flipper attached to a rubber brake that slows the blade to a stop within a second when the AI model sees a finger in danger.

    This new device, the, "Finger Saver" doesn't work very well at all. In demos with a hotdog, sometimes the hotdog is sawed in half. Sometimes the saw blade goes flying out of the machine into the audience. After a while, the company has the demo down so that when they do it in extremely controlled conditions, it does stop the hotdog from being sawed in half, but it does take a good few chunks out of it before the blade fully stops. It doesn't work at all with black fingers, but the Finger Saver company will sell you some cream-coloured paint that you can paint your finger with before using it if your finger isn't the right shade.

    Now, imagine if the media just referred to these two devices interchangeably as "finger saving devices". Imagine if the Finger Saver company heavily promoted their things and got them installed in workshops in high schools, telling the shop teachers that students are now 100% safe from injuries while using the table saw, so they can just throw out all safety equipment. When, inevitably, someone gets a serious wound while using a "Finger Saver" the media goes on a rant about whether you can really trust "finger saving devices" at all.

    Anyhow, this is a rant about Waymo vs. Tesla.

    Awesome read, thanks!

  • How about you pay attention and PREVENT the autopilot from killing someone? Like it's your job to do?

    Expecting people to be able to behave like machines is generally the attitude that leads to crash investigations.

  • Imagine you're the guy who invented SawStop, the table saw that can detect fingers touching the saw blade and immediately bury the blade in an aluminum block to avoid cutting off someone's finger. Your system took a lot of R&D, it's expensive, requires a custom table saw with specialized internal parts so it's much more expensive than a normal table saw, but it works, and it works well. You've now got it down that someone can go full-speed into the blade and most likely not even get the smallest cut. Every time the device activates, it's a finger saved. Yeah, it's a bit expensive to own. And, because of the safety mechanism, every time it activates you need to buy a few new parts which aren't cheap. But, an activation means you avoided having a finger cut off, so good deal! You start selling these devices and while it's not replacing every table saw sold, it's slowly being something that people consider when buying.

    Meanwhile, some dude out of Silicon Valley hears about this, and hacks up a system that just uses a $30 webcam, an AI model that detects fingers (trained exclusively on pudgy white fingers of Silicon Valley executives) and a pinball flipper attached to a rubber brake that slows the blade to a stop within a second when the AI model sees a finger in danger.

    This new device, the, "Finger Saver" doesn't work very well at all. In demos with a hotdog, sometimes the hotdog is sawed in half. Sometimes the saw blade goes flying out of the machine into the audience. After a while, the company has the demo down so that when they do it in extremely controlled conditions, it does stop the hotdog from being sawed in half, but it does take a good few chunks out of it before the blade fully stops. It doesn't work at all with black fingers, but the Finger Saver company will sell you some cream-coloured paint that you can paint your finger with before using it if your finger isn't the right shade.

    Now, imagine if the media just referred to these two devices interchangeably as "finger saving devices". Imagine if the Finger Saver company heavily promoted their things and got them installed in workshops in high schools, telling the shop teachers that students are now 100% safe from injuries while using the table saw, so they can just throw out all safety equipment. When, inevitably, someone gets a serious wound while using a "Finger Saver" the media goes on a rant about whether you can really trust "finger saving devices" at all.

    Anyhow, this is a rant about Waymo vs. Tesla.

    Waymo is also a silicon valley AI project to put transit workers out of work. It's another project to get AI money and destroy labor rights.
    At least it kind of works isn't exactly helping my opinion of it. Transit is incredibly underfunded and misregulated in California/the USA and robotaxis are a criminal misinvestment in resources.

  • I mean given their track record

    That's my point. Tesla (the company) has been notorious for pushing forward their deadly "self-driving" technology. It's one of the worst automated systems on the planet, with plenty of tests, reports, and real-world incidences to raise red flags all over the place.

    They SHOULD NOT be on the road, so are they only on the road because Musk was able to influence someone?

    You seem really invested in making sure Teslas are off the road, but not at all interested in regulation that would keep all dangerous autonomous vehicles off the road. So... do you work for BMW, or Waymo?

  • Imagine you're the guy who invented SawStop, the table saw that can detect fingers touching the saw blade and immediately bury the blade in an aluminum block to avoid cutting off someone's finger. Your system took a lot of R&D, it's expensive, requires a custom table saw with specialized internal parts so it's much more expensive than a normal table saw, but it works, and it works well. You've now got it down that someone can go full-speed into the blade and most likely not even get the smallest cut. Every time the device activates, it's a finger saved. Yeah, it's a bit expensive to own. And, because of the safety mechanism, every time it activates you need to buy a few new parts which aren't cheap. But, an activation means you avoided having a finger cut off, so good deal! You start selling these devices and while it's not replacing every table saw sold, it's slowly being something that people consider when buying.

    Meanwhile, some dude out of Silicon Valley hears about this, and hacks up a system that just uses a $30 webcam, an AI model that detects fingers (trained exclusively on pudgy white fingers of Silicon Valley executives) and a pinball flipper attached to a rubber brake that slows the blade to a stop within a second when the AI model sees a finger in danger.

