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What an annoying charlatan. Karpathy is a brilliant computer vision engineer, but he has let his expertise in that subfield cloud his judgement on achieving the

by aimkey 5y ago

What an annoying charlatan. Karpathy is a brilliant computer vision engineer, but he has let his expertise in that subfield cloud his judgement on achieving the overall goal of autonomous driving. Musk and Karpathy have been dead wrong about LIDAR for years. Remember Musk making the absurd claim of a million Tesla robotaxis by 2020? I think most hilarious is that both Karpathy and Musk claim the LIDAR systems are too expensive. Yet, in the same 2019 Autonomy Day they simultaneously claimed that Teslas would be able to drive themselves and operate as robotaxis, earning their owners passive income and therefore justifying significantly increased MSRPs. So, the $7k LIDAR system (that accelerates safe autonomous driving) is not worth the cost, yet stumbling towards autonomy on vision only is? If the car becomes an money-earner, you should use all of the systems available. The 2019 Autonomy Day was an utter embarrassment. I'm sure 2021 will be more of the same. So now it seems that they've realized their folly in logic. So what's the solution? Well, you can't just complain about COST of non-vision perception systems. Because, as noted above, that doesn't make sense if you're going to simultaneously claim that your car will be able to earn you money (augmenting any extra hardware cost that gets you to that point faster). No, now you have to smear all non-vision perception systems. You have to say that their data is worthless and detrimental to the overall effort. The entire claim from the 2019 Autonomy Day that "vision is what humans use to drive" is also completely bogus. Humans use many senses to drive. They feel the pedals and steering wheel. They use their equilibrio sense to sense motion. And they use their hearing to hear other vehicles, sirens, and issues with their own car (driving with headphones in is illegal for a reason). Any modern car, even a Tesla, is also using far more than just vision when attempting autonomy. Forget about radar and LIDAR for a moment. There are endless sensors in the drivetrain. Steering angle sensors and multiple IMUs for the electronic stability control. Brake and wheel sensors for the ABS. Temperature sensors everywhere. And countless other ECUs. The notion that vision is getting you there exclusively is nonsense. There's no good argument against LIDAR today other than perpetuating a lie to sell cars that are cheaper to produce. And, Karpathy has a massive professional conflict of interest in making CV the main player -- he's a CV expert. He was never a fusion expert before his hire. If CV is the pathway forward, he's gets to remain "the guy". It certainly behooves HIM to make that claim. Autonomous driving will not be achieved in this decade. Perhaps ever. Ask yourself honestly: if you were tasked with building an autonomous commercial aircraft OR an autonomous car, which would you choose? Most would say aircraft -- nothing to really hit in the air, fully mapped airport and runway systems, and far fewer variables. Yet autonomous aircraft still do not exist. Perhaps the edge cases always rule the roost. Ask yourself why driving would be any different...

kortex 5y ago
Re: senses - have you ever played a driving sim? You can drive just fine with vision without tactile. Sirens are primarily a means to get you to look in a direction. 360° cameras can notice the emergency vehicle as soon as it's visually relevant. And if they decide they need an audio siren detector, that's like, practically intern level signals detection at this point. Hardly a dealbreaker. 100% hands-down would pick autonomous car vs airplane. Flying a plane isn't just moving the aluminum bird through 3 space and periodically taking off or landing. Autonomous aircraft don't exist because a huge amount of the ritual of flight is before and after the captain is even on the plane, let alone flying. There is a tremendous amount that the pilot and copilot go through, on the ground, before taxi, after liftoff. It's way, way more involved and way more generally intelligent. We can design AI to take off, path to a destination, and land. Those 3 things are the easiest parts of flying, yet do not comprise the act of flying a 2-seater, let alone an airliner.
- aimkey 5y ago
  Mentioning the senses wasn't meant to be an itemization of "senses" that a car or car operator needs. Of course you can still drive decently while deaf and without feeling the g-forces. The point is that vision is NOT the only input. In semi modern (non-self-driving) cars, the driver is still assisted by a flurry of additional vehicle sensors in addition to vision and the other human senses. So dismissing LIDAR as "not needed" is foolish. I understand the complexities of modern commercial flight. I still consider it far less complex (computationally) than driving on today's public road. The fact that you have V2V communication out of the box (via transponders) is probably the biggest factor. I would not rule out autonomous driving WITH a standardized V2V / V2E system. Without one? I'm bearish.
  - kortex 5y ago
    My understanding is that LIDAR is diminished on the aspect of not just "not needed," but also potentially exacerbating local minima under good (e.g. fair weather) conditions. Having LIDAR means you can rely on LIDAR, which means you need the LIDAR to be 100% reliable. I've read some companies claiming their lidar works through rain and snow but I haven't seen actual renders of it yet to judge for myself. No lidar acts as a forcing function for Tesla to get their vision system that much more reliable. I think this will ultimately result in a better vision system than the competitors, and I believe that (somewhat paradoxically) this will result in an overall better, safer, and more reliable system, when it comes to the 20% long tail. Lidar+vision will probably dominate in fair weather driving. I'm skeptical it's of much benefit in bad weather, and that long tail is the hard part.

by aimkey 5y ago

kortex 5y ago

Re: senses - have you ever played a driving sim? You can drive just fine with vision without tactile. Sirens are primarily a means to get you to look in a direction. 360° cameras can notice the emergency vehicle as soon as it's visually relevant. And if they decide they need an audio siren detector, that's like, practically intern level signals detection at this point. Hardly a dealbreaker. 100% hands-down would pick autonomous car vs airplane. Flying a plane isn't just moving the aluminum bird through 3 space and periodically taking off or landing. Autonomous aircraft don't exist because a huge amount of the ritual of flight is before and after the captain is even on the plane, let alone flying. There is a tremendous amount that the pilot and copilot go through, on the ground, before taxi, after liftoff. It's way, way more involved and way more generally intelligent. We can design AI to take off, path to a destination, and land. Those 3 things are the easiest parts of flying, yet do not comprise the act of flying a 2-seater, let alone an airliner.

aimkey 5y ago
Mentioning the senses wasn't meant to be an itemization of "senses" that a car or car operator needs. Of course you can still drive decently while deaf and without feeling the g-forces. The point is that vision is NOT the only input. In semi modern (non-self-driving) cars, the driver is still assisted by a flurry of additional vehicle sensors in addition to vision and the other human senses. So dismissing LIDAR as "not needed" is foolish. I understand the complexities of modern commercial flight. I still consider it far less complex (computationally) than driving on today's public road. The fact that you have V2V communication out of the box (via transponders) is probably the biggest factor. I would not rule out autonomous driving WITH a standardized V2V / V2E system. Without one? I'm bearish.
- kortex 5y ago
  My understanding is that LIDAR is diminished on the aspect of not just "not needed," but also potentially exacerbating local minima under good (e.g. fair weather) conditions. Having LIDAR means you can rely on LIDAR, which means you need the LIDAR to be 100% reliable. I've read some companies claiming their lidar works through rain and snow but I haven't seen actual renders of it yet to judge for myself. No lidar acts as a forcing function for Tesla to get their vision system that much more reliable. I think this will ultimately result in a better vision system than the competitors, and I believe that (somewhat paradoxically) this will result in an overall better, safer, and more reliable system, when it comes to the 20% long tail. Lidar+vision will probably dominate in fair weather driving. I'm skeptical it's of much benefit in bad weather, and that long tail is the hard part.