This seems exceptional for Velodyne to come out with a statement like this directly from a spokesperson. I would expect a supplier to be more restrained before throwing a large (and growing) customer under the bus like this.
Well the question of "why didn't the lidar see the pedestrian?" was on everyones mind in the industry, so openly going out and declaring:
"it surely must have seen it, the lidar's are fine" is an attempt at reassuring everyone who is now questioning if Lidars are not reliable enough.
This is not exactly throwing Uber under the Bus as they themselves have an interest in being able to tell that story later on:
"Our analysis concluded that our algorithms didn't put enough weight on the data coming from the lidar, which worked as intended and should have been weighted higher in these specific circumstances, we will adjust our efforts accordingly and will Donate $largeSum to CarsAgainstHumanity to bribe everyone into forgetting how bad we fucked up."
It's entirely possible that Velodyne worded it far more softly, as to not directly attack Uber - as this article somewhat comes off as them doing.
Who knows what other greater context the particular statements were in. After this past election I never trust these types of one-line quotes taken from a larger interview.
The headline could easily have been:
- Uber's Lidar manufacturer just as "baffled" why pedestrian not detected before crash
Uber is the poster child for lying and cheating. With an extraordinary reputation and history of scandals like theirs, extraordinary proof is required for their claims.
But Velodyne has proof -- gobs of it -- that their product is "capable" of seeing the pedestrian in the dark. It's possible that this particular unit malfunctioned, but for this to be Velodyne's fault and not Uber's it would have had to malfunction in such a way that it gave the appearance of operating normally. That is extremely unlikely.
> She said that lidar has no problems seeing in the dark. “However, it is up to the rest of the system to interpret and use the data to make decisions. We do not know how the Uber system of decision-making works,” she added.
> “In addition to Lidar, autonomous systems typically have several sensors, including camera and radar to make decisions,” she wrote. “We don’t know what sensors were on the Uber car that evening, if they were working, or how they were being used.”
There's still a ton of variables here besides whether or not the Lidar detecting the pedestrian. Including the other sensors, how the software works, etc. All things out of the scope of Velodynes knowledge.
Velodyne is not saying that they are certain the car should/could have stopped in time or avoided the crash. Their perspective is merely regarding the functionality of Lidar being able to detect the person.
Not to mention we don't even know whether the Lidar malfunctioned yet either...
Go back and re-read the GP, which was trying to draw some sort of moral equivalence between Uber and Velodyne:
"Why is it OK for the LIDAR company to make a blanket statement of innocence without proof, but not OK for Uber to do the same?"
This is a disingenuous question. It assumes facts not in evidence, to use the legal aphorism. Velodyne did not "make a blanket statement of innocence without proof". It made a very narrow and defensible claim, namely, that its product, when working properly under the conditions at the time, should have been able to detect the pedestrian. It is obviously true that there are "a ton of other variables" but that is a red herring with respect to the original question.
> Velodyne did not "make a blanket statement of innocence without proof".
I agree, if anything I supported this statement with my comment.
The difference is that regardless of the narrowness of their claim, it will have a broader impact on how people judge Uber. Nor do we even know if the Lidar was functioning properly, which is an assumption Velodyne is making when they made their claim.
We simply need more evidence before we can fully judge Uber. And before we can give Velodyne a complete pass in terms of the functionality of their Lidar.
Uber is poison and everyone knows it. Everyone in the ecosystem is trying to throw them under the bus because they deserve it. The world will be a better place if Uber (not ride”sharing”) is destroyed.
I've seen less technical friends on social media responding to the dashcam video saying "of course it hit her; it's way too dark to see!" without understanding that LIDAR doesn't use available light. People may not understand exactly what Velodyne does, but so long as the company supplies "the eyes for self-driving cars" they have a clear risk of the public thinking this was a sensor failure.
More and more, I am convinced that the video released comes from scapegoat cameras, as someone named them here on HN: "post crappiest video available, have the public believe there's nothing you could have done." It works (tm)
Uber already tried getting their hands on a better LiDAR unit, we all know how it went. If they could switch to a better in-house sensor, they would have done so already, and Velodyne is the best of what’s commercially available now. What are they going to do, switch to an inferior model at a time their software can’t even avoid a collision using state of the art LiDAR?
It reminds me of when an airliner crashes (a rare thing now).
The airline, the manufacturer, the engine manufacturer, the part(s) suppliers, the pilots... will all point at each other. Usually the pilots lose because they don't have any money whether they were at fault or not.
You have to wonder why everyone isn't pointing at the safety driver in this case.
Here's an example of everyone blaming everyone else, and the manufacturer lost despite it not actually being their fault:
Uber being poison and it's easy to poop on Uber aside.
I think it makes sense to for Velodyne to get a head of the message before any client throw Velodyne under the bus. If Velodyne takes the hit, all their suppliers have leverage over them. Staying ahead keeps the clients confident in Velodyne products.
Also scale-wise, the market is tiny at this point. Nobody cares the sales from quarter to quarter because whenever self-driving cars hit mainstream, all previous numbers will be scribbles in the margin.
Velodyne has a finger in practically every major self driving car pie slice. It's pretty much heads you lose, tails I win for them (Assumption:nobody can bring a better laser to market).
I'm not sure Uber is a very large customer of Velodyne's. They're also suppliers for Google, Ford, and Caterpillar, as well as a bunch of others.
If they're sure it's not their fault it's a good idea to get that information out before people start questioning LIDAR technology. If Uber leaves they'll lose sales in the short term. If everybody else gets scared away then they're toast.
I don’t know how hard it is to not run over a human autonomously but I do know that it’s easy to refuse to let your cars on the road until they’re capable of it.
