Tesla Autopilot Lawsuit could force a Paradigm Shift in the Autonomous Vehicle industry
From the article — Family of Apple engineer sues Tesla, saying Autopilot caused his fatal crash
“We want to ensure the technology behind semi-autonomous cars is safe before it is released on the roads, and its risks are not withheld or misrepresented to the public,” said Doris Cheng, another attorney working on the case.
The key word is — BEFORE
This means that the industry will have to prove, via simulation or test tracks, that the systems are ready for public use. This should include all edge cases or long tails, and perception validation, along with their variations, to reach some verifiable measurable level of assurance. This would effectively replace 99.9% of public shadow and safety driving with simulation.
Of course, the industry would also need to make a shift in the simulation technology it uses as most of what is being used is based on or derived from gaming architectures. These architectures have significant real-time, model fidelity and loading/scaling issues when used for AV development and testing. If not remedied these capability gaps will cause the AI/ML systems to create inaccurate plans, based on assumed and inaccurate environment, sensor, vehicle, tire and road models. These issues will be largely be hidden to engineering, creating false confidence, and will manifest in real-world issues including accidents that would normally be avoided or accidents being worse than need be.
(This would save the industry from itself and an impending industry crash. It is impossible to drive the one trillion miles or spend over $300B to stumble and restumble on all the scenarios necessary to complete the effort. Many of which are accident scenarios no one will want you to run once let alone thousands of times. Also, handover cannot be made safe for most complex scenarios, by any monitoring and notification system, because they cannot provide the time to regain proper situational awareness and do the right thing the right way.)
(Lawsuit — Sz Hua Huang et al v. Tesla Inc — California)
Please see more in my articles/podcasts here
Matricksz.TV Podcast — Featured Guest
The Autonomous Vehicle Podcast — Featured Guest —
SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Magazine-End Public Shadow Driving
Common Misconceptions about Aerospace/DoD/FAA Simulation for Autonomous Vehicles
Using the Real World is better than Proper Simulation for Autonomous Vehicle Development — NONSENSE
How Driverless Vehicle Makers Should Prove their Technology Works — —
The Hype of Geofencing for Autonomous Vehicles
