this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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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.

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[–] Darjuz@feddit.it 1 points 1 minute ago
[–] get_the_reference_@midwest.social 19 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

E. Lon Musk. Supah. Geenius.

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Will he Ket o' won't he?

[–] emberpunk@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

"They only paid me to say it once..."

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 75 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

I hope some of you actually skimmed the article and got to the "disengaging" part.

As Electrek points out, Autopilot has a well-documented tendency to disengage right before a crash. Regulators have previously found that the advanced driver assistance software shuts off a fraction of a second before making impact.

It's a highly questionable approach that has raised concerns over Tesla trying to evade guilt by automatically turning off any possibly incriminating driver assistance features before a crash.

[–] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It’s a highly questionable approach that has raised concerns over Tesla trying to evade guilt by automatically turning off any possibly incriminating driver assistance features before a crash.

That is like writing musk made an awkward, confused gesture during a time a few people might call questionable timing and place.

[–] cortex7979@lemm.ee 20 points 5 hours ago

That's so wrong holy shit

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 10 hours ago (6 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 16 points 4 hours 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 1 points 1 hour 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 2 points 32 minutes ago* (last edited 31 minutes 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 1 points 13 minutes 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 2 points 4 hours 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 7 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours 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 -1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours 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 5 points 7 hours ago

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..

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 9 hours 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.

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