    This new device, the, "Finger Saver" doesn't work very well at all. In demos with a hotdog, sometimes the hotdog is sawed in half. Sometimes the saw blade goes flying out of the machine into the audience. After a while, the company has the demo down so that when they do it in extremely controlled conditions, it does stop the hotdog from being sawed in half, but it does take a good few chunks out of it before the blade fully stops. It doesn't work at all with black fingers, but the Finger Saver company will sell you some cream-coloured paint that you can paint your finger with before using it if your finger isn't the right shade.

    Now, imagine if the media just referred to these two devices interchangeably as "finger saving devices". Imagine if the Finger Saver company heavily promoted their things and got them installed in workshops in high schools, telling the shop teachers that students are now 100% safe from injuries while using the table saw, so they can just throw out all safety equipment. When, inevitably, someone gets a serious wound while using a "Finger Saver" the media goes on a rant about whether you can really trust "finger saving devices" at all.

    Anyhow, this is a rant about Waymo vs. Tesla.

    Waymo is so much better, yeah. No problems with waymo. except all the times they almost hit me.

  • I've come to the realization, at least where I live, that a hell of a lot of accidents are prevented because of drivers who are actually aware and safe. This goes a bit beyond defensive driving IMO. I'm talking flat out accident avoidable. There is an entire class of drivers who are not even aware of the accidents they have almost caused because someone else managed to avoid their stupid driving.

    The majority of accidents that are likely to happen with these robocoffins will be single car or robocoffin meets robocoffin. The numbers on safety after a year will be acceptable because non accident causing error prone driving is not reported in any official capacity.

    I still maintain that the only safe way to have autonomous vehicles on the road is if they do not share the road with human drivers and have an open standard for communicating with other autonomous cars.

    open standard

    Soery, no, that's infrastructure.

  • I know many people who believe that "right on red" means they have the right of way to make the turn and don't have to stop first or yield to traffic.

    We should arm pedestrians so we can shoit the subhuman filth who take rights on red.

  • A man who can’t launch a rocket to save his life is also incompetent at making self driving cars? His mediocrity knows no bounds.

    Seriously. I waa better at rocketry than him by age twelve.

  • I saw the Tesla Robotaxi:

    • Drive into oncoming traffic, getting honked at in the process.
    • Signal a turn and then go straight at a stop sign with turn signal on.
    • Park in a fire lane to drop off the passenger.

    And that was in a single 22 minute ride. Not great performance at all.

    Oh, stop your complaining. It’s not perfect, but we’ve all seen how easy this is to fix. Just barge into Tesla tomorrow and randomly fire 20% of the employees. That’s how real leaders get things done.

    /s

  • I saw the Tesla Robotaxi:

    • Drive into oncoming traffic, getting honked at in the process.
    • Signal a turn and then go straight at a stop sign with turn signal on.
    • Park in a fire lane to drop off the passenger.

    And that was in a single 22 minute ride. Not great performance at all.

    But Musk told me it's ready for primetime, why would he lie?

  • Imagine you're the guy who invented SawStop, the table saw that can detect fingers touching the saw blade and immediately bury the blade in an aluminum block to avoid cutting off someone's finger. Your system took a lot of R&D, it's expensive, requires a custom table saw with specialized internal parts so it's much more expensive than a normal table saw, but it works, and it works well. You've now got it down that someone can go full-speed into the blade and most likely not even get the smallest cut. Every time the device activates, it's a finger saved. Yeah, it's a bit expensive to own. And, because of the safety mechanism, every time it activates you need to buy a few new parts which aren't cheap. But, an activation means you avoided having a finger cut off, so good deal! You start selling these devices and while it's not replacing every table saw sold, it's slowly being something that people consider when buying.

    Meanwhile, some dude out of Silicon Valley hears about this, and hacks up a system that just uses a $30 webcam, an AI model that detects fingers (trained exclusively on pudgy white fingers of Silicon Valley executives) and a pinball flipper attached to a rubber brake that slows the blade to a stop within a second when the AI model sees a finger in danger.

    This new device, the, "Finger Saver" doesn't work very well at all. In demos with a hotdog, sometimes the hotdog is sawed in half. Sometimes the saw blade goes flying out of the machine into the audience. After a while, the company has the demo down so that when they do it in extremely controlled conditions, it does stop the hotdog from being sawed in half, but it does take a good few chunks out of it before the blade fully stops. It doesn't work at all with black fingers, but the Finger Saver company will sell you some cream-coloured paint that you can paint your finger with before using it if your finger isn't the right shade.

    Now, imagine if the media just referred to these two devices interchangeably as "finger saving devices". Imagine if the Finger Saver company heavily promoted their things and got them installed in workshops in high schools, telling the shop teachers that students are now 100% safe from injuries while using the table saw, so they can just throw out all safety equipment. When, inevitably, someone gets a serious wound while using a "Finger Saver" the media goes on a rant about whether you can really trust "finger saving devices" at all.

