The bitter lesson is finally coming for the self-driving cars. The vision stack, 3D maps, lane selection grammar, occupancy networks, it’s maybe all about to give way to a single GPT looking at camera feeds and predicting the next steering wheel adjustment.
It’s mostly a latency problem at this point. The models are too big to run locally, but given that open-weight models like Qwen already exist, an open-weight, low latency equivalent to Astra can’t be too far out.
> The bitter lesson is finally coming for the self-driving cars.
Maybe, but the opacity level of models is not acceptable for cars. "Why did it drive under the semi?" "Model said to." "Why did the model say to?" "shrug"
> Maybe, but the opacity level of models is not acceptable for cars.
That depends on actual performance of the model. I would prefer an opaque model with clearly superhuman driving abilities to a human, or to a non-opaque model with worse performance.
No self-driving cars that aren't transparent about exactly how they work. (Ideally, no anything that isn't transparent about exactly how it works.)
This take can perhaps appear to make sense in a situation when clearly superhuman opaque AI models don't yet exist. But once they do, good luck convincing people that they should not save lives or reduce their personal risks, just because they always supposedly need an explanation for any accidental deaths, lol.
In our scenario (self-driving), the one who would be ultimately "held accountable" would not be the computer, or the company, but the person who died after singing a waiver/EULA and getting into a statistically superhuman autonomous car, then having a stroke of incredibly bad luck. Such events will happen, but they will be very rare.
valine · · focus · HN ↗
It’s mostly a latency problem at this point. The models are too big to run locally, but given that open-weight models like Qwen already exist, an open-weight, low latency equivalent to Astra can’t be too far out.
JoshTriplett · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe, but the opacity level of models is not acceptable for cars. "Why did it drive under the semi?" "Model said to." "Why did the model say to?" "shrug"
Marha01 · · focus · HN ↗
That depends on actual performance of the model. I would prefer an opaque model with clearly superhuman driving abilities to a human, or to a non-opaque model with worse performance.
JoshTriplett · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-computer-can-never-be-held-accountable" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-computer-can-never-be-held-...
No self-driving cars that aren't transparent about exactly how they work. (Ideally, no anything that isn't transparent about exactly how it works.)
Marha01 · · focus · HN ↗
In our scenario (self-driving), the one who would be ultimately "held accountable" would not be the computer, or the company, but the person who died after singing a waiver/EULA and getting into a statistically superhuman autonomous car, then having a stroke of incredibly bad luck. Such events will happen, but they will be very rare.