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Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

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Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#11

Post by whack »

Wow. After the introduction where the author thoroughly refutes his own thesis (approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available), the 3 reasons given was astoundingly poor.

Reason 1: Different people will die. Example, blind people who are currently not at risk (because they don't drive) will die in greater numbers.

And this is an argument against saving 500,000 lives every year? Really?

Reason 2: Humans are irrationally afraid of situations where they lose control. Example: flying in airplanes vs driving a car

And we're in favor of 500,000 additional people dying every year, because of people's irrational fears?

Reason 3: The ends don't justify the means. Example: Torture

Even if you accept the underlying premise that the ends don't justify the means, this argument only carries weight in situations where the "means" are considered evil. Like torture. Or robbery. What exactly is "evil" about allowing consumers to voluntarily purchase and use self-driving cars, and saving thousands of lives every year in the process?

I was surprised to see Musk's candid and blunt defense of self-driving cars. It's not PR savvy, but honestly, it's exactly what we need. The reasons being marshaled by people like this author, against self-driving cars, are horrendously bad. And while we sit here twiddling our thumbs, discussing human irrationality while sipping our lattes, hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Maybe it's time we stopped splitting hairs and started doing something.

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#12

Post by thinkmoore »

While I agree some of the early arguments are a bit weak, I liked the author's discussion of the parallels to medical research---I think it gets across why some (including myself) think its worth approaching this exciting new technology with a slightly less cavalier attitude:

In developing cancer drugs that could save millions of lives—just like robot cars are promised to do—we understand we can’t ignore problems in clinical and human trials. We can’t cut corners just because we want to rush a life-saving product to market.

“The perfect is the enemy of the good,” as famously declared by Voltaire, is also a common reaction to ethical critiques of autonomous cars. But this is a straw-man argument: no one is demanding perfection, just due diligence, especially if death is on the line. Just as with cancer drugs or anything else on the market, a product doesn’t have to be perfect, though that’s not an excuse to not be more careful.

Look at seatbelts as an iconic safety device: even they aren’t absolved of all sins, just because they save a lot of lives overall. Unlatch buttons that are too large (and can be accidentally bumped open) or too easily opened have sparked lawsuits and massive recalls. These aren’t really malfunctions but only bad designs, and bad designs can kill.

The extra care needed to avoid these problems doesn’t have to take a Herculean effort or stall research and development. It just means investing some time to think it through and properly set expectations. This could save lives, and every one counts. (Just ask their families.)

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#13

Post by lanevorockz »

thinkmoore wrote: post #12

While I agree some of the early arguments are a bit weak, I liked the author's discussion of the parallels to medical research---I think it gets across why some (including myself) think its worth approaching this exciting new technology with a slightly less cavalier attitude: In developing cancer drugs that could save millions of lives—just like robot cars are promised to do—we understand we can’t ignore problems in…

By Cavalier atitude you mean very slowly while thousands of people die every year.

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#14

Post by mikeash »

klakier wrote: post #6

We should worry because of the blurred responsibility. Have you ever seen large company responsible for death? This is how it works, you will die and there will be nobody responsible for this. Tesla is not safe car, it is as safe as Honda Civic, with ~40 deaths per million cars. Do the math if you don't believe me.

Which is how it should be. If I die in my car, it's almost certainly going to be my fault or the fault of another driver, not the fault of the car maker. Of the ~30,000 traffic deaths/year in the US, how many are due to faulty equipment?

As far as doing the math, are we counting deaths like the guy who stole one and crashed it going 120MPH without a seat belt?

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#15

Post by ChuckMcM »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #3

Article argues, "autopilot could let people who are blind and disabled drive now, where they couldn't drive before. but they could never get killed in a car accident while driving before, so this is ethically questionable." Article's logic is dumber than a sack of hair.

I think you were looking for "not even wrong" which is the lowest evaluation of an academic argument possible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#16

Post by whack »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #8
fennecfoxen wrote: post #3

Article argues, "autopilot could let people who are blind and disabled drive now, where they couldn't drive before. but they could never get killed in a car accident while driving before, so this is ethically questionable." Article's logic is dumber than a sack of hair.

The article is just responding to the level of intelligence of arguments saying we should all soon stop driving and have automated driving everywhere. I am all for self driving cars, but the common statistical argument (lower number of deaths than humans) for them is just silly for a number of reasons.

Such as?

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#17

Post by hartator »

I am bullish both on Autopilot and Tesla. That said, I don't think lying about numbers is a good thing. They weren't any death on Tesla model S until now. So, saying using Autopilot is still safer than driving 'manually' is a lie. Tesla was comparing itself to the average not so good US average car. I think it is a bit of a stretch. I will still use it though.

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#18

Post by krschultz »

whack wrote: post #11

Wow. After the introduction where the author thoroughly refutes his own thesis ( approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available ), the 3 reasons given was astoundingly poor. Reason 1: Different people will die. Example, blind people who are currently not at risk (because they don't drive) will die in greater numbers. And this is an argument against saving 50…

I'm not seeing where the author concedes that 500k lives a year would be saved. That number is in an Elon Musk quote, not the authors argument.

Keep in mind total US road fatalities in the US is ~32k. I'm not sure how Elon got to 500k, but even if we handed out a free Tesla to every single American, and not a single person was ever killed in a Tesla, it's off by an order of magnitude. Of course Elon is quoting global fatalities, but road fatalities in 2nd & 3rd world countries could be improved with lots of basic infrastructure & existing car technology. It's simply not comparing apples to oranges, before you even start considering the unrealistic cost of a Tesla for those markets.

tl;dr; the 500k number is bullshit and any argument based on it is asinine.

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#19

Post by Symmetry »

thinkmoore wrote: post #12

While I agree some of the early arguments are a bit weak, I liked the author's discussion of the parallels to medical research---I think it gets across why some (including myself) think its worth approaching this exciting new technology with a slightly less cavalier attitude: In developing cancer drugs that could save millions of lives—just like robot cars are promised to do—we understand we can’t ignore problems in…

I'm imagining a world in which the first automobeal manufacturer to try to introduce seat belts had to first convince the government that they were a good idea before they introduced them and all I'm seeing is a huge number of extra deaths for a negligible gain. Customers weren't particularly demanding safer cars back then and barriers to their development might have but the whole thing back by years.

The existing model where car manufacturers are basically free to add whatever safety features they want and eventually the government drafts standards when thing have settled down has worked very well so far in improving automobile safety.

Re: Tesla Autopilot Crash: Why We Should Worry About a Single Death

#20

Post by tobyjsullivan »

I couldn't get through most of the article because the premise was so weak. Specifically, I couldn't get over the "different people will die" argument - the implication being that the status quo is somehow more fair. This ignores the fact that many collision-related fatalities are not the drivers or in any way at fault.

2014 stats[0] show that 38% of fatalities in car accidents were not drivers. It's reasonable to assume that even more people who were driving were not at fault. Those deaths are arguably near-random in most cases. The argument that hundreds of thousands of random deaths are somehow more "fair" is an entirely poor argument in my opinion.

[0] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...

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