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Elon Musk Says Autopilot Will Soon Recognize Emergency Response Vehicles (inverse.com) 115

Posted by BeauHD from the welcome-to-the-neural-net dept.
Over the weekend, Elon Musk alluded to impending software updates that would make Teslas even safer than they already are. In response to a story about a DUI where a Tesla autopilot may have been involved, Musk said Autopilot may soon be able to recognize emergency response vehicles and react accordingly. Inverse reports: "Default Autopilot behavior, if there's no driver input, is to slow gradually to a stop & turn on hazard lights," Musk explained in the replies. "Tesla service then contacts the owner." That naturally got people wondering whether or not Tesla's autopilot was capable of differentiating between emergency response vehicles and everyone else. Presumably, someday soon autonomous vehicles are going to be able to recognize sirens (or their futuristic software equivalent.) If an ambulance pulls up behind an autonomous car on a single-lane road, it will need some mechanism to know it's supposed to get out of the way. In the meanwhile, Musk said that Tesla is already working on the first half of that problem, by teaching neural net to be able to recognize police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. On Twitter, he said that this capability would be added to the neural net "in the coming months."
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Elon Musk Says Autopilot Will Soon Recognize Emergency Response Vehicles More

Elon Musk Says Autopilot Will Soon Recognize Emergency Response Vehicles

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  • I needed my hourly update on Musk's twitter account. Thanks Rei!
    • Almost Frsit Psot.. You seem to be more obsessed with TSLA than even Rei.

      Went above 360 today, approaching the 420 tweet levels. Some talk about being included in S&P 500 index.

      One day Facebook lost 125 billion in market cap. 2.5 times the total valuation of TSLA! 12 times the total short interest in TSLA! If someone has shorted TSLA, and their trusted news sources did not even give them an inkling of the killing they could have made in Facebook, they should realize by now, they are being played fo

  • Just curious - what does autopilot do when it approaches a school bus with the lights flashing? In most (all?) jurisdictions in North America, a car must stop (a certain distance away from the bus).

    Is autopilot smart enough to handle this situation?

    • It runs into the back of the bus. But Musk said on Twitter it will probably be solved in the next over the air update.

    • Re:What about School Buses? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @09:31PM (#57744670) Journal
      Nope. It will not handle it.

      As it is shipped today, the Enhanced Auto Pilot supports only freeway driving. It has no ability to recognize stop signs, traffic lights, 90 degree turns, etc. All it can do is to follow the lane markings, follow the car ahead at a fixed distance, make lane changes when commanded. That is all. Even that only with the proviso that the human driver remains active and engaged in driving.

      In short you engage EAP and drive normally as though you don't have EAP. It will help you avoid dumb mistakes like drifting to another lane or making a lane change without fully checking blind spots.

      To me, it is not worth the price. I did not buy EAP.

      • "All it can do is to follow the lane markings, follow the car ahead at a fixed distance, make lane changes when commanded. That is all".

        Hmmm, then why call it "autopilot"? Many cars have follow the lane markings (lane centering) and follow the car features (adaptable cruise control). Why call it "autopilot"?
        • Morally bankrupt marketing
        • because it was designed by engineers who know what autopilot was used for in planes, but with bad enough marketing to not understand that people think it was always some magic box that eliminated pilots. To me it's kind of baffling, we've had autopilot in planes for decades yet we all expect to hear "This is your captain speaking" intercom announcements, are aware that we not only have a pilot, but a co-pilot for him. Nobody expects autopilot in an airplane to mean the pilots should be able to spend the fli

          • I think people assume the pilot can take a break from 'driving the plane' when it's on autopilot.

            • Right, which is more or less the misconception, (at least with regards to rules etc..., technically now autopilot has advanced enough that the pilot probably could get away with it without causing harm, but pretty sure rules and regulations still mandate at minimum one pilot paying attention at all times).

