Did a Russian Robotics Company Fake This Tesla-Robot Crash? (wired.com) 43
Last Saturday a firm which rents promotional robots claimed that one of their robots broke free from a line of robots, only to be hit by a self-driving Tesla.
Though video of the incident has now been viewed over 1.2 million times, Wired followed up on the company's claim that "Nevada police" were investigating the incident. Or weren't. Aden Ocampo Gomez, a public information officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said he couldn't find any record of such an incident. And anyway, he says, "We don't report to that kind of incident on private property."
Wired also challenged Promobot's claim that their robot was hit by "a self-driving Tesla car": Teslas don't have a "full self-driving" mode. Autopilot, the automaker's semiautonomous system, is made for highways, not the sort of private road shown in a video of the alleged crash published by the robotics company. Promobot seems to start falling over just a moment before the car gets to it. And that video appears to show a rope snaking away from the incident -- the sort that could be used, say, to pull down a robot that hadn't been hit by a car at all.
When Wired contacted the company for a comment, they didn't respond.
The company's press release also claims that after the collision "most likely there is no way to restore" their robot -- and yet the Daily Dot reports Promobot "does not intend to pursue reparations".
Though video of the incident has now been viewed over 1.2 million times, Wired followed up on the company's claim that "Nevada police" were investigating the incident. Or weren't. Aden Ocampo Gomez, a public information officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said he couldn't find any record of such an incident. And anyway, he says, "We don't report to that kind of incident on private property."
Wired also challenged Promobot's claim that their robot was hit by "a self-driving Tesla car": Teslas don't have a "full self-driving" mode. Autopilot, the automaker's semiautonomous system, is made for highways, not the sort of private road shown in a video of the alleged crash published by the robotics company. Promobot seems to start falling over just a moment before the car gets to it. And that video appears to show a rope snaking away from the incident -- the sort that could be used, say, to pull down a robot that hadn't been hit by a car at all.
When Wired contacted the company for a comment, they didn't respond.
The company's press release also claims that after the collision "most likely there is no way to restore" their robot -- and yet the Daily Dot reports Promobot "does not intend to pursue reparations".
So you're saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
An implausible clip of a so-called "Promobot"...built by a promotions firm...may, in fact, be a promotional video?
Re: (Score:2)
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This is the same Russian company [sciencealert.com] that's been plugging its "Our robot keeps trying to escape its lab!"
If the very obviously fake "accident" isn't enough, just listen to how they described Autopilot:
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"Does it need to be mentioned that Autopilot doesn't even remotely work this way? You can't "activate it as a passenger..."
I wouldn't waste much time arguing or questioning word choice with what's probably a machine translation from a company sensationalizing the event.
The trouble with AI (Score:2)
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You give them responsibility. It works for me ;).
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"The trouble with putting AI in robots is how do you get them to stop wanting to commit suicide?"
Give them genitals
A Youtube Music Video That Explains What Occurred (Score:2)
Fake bullshit (Score:3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They Did "Escaped Robot And Cars" Before In 2016 (Score:5, Informative)
Nothings forgotten. (Score:1)
Re:Ya... We are... (Score:2)
Re:Either WAY (Score:2)
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> we are FUCKED
Not yet. Those models are the 2.1 revision. ... and you say that like that's a bad thing!
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a terminology problem. It's a complete lack of understanding of what a Tesla can and can't do.
Yes, Tesla Autopilot can be used on city streets. But what you see here is not a street. It is a parking lot driveway. It is absolutely impossible to engage Autopilot on a road that looks like this. Autopilot requires a road to have lines (solid or dotted) on both sides of the lane, though occasionally you can get away with a sufficiently high-contrast curb.
On a road with no lines, you cannot engage any autonomy other than basic traffic-aware cruise control (with no automatic steering whatsoever). If somehow you managed to trick Autopilot into driving on this road anyway, it would have treated the driveway as a single (unusually wide) lane, so the car would have gone right down the middle of the driveway, not down one side.
So basically, unless they're claiming that Tesla brought a car with alpha firmware and ran it on a public street as a publicity stunt (which would probably be illegal unless they somehow received special approval to beta test their tech somewhere other than California), you can safely assume that a human was driving.
Also, from some angles, you can clearly see the rope.
The question is not whether this is fake; it clearly is. The question is why the heck the press were so gullible that they believed something that literally ANY Tesla driver could have told them was fake within the first three seconds without even having to slow down playback.
This is fake news.
Looks more like Promobot took a dive to me! (Score:3)
Pretty entertaining and feels like the physics is wrong for a 'collision' with a moving vehicle. The Promobot doesn't even start to fall until the car is almost past it. Seems like both Tesla and Promobot would exhibit some synchronized impulse, with the bot violently being pushed away instead of gently tipping over after the Tesla is half way past. My verdict: 100% fake.
Dashcams (Score:2)
Russians faking a car accident? That's why there are so many dash-cams over there. Maybe Tesla needed one here?
Prompted me to re-read an Asimov story (Score:1)
They never touch. (Score:2)
Had the two collided, there surely would have been plastic bits broken and strewn about. Instead it just kinda falls over with no indication that it received a damaging blow.
Have you seen Battle Bots? When a robot gets hit with great force they go flying and so do their parts. Now consider what happens when a bigger and more fragile version goes up against a car. It would be pieces everywhere and the car would register the impact and stop.
Didn't look fake to me (Score:5, Funny)
What I saw was an Autobot taking out a Decepticon.
Finally! Peak Tesla. Expecting welcome respite. (Score:2)
So we seem to have hit and gone past peak Tesla clickbait potential. Good, I hope soon media will stop needlessly sneaking in Tesla into the headline of every story.
why is there a question mark in this headline? (Score:2)
there is zero question whether it is fake or not. it is known to be fake. no need to equivocate or pretend there's any mystery.
Looks fake even without the rope (Score:2)
I did not notice the rope when I first saw the video but the event looked fake to me. The problem is that the trajectory of the robot does not make a lot of sense. It is falling on the side but without any rotation or lateral movement. This is inconsistent with the robot being hit by the moving car.
Maybe it had a short circuit (Score:2)
Where have I seen this before? Robot escapes, hits car... ah, yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]