Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

ktvq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 530 posts

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#501

Post by abalone »

taf2 wrote: post #491
abalone wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. Did you watch the video? It proves that you only had to double tap and exit. Tesla pushed an update that enabled this as a "convenient" shortcut to the more elaborate, safer method you describe. In fact the video author praises it. Seems like a nice handy feature.. At first. Safety-critical design needs more care than this though.

It is True. You have to press in two places on the key. First you have to press and Hold in the middle of the key. Next you have to press either in the Front of the key or the Back of the key. Show me the video? Am I missing something can I simply press in the Front Twice?

The video is linked in the original comment you responded to. You ought to watch it before responding.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#502

Post by vacri »

NhanH wrote: post #454
jessaustin wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this thread has really squicked me out. Of course dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors of all sorts. I'd like to hope, however, that outside the current commuter-hell driving context, few people would even admit to themselves, let alone broadcast to the world, their considered preference for killing children. That is, when they no longer drive, perhaps people won't be quite so insan…

I don't even drive at all, and yet this thread irks me from the other direction. Dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors, and bringing children into a discussion is an age old tactic for justifying irrational decisions ("Think of the children"). You claimed that any car may be driven slowly enough to avoid killing people on the road with only mere convenient to others. That's patently false…

> That's patently false: firetruck

This is a ridiculous claim to make. Emergency vehicles will be the very last kind of vehicle to get autonomous driving (if ever), because they routinely break regular traffic rules, and routinely end up in places off-road in some way.

Hell, modern jumbo jets can fly themselves, from takeoff to landing, but humans are still there specifically to handle emergencies.

> As far as the car knows, I might have 3 kids in the backseats.

Strange that you envision having a car capable of specifically determining 'children' in the street, but nothing about the occupants. Especially given that we already have cars that complain if they detect an occupant not wearing a seatbelt, but no autonomous driving system that can specifically detect an underage human.

> You're imaging suburban CA where swerving means some inconvenience with the insurance company.

"I'd rather other people die than me" is not about imagining mere inconvenience with insurance companies.

For someone complaining about strawmen, you're introducing a lot of them.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#503

Post by sergiotapia »

ars wrote: post #89
sergiotapia wrote: post #52

Really 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?

I don't trust it to not disengage when I press the brake or want to disable it.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#504

Post by taneq »

BigJono wrote: post #130
taneq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver's response is moot. The larger issue here is that if autopilot doesn't provide for a safe stop under its own control when it encounters a situation it can't handle, any vehicle on autopilot becomes a lethal missile if the driver has some kind of medical problem. A traditional car won't get more than a few hundred meters if the driver on the freeway has a stroke, say. A car on autopilot could travel hundred…

Also going to play devil's advocate here. Sure the car only goes a few hundred metres, but a slight knock of the wheel as they pass out or a small corner in the road could easily send said car into a crowded cafe. What is the chance that a Tesla car fails to continue safely and eventually pull over after the driver carks it? 0.1%? 1%? I doubt anywhere near 99% of strokes while driving end with the car just slowing do…

I agree with your analysis of how far each vehicle will get - in fact that's why I say the car on autopilot is more dangerous. A conventional car with cruise control enabled will 'fail early' and crash in fairly short order (most likely running off the road into a crash barrier or something) if the driver stops controlling it. A car on autopilot won't crash for some undefined but probably long time, which means that when things do go pear-shaped, it's much more likely to be on the road and in a significantly different environment from where it was driving.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#505

Post by curried_haskell »

Vraxx wrote: post #405
TetOn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In this incident, the driver was using autopilot in a fashion that it should not be; twisting road at high speed. The driver IS at fault. I disagree on this point. In any system that's supposed to be sophisticated enough to drive the car and but also carries a giant caveat like "except in these common driving situations..." failure is not instantly down to "user error." Such a system should gracefully refuse to take…

It's not lulling anybody into anything! The guy was given multiple warnings by the car that what he was doing was unsafe. The last of which was extremely pertinent to the crash. To quote the article, "As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle again alerted the driver to put his hands on the wheel". This is after the initial alerts telling him that he needs to remain vigilant while using this featu…

Not lulling anybody into anything?

You damn well know that drivers are going to treat "driver assist" like it's an autopilot and put themselves into dangerous situations. Do you know anything at all about the way people behave? Give me a fucking break.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#506

Post by bobsil1 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #329
greendestiny wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again Tesla have made the discussion about the driver. They have put an auto-control system out in the wild that steers the car into hard obstacles at high speed. Beeps to warn the driver at some stage in the preceding interval do not make this control systems failure any more acceptable. It still misjudged situation as acceptable to continue and it still drove into obstacles. Those are significant failures and…

I would never buy a Tesla for this reason. You drive their cars, and you're always driving around with a third party with its own interests.

