Autopilot is way too conservative about unlikely threats...until it's not.

[SwampNut]

A common complaint I hear is that AP is way too conservative about situations like this, where you "know" the car will be out of your way when you get there. And I thought that way at first. Except that one day when a hidden pedestrian pops out and the car stops.



Would I have hit that car if I were manually driving under the bad assumption that the car would complete the turn? Dunno, but things like this have taught me to drive better even without AP. On my motorcycle I would never assume anything, so why would I in a car? Oh yeah, because steel cage and stupidity.

 

[Ogre]

Oh yeah, because steel cage and stupidity.

Riding my bike I learned quickly that people are much more aware of things which are dangerous/ threaten them. Little things like pedestrians and people on bikes are easy for drivers to overlook. It’s just the way our brains are wired. As a driver you have to be super conscious of this bias. Fortunately Autopilot and FSD care just as much about the pedestrians as they do the passengers.

 

[SwampNut]

Fortunately Autopilot and FSD care just as much about the pedestrians as they do the passengers.

It is definitely erroneously conservative about bicyclists. My area is full of bike lanes, and there's a lot of riding and walking. It will brake a lot for a rider fully in a bike lane where I have a full wide lane open. This is not good, other traffic doesn't expect it.

It will absolutely slam on the brakes and save a dude's life when he hits the curb and falls out of the lane though. Unfortunately I wasn't running dashcam then.

 

[Ogre]

It is definitely erroneously conservative about bicyclists. My area is full of bike lanes, and there's a lot of riding and walking. It will brake a lot for a rider fully in a bike lane where I have a full wide lane open. This is not good, other traffic doesn't expect it.

It will absolutely slam on the brakes and save a dude's life when he hits the curb and falls out of the lane though. Unfortunately I wasn't running dashcam then.

I’m not sure how much any of this has improved with the newer betas. I don’t think they’ve rolled any of the beta code into Autopilot yet.

 

[SwampNut]

I don’t think they’ve rolled any of the beta code into Autopilot yet.

I have a friend involved in the Tesla AI side at Nvidia, and he explains that the code for FSD is so vastly different that they can't just fold it into AP. I forgot the words he used, but something akin to language 1.0 for AP and language 3.0 for FSD. You can't just bounce from one to the other.

 

[Ogre]

I have a friend involved in the Tesla AI side at Nvidia, and he explains that the code for FSD is so vastly different that they can't just fold it into AP. I forgot the words he used, but something akin to language 1.0 for AP and language 3.0 for FSD. You can't just bounce from one to the other.

Yeah, I worded it poorly.

They won’t mix and match the 2. My understanding is at some point, the FSD code will completely replace the autopilot code. It’ll just be limited to a few basic things like lane keep.

I think the current version of FSD switches to Navigate on Autopilot when it gets on the highway and the next revision of the beta is going to replace the whole stack.

 

[SwampNut]

Oh, I understood you well, I was just building. on what you said. I think you're right on all counts.

My only wish is for AEP. I don't know that FSD would even be worth $50/mo to me, for sure not $200/mo, not even close.

 

[Ogre]

Oh, I understood you well, I was just building. on what you said. I think you're right on all counts.

My only wish is for AEP. I don't know that FSD would even be worth $50/mo to me, for sure not $200/mo, not even close.

Would love to be able to buy just the freeway pieces as well.

Being able to do 5+ hour drives hands free and napping is vastly more interesting than being able to get to Costco without driving.

 

[SwampNut]

Hah, well, I'm very happy with AP on long drives, though I can't really nap. But admittedly, I do use electronics and do a lot of not-watching-the-road things. Yes, I know I'm an idiot and all that. My first world annoyance is having to actually turn the wheel to pass cars.

I run AP 98% of the time, maybe more. It just works, nearly everywhere. I can predict the places where it won't now.