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Comment by buvanshak | Hacker News Reader

> Also, people are terrible at detecting objects directly in front of them and just like computers, the human brain can be cheated, overloaded, inept or inexperienced leading to an accident.

How many optical illusions do you usually see in the roads while driving, that can result in an accident?

I am not even talking about the "people are terrible at detecting objects directly in front of them" part.

I mean, how can you be a human being and say this? If we were "terrible at detecting objects directly in front of us", we would have been predated out of existence a long time ago..

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Dips aren't quite an optical illusion; nor are blind spots, or obscured vehicles (behind frame of the car or behind another vehicle), but those are all quite common and are similar to illusions (you see imperfectly).

Sometimes you'll see multiple white lines, or lanes that appear to vere off due to dirt on the road. A bit of litter looks like a person, a kid looks like they might run out.

A lot of times I find I'm searching for something and can't see it but it was in my visual field. I think this worsens with age.

> but those are all quite common and are similar to illusions

No. None of those qualify as brain being cheated.

They're similar in the sense that you don't see what you need to see; in the limited locus of "ability to safely control a vehicle" I consider them similar.

Optical Illusion is not similar to not being able to see an object behind an opaque object. And when you say "brain can be cheated", it means an optical illusion.

That is the only thing I was responding in the start of this discussion. Essentially the person was saying human brain can be cheated just like a computer.

I am saying, No. Not just like a computer. Human brains does not get cheated so easily like a computer. Claiming that is outrageous and shows you have no idea of what you are talking about...

Humans can only look in one direction, and only from inside the car with their view obstructed, and they're only paying attention sometimes.

Check out this article, it is easy to never see a bike you're on a collision course with. https://singletrackworld.com/2018/01/collision-course-why-th...

>Humans can only look in one direction..

Last time I checked, I could move my eyes, up and down, side to side. I could also rotate my whole head, that also up and down and side to side.

And I am a human being.

We're not talking about complicated scenarios with multiple moving actors. Tesla's autopilot cannot even do something as basic as detect stationary obstacles that are directly in front of the car. It will crash into barriers even if the highway is completely devoid of other cars.

You may consider humans as bad drivers but Tesla's autopilot is even worse than that:

It can't even look in one direction!

I'm talking about the pitfalls of human perception, and the low-hanging fruit of ways that self-driving systems can potentially outperform humans.

I'm not claiming Tesla's system is currently better than a human, just that there is plenty of potential for a machine to outperform humans perceptually. As it is, Tesla's system isn't exactly the gold standard.

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