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Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

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Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#71
post #2

This comment from OP (beastpilot) is pretty frightening: > Yep, works for 6 months with zero issues. Then one Friday night you get an update. Everything works that weekend, and on your way to work on Monday. Then, 18 minutes into your commute home, it drives straight at a barrier at 60 MPH. > It's important to remember that it's not like you got the update 5 minutes before this happened. Even worse, you may not know…

I just don't understand the willingness people have to put their lives in the hands of unproven technology like this. I mean, I don't even trust regular old cruise control in my cars and I keep my finger on the "cancel" button whenever I use it during long highway drives.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#72
2018 the wild wild west of robot cars.

Pay an extremely high cost including your life to ensure technological advancement. Is that not part of their marketing? If not SNL needs to do a skit!

I can see the skit now, "You looked S3XY in that Telsa," "Did you get the update last night?" "Oh your right and it made me feel so S3XY until it drove me straight into a barrier at 60 MPH."

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#73
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wondered why each company is developing their own software and algorithms... How will NTSB certify the software? Or will they? I mean, they certify car safety features now through crash tests, roll over tests, etc... Why is Tesla, or anyone manufacturer, allowed to modify vehicle safety features through OTA updates without recertification? I realize it adds more regulation...and I'm sure there can be a…

Patents and the ability to earn money by licensing out technology. That, or hoping they are the best and get more customers through it - I think that's currently the case for Tesla, selling the only commercially available semi-autonomously driving car ATM.

All manufacturers sell semi-autonomously driving cars. At a minimum cruise control, but more advanced features like e.g. https://www.toyota.com/safety-sense/

Tesla sells a feature set that sounds slightly more advanced on paper, but in practice the benefits are pretty comparable.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#74
post #22

Musk wanted to regulate AI to combat existential threat; in reality, it's not super intelligent self-aware AI, but buggy/shitty AI that's trying to kill people.

We will be killed by AI developers and the dunning kreuger effect, not armies of Skynet T-800s.

I think we are better than that

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#75

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

I think Tesla is losing out here by calling what is little more than adaptive cruise control plus lanekeeping "autopilot." Adaptive cruise control + lanekeeping + collision avoidance is available on a ton of cars now, even economy cars, and it works great. I regularly make a ~200 mile drive on the Honda system and it is 100% the whole way. But when you sell it as Autopilot instead of driver assist, people have much higher expectations and blame your car rather than the driver - though there very well could be serious problems with the Tesla implementation.

Lanekeeping is actually very nice. The system in Teslas and most (all?) others do require you to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, but having to constantly manually steer the car is much more fatiguing than you would think. It's really annoying to drive cars without lanekeeping now.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#76
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is what I’ve been saying. It is so dangerous. I love Tesla but I think autopilot is currently a death trap.

> I think autopilot is currently a death trap. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. As long as the driver keeps paying attention and uses it as a driving aid, not a driver replacement, everything is fine. It's the moment that people start relying on it doing something that it wasn't built for, that the problems arise.

They shouldn't market it as "autopilot"

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#77

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

So human drivers are terrible at driving for any long period of time, especially on relatively consistent "boring" highways. Guess what computers excel at? Driving consistently on consistent highways. The Tesla Autopilot is supposed to be the always aware and paying attention portion on these cases where a human driver would be very likely to start texting or dozing off. Now, it's not fully autonomous and may well de…

The problem is autopilot actively engages you even less than highway driving. I argue this exacerbates some of the problems that cause humans to checkout.

I don't know what the answer is but it feels like GM's super cruise does a more adequate job of acknowledging the realistic limits of the technology and explicitly white lists roads where the technology is available for use.

I personally think that without some sort of sensors or beacons in the road, autonomous driving via camera and LIDAR sesnors is ever going to be good enough to achieve level 5 autonomous operation.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#78

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

So human drivers are terrible at driving for any long period of time, especially on relatively consistent "boring" highways. Guess what computers excel at? Driving consistently on consistent highways. The Tesla Autopilot is supposed to be the always aware and paying attention portion on these cases where a human driver would be very likely to start texting or dozing off. Now, it's not fully autonomous and may well de…

OK, but there are clearly cases where the autopilot gets into trouble, and the human needs to take control again quickly. The human driver absolutely cannot doze off.

Now, I realise people in old-fashioned non-autopilot cars can and do doze off, and that's very dangerous. But it's not clear to me how the autopilot improves that situation. Relying on the autopilot actually encourages you to doze off.

We already have simple remedies like "pull over if you feel tired" and "never ever pick up your phone while driving (or you'll lose your licence)"

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#79

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

Agreed. I really hate that Tesla named the feature "autopilot" as it gives the impression of being fully automatic (yes, I realize boat and airline "autopilots" aren't fully automatic - that is likely lot on most consumers).

My VW has Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) which does the normal cruise control, plus basic distance keeping (with an alarm if the closing speed changes dangerously).

My parents' Subarus have ACC plus lane-keeping. The car will only do so much correction, plus alarms.

These seem like much better solutions, given the current state of driving "AI".

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#80

This kind of video makes me wonder: what is the "autopilot" feature actually for? Do people generally like it? (I don't own a Tesla and I've never driven one.) If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal? Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it a…

So human drivers are terrible at driving for any long period of time, especially on relatively consistent "boring" highways. Guess what computers excel at? Driving consistently on consistent highways. The Tesla Autopilot is supposed to be the always aware and paying attention portion on these cases where a human driver would be very likely to start texting or dozing off. Now, it's not fully autonomous and may well de…

The are two very real issues/threats here.

the first being people are being put in harms way by either false sense of trust invoked by the name or the mixed messages from Tesla

the second is that if the first is left unchecked Tesla could single handily set back Autonomous driving for all by souring public and government opinion.

it needs a new name that aligns better with what it can do. it could be a safety system which gently corrects a driver and takes over in an obvious emergency internal or external. as it stands now it is just dangerous

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