    Anyhow, this is a rant about Waymo vs. Tesla.

    I mean Waymo is way better at their job than Tesla and are more responsible, but this rant makes them out to seem perfectly safe. Whilst they are miles safer than Tesla, they still struggle with edge cases and aren't perfect.

  • You seem really invested in making sure Teslas are off the road, but not at all interested in regulation that would keep all dangerous autonomous vehicles off the road. So... do you work for BMW, or Waymo?

    Tesla vehicles are specifically singled out, because as far as I know, they are the only autonomous vehicle that uses cameras instead of Lidar.

    And the Tesla company has a habit of cover ups, falsifying or manipulating crash data, and fraud.

    I don't trust any autonomous car on public roads, but some are considerably more trustworthy than Teslas.

    FWIW, you can buy robot vacuums for your home with more advanced object detection than a robotaxi. 🫤

  • Waymo is so much better, yeah. No problems with waymo. except all the times they almost hit me.

    Waymo times than Teslas?

  • Waymo times than Teslas?

    Ba dum tish

  • I mean Waymo is way better at their job than Tesla and are more responsible, but this rant makes them out to seem perfectly safe. Whilst they are miles safer than Tesla, they still struggle with edge cases and aren't perfect.

    AFAIK they're as safe as SawStop table saws. There has only ever been one collision involving a Waymo car that resulted in a serious injury. It was when a driver in another car, who was fleeing from police, sideswiped two cars, went onto the sidewalk and hit 2 pedestrians. One of the cars that was hit was a Waymo car, and the passenger was injured. Obviously, this wasn't the fault of Waymo, but it was included in their list of 25 crashes with injuries, and was the only one involving a serious injury.

    Of the rest, 17 involved the Waymo car being rear-ended. 3 involved another car running a red light and hitting the Waymo car. 2 were sideswipes caused by the other driver. 2 were vehicles turning left across the path of the Waymo car, one a bike, one a car. One was a Waymo car turning left and being hit on the passenger side. It's possible that a few of these cases involving a collision between a vehicle turning and a vehicle going straight could be at least partially blamed on the Waymo car. But, based on the descriptions of the crashes it certainly wasn't making an obvious error.

    IMO it would be hard to argue that the cars aren't already significantly safer than the average driver. There are still plenty of bugs to be ironed out, but for the most part they don't seem to be safety-related bugs.

    If the math were simple and every Waymo car on the road meant one human driver off the road with no other consequences or costs, it would be a no-brainer to start replacing human drivers with Waymo's tech. But, of course, nothing is ever that simple.

    Source: https://www.understandingai.org/p/human-drivers-are-to-blame-for-most

  • I saw the Tesla Robotaxi:

    • Drive into oncoming traffic, getting honked at in the process.
    • Signal a turn and then go straight at a stop sign with turn signal on.
    • Park in a fire lane to drop off the passenger.

    And that was in a single 22 minute ride. Not great performance at all.

    Let's see bug balls what he has to say.

  • Waymo is also a silicon valley AI project to put transit workers out of work. It's another project to get AI money and destroy labor rights.
    At least it kind of works isn't exactly helping my opinion of it. Transit is incredibly underfunded and misregulated in California/the USA and robotaxis are a criminal misinvestment in resources.

    a silicon valley AI project to put transit workers out of work

    Silicon valley doesn't have objectives like "putting transit workers out of work". They only care about growth and profit.

    In this case, the potential for growth is replacing every driver, not merely targeting transit workers. If they can do that, it would mean millions fewer cars on the road, and millions fewer cars being produced. Great for the environment, but yeah, some people might lose their jobs. But, other new jobs might be created.

    The original car boom also destroyed all kinds of jobs. Farriers, stable hands, grooms, riding instructors, equine veterinarians, horse trainers, etc. But, should we have held back technology so those jobs were all around today? We'd still have streets absolutely covered in horse poop, and horses regularly dying in the street, along with all the resulting disease. Would that be a better world? I don't think so.

    It's another project to get AI money and destroy labor rights.

    Waymo obviously uses a form of AI, but they've been around a lot longer than the current AI / LLM boom. It's 16 years old as a Google project, 21 years old if you consider the original Stanford team. As for destroying labour rights, sure, every capitalist company wants weaker labour rights. But, that includes the car companies making normal human-driven cars, it includes the companies manufacturing city buses and trains. There's nothing special about Waymo / Google in that regard.

    Sure, strengthening labour rights would be a good idea, but I don't think it really has anything to do with Waymo. But, sure, we should organize and unionize Google if that's at all possible.

    Transit is incredibly underfunded and misregulated in California/the USA

    Sure. That has nothing to do with Waymo though.

    robotaxis are a criminal misinvestment in resources.

    Misinvestment by whom? Google? What should Google be investing in instead?

  • Expecting people to be able to behave like machines is generally the attitude that leads to crash investigations.

    Behave like machines? Wtf are you on about? It's paying attention and preventing accidents. Like a train conductor does. Or a lifeguard. Or a security guard. I get the tesla hate, but this is ridiculous.