It doesn't change my main point, he's been very consistent with the release cycle on FSD Beta.
I agree that the cadence of releases and follow through on Elon's tweets since The Second Coming of The Button has been quite satisfactory, even if it did lead to an NHTSA recall.
I definitely do not think that Elon was suggesting object permanence is coming in 10.4. I think he would have said specifically if that were the case. I expect 10.4 to be similar to 10.3.1 - so: basically exactly the same as 10.2 in terms of performance in most situations, perhaps with some small feature adds.
Object permanence would be a huge advancement. If they can construct a solid unchanging model of the environment (except for the things that are changing, of course), I think that has the potential to lead to much more consistent & smooth driving behavior.
Complicated problem though. These are very difficult problems that Tesla and others are trying to solve. In the end, even that solid model will have confidence levels included in it. Figuring out how to confirm information and incorporate it into the model without changing the model too quickly seems like the tricky part. And you can really never ever accidentally perceive obstacles. For example, if the model solidly latches on to the idea that a shadow is an obstacle, that will most definitely not result in more smooth driving behavior! (This perception issue appears to happen now, but
perhaps because the model does not have much permanence, the reaction is quickly muted.)
It's crazy stuff ("beyond wild," even?) and this simplistic thinking about it probably does not even come close to properly describing the tradeoffs they have to make.