David Lee interviewed AI and self-driving expert James Douma again. James previously worked on the Autopilot system at Tesla.
David and James discussed some information that Elon Musk provided during an interview Elon had with Lex Fridman.
Elon said FSD Beta 11 would be one stack to rule them all. Currently, Tesla FSD (full self-driving) is on beta version 10.8. 10.8 is getting generally very strong reviews. Tesla FSD has had different neural net stacks for various aspects of the driving. One neural net for driving in highways another for driving on city streets and another for driving in parking lots. For at least 6 months, Tesla has wanted to merge all of them into one neural net for all of the driving. It would be better to not have handoffs between neural nets which can cause errors and problems. However, Tesla could only make the transition to one stack if this would not cause a large drop in reliability and performance for the FSD. Apparently, FSD Beta version 11 will be when Tesla’s single neural net will outperform the separate neural nets.
Elon also said FSD version 11 converts all the systems to work with surround video instead of vector space.
Before, they had a feed from each of the cameras.
Then they merged the images from all of the cameras.
Then they convert the video into a surround video and then this is converted into a bird-eye view video view.
These surround video views and bird-eye views simplifies the views and makes it more efficient.
This is now done with neural networks and less with C code.
The outputs are not points but the neural net output will be objects (cars, people, other objects).
Elon Musk has far stronger technical understanding of AI than any other CEO.
Tesla FSD is also converting to use raw photons and photons counts instead of image processing. This enables the AI to go beyond the limitations of human vision to the complete capabilities of the cameras. A camera can view 1000s of shades of gray but people can only see 32 shades of grey. This means an image that is dark to humans an AI could interpret the grey and still see cars and people. The cameras could also see shades of white to still see cars and people in what appears to be a white out image.
Elon said the FSD timeline is likely Level 4 by end of 2022. This is probably Tesla looking at internal metrics and running a line through the graph of changing metrics and looking at where the system would crossover known human capability.
Tesla Dojo progress? James expects that Tesla likely has cabinets of the Dojo system working. This is because they have the tile working at the demo. Worst case they may not have the linkage system and networking at full speed.
Tesla Bot expectations. James says that Tesla will have to make motors and actuators that are suited for Tesla bots. James expects that they will have the motors and actuators working fairly well enough for an impressive demo at the end of the year. However, there will be a lot of work after that to make a useful helper bot.
Tesla 2022 – what James look for? James feel the ramp of the 4680 batteries in 2022 will be the biggest impact for 2023. Tesla Energy will ramp explosively once the batteries are not constrained. James also believes there will be strong utility firm demand will enable margin on energy to grow. James thinks the battery ramp could enable Tesla energy to ramp to the size of Tesla cars in 1 to 2 years once the 4680 batteries ramp.
SOURCES= Dave Lee Investing, Lex Fridman
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
