alt Hacker NewsIt might, but comma.ai proves that lidar is red herring, which is further supported by the fact that Waymo are able to drive vision-only if necessary.
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> comma.ai proves that lidar is red herring
I mean it doesn't. If you actually look at it comma.ai proves that level two doesn't require lidar. Thats not the same as full speed safe autonomy.
whilst it is possible to drive vision only (assuming the right array of cameras (ie not the way tesla have done it) lidar gives you a low latency source of depth that can correct vision mistakes. Its also much less energy intensive to work out if an object is dangerous, and on a collision course.
To do that in vision, you need to work out what the object is (ie is it a shadow) then you have to triangulate it. That requires continuous camera calibration, and is all that easy. If you have a depth "prior" ie, yes its real, yes its large and yes its going to collide, its much much more simple to use vision to work out what to do.
No one really disputes that some level of autonomous driving is possible with only cameras, it's a matter of how safe and sure you wanna be.