Tesla needs (or is going to be forced) to issue a recall soon. Putting "beta" technology in a car isn't OK when it puts drivers and others on the road in danger. This is especially problematic because people have a preconceived notion of what "auto pilot" means and just because Tesla says it's not ready for prime time so therefore you should "keep your hands on the wheel" doesn't make it OK to put into production.
Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
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Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#112Hindsight is 20/20, no pun intended. Why was this shipped at all? I mean the self-driving features. This has now done way too much long-term damage and impacted all self-driving initiatives across the board. Just like they opened up their patents to benefit everyone everywhere by ushering the age of low/zero-emission vehicles they should have done the same for the self-driving features. This should have baked in the lab for another 3-5 years.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the interval between when you take your hands off and it decides to pull over? From what I've seen in discussions and videos, it's pretty long. Other car manufacturers seem to only allow a few seconds.
The article seems to imply that the warning is given if driving conditions become "uncertain" and the driver's hands are off the wheel. Perhaps the time interval between warning and the car automatically stopping should be lower. What's the point of the car continuing on autopilot if it's uncertain of where it's headed?
More details here:
http://www.teslarati.com/what-happens-ignore-tesla-autopilot...
Based on that account, it seems the warning is triggered if the road becomes curvy. There may also be additional triggers.
It seems insufficient to me. IMO there should be an interval of at most 5 seconds before the first warning, and another 5 seconds before the second, and then the car should start decelerating.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's a good enough name for airplanes, it's a good enough names for cars. Both require users to be ready to take control at any moment.
Pilots (require certification and extensive training) are different from car drivers.
Flying a plane is more difficult, therefore requires more training. But driving a car requires licensing (certification) and training.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#115What the hell is happening in this comment thread? Do we not all realize that, per-mile-driven, Tesla's auto pilot is much safer than human driving?
I thought we were prepared to deal with the inevitable crashes, but based on the chicken littles here, maybe I was wrong.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#116I don't understand why Tesla is allowed to release a safety critical system on to the roads when it requires buyers to acknowledge its not-finishedness. They're putting beta systems into an uncontrolled environment. No driver in the nearby lanes has been given that choice.
This a thousand times. Why is this allowed? And then going the extra mile and calling it autopilot which has all kinds of connotations about not needing to give a fuck about what the vehicle does. Bad bad bad. Recall and remove the feature until it's ready for actual use. Don't put everyone else on the road at risk so you can beta test.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because this sort of auto->manual transition of control does not work [1]. 1: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Robots-Ourselves-Robotics-Autonom...
Actually, that's precisely how (real) autopilots work. If the autopilot can't reliably continue flying (e.g. in extreme turbulence, severe icing, or failure of some part of the system), it will immediately disengage with a loud warning sound, and the pilot has to take immediate control.
You're both right. That's exactly how aircraft autopilot systems work... and it doesn't work. There have been several plane crashes -- most notably AF447 -- which resulted from autopilot systems disengaging when the (human) pilots had insufficient situational awareness to safely take over control of the aircraft.
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#118I hate to say it, but there are going to be some deaths on the road to full autonomous cars. (no pun intended) The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. The fact that over 100 million miles driven, and we're finally starting to see accidents, is a good sign.
Who the hell expected zero crashes? Please, raise your hand and explain why you think any system could be released that drives a car would ever be able to do so at a rate of 100%?
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#119Really irresponsible of Tesla to name it autopilot. My wife calls me crazy for not even using cruise control on our car.
Cruise control is to keep the car at an even speed when going up/down hills. What does that have to do with safety?
Feet aren't on the peddles. Which is slight more dangerous than feet on the peddles. Kinda like hands on the wheel is less dangerous than hands off the wheel (at least until automation becomes better at driving than humans).
Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cool. Tesla should review this book and talk. Paraphrasing a few quotes from your link ... "The most difficult challenging tech problem is not full autonomy, but rather the interaction between automated systems and humans" The subtitle of the book is also notable: "Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy" The speaker almost seems to be arguing that full autonomy is impossible. If we start up a system, then its behavior ha…
It's not so much that full autonomy is impossible. We "fire and forget" many type of systems with no possibility of human intervention--at least not in a timely manner. What you can't do is start an automated process, comforting yourself that an inattentive human can always take over in a split-second if the automation messes up.
> We "fire and forget" many type of systems with no possibility of human intervention--at least not in a timely manner
Practically speaking, I agree with what you're saying. For autonomous systems as we think of them today, humans can set them and walk away.
Philosophically, if I throw a ball into space, is its continued movement autonomous? Kicking off a computer program is just a complex ball. We don't have true randomness in computers.
> What you can't do is start an automated process, comforting yourself that an inattentive human can always take over in a split-second if the automation messes up.
I 100% agree with this. I think that's a fundamental flaw in Tesla's current plan to achieve autonomous vehicles. It's also a huge liability risk, for which they are not insured, to be dishing out 15,000 systems like this every month. At least the other consumer-available self-driving car systems require hands on the wheel. Tesla doesn't even seem to do that.