Remember that Elon isn't actually an engineer

Birds can fly with two wings and humans should be able to fly with X number of limbs.

I definitely agree that in principle a computer can drive with cameras alone. I don't know whether it's a useful statement. Like a human can determine the genre of a movie merely by watching it. I wouldn't suggest to blockbuster in 1990 that they should collect no genre metadata for movies because the database server should automatically sort it out on its own. (Nowadays somewhat feasible with ML of course, but 20+ years later.) What sensors/data you need is a question of where computers are now or will shortly be, and it seems that for now they need the extra structure of LIDAR for best effectiveness.

Well that, but Elon is also downplaying the quality of the human vision system compared to the cameras Tesla's have.

They're just not that good - nowhere near human vision performance. And a human in a car has a surprisingly good view of the road and a very fast pan tilt system to look around.

Tesla's do not actually have 360 degree full binocular vision coverage - nor the ability for a camera to lean left or right to improve an ambiguous sensor picture.

So while I fully believe that vision only self driving could work, within the constraints of automobile platforms and particularly the Tesla and it's current camera deployments, it is not remotely similar enough to human visual fidelity for that to solve a valid argument.

> Elon has said several times that humans can drive with two eyes and Tesla should be able...

And this is an amazingly stupid statement. Humans drive with most of their senses, not just vision. In fact our proprioception plays an important role in driving.

Even Tesla's use of cameras is poor because they're monocular and fixed in place. Most humans have binocular vision and those visual sensors have multiple degrees of freedom and the ability to adjust focus.

Even if you wanted to only use vision for navigation it's irresponsible to not use binocular configurations that get more reliable depth sensing.

"Elon has said several times "

At this point I truly don't understand why anyone cares what that liar says.

> When conditions are adverse, i.e. fog, heavy rain, the system simply shuts off and reverts back to manual driving.

I also own a Tesla, and there is no indication shown to the user that FSD's vision is degraded. They need to add this in.

For example, numerous times I have been driving my Tesla with FSD activated with ostensibly a clean and clear windshield when suddenly the car will do the "clean the windshield in front of the camera routine" without any indication that the car's camera is degraded. If people haven't seen this "clean the windshield routine", the wiper fluid is dispensed and the wiper will vigorously wipe in front of the camera only -- the rest of the windshield only gets a cursory wipe.

This indicates to me that the camera has poor visibility and I am not informed or aware of this as a driver, which is concerning. I am often curious if there is a thin occluding film on the windshield in the camera box in front of the camera, or something that has degraded FSD's vision, but they do not give you the ability to view the camera feed, nor do they notify you that the vision is degraded. I think a "thin occluding film" may be in the camera box because my normal windshield outside of the camera box started to show a thin chemical film after a couple of months, which apparently (according to a Google search) happens when a new car off-gasses, adding a thin film of chemical byproduct to the windshield. This is my first new car so I've no idea if this is normal or not.

Mine shuts off because of conditions regularly. It's very annoying.

FSD is a better driver than me 99% of the time.

99.9%? I'm not an expert on climate, but I would guess that at minimum 50% of the world faces snow or fog or heavy rain while driving at times. In some places, 30%+ of all driving year-round could be in snow-inclusive conditions.

99.9% of driving of sea-level, non-rainy, near-the-coast California/Austin weather, maybe. I would guess it's a no-go in the inland foggy conditions in CA, for example, or freezing rain in TX.

In terms of ALL conditions? 60-70% maybe.

It's not premature. Every single expert in this field has warned about these issues since even ~2012 days when these types of platforms were being publicly discussed.

This is an expected and understood result given the hardware and software involved.

You will not get past these issues without a RADICAL improvement in camera technology paired with specialized, dedicated processing hardware matched against several (and I mean several several) "common" environment profiles.

FSD is a scam. It's not safe. It is not technically sound.

The fact that there aren't many more accidents with the system is a by product of consistent and well thought out road standards, car standards, other safety systems present on cars, and driver education.

To be fair, Tesla vehicles are recalled more than any other automaker and it isn't close https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a43625242/tesla-...

> clickbait titles that fed political discourse.

Eh, while I agree with you on the permeation of reddit culture on this board, this post is in no way clickbait or political in nature.

In fact, the title of this post is literally copy and pasted from the problem description.

> One giant leap?

The gravity is weaker so just jump down /s