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Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

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Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#21

Post by supreme_sublime »

exotree wrote: post #10

This is a very upsetting response. Yes, the driver could have paid more attention, and yes, he shouldn't have activated Autopilot in an area where he knew Tesla's autopilot was not working correctly. However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due…

I see your point on calling it "Autopilot", but if you think about the application of the term in terms of aviation, I think it makes more sense. Autopilot in planes won't land the plane for you. It basically will just keep you at a certain elevation and direction.

I think that Tesla's Autopilot function is comparable to planes. That's probably how they will justify it. However there might be a legitimate point in that people don't have that kind of understanding of what "Autopilot" means.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#23

Post by selectout »

exotree wrote: post #10

This is a very upsetting response. Yes, the driver could have paid more attention, and yes, he shouldn't have activated Autopilot in an area where he knew Tesla's autopilot was not working correctly. However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due…

A big part of being allowed to take your hands off the wheel is probably "how do I detect the hands are on the wheel?". In current S/X with no interior camera the way autopilot works is you have to "yank" the wheel every now and then to prove you have your hands on. Requiring constant "yanking" wouldn't work, and there are often long stretches of roads on highways (where Autopilot is meant to work) that wouldn't require any movement of the wheel at all so they wouldn't know the difference between hands on or off unless you "yanked" it.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#25

Post by watwut »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
eridius wrote: post #8

I have to wonder why Tesla keeps doubling down on victim-blaming. Is this a case of Elon Musk being insecure about criticism (since he's demonstrated a tendency in the past to react poorly to it)? Or is Tesla trying to actually lower their legal liability? Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the…

Tesla is exerting and reinforcing that it is not liable for poor driver decisions. If you use any vehicle safety aid while not paying attention, and you die or kill someone while in control of the vehicle, that is your liability. Whether they call their system "Autopilot" is immaterial. You are the responsibly party as the driver, and this is made clear both at purchase time and during vehicle use.

How they call the system drives user expectations and trust. They call it autopilot so that people buy it due to having these expectations. It is consequential and thus legitimate subject to critique.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#26

Post by neolefty »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #4
mtgx wrote: post #3

This is why we need government investigators to look at crash/accident data (after the fact) and we need to ensure that the data hasn't been tampered with by anyone, including the car makers. We can't just rely on the company's words in a crash. Of course the company has all the incentive to lie or at least be as misleading as possible or try to minimize its blame as much as possible, to avoid liability or bad press.…

This is Silicon Valley. "move fast and break things"

Common in early car and aircraft cultures as well. Always a tension between innovation and safety.

I don't mean that as a cop-out. Rather that there's no single "right answer". We are choosing something on a spectrum of risk vs reward.

Personally, although I have no direct experience, it's starting to look like Tesla is being too risky. Yes, they're safer than human-only drivers, but the mistakes they're making are too algorithmic. They're not enough safer to call Autopilot a success.

Contrast that with Waymo, who are paranoid-ly safe. They seem to be taking the long view that building trust (and not taking any chances to lose that trust) is as important as technical achievements.

Edit: Or, at some other extreme of poor citizenship, Uber, who seem to have gone off the deep end of "Keep up appearances of having a self-driving research program even though it's a disaster internally."

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#27

Post by berg01 »

otalp wrote: post #2

Full statement: "We are very sorry for the family's loss. According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is i…

So the crux here is the naming of the not-really-self-driving feature. This is not an Autopilot for cars. It "requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel". That's a driving assist. Call it the world's best driving assist or whatever, but not Autopilot. (I have seen the usual reply from Tesla apologists that it's a good name because of its aircraft analogy. From a usability perspective that is just so... wrong.)

I don't get why they continue down this path. Just rename the goddamn feature into something that actually makes sense.

Tesla key people must be in some kind of Elon Musk reality distortion field.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#28

Post by mikepurvis »

supreme_sublime wrote: post #21
exotree wrote: post #10

This is a very upsetting response. Yes, the driver could have paid more attention, and yes, he shouldn't have activated Autopilot in an area where he knew Tesla's autopilot was not working correctly. However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due…

I see your point on calling it "Autopilot", but if you think about the application of the term in terms of aviation, I think it makes more sense. Autopilot in planes won't land the plane for you. It basically will just keep you at a certain elevation and direction. I think that Tesla's Autopilot function is comparable to planes. That's probably how they will justify it. However there might be a legitimate point in th…

Aviation autopilots handle flying duties in a giant expanse of open sky. It's a way, way easier job to do than navigating a highway from behind a steering wheel.

So even if the "capabilities" may be comparable between the two systems, the amount of supervision they require is not, so I don't think they should use the term. It may be "lane-keeping cruise control" isn't nearly as sexy, but it doesn't establish unrealistic expectations which get people killed.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#29

Post by robotkdick »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

I am a huge fan of Elon Musk and a small TSLA share holder, but there is something about Tesla and Musk’s response to this that feels so wrong. It seems two faced. On the one hand, they shout about how great and safe their technology is, and on the other hand they blame someone for dying when they chose to rely on that technology. Is it safe or unsafe? I know it’s not that simple, but this response still saddens me.…

I hope you're not driving...or using autopilot.. while you wrote this (kidding)

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#30

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #25
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is exerting and reinforcing that it is not liable for poor driver decisions. If you use any vehicle safety aid while not paying attention, and you die or kill someone while in control of the vehicle, that is your liability. Whether they call their system "Autopilot" is immaterial. You are the responsibly party as the driver, and this is made clear both at purchase time and during vehicle use.

How they call the system drives user expectations and trust. They call it autopilot so that people buy it due to having these expectations. It is consequential and thus legitimate subject to critique.

[deleted]
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