I have never been really comfortable with this idea of FSD being full-stack neural networks, aka, "images in to steering, brakes & acceleration out." At first I thought it at least needed some hard and fast rules, e.g., "don't ever hit solid objects," "don't ever pass a school bus," "don't ever drive off a cliff," etc. Not neural networks trained on these circumstances that have a 97% accuracy rate, but basically an "if" statement that is 100% enforced. With these, an all "AI" driving system could be workable, I thought.
However, now I think it is quite misguided to even aspire for full-stack neural network automation. It seems more like an "our only (or, better yet, our most exciting) tool is AI, so everything looks like an AI nail" type situation. Imagine if we taught our kids to drive this way: "I'm not going to tell you anything about driving - just watch what I do in all these circumstances and then emulate it." Would that result in good drivers? I don't think so.
The lane selection is an excellent example. Lane selection was never something I thought FSDb really struggled with. Then at 2022 AI day the Tesla engineers were all excited about they had this new NN model based on natural language processing that they had implemented into FSDb for lane selection. It would use the environment to make choices about lane selection and reduce dependence on "hard-coded" lane decisions and mapping. Well, it sucks - lane selection right now is one of the worst things about FSDb behind phantom braking. It seems to me there is still a place for "hard-coded" driving decisions to be in the system, such as "Are you turning left? No? Then don't move into the leftmost lane when it becomes available because it might be (probably is) a turn lane." Pretty simple, right? I mean especially when you have mapping information that can tell you what the lane is for. But the NNs just sort of guess, and while they may be right 85% of the time, that remaining 15% is pretty damn annoying (if not downright dangerous).
So I for one am not excited about the pending v12 release with full-stack NNs. There's going to be a ton of regression here and lots of opportunities for the system to veer away (no pun intended) from being a polished L3 autonomous driving system. Hopefully, this isn't more of Elon's "goal" of an L5 robotaxi, which I think everybody who drives these knows (if only deep down inside) is never going to happen. I think it's time for Tesla to start thinking about picking a realistic goal and then making moves using everything available to take this product over the finish line and call it done. It can't be a work-in-progress forever, right?
However, now I think it is quite misguided to even aspire for full-stack neural network automation. It seems more like an "our only (or, better yet, our most exciting) tool is AI, so everything looks like an AI nail" type situation. Imagine if we taught our kids to drive this way: "I'm not going to tell you anything about driving - just watch what I do in all these circumstances and then emulate it." Would that result in good drivers? I don't think so.
The lane selection is an excellent example. Lane selection was never something I thought FSDb really struggled with. Then at 2022 AI day the Tesla engineers were all excited about they had this new NN model based on natural language processing that they had implemented into FSDb for lane selection. It would use the environment to make choices about lane selection and reduce dependence on "hard-coded" lane decisions and mapping. Well, it sucks - lane selection right now is one of the worst things about FSDb behind phantom braking. It seems to me there is still a place for "hard-coded" driving decisions to be in the system, such as "Are you turning left? No? Then don't move into the leftmost lane when it becomes available because it might be (probably is) a turn lane." Pretty simple, right? I mean especially when you have mapping information that can tell you what the lane is for. But the NNs just sort of guess, and while they may be right 85% of the time, that remaining 15% is pretty damn annoying (if not downright dangerous).
So I for one am not excited about the pending v12 release with full-stack NNs. There's going to be a ton of regression here and lots of opportunities for the system to veer away (no pun intended) from being a polished L3 autonomous driving system. Hopefully, this isn't more of Elon's "goal" of an L5 robotaxi, which I think everybody who drives these knows (if only deep down inside) is never going to happen. I think it's time for Tesla to start thinking about picking a realistic goal and then making moves using everything available to take this product over the finish line and call it done. It can't be a work-in-progress forever, right?