this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
1505 points (100.0% liked)

Not The Onion

15254 readers
4404 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

In the piece — titled "Can You Fool a Self Driving Car?" — Rober found that a Tesla car on Autopilot was fooled by a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like the road ahead of it, with the electric vehicle plowing right through it instead of stopping.

The footage was damning enough, with slow-motion clips showing the car not only crashing through the styrofoam wall but also a mannequin of a child. The Tesla was also fooled by simulated rain and fog.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Don't get me wrong, autopilot turning itself off right before a crash is sus and I wouldn't put it past Tesla to do something like that (I mean come on, why don't they use lidar) but maybe it's so the car doesn't try to power the wheels or something after impact which could potentially worsen the event.

On the other hand, they're POS cars and the autopilot probably just shuts off cause of poor assembly, standards, and design resulting from cutting corners.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

if it can actually sense a crash is imminent, why wouldn't it be programmed to slam the brakes instead of just turning off?

Do they have a problem with false positives?

[–] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

if it was european made, it would slam the brakes or swerve in order to at least try and save lives since governments attempt to regulate companies to not do evil shit. Since it american made it is designed to maximise profit for shareholders.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I don't believe automatic swerving is a good idea, depending on what's off to the side it has the potential to make a bad situation much worse.

I'm thinking like, kid runs into the street, car swerves and mows down a crowd on the sidewalk

[–] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago

Its the cars job to swerve into a less dangerous place.

Can't do that? Oops, no self-driving for you.

[–] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been wondering this for years now. Do we need intelligence in crashes, or do we just need vehicles to stop? I think you're right, it must have been slamming the brakes on at unexpected times, which is unnerving when driving I'm sure.

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

So they had an issue with the car slamming on the brakes at unexpected times, caused by misidentifying cracks in the road or glare or weird lighting or w/e. The solution was to make the cameras ignore anything they can't recognize at high speeds. This resulted in Teslas plowing into the back of firetrucks.

As the article mentioned, other self-driving cars solved that with lidar, which elon himself is against because he says AI will just get so good and 2d cameras are cheaper.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is from 6 years ago. I haven't heard of the issue more recently

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/tesla-autopilot-crash-analysis/

The tesla did not consistently detect that the thing infront of it was a truck, so it didn't brake. Also, this describes a lot of similar cases.

I remember a youtuber doing similar tests, where they'd try to run over a fake pedestrian crossing or standing in the road at low speed, and then high speed. It would often stop at low speed, but very rarely stopped or swerved at high speed.

[–] Krzd@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it make more sense for autopilot to brake and try to stop the car instead of just turning off and letting the car roll? If it's certain enough that there will be an accident, just applying the brakes until there's user override would make much more sense..

[–] Dultas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

False positives. Most like it detected something was off (parking sensor detected something for example) but doesn't have high confidence it isn't an erroneous sensor reading. You don't want the car slamming on brakes at highway speed for no reason and causing a multi car pileup.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 day ago

Normal cars do whatever is in their power to cease movement while facing upright. In a wreck, the safest state for a car is to cease moving.

[–] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I see your point, and it makes sense, but I would be very surprised if Tesla did this. I think the best option would be to turn off the features once an impact is detected. It shutting off before hand feels like a cheap ploy to avoid guilt

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

..... It shutting off before hand feels like a cheap ploy to avoid guilt

that's exactly what it is.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Rober seems to think so, since he says in the video that it's likely disengaging because the parking sensors detect that it's parked because of the object in front, and it shuts off the cruise control.