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

#371

Post by nnf » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

ldesegur wrote: post #271

melling wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the autopilot was always supposed to be combined with the human. It’s not a self-driving car. It’s really an advanced cruise control.

From https://www.tesla.com/autopilot : "All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver" Why do we keep referring to something that we understand should require human supervision as "auto"? Stop the marketing buzzfeed and let's be real.

I agree that since that statement is at the top of the /autopilot page may insinuate that that's what Autopilot is, but that statement is describing the hardware on the cars rather than the software. I think that's intended to be read as "if you buy a new Tesla, you'll be able to add the Full Self-Driving Capability with a future software update; no hardware updates required." It could be made more clear, though.

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

#372

Post by mattmcknight » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #254

melling wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the autopilot was always supposed to be combined with the human. It’s not a self-driving car. It’s really an advanced cruise control.

That's true but is against any good sense: cars don't allow you to play a video while driving, and allow you to have the false sense of security that somebody else is driving while instead you have to pay constant attention?

This morning I saw a minivan drifting all over the road. As we passed him, my passenger noticed that he had CNN playing on a phone attached by suction cup to the middle of the windshield.

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

#373

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #63

> Wednesdsay, a Tesla spokeswoman told the I-Team, "Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver," and that it "does not prevent all accidents - such a standard would be impossible - but it makes them much less likely to occur." Actively veering towards stationary barriers in otherwise perfectly safe conditions is not what I would describe as reducing the likelihood of accidents.

In this one specific case sure, the AP was confused about the lane markings and followed the wrong path. But in plenty of other cases the AP is responsible for preventing accidents (no, I have no link to back up my statement). Assuming that is the case, then that is what I would describe as reducing the likelihood of accidents. You cannot focus on a specific accident (or even a handful of accidents) and use that to refute the systemic benefits.

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

#374

Post by vasilipupkin » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

jv22222 wrote: post #88

I am a huge fan of Tesla. What I am noticing right now is that if I were able to afford a Tesla today, there is no way I would use Autopilot. I will still buy a Tesla if I can ever afford it, I'll just leave autopilot well alone. I don't know what gets me back from this mental place that seems to be firmly set in my mind now.

Just got a model S after driving my toyota camry for the last 10 years. Autopilot is a fun toy, but I can't understand for the life of me why people actually use it like its a real thing. I have it off on mine.

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

#375

Post by simion314 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:47 PM UTC

Jonnerz wrote: post #311

simion314 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine all people have Tesla, and someone makes a prank on the middle of a bridge, they paint a line that makes all traffic plunge down, imagine now that they are so confident they removed the driver seat, you have all those passengers looking on the windows on how their cars are driving them to their deaths and there is nothing they can do. So should this cars follow some line blindly? I think that this tech sh…

You could say the same for trains though - they follow a track in a similar sense to Tesla's autopilot. Someone could perform a "prank" by putting something on the track in order to derail a train. How often do you see that happen? Painting a line on the road is obviously easier to do, and could also happen by accident, but I think the chances of any danger are extremely low. Hopefully when we start removing the driv…

It is much harder/expensive to place a big truck on heavy object on a train track then painting a line. The trains also have a driver that will try to stop the train so reduce the impact.

This self driving cars can be tricked by bad conditions or some optical illusions, like you have a t-shirt with some pattern on it and the Tesla car will coma and hit you

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

#376

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:47 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #348

falcolas wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the coma was remote software upgrade induced? Stretching the analogy a bit, but a lot of people hype Tesla’s remote updates without considering how many remote updates tend to brick our devices.

Then there's still point in making the claim.

[deleted]

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

#377

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

davej wrote: post #274

smoyer wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Tesla says but that's not how people are using it - and as people grow more comfortable with the autopilot, the less vigilant they'll become. I have this picture in my head where people are trying to recoup their commute time as though they're using public transport. I suspect we'll get there some day but today is not that day. While the Tesla spokespeople are good at saying it's driver assist, their mark…

"All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." This is perhaps a case of purposely confusing marketing. All vehicles have the hardware for full self-driving capability but not yet the software . The full self-driving is to be enabled later on through an over-the-air software…

I'm not even sure it's fair to describe it as purposefully confusing. If I'm in the market for a Tesla I want to make sure the expensive car I'm buying will be getting all the updates I'm excited about. Otherwise I might hold off buying for a few years.

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

#378

Post by danso » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129

danso wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, and all I said in my comment was that the NHTSA was asked for elaboration and proof -- because its findings seemed curious with respect to other study results -- and so far they have declined further explanation. This may be relevant information for anyone who sees you using the NHTSA's claim as a premise.

Fair point. I upvoted your posts; thinking about it further, it’s a legitimate line of inquiry.

I think I normally would have given Tesla the benefit of the doubt. But after the misleading, weasely-worded data they discussed to defend AutoPilot in light of the recent fatal accident [0], I think the onus is now on them to provide more concrete proof.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16722500

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

#379

Post by simion314 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #282

simion314 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the minimum time you guess it would take to have a city with only self driven cars that could just drive by following lines and other specific signals? I do not think this will happen in an existing city for at least 20 years. I can imagine scenarios where a glitch or something else could cause tons of traffic issues in a city with only self driving cars. I am not against self driving cars, I don't like the f…

If all newly produced cars are self-driving cars in 10 years, I think it is reasonable to ban non self-driving cars 10 years after that. So 20 years sounds about right. It's not that long for such a fundamental change. And yes it will create its own problems. Like if these cars get hacked, they will cause serious damages.

So if you think the timeline is 20 years at best then we need that present self driving cars be able to drive on present roads with human driven cars, pedestrians, bikes, holes in the road, some bad marked roads, roads without markings, roads with a bit of snow, heavy rain,fog.

Adding some extra markings, special electronic markings for this cars is not a solution, and in this 20 years since the traffic is mixed you can't consider lifting the speed limits or changing the intersection rules, so I don't see how it helps the traffic (except maybe on small streets if you consider that people won't want to own their car and will use any random car. this random cars should be super clean and cheap to make people not own their own)

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

#380

Post by ajross » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #200

What is happening was clear to many since the start: Tesla incarnates the behavior of his founder, exaggerating the technology that is really available right now, and selling it as a product without the premise for it to be safe. A product that kinda drives your car but sometimes fails, and requires you to pay attention, is simply a crash that we are waiting to happen. And don't get trapped by the "data driven" analy…

> 1. Ethical. One thing is that you do a stupid thing and die. Another is that a technology fails in trivial circumstances that in theory are avoidable. A doctor can make also errors, but a medical device is required to be very safe and reliable in what it does.

This needs elaboration or citation. You're one of the only folks I've seen come straight out and make this point: that somehow a technology or practice that is objectively safer can still be "unethically safe" and should be shunned in favor of less safe stuff.

I don't buy it. This isn't individual action here, there's no utilitarian philosophy rejection that's going to help you.

In fact, medical devices seem actually counter to your argument. No one says an automatic defibrillator's decisions as to when to fire are going to be as good as a human doctor, and in fact these things have non-zero (often fatal) false positive rates. But they save lives, so we use them anyway.

Bottom line, that point just doesn't work.