My car is hallucinating.

[parsec]

My 2024 MYLR occasionally misses "seeing" other vehicles entirely. And sometimes it categorizes a pickup truck as being a box truck, and then it jumps back to being a pickup, etc. But yesterday, I was at a light, and noticed that the car in front of me did not have a turn signal on, but the visualization showed it with a turn signal blinking. Odd.

Have you noticed your car hallucinating?

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

If that is self driving I am glad I don't have it.

 

[KMC_307]

The car determines everything it "sees" by applying an algorithm to it. Depending on the input, the output of that algorithm can vary. Different lighting, slight reflections here and there, maybe something in the background that it mixes up with a foreground object, those are all valid reasons for the algorithm to misfire while trying to detect an object and displaying it properly.

Your car is not actually understanding what it sees, not like a human brain does. It also has no memory of what happened 3 seconds ago and since it analyzes the input constantly, it can identify an object as one thing at first, then change that identification all of a sudden and then switch back.

Edit: And to be honest, for it to take a proper driving decision, it doesn't matter if a pickup is detected as a box truck or as a pickup..

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

So Miketv thinks I should be happy cruising along on self drive chatting to customers and my car can miss a tourist pulling out of a hotel drive onto the wrong side of the road coming at me head on. Disagree all you like but it's not for me the way it operates presently.

As soon as you take the pressure off driving you allow the brain to occupy itself elsewhere. Not good in my world.

 

[parsec]

The car determines everything it "sees" by applying an algorithm to it.

I think that it more likely uses a neural network to categorize the things it "sees". Getting from millions of multicolored pixels to categorizing some of them as lane markings, some of them as curbs, some of them as people walking, some as small cars, some as large trucks is difficult and slow to do algorithmically.

Unfortunately, it is also difficult and slow via neural networks. It is fast enough that it can construct a crude model of the environment, and display that model on the touchscreen, and fast enough that, in simple driving environments, the car can often make workable driving decisions based upon that constructed model. But it is not fast enough to ensure that the car behaves safely without considerable supervision. (Which, in my view, makes the current beta version of FSD very tiring to use, about doubling the driver's workload as compared to driving in full manual mode.)

I don't agree that a "proper" driving decision is independent of the car's ability to categorize object sizes and distances. Box trucks take up more space on the road than bicycles do, and to determine if the Tesla can fit between two objects, it must perceive the objects' sizes and the road width.

 

[KMC_307]

I don't agree that a "proper" driving decision is independent of the car's ability to categorize object sizes and distances. Box trucks take up more space on the road than bicycles do, and to determine if the Tesla can fit between two objects, it must perceive the objects' sizes and the road width.

Agreed, but I wasn’t stating otherwise. The measures need to be correct, but they don’t come from a category the car applied. It simply doesn’t matter, if the cars are pickups or box trucks to the car, as long as it sees their dimensions and the relative distances and speeds those specific cars have?

For example:
Let’s say you have to decide if to park between two vehicles, do you compare their categories and the measures that come with it or do you look at the empty space in between and decide?

 

[nkresho]

Mine sees the phantom turn signals all the time. I think, yesterday, it was actually seeing my turn signal reflected off the rear reflector of the car though. That may be it, just seeing light reflected off the car that has a blinking pattern.

I still think it's so cool when it gets it right and a trash can looks like a trash can.

I guess the morphing never really bothered me.

I've seen it rotate a car's depiction on it's center axis more than one way at the same time so it's like a two headed car with one rear end, each head offset at 45*. Then it sort of wiggles left and right like it's about to magically change into something else.