You are greatly overestimating the functionality of the sensors, and underestimating the importance of the rest of the system. Sensors are important, but the majority of the work, effort and expense is involved with post-sensor processing. You can't just bolt a 'Lidar' on to the car and improve quality of results. Andrej and other engineers working on these problems are telling everyone the same story. The perfect solution is not obvious to anyone, and they have chosen one path. Engineers aren't trying to scam people out of a few dollars so they can weasel out of making high quality technology. This has Nothing to do with cost-cutting.
"The perfect solution is not obvious to anyone, and they have chosen one path. Engineers aren't trying to scam people out of a few dollars so they can weasel out of making high quality technology. This has Nothing to do with cost-cutting."
Lidar vs. Stereo camera vs. multiple cameras vs. ultrasound is a separate problem that engineers are trying to solve, not how can we sell cheaper mops. The decision to not use Lidar, as he says, and is the common debate being explored by people working on autonomous driving is whether it makes more sense to focus on stereo image sensors with highly integrated machine learning, or maybe use Lidar or other sensors and include data Fusion processing. Both methods have trade-offs.
"Lidar vs. Stereo camera vs. multiple cameras vs. ultrasound is a separate problem that engineers are trying to solve, not how can we sell cheaper fucking mops."
Okay? Tesla is a car company and they are absolutely trying to sell a cheaper car. That's obvious to anyone that's been in one.
"Both methods have trade-offs."
Right, isn't that why most other systems use both?
Both methods have trade-offs as in there are positive and negative merits for both approaches. Using both systems requires the sensor data to be fused together to make real-time decisions. This is the whole point, why people are trivializing this problem, and why it is easy to believe that they are just trying to scam people by going cheap on using multiple sensors. If you want to argue that it is better to use Lidar then explain why apart from 'others do it'. The podcast, and previous explanations by this guy and others that agree with him (which occurred way before some shortage issues) is about what is the best way to solve autonomous driving. You don't solve it by simply adding more sensors. There are multiple hours of technical information about why this guy Andrej thinks this way is best. Others make arguments for why multiple sensors and fusion makes more sense. No one knows the correct answer, it will be played out in the future. Maybe what some people care about is cheaper cars. That is not what the podcast was about, that is not how the Lidar + stereo camera vs. stereo-camera only decision was made. And in terms of the advancement of human civilization it is not interesting to me whether Tesla has good or bad quarterly results compared to what is the best way to solve the engineering problems & the advancement of AI, etc. I don't really care very much but it is slightly offensive when many people just dismiss engineers who are putting in tons of effort to legitimately solve complicated problems as if they are just scam artists trying to lie to make quick money. That is also a stupid argument. No company is going to invest billions(?) of dollars and tons of engineering hours into an idea they secretly know is inferior and will eventually lose out because they can have a good quarter. That is not a serious argument.
I am an engineer working on autonomous vehicles. Nothing personal just responding to the thread as a whole. I don't believe this guy is conspiring to trick anyone. Business decisions, or course. I think they are in good faith gambling on this one approach. So I am interested to see if their idea will win, or if someone else figures out a better way.
There problem is not that he was wrong, the problem is that he's made a motherhood statement in response to a very specific question.
He's not conspiring to trick people per se but he's also not being super clear. His position obviously makes it difficult to answer this question. It's possible he really believes this is better but if he didn't he wouldn't exactly tell us something that makes him and his previous employer look bad. Also his belief here may or may not be correct.
Is it a coincidence that the technical stance changed at the same time when part shortages meant that cars could not be built and shipped because of shortages of radars?
More likely there was some brainstorming as a result of the shortages and the decision was made at that point to pursue an idea of removing the additional sensors and shipping vehicles without those. This external constraint makes believing the claims that this is actually all around better, while hearing some reports of increases in ghost braking (anecdotes) a little difficult. Not clear if there was enough data at that time to prove this and even Andrej himself sort of acknowledges that it's worse by some small delta (but has other advantages, well shipping cars comes to mind).
So yes, sensors have to be fused, it's complicated, it's not clear what the best combination of sensors is, the software might be larger with more moving parts, the ML model might not fit, a larger team is hard to manager, entropy - whatever. Still seems suspicious. Not sure what Tesla can do at this point to erase that, they can say whatever they want, we have no way of validating that.
Maybe you're right, I don't care about Tesla drama.
Here is one possible perspective from an engineering standpoint:
Same amount of $$, same amount of software complexity, same size of engineering teams, same amount of engineering hours, same amount of moving parts. One company focuses on multiple different sensors and complex fusion with some reliance on AI. Another company focuses on limited sensors and more reliance on AI. Which is better? I don't think the answer is clear.
The other point is that I am arguing that many people are over-stating the importance of the sensors. They are important, but far more important is the post-processing. Any raw sensor data is a poor actual representation of the real environment. It is not about the sensors, but about everything else. The brain or the post-sensor processing is responsible for reconstructing an approximation of the environment. We have to infer from previous learned experiences of the 3D world to successfully navigate. There is no 3D information coming in from sensors, no objects, no motion, no corners, no shadows, no faces, etc. That is all constructed later. So whoever does a better job at the post-processing will probably out perform regardless of the choice of sensors.
People absolutely get that. Their issue is that Tesla is only relying on visual data and then on what is a disingenuous basis, insist that this is okay because humans "only need eyes" or some other similar sort of strawman argument.
Okay so they are "good faith" gambling? I don't want to drive in a car that has any gambling... I don't get how it being in good faith (generous on your part) makes it less of a gamble?
