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

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  • 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.

    Parking in a fire lane to drop off a passenger just makes it seem more human.

  • Parking in a fire lane to drop off a passenger just makes it seem more human.

    Yea, this one isn't an issue. If you are dropping off passengers, you are allowed to stop in a fire lane because that is not parking.

  • I am entirely opposed to driving algorithms. Autopilot on planes works very well because it is used in open sky and does not have to make major decisions about moving in close proximity to other planes and obstacles. Its almost entirely mathematical, and even then in specific circumstances it is designed to disengage and put control back in the hands of a human.

    Cars do not have this luxury and operate entirely in close proximity to other vehicles and obstacles. Very little of the act of driving a car is math. It's almost entirely decision making. It requires fast and instinctive response to subtle changes in environment, pattern recognition that human brains are better at than algorithms.

    To me this technology perfectly encapsulates the difficulty in making algorithms that mimic human behavior. The last 10% of optimization to make par with humans requires an exponential amount more energy and research than the first 90% does. 90% of the performance of a human is entirely insufficient where life and death is concerned.

    Investment costs should be going to public transport systems. They are more cost efficient, more accessible, more fuel/resource efficient, and far far far safer than cars could ever be even with all human drivers. This is a colossal waste of energy time and money for a product that will not be par with human performance for a long time. Those resources could be making our world more accessible for everyone, instead they're making it more accessible for no one and making the roads significantly more dangerous. Capitalism will be the end of us all if we let them. Sorry that train and bus infrastructure isnt "flashy enough" for you. You clearly havent seen the public transport systems in Beijing. The technology we have here is decades behind and so underfunded its infuriating.

    I've been saying for years that focusing on self driving cars is solving the wrong problem. The problem is so many people need their own personal car at all.

  • 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.

    Watch that stock price fall... wheeeee

  • There's no accountability for this horribly dangerous driving, so they shouldn't be on the road. Period.

    Well that's exactly what their post was about, adding accountability.

    Was it? I didn't read a single hint of adding accountability in the article.

    But that begs the question: shouldn't accountability be in place now, and not maybe at some point in the distant future? They are already on the road.

  • Was it? I didn't read a single hint of adding accountability in the article.

    But that begs the question: shouldn't accountability be in place now, and not maybe at some point in the distant future? They are already on the road.

    Not the article, the post from njordamir that you were directly replying to.

    shouldn't accountability be in place now,

    Again literally what that user was suggesting

  • 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.

    Wow that turn signal sound is annoying. Why does it even need to make a sound in a car that’s supposed to be driving itself?

  • I mean, compared to getting minimum wage flipping burgers in a hot kitchen, or picking vegetables in the sun, or working the register in a store in a bad neighborhood, or even restocking stuff at Walmart... yes, I would sit all day in an air conditioned car doing nothing but "paying attention".

    You seem to have missed the point. Whether or not you think that would be an easy job, the whole reason you'd be there is to be the one that takes all the blame when the autopilot kills someone. It will be your name, your face, every single record of your past mistakes getting blasted on the news and in court because Elon's shitty vanity project finally killed a real child instead of a test dummy. You'll be the one having to explain to a grieving family just how hard it is to actually pay complete attention every moment of every day, when all you've had to do before is just sit there.

  • 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.

    Hooray! I feel so safe. I think I'll move to Texas so I can get obliterated by this taxi from the future.

  • Parking in a fire lane to drop off a passenger just makes it seem more human.

    They turned the empathy dial to 5%. Works great, right?

  • 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.

    Sounds like the indian guy driving it with a joystick was a bit hungover. You'd think they'd screen that thing at the entrance of the cubicle farm where all these AI folk drive these from. AI is just "anonymous indians" for elmo's grifting kind.

  • While I agree focusing on public transport is a better idea, it's completely absurd to say machines can never possibly drive as well as humans. It's like saying a soul is required or other superstitious nonsense like that. Imagine the hypothetical case in which a supercomputer that perfectly emulates a human brain is what we are trying to teach to drive. Do you think that couldn't drive? If so, you're saying a soul is what allows a human to drive, and may as well be saying that God hath uniquely imbued us with the ability to drive. If you do think that could drive, then surely a slightly less powerful computer could. And maybe one less powerful than that. So somewhere between a casio solar calculator and an emulated human brain must be able to learn to drive. Maybe that's beyond where we're at now (I don't necessarily think it is) but it's certainly not impossible just out of principle. Ultimately, you are a computer at the end of the day.

