Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#181

Post by rypskar » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #147

simion314 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you also have older cars with less safety features, not sure how is in US but in other countries you can stil see old cars that are missing airbags. So in fatalities statistics the fair thing is to compare Tesla with similar cars.

That’s a good point. Not just airbags. It starts to be common to have cars that apply the brakes automatically when they anticipate a collision. I think some research has been done on cars being designed to do less damage to a pedestrian in a collision, I don’t know if it has lead to design changes. Self driving cars may end up being only marginally safer than other new cars. But safety is not in my opinion the main…

>>Convenience and maximisation of traffic are

I think the convenience will mean more traffic since many who now use public transport will use their self driving car instead. So in total autopilots could be worse for the environment and require even more roads

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#182

Post by adanto6840 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

cam_l wrote: post #178

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have now talked with two people who have autopilot in their model S's and both said the problem with autopilot is that it is "too good". Specifically it works completely correctly like 80 - 90% of the time and as a result, if you use it a lot, you start to expect it to be working and not fail. If it beeps then to tell you to take over, you have to mentally get back into the situational awareness of the road and the…

I honestly don't understand why, if the driver does not take control when the car has sensed an issue, it does not just throw on hazards and roll slow or stop. Seems like the safest way to keep people from dying.

Can you think of any reasons or situations where that logic fails? I can think of tons.

The very challenging, and somewhat unusual given the life/death stakes, aspect of this domain in general is that general 'easy' logic works for 99% of the scenarios. But in the remaining 1% -- and I mean every single possible last scenario, whether probable or not -- the "what to do" is so much more difficult. Enough time to do it? Can be done safely? Etc.

The reason the car turns control back over to the human at all is because the vehicle presumably does NOT have any maneuvers left which are high-confidence -- whether that's because the sensing equipment failed, the software failed or failed to interpret the data satisfactorily, or there's just no "good move" left, or any other number of reasons, etc...

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#183

Post by Gustomaximus » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:21 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have now talked with two people who have autopilot in their model S's and both said the problem with autopilot is that it is "too good". Specifically it works completely correctly like 80 - 90% of the time and as a result, if you use it a lot, you start to expect it to be working and not fail. If it beeps then to tell you to take over, you have to mentally get back into the situational awareness of the road and the…

> Makes me wonder how this gets resolved without jumping through the gap to 'perfect' autopilot.

I suspect the unfortunate reality is people die on the journey to improvement. Once we decide this technology has passed a reasonable threshold, it now becomes a case of continual improvement. And as horrible as this sounds this is not new. Consider how much safer cars are than 20 years ago and how many lives modern safety features save. Or go for a drive in a 50 year of sports car and see how safe you feel. And in 50 years we'll look back at today's systems in the same way we look at the days of no seat belts.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#184

Post by icc97 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:24 AM UTC

totalZero wrote: post #173

icc97 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment Tesla haven't shown that auto-pilot does lower the death rate. They've only released statistics about auto-pilot enabled cars rather than statistics for when auto-pilot was in control. Any statistics released by Tesla should be compared against similar statistics from say modern Audis with lane-assist and collision detection.

Also, the cohort that purchases Tesla vehicles may be a lower-risk group of drivers than average. This could happen because Tesla vehicles are more expensive than comparable conventional vehicles, less attractive to those with risky lifestyles, inconvenient for people who don't have regular driving patterns that allow charging to be planned, or more attractive to older consumers who wish to signal different markers o…

> Also, the cohort that purchases Tesla vehicles may be a lower-risk group of drivers than average.

Yes - that's why I suggest comparing it to modern Audi drivers. Basically any of the BMW/Mercedes/Audi drivers are where Tesla is getting most of its customers. Those companies all have similar albeit less extensive safety systems.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#185

Post by cardinalfang » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:29 AM UTC

worldsayshi wrote: post #100

nikofeyn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t see why it’s controversial. just look at drivers now. many are already on human autopilot checking their phone, eating, etc. if you give any amount of automation but that which still requires checking in from the human, humans will almost universally check out and crashes will be prevalent. autonomous driving will simply not work without full, unsupervised driving. i don’t understand why this is even a discus…

One solution would be to make the autopilot worse within the realm of safe driving. Make it so that it continuously makes safe errors that the driver has to correct. Like steering off into an empty lane. Slowing down. Etc. Defining safe errors might be a challenge though.

Or the car could regularly ask a question about e.g. the colour of the car behind you.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#186

Post by EliRivers » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:32 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have now talked with two people who have autopilot in their model S's and both said the problem with autopilot is that it is "too good". Specifically it works completely correctly like 80 - 90% of the time and as a result, if you use it a lot, you start to expect it to be working and not fail. If it beeps then to tell you to take over, you have to mentally get back into the situational awareness of the road and the…

Indeed. If I have to be sober and paying attention when riding in a robot car, I might as well just drive it myself just to keep me from falling asleep. At which point, I'll just not bother with the robot car at all.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#187

Post by bobsil1 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:33 AM UTC

ino wrote: post #176

bobsil1 wrote: post #144

Btw linked accident was for a Model S with Tesla autopilot 1. Can tell because no camera on silver blinker assembly. They're now on 2.5.

Are you talking about the second video in the story, in which the car veers towards the divider?

Photos for the crash on 92/880 in September.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#188

Post by allendoerfer » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:34 AM UTC

worldsayshi wrote: post #100

nikofeyn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t see why it’s controversial. just look at drivers now. many are already on human autopilot checking their phone, eating, etc. if you give any amount of automation but that which still requires checking in from the human, humans will almost universally check out and crashes will be prevalent. autonomous driving will simply not work without full, unsupervised driving. i don’t understand why this is even a discus…

One solution would be to make the autopilot worse within the realm of safe driving. Make it so that it continuously makes safe errors that the driver has to correct. Like steering off into an empty lane. Slowing down. Etc. Defining safe errors might be a challenge though.

Make the steering wheel vibrate and beep every few seconds and constantly switch with the driver, like Mercedes is doing with theirs.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#189

Post by swebs » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:34 AM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #171

m_mueller wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I wonder whether the ratio of drunks behind autopilot wheels is different than average. Could be lower (because richer) or higher (because richer).

There could easily be more than just a wealth differential, e.g. people who are more are of their emissions impact might also be be more aware of intoxication impact. I'm any case, "statistically more safe" is a weak argument, e.g. we would be terrified of boarding a plane if they were merely statistically more safe than driving (by a small margin).

>e.g. we would be terrified of boarding a plane if they were merely statistically more safe than driving

Don't know why you're treating that as a hypothetical. Many people are terrified of flying and it is safer than driving.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#190

Post by edelans » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 8:35 AM UTC

buvanshak wrote: post #168

sho_hn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised if Musk coldly responded that this is a known problem with no solution, but autopilot still lowers the death rate on average. In other words, for the proponents it's a trade-off. And also the idea that an automatic driver is easier to improve over time (skewing the trade-off better and better) than human drivers. Which of course will snowball when reliance on automation keeps making drivers w…

> but autopilot still lowers the death rate on average. I think the question of using self driving vehicles comes down to this. Do you want to be part of a statistics that you can control, or do you want to be part of one that you cannot? When we go in trains or planes, we are already being part of statistics that we cannot control. But those things also are extremely reliable. So there seems to be a threshold, where…

> be part of a statistics that you can control

well, even if you are in control with your hands on the wheel, you can still get heart (and even die) in a car accident where you have no responsibility at all. Sure you can control your car, but you cannot control others'...

(this is even more obvious from a cyclist point of view)