        • Hmmm, then why call it "autopilot"? Many cars have follow the lane markings (lane centering) and follow the car features (adaptable cruise control). Why call it "autopilot"?

          Because GP is actually wrong and the feature is significantly more capable. You'll also find that pretty much every other car's lane centering feature and adaptable cruise control doesn't have nearly the amount of overall control over the vehicle. The other systems are truly driver assist which require full and complete control to remain in the hands of the driver, where as autopilot is basically identical to the offloading of work and aircraft does for the pilot. It is possible to not hold the wheel for si

          • "It is possible to not hold the wheel for significant periods."

            Then why is Musk saying "Default Autopilot behavior, if there's no driver input, is to slow gradually to a stop & turn on hazard lights" when it's clearly not true.

            • There's a big difference between letting go of the wheel on another car (lane centering stops working and you die a horrible death) and autopilot (for 30 seconds nothing at all happens, then some warning sounds happen for a while longer while the car happily drives itself, and then if you continue to ignore the system it will come to an orderly stop.

              When driving at 130km/h 30seconds is a pretty frigging significant period of time, so was the over 2 minutes it worked for previously, and so were the infinite

              • "for 30 seconds nothing at all happens, then some warning sounds happen for a while longer while the car happily drives itself, and then if you continue to ignore the system it will come to an orderly stop ... was the over 2 minutes it worked for previously, and so were the infinite length of time before that when some dude playing his Nintendo while driving decided that we can't have nice things"

                30 seconds no input before starting to stop, from 2 minutes before, and never before that ? I don't think that's

                • Like that sleeping guy that the police chased down the highway at 70 mph a few days ago ?

                  We know very little about that sleeping guy. We do know a lot about Teslas, for example that 30 second warning, and 2 minute to abort auto drive is currently based on torque on the steering wheel. It is something easily defeated at present (not just on Tesla's, look up youtube videos of people stickytaping coke cans to their steering wheel), and would be inactive for something as simple as falling asleep while resting your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel.

                  30 seconds no input before starting to stop, from 2 minutes before, and never before that ? I don't think that's right and also more variables are involved.

                  According to the manual the only variables i

                  • "According to the manual the only variables involved ..."

                    So what happens when we ignore the Tesla Autopilot warnings? The answer appears to depend largely on the route you’re taking. https://www.teslarati.com/what... [teslarati.com]

                    "We know very little about that sleeping guy. "

                    But it still looks like a long time without 'conscious input', here's some more :

                    About 20 minutes of no hands : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

                    Guy eats hamburger : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

                    So it's not only time the car considers befo

                    • You just linked to two videos and a website which predate changes to the autopilot mechanism change which were introduced in late 2017 and early 2018 and downloaded to all cars via software update.

                      Did you miss the multiple articles on Slashdot we had about this "feature reduction"? If this were 2015 I'd agree with you, the early Teslas didn't do anything if you didn't have your hands on the wheel. It's one of the reasons that early adopters of autopilot are a bit peeved with the company.

                    • Do you mean it's only the time that matters now, 30 seconds, and it doesn't ever get longer depending on anything, like the 'quality' of road markings, speed, or curve severity? Any links?

                    • As far as I can tell no. The owners manual mentions nothing of conditions https://www.tesla.com/sites/de... [tesla.com] (page 91 of the PDF) It doesn't mention the timing and I'm getting conflicting information as to the exact details precisely because it's changed so frequently, but it looks like a lot of the anecdotes coming towards something resembling a consensus that from about 3 minutes of no hands on the wheel the autopilot will start disengaging.

                      Now one thing I don't know is if all cars are currently equal. Tes

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It seems odd that they don't go for this much lower hanging fruit, stuff the Hyundai/Kia system already does and which old Teslas used to do, before worrying about emergency vehicles where the driver should be able to take over anyway.

        Being able to read signs would be of great benefit to many Tesla drivers every day, and it's relatively easy to do.