    I never did say it wouldn't ever be possible. Just that it will take a long time to reach par with humans. Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different. Theres more than just the mechanical act itself.

    The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant. With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.

    I just don't see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.

  • I've been saying for years that focusing on self driving cars is solving the wrong problem. The problem is so many people need their own personal car at all.

    Exactly. Bring back trams, build less suburbs, better apartment housing. If we want a society reorganized around accessibility then let's actually build that.

  • Wow that turn signal sound is annoying. Why does it even need to make a sound in a car that’s supposed to be driving itself?

    Important feedback for the passenger to ensure the car is actually following the rules. I would freak out at a corner if I couldn't tell the car was signaling.

  • 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.

    What's crazy is that the safety driver's hair has gone completely grey in just two days.

  • Not the article, the post from njordamir that you were directly replying to.

    shouldn't accountability be in place now,

    Again literally what that user was suggesting

    Ah, Ok.

    I agree with accountability, but not with the point system. That's almost like a "three strikes" rule for drunk drivers.

    That's not really accountability, that's handing out free passes.

  • Man, I cannot figure out why that vehicle was turning. What is it trying to avoid? Why does it think there could be road there? Why doesn't it try to correct its action mid way?

    I'm really concerned about that last question. I have to assume that at some point prior to impact, the system realized it made a mistake. Surely. So why didn't it try to recover from the situation? Does it have a system for recovering from errors, or does it just continue and say "well I'll get it next time, now on with the fetal crash"?

    That wasn’t FSD. In the crash report it shows FSD wasn’t enabled. The driver applied a torque to the steering wheel and disengaged it. They were probably reaching into the back seat while “supervising”.

  • I never did say it wouldn't ever be possible. Just that it will take a long time to reach par with humans. Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different. Theres more than just the mechanical act itself.

    The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant. With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.

    I just don't see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.

    Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different

    This is one of the problems driving automation solves trivially when applied at scale. Machines will follow the same rules regardless of where they are which is better for everyone

    The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant

    You'd shit yourself if you knew how many life threatening machines are already controlled by computers far simpler than anything in a self driving car. Industrially, we have learned the lesson that computers, even ones running on extremely simple logic, just completely outclass humans on safety because they do the same thing every time. There are giant chemical manufacturing facilities that are run by a couple guys in a control room that watch a screen because 99% of it is already automated. I'm talking thousands of gallons an hour of hazardous, poisonous, flammable materials running through a system run on 20 year old computers. Water chemical additions at your local water treatment plant that could kill thousands of people if done wrong, all controlled by machines because we know they're more reliable than humans

    With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.

    A machine can't drink a handle of vodka and get behind the wheel, nor can it drive home sobbing after a rough breakup and be unable to process information properly. You can also update all of them all at once instead of dealing with PSA canpaigns telling people not to do something that got someone killed. Self driving car makes a mistake? You don't have to guess what was going through its head, it has a log. Figure out how to fix it? Guess what, they're all fixed with the same software update. If a human makes that mistake, thousands of people will keep making that same mistake until cars or roads are redesigned and those changes have a way to filter through all of society.

    I just don't see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.

    This is a valid point, but this doesn't have to be either/or. Cars have a great utility even in a system with public transit. People and freight have to get from the rail station or port to wherever they need to go somehow, even in a utopia with a perfect public transit system. We can do both, we're just choosing not to in America, and it's not like self driving cars are intrinsically opposed to public transit just by existing.

  • The Tesla is is just following the regional driving style. Humans make the same mistakes at 15:06

    /s

    This but unironically. If this is the worst thing that happened on launch day then that seems pretty successful to me. This is the worst version of the robo taxi we will ever see.

  • 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.

    Navigation issue / hesitation

    The video really understates the level of fuck up that the car did there...

    And the guy sitting there just casually being ok with the car ignoring the forced left going straight into oncoming lanes and flipping the steering wheel all over the place because it has no idea what the hell just happened... I would not be just chilling there..

    Of course, I wouldn't have gotten in this car in the first place, and I know they cherry picked some hard core Tesla fans to be allowed to ride at all...

