Very surprised Mark isn't... Super supportive of musk and Tesla.
He owns a Tesla and is rather wealthy at this point. Not to mention that he's Mormon. I'd expect him to be very conservative and all in on the grift.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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Mark is a smart guy, I'm sure he walks great big circles around anything political, at least publicly.
His audience is everybody, aligning publicly with any kind of political flow is generally a bad idea if you want that to stay that way, because the only thing you'll likely achieve is shrinking your potential audience.
I would also be careful with the assumption that all conservatives agree with what's currently happening.
What a world we're living in!
Observing a technical deficiency in a robotics platform requires political considerations. Even when a car drives into a fucking wall at 40MPH on camera, people are asking about the camera man's political party affiliation and not what's wrong with the car.
Wild!
Unfortunately when the vehicle in question is created by a company owned by a man operating a government agency, it's a valid question. He could have just never made the video, but making one that directly opposes the narrative of people you'd expect the "camera man's" political affiliation to be seems unusual.
I’d expect him to be very conservative
We still don't know for sure. That video will likely become one of, if not his top-grossing videos. The topic and timeliness are absolute fire.
I give him some credit, though. It's a dicey time to throw Musk under the self-driving bus while showing that alternatives don't have the same problem.
They should just program it to drive through the painted tunnel but when another driver comes behind you they crash into it.
According to Ol' Elon the robo-taxi service has been a couple months away since 2017 or so. I can't imagine it's much closer now than then.
I think Rober just showed us why. Mowing down kids in weather is an unacceptable amount of risk.
Unacceptable risk to you. I’m guessing Elon is fully prepared to take the risk and minimise the consequences.
That's what insurance is for after all
Even Leon Skum has to deal with insurance companies, for now.
It's right at the end of the tunnel they're diggin in CA
All these years, I always thought all self driving cars used LiDAR or something to see in 3D/through fog. How was this allowed on the roads for so long?
They originally the model S had front facing radar and ultrasonic sensors all round, the car combined the information to corroborate it's visual interpretation.
According to reports years ago the radar saved Tesla's from multiple pileups when it detected crashes multiple cars ahead (that the driver couldn't see).
Elmo in his infinite ego demanded both the radar and ultrasonics be removed, since he could drive with out that input so the car should be able to.. also it is cheaper.
I'd be very curious to know how much cheaper it is. Sure, there's R&D to integrate that with everything, but that cost is split across all units sold. It feels like the actual sensors, at this scale, can't add a significant amount to the final price.
I think it's all about the timeline. Tesla gambled on cameras before AI models became usable (the company most certainly committed itself to the camera sensors a few years before it became public). By the time automated driving models became usable, Tesla had tons of camera data to capitalize on, but presumably not the corresponding radar data (or not in a consistent manner), so rebuilding a multi-sensor dataset for AI training was probably not very appealing in terms of cost and time to market.
Back when Elon made avoiding LiDAR a core part of his professional personality, it was fairly expensive. But as any tech genius can tell ya, component prices drop rapidly for electronics.
Now, radar is dirty cheap. Everything has radar. Radar was removed from Teslas. A radar sensor for my truck is $75, probably much less at scale orders.
LiDAR sensors cost anywhere from $500-$1,500 for a vehicle of this type, near as I can tell (this type being Level 2 autonomy rather than something like a Waymo. A well-kitted out self-driving vehicle has 4 LiDAR sensors).
Here is the LiDAR module currently used on the Mercedes S-Class, it's $400 used: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285816360464
It's a hideously small cost-savings in 2025 for a luxury vehicle like a Tesla. Any rational company would've reversed course after the first stationary-object-strike fatality. Tesla is not a rational company.
Exactly, my previous car (BMW) once saved me in the fog by emergency braking for something I wasn't able to see yet. My current car (Tesla) shuts down almost all safety features when the camera's can't see anything, so I doubt it will help me in such situations. The only time my Tesla works well is in perfect conditions, but I don't live in California.
Exactly, my previous car (BMW) once saved me in the fog by emergency braking for something I wasn’t able to see yet.
If you were driving at a speed at which the low visibility would have gotten you into into an accident due to some obstable you weren't able to see yet, you were driving too fast. Simple, isn't it?
While true, it's still nice that super-human senses are looking out for the driver on their behalf. Also it's nice if super-human senses allow for braking earlier and closer to graceful rather than standing hard on the brakes because of late notice.
Fog is one example, but sudden blinding glare could be another situation that could be mitigated by things like radar and lidar. Human driver may unexpectedly be blinded and operating at unsafe speed without any way of knowing that glare was coming in advance.
As you say, it's nice if there is an additional assistant, also for e.g. health emergencies.
That said: Driving assistants should only ever be that: assistants. They are not a replacement for safe and controlled driving. I know I've been an arsehole on some occasions when I had my driver's license fresh, and I got lucky that I didn't have any accidents until I learned to calm down and drive with respect for other people and animals. Just throwing that in here to say I don't consider myself a saint. But anything "self driving" should be forbidden everywhere, unless it's on rails that the vehicle can not reasonably escape even if it wanted to (i.e. trains).
These things will make people more complacent and lazy, and will absolutely lead to worse drivers and more collisions
Just like government hand outs... Prohibiting accidents is communism, dyind on the grill of a SUV is a patriotic duty... /s
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