Tesla's trump card: Sterling Anderson Director of Autopilot

[Electrifying]

Watch

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Especially near 6:20. This guy worked at MIT on autonomous driving for 10 years and had worked at Tesla as Director of Model X program and he is now Director of Autopilot. From what I can tell this guy is a genius and he's the reason behind Elon's prediction that complete autonomous driving will be realized in two years.



Listened to his Ted talk about Delaunay triangulation and corridor theory but still not very sure how the tech behind it works. Would love to hear more about this technology from you guys.

 

[SBenson]

Very impressive and informative. Gave a lot more detail to the end goal vision they are aiming for than Musk's vaugue remarks on the topic.

 

[Vitold]

He's talk reminded me about Toyota announcement earlier this year:

Toyota wants autonomous 'guardian angel' to help drivers

system that amounted to an autonomous "guardian angel," Pratt said, that would allow humans to maintain control of their vehicles in almost all cases except when it can help them avoid poor decisions or imminent dangers.

 

[MitchJi]

Thanks electrifying and Vitolo. Interesting and useful!

He's talk reminded me about Toyota announcement earlier this year:

Toyota wants autonomous 'guardian angel' to help drivers

Guardian Angel might be a smarter extension, in many ways, of the automated emergency braking functions which Toyota has pledged to make standard in all its cars starting in 2017. A dozen other automakers agreed on a voluntary pact last month to make the safety feature standard beginning in 2022, and Toyota's five-year head start may be a key differentiator for car buyers. But Pratt wishes automakers wouldn't necessarily view the technology as a competitive advantage as much as an area where they could collaborate with each other.

The advent of such systems doesn't only affect an individual vehicle, it affects every other car and pedestrian on the road. Collaboration, he said, "is right in the moral sense and right in the economic sense. If we can share the burden of making our cars safer, cars will be safer for all of us, and then we can spend our money on areas where we are competing more. That's more effective."

 

[3Victoria]

Thanks for that video. I think that when I drive, as he describes: I am constantly imagining a safe 'tunnel' of possible routings into the predicted future, and assessing possible intrusions into that space by other vehicles, pedestrians etc.

The Delaunay triangulation looks like a standardized and mathematically malleable method to overlay a triangular-mapping onto a plain.

His insight that each triangle can be characterized as a no-go, a pass-through, or a decision-point is very clever as the 'tunnel' essentially falls out. The projection of possible paths confined to the 'tunnel' determined by the car-model informs the decision-making.

Obviously, the devil is in the details, but the path forward (pun intended) is pretty clear. This gives me more confidence that Tesla will move forward quite rapidly with AP2, 3, ...

 

[dakh]

Ok so if I'm reading this right what is really going on here is they've created a reality with this tunnel idea that narrow AI can be trained to reason against. I'm not a big expert on this stuff but it does make sense to me, narrow AI has to be given some fairly specific constraints where it can be effective and this model would align AI operation with desired decision making outcomes.

 

[Intl Professor]

LOL when I watched a recent episode of Person of Interest, a TV series pitching one bad AI machine against another good one. The founder of the good one has a Tesla summoned for him which then drives itself to a destination--scenes of the moving car with a wheel correcting for turns, etc. Brief but spectacular promotion of Tesla's autopilot!

 

[DaveT]

Especially near 6:20. This guy worked at MIT on autonomous driving for 10 years and had worked at Tesla as Director of Model X program and he is now Director of Autopilot. From what I can tell this guy is a genius and he's the reason behind Elon's prediction that complete autonomous driving will be realized in two years.
Listened to his Ted talk about Delaunay triangulation and corridor theory but still not very sure how the tech behind it works. Would love to hear more about this technology from you guys.

Thanks for posting this video. I appreciated his vision of an autonomous and shared car future. It's toward the end of the talk at 15min 27secs.

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

I like the idea of a helper, but hate the idea of not having my own car. I have "my stuff" in my car...tools, coins, Kleenex, phone charger, glass breakers...you know - "my stuff". Getting into a roving car is like getting into a taxi. Dirty seat, food on the floor, torn upholstery driver with bad mood and oder. The whole taxi environment is not something I aspire to. Getting on an airplane - with others that are not very nice neighbors (lay seat back, eat smelly food, bring pets, leave trash....) I do this, but the experience is not nice. I treasure my personal space in my car.
So - his next problem is convincing old farts like me to give up on treasured positions. Nice as it sounds, is does not sound nice.

 

[yesla]

I think the biggest problem with the approach to auto pilot is that people are trying to explain it.

Why?

People just want to be tricked. not know how its done. cuz... at best, revealing the trick is lame. At the worst, forcing people to accept magic will cause fear and anxiety.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Well, as of today, Sterling Anderson no longer works at Tesla. Tesla hires creator of Swift programming language from Apple to lead Autopilot software

 

[surfside]

and in an odd/interesting tweet this evening, Sterling says "you ain't seen nothing yet"....

wonder what he means by that.

surfside

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yeah, just a bit puzzling!

 

[hockeythug]

New hardware with big promises just comes out and you are making major personnel changes? Yikes.

 

[BluestarE3]

and in an odd/interesting tweet this evening, Sterling says "you ain't seen nothing yet"....

wonder what he means by that.

surfside

• Under his leadership, Tesla has been working on a bunch of really cool stuff and he feels comfortable about leaving at this time, knowing that those projects are in good hands and will come to fruition even after he's gone.
• He's taking all those really cool ideas with him to his new employer or a company of his own -- which will be revealed shortly.

I'm thinking #2.

UPDATE: @bonnie thinks it's #1: Autopilot team changes

I'll defer to her knowledge/insight of things Tesla.

 

[BluestarE3]

New hardware with big promises just comes out and you are making major personnel changes? Yikes.

May not have been planned? The new guy may be a backfill for the old guy who unexpectedly announced he was leaving?

 

[bonnie]

I posted about Sterling's departure in another thread on this topic: Autopilot team changes

 

[hockeythug]

I posted about Sterling's departure in another thread on this topic: Autopilot team changes

Good to hear. Thanks, Bonnie.

 

[neroden]

• Under his leadership, Tesla has been working on a bunch of really cool stuff and he feels comfortable about leaving at this time, knowing that those projects are in good hands and will come to fruition even after he's gone.
• He's taking all those really cool ideas with him to his new employer or a company of his own -- which will be revealed shortly.

I'm thinking #2.

UPDATE: @bonnie thinks it's #1: Autopilot team changes

I'll defer to her knowledge/insight of things Tesla.

Um, bonnie's a little infamous for putting the most Tesla-positive possible spin on anything. She said he didn't get axed, which I'm sure is true. Her statements did not actually rule out #2.

 

[bonnie]

Um, bonnie's a little infamous for putting the most Tesla-positive possible spin on anything. She said he didn't get axed, which I'm sure is true. Her statements did not actually rule out #2.

Haha. And you're a *little famous* for taking pot shots at me. It's fine. I was just reporting facts. I can't stop you from going negative every chance you get, trying to find the worst possible way to look at things. I'm starting to find it cute.

Again, he's left on good terms. I expect those good terms to continue. He's well-respected within Tesla and that's something you don't just throw away to get a little career boost. Because taking IP is one of those things that will haunt you the rest of your career.