this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
1565 points (99.2% liked)

Not The Onion

14986 readers
2918 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Mark Rober just set up one of the most interesting self-driving tests of 2025, and he did it by imitating Looney Tunes. The former NASA engineer and current YouTube mad scientist recreated the classic gag where Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel onto a wall to fool the Road Runner.

Only this time, the test subject wasn’t a cartoon bird… it was a self-driving Tesla Model Y.

The result? A full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall. Watch the video and tell us what you think!

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 12 points 12 hours ago

Yep, I could see someone placing a billboard like that with a cliff behind it.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Honestly all the fails with the kid dummy were a way bigger deal than the wall test. The kid ones will happen a hundred times more than the wall scenario.

Some sort of radar or lidar should 100% be required on autonomous cars.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think insurances will require that is it comes to self driving at least here in Europe.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I fully agree, but sadly, investors likely care more about their cars hitting walls than hitting kids. Killing a kid or pedestrian in the US is often a very cheap fine. When my uncle was run over on a sidewalk next to his son, the police ruled it an accident and the city refused to do anything. Same thing happened when my friend was ran over in a bike lane.... So killing humans is probably cheaper than hitting a wall.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 12 hours ago

Interesting that in the most consumerist nation on earth, objects have more value than people.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

+1...a classic!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Suddenly, there are more Yellow Brick Road murals everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

A building owner would not want cars crashing into their property though. Why would they get a mural to intentionally deceive a robot car?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Because its fucking funny.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

And the driver will have to pay to rebuild it anyway

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 73 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Anyone with half a brain could tell you plain cameras is a non-starter. This is nearly a Juicero level blunder. Tesla is not a serious car company nor tech company. If markets were rational it would have been the end for Tesla.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 16 hours ago

If markets were rational, CEO compensation would never have grown so high, and there'd be no billionaires either.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Austin should just pull the permits until all the taxis have lidar installed and tested. Or write a bill that fines the manufacturer $100 billion for any self driving car that kills a person and puts the proceeds 50% to the family and 50% to infrastructure. One of the first rules of robotics was always about not harming humans.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

One of the first rules of robotics was always about not harming humans.

The first, in fact.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I love that one of the largest YouTubers is the one that did this. Surely, somebody near our federal government will throw a hissy fit if he hears about this but Mark’s audience is ginormous

[–] [email protected] 32 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly I think Mark should be more scared of Disney coming after him for mapping out their space mountain ride.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

He probably just made Disney admissions and security even more annoying for everyone else.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 19 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 61 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (8 children)

The rain test was far more concerning because it's much more realistic of a scenario. Both a normal person and the lidar would've seen the kid and stopped, but the cameras and image processing just isn't good enough to make out a person in the rain. That's bad. The test portrays it as a person in the middle of a straight road, but I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen at a crosswalk or other place where pedestrians are often in the path of a vehicle. If an autonomous system cannot make out pedestrians in the rain reliably, that alone should be enough to prevent these vehicles from being legal.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›