  • I doubt this is the case.

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    How is it not a desktop? My steamdeck is as much of a desktop as my laptop.
  • I will fully switch when installing mods are just as easy as windows.

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    I cant commend on the first 3 but im a huge rimworld enjoyer and i've had 0 issues modding on linux. Steamworkshop works as expected and even RimPy launcher workers natively on linux.
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    than you would expect. The cause might be somewhere in your expectations...
  • We're Not Innovating, We’re Just Forgetting Slower

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    Gotcha, thank you for the extra context so I understand your point. I'll respond to your original statement now that I understand it better: I ALSO think the author would prefer more broad technical literacy, but his core arguement seemed to be that those making things dont understand the tech they’re built upon and that unintended consequences can occur when that happens. I think the author's argument on that is also not a great one. Lets take your web app example. As you said, you can make the app, but you don't understand the memory allocation, and why? Because the high level language or framework you wrote it in does memory management and garbage collection. However, there are many, many, MANY, more layers of abstraction beside just your code and the interpreter. Do you know the webserver front to back? Do you know which ring your app or the web server is operating in inside the OS (ring 3 BTW)? Do you know how the IP stack works in the server? Do you know how the networking works that resolves names to IP addresses or routes the traffic appropriately? Do you know how the firewalls work that the traffic is going over when it leaves the server? Back on the server, do you know how the operating system makes calls to the hardware via device drivers (ring 1) or how those calls are handled by the OS kernel (ring 0)? Do you know how the system bus works on the motherboard or how the L1, L2, and L3 cache affect the operation and performance of the server overall? How about that assembly language isn't even the bottom of abstraction? Below that all of this data is merely an abstraction of binary, which is really just the presence or absence of voltage on a pit or in a bit register in ICs scattered across the system? I'll say probably not. And thats just fine! Why? Because unless your web app is going to be loaded onto a spacecraft with a 20 to 40 year life span and you'll never be able to touch it again, then having all of that extra knowledge and understanding only have slight impacts on the web app for its entire life. Once you get one or maybe two levels of abstraction down, the knowledge is a novelty not a requirement. There's also exceptions to this if you're writing software for embedded systems where you have limited system resources, but again, this is an edge case that very very few people will ever need to worry about. The people in those generally professions do have the deep understanding of those platforms they're responsible for. Focus on your web app. Make sure its solving the problem that it was written to solve. Yes, you might need to dive a bit deeper to eek out some performance, but that comes with time and experience anyway. The author talks like even the most novice people need the ultimately deep understanding through all layers of abstraction. I think that is too much of a burden, especially when it acts as a barrier to people being able to jump in and use the technology to solve problems. Perhaps the best example of the world that I think the author wants would be the 1960s Apollo program. This was a time where the pinnacle of technology was being deployed in real-time to solve world moving problems. Human kind was trying to land on the moon! The most heroic optimization of machines and procedures had to be accomplished for even a chance for this to go right. The best of the best had to know every. little. thing. about. everything. People's lives were at stake! National pride was at stake! Failure was NOT an option! All of that speaks to more of what the author wants for everyone today. However, that's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist today. Compute power today is CHEAP!!! High level program languages and frameworks are so easy to understand that programming it is accessible to everyone with a device and a desire to use it. We're not going to the moon with this. Its the kid down the block that figured out how to use If This Then That to make a light bulb turn on when he farts into a microphone. The beauty is the accessibility. The democratization of compute. We don't need gatekeepers demanding the deepest commitment to understanding before the primitive humans are allowed to use fire. Are there going to be problems or things that don't work? Yes. Will the net benefit of cheap and readily available compute in the hands of everyone be greater than the detriments, I believe yes. It appears the author disagrees with me. /sorry for the wall of text
  • Say Hello to the World's Largest Hard Drive, a Massive 36TB Seagate

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    Thank you for all this information. One day when my ADHD forces me into a making myself a home server I'll remember this and keep it in mind. I've always wanted to store movies but these days just family pictures and stuff. Definitely don't have terabytes but I'm getting up 100s of gb.
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    my question was not directed at you Sorry for that, but you could say "it's NoneOfUrBusiness" (their username)
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    Oh, well that answered that question. Get your shit together tech bros
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    I stand corrected! Need to rewatch the whole show now