Like a faulty GM ignition switch?

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#507

Post by NhanH »

jessaustin wrote: post #461
NhanH wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even drive at all, and yet this thread irks me from the other direction. Dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors, and bringing children into a discussion is an age old tactic for justifying irrational decisions ("Think of the children"). You claimed that any car may be driven slowly enough to avoid killing people on the road with only mere convenient to others. That's patently false…

I believe you, that you don't drive at all. You call both situations strawmen, yet each is a common occurrence. Safe speed in an automobile is proportional to sightline distance. If drivers or robocars see a child (or any hazard) near the road, they should slow down. By the time they reach the child, they should be crawling. That's in an urban alley or on a rural interstate. If the child appeared before the driver or…

Thanks for your response. That's certainly an interesting way to think about driving (in a good way). Your previous posts would have done better by elaborate that way.

Just a bit of clarifying, I didn't call the situations rare or a strawman. I said the arguments were against a strawman, as you were thinking of different scenario and arguing on that.

Out of curiosity, had the situation with 3 kids in the car being potentially deadly to swerve. What would the response be?

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#508

Post by neurotech1 »

sangnoir wrote: post #248
staunch wrote: post #100

Earlier 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.

> If it's a good enough name for airplanes, it's a good enough names for cars * The real autopilot doesn't require hands-on-the-yoke while it is engaged, but 'autopilot' does. * Airplanes don't have to deal with complex traffic conditions requiring interaction with other airplanes * Airplanes do not smash into lane barriers/trees if they veer a few feet off the expected course * "Taking control" on an airplane could…

Aircraft (with over 9 passengers) are required to have TCAS[0]. TCAS issues a resolution advisory if conflicting traffic is detected, and if the approaching aircraft also maneuvers, TCAS can issue a "Reversal" if needed.

Airport Runways have typically have edge lighting, and if an aircraft is off-center during takeoff or landing, can hit them and do damage[1]. Airliners land at 150mph+ so it doesn't take much deviation to hit the edge lights. Occasionally, this also happens during a gusty cross-wind landing while coupled to autopilot (auto-land), or immediately after a touchdown after a coupled landing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...

[1] http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/etihad-plane-hits-r...

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#509

Post by NhanH »

vacri wrote: post #502
NhanH wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even drive at all, and yet this thread irks me from the other direction. Dehumanization is an age-old tactic for enabling asshole behaviors, and bringing children into a discussion is an age old tactic for justifying irrational decisions ("Think of the children"). You claimed that any car may be driven slowly enough to avoid killing people on the road with only mere convenient to others. That's patently false…

> That's patently false: firetruck This is a ridiculous claim to make. Emergency vehicles will be the very last kind of vehicle to get autonomous driving (if ever), because they routinely break regular traffic rules, and routinely end up in places off-road in some way. Hell, modern jumbo jets can fly themselves, from takeoff to landing, but humans are still there specifically to handle emergencies. > As far as the ca…

You seems to selectively cut out and either skim or didn't read my full post. Except the last paragraph, my full comment has little to do with autonomous driving and just driving/ morality with regard to driving in general.

No, I do NOT trust the car to detect children either on the road or in the car, that's why I phrased my comment that way.

> "I'd rather other people die than me" is not about imagining mere inconvenience with insurance companies.

Yes, I specifically point out the scenario the poster of that quote might be thinking about to contrast with the inconvenience scenario.

You should take your own advice: read the post again before commenting.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#510

Post by neurotech1 »

phaemon wrote: post #415
studentrob wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we not all realize that, per-mile-driven, Tesla's auto pilot is much safer than human driving? Good question. It's not safer. Tesla's quoted statistic of one death per 94 million miles driven in the US is not as useful as it could be. That includes motorcycle deaths and roads and conditions in which the Tesla AP is not likely to be engaged. When you limit it to divided roads, the rate is more like 1 death per 15…

> Good question. It's not safer. I think it is. Given the number of Autopilot miles driven, you'd only expect one death so far, so that we have one doesn't really tell us anything. However, injuries from car crashes are (fortunately!) much more common - roughly 60 times as likely. So you'd expect to have about 60 Autopilot incidents resulting in injury by now. I don't really keep up with Tesla news but, based on the…

How many Tesla drivers have walked away, or had relatively minor injuries[0] from a crash that could easily be fatal other vehicles?

[0] http://www.thewrap.com/jeffrey-katzenberg-in-life-threatenin...

Post reply on HN