        • worrying about emergency vehicles where the driver should be able to take over anyway.

          Unless he's drunk and/or asleep.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Seems like rather than trying to make the car pull over to let emergency vehicles pass a sleeping driver, they should install electrodes in the driver's seat to wake them up again.

        • Being able to read signs would be of great benefit to many Tesla drivers every day, and it's relatively easy to do.

          It does read speed limit signs, but that's all. It doesn't really act on them, either, other than to set the default cruise speed if cruise isn't currently active, and to issue a chime if you're currently exceeding the speed limit plus a user-provided offset.

    • No need for any autopilot. The adaptive cruise control / city safety already deployed in lots of vehicles nowaday will, when engaged and in the absence of input from the driver, slow down and halt the car.

      Whether the default stoping distance is acceptable for the "certain distance away" required by the north american law is a different matter.
      Though it is set-able, most of the time it is not per-vahicle dependent. Your car will stop at the same distance of whatever it detects, be it a truck, a bus, a car,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Just curious - what does autopilot do when it approaches a school bus with the lights flashing? In most (all?) jurisdictions in North America, a car must stop (a certain distance away from the bus).

      There are exceptions: I believe that in most (all?) jurisdictions, the car does not have to stop if the road is divided or has a median. (Not all divided roads are highways.) I can imagine that caveat being a bitch to get an AI system to understand.

  • Just like every 3 year old. Soon maybe they'll add trash trucks, front loaders and tractors.

    • The difference is once you train one Tesla, every new Tesla pops off the line with the new training. Three year olds require years of training for each one that comes off the line

      • Three year olds require years of training for each one that comes off the line

        Somebody's mommy and daddy finally told them about where the stork gets the babies! Good job, Big Boy!

  • Dont think Elon cares for the backdoor much. Im Psychic bet I can guess the news in the near future. :)
  • See if the driver is alert or not. :) Better hurry up with that. :) An addon package for later. :)

  • "Default Autopilot behavior, if there's no driver input, is to slow gradually to a stop & turn on hazard lights," Musk explained in the replies.

    If that's even close to true, then why in the world did the Tesla in question (the one that supposedly prompted his response) continue to drive for over 7 minutes before essentially being corralled into a stop by police cars? Something doesn't add up.

    • Re:Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @09:35PM (#57744690) Journal
      The driver alertness detector is so easy to defeat. Apparently people just hang a weight on the steering wheel and that stops the nag.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The Model 3 has an IR camera facing the driver, but it's not used at the moment. Would be nice if they put some effort into getting that to work.

    • Driver input means "hands on the steering wheel". Just more malarky.

    • As long as you fall asleep with your hand on the wheel, you're good. Until you approach an off ramp that the car confuses for a lane, and kills you when it hits the divider.

      • Eh, no big deal. It will be fixed in the next patch. Or maybe the one after that.
      • Is it worse than falling asleep at the wheel in a car without EAP?

        BTW, we have hundreds of thousands of traffic lights and so many signs and warnings on the highways and the roads. Still road accidents happen, and tens of thousands of people die in the accidents. Please go ahead and post snarky comments about these things too.

        • But it is "auto pilot". That means it drives itself. Right? Auto. Pilot.
          • Definitely it is a better auto. pilot. than this: Chrysler Auto Pilot. Circa 1958 [curbsideclassic.com]
            • A.K.A "Cruise control". That is what "auto pilot" means (plus lane assist and following). More Tesla hype. Why don't they just call it "driver assist" rather than the misleading "auto pilot"? Pure stupidity.
              • Tesla called it auto pilot following the well established norms and standards of automobile advertisements. Like Chrysler called dumb cruise control auto pilot 60 years ago.

                You think "auto pilot" should do "whatever the shit I think it should do". The pure stupidity on display here is yours.

                • Right. It is normal to call "cruise control" and "lane assist" as autopilot in the industry. You Tesla fanboys are unbelievable. Total reality distortion field.

          • Not really. Auto-pilot in its original context was used to keep a plane flying straight and on course. That's it. No one ever sent out a plane without a human pilot or thought that it was a good idea to put pilots in the cockpit who were drunk or tired. Auto-pilot is the perfect designation for the Tesla feature.

            Also, as an etymological sidenote, automobiles were not "auto" "mobile" until the advent of cruise control, but no one had an issue with calling it auto just because a human still pushed the pedal.

            • Give me a break. When a rich moron climbs into his overpriced car he is thinking "hey its autopilot. It will take me where I want to go and I don't need to do anything". Tesla fanboys are ridiculous.
              • He is moron. You said so yourself. So why is it Tesla's fault? Its the moron's fault.
                • Because Tesla is enabling morons by hyping features by giving them inappropriate marketing names. Tesla drivers are typically morons anyway and Musk knows it.

              • When a rich moron climbs into his overpriced car he is thinking "hey its autopilot. It will take me where I want to go and I don't need to do anything".

                Can you cite a single instance of this happening?

                You certainly seem to have a bug up your butt about the word "Autopilot". Why do you care so much? It seems like a strange thing to obsess over.

            • Apparently the important thing that was missed is that a plane is fine if it flies straight and on course. An automobile, not so much! Even so, an airplane requires much third party human assistance from the ground plus the pilot and copilot to guide it safely.

            • Auto-pilot in its original context was used to keep a plane flying straight and on course. That's it. No one ever ...

              It is much safer to lean on popular fiction than specialist jobs when considering what the popular understanding of a word is.

              In every sci-fi show, when you turn on auto-pilot, it flies for you and warns you loudly if there is any danger that requires intervention.

              Also airplane auto-pilot is often presented that way in fiction.

              So if you are defining the word, you have to list that too. And it is probably #1.

  • First thought, bad idea. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Monster_user ( 5075027 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @10:59PM (#57745128)
    My first thought on this, is its a bad idea to utilize imperfect machine learning algorithms for critical interactions. This is bound to go bad at a really bad time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe, but we still let humans drive.

      Just need to make the imperfect mechanical machine safer overall than the warm squishy machines already behind the while.

    • My first thought on this, is its a bad idea to utilize imperfect machine learning algorithms for critical interactions. This is bound to go bad at a really bad time.

      As opposed to utilizing imperfect bio-machine learning algorithms for critical interactions? We know those go bad at really bad times, too.

    • Who said imperfect and using? Nothing in the announcement did. Tesla is working on identifying vehicles and that's the extent of it. Expect the result of this to be a notification to the driver first and foremost.

  • For those who don't slobber over every meaningless Musk tweet, Tesla calls their adaptive cruise control system 'auto-pilot' for a variety of misguided reasons. This has nothing to do with aircraft. No idea why the editors didn't feel compelled to include that information. Aircraft typically don't encounter emergency vehicles.

    • Tesla calls their adaptive cruise control system 'auto-pilot' for a variety of misguided reasons. This has nothing to do with aircraft.

      Yeah, it behaves just like a plane or ship autopilot, which is to say it does what you tell it. How misguided!

      Aircraft typically don't encounter emergency vehicles.

      And the Tesla autopilot currently does just as much about them as an airplane. Sounds like a good name.

      • That argument only flies when the Tesla drivers will have to pass a license test comparable in the complexity to the test for a pilot certification and in addition a type rating for the Tesla model they want to drive, need a constantly renewed health check and have to recertify their driving license every two years.

        • And let's not forget that, although maybe the 'autopilot' only does what the GP says (I can't say authoritatively as I most definitely do not have a pilots license), most large aircraft are ILS3b capable and can achieve fully automated landings. If current aircraft technology really were at the early autopilot levels, this may be a reasonable argument. But the idea that the general public somehow knows the limits of aircraft 'autopilot' when it's part of a larger completely autonomous system is laughable.

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