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NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

arstechnica.com

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Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#411

Post by pooya13 »

Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

"This is the Tesla self-crashing car" That's a harsh and inaccurate statement. While I agree that Tesla didn't handle the PR well we should acknowledge that every system is prone to fail at some point. And the fact that we do not hear about non-autopilot car crashes due to system failure as much as we hear about Tesla's is not an indicator that it doesn't happen.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#412

Post by rurounijones »

Robotbeat wrote: post #366
hashbig wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same term as in aviation and does the same thing. Except in aviation trained pilots with at least a decade of experience flying planes get to use it, understanding well the limitations and purpose of the technology. A teenager can use Tesla's "Autopilot".

Incorrect. Autopilots are commonly used even in general aviation, and you can get your pilot’s license in just a month or two if you had a cooperative flight school. Heck, there are accelerated immersive programs that train you in just 14 days. You only need ~40 hours (minimum) of flight time to get your private pilot’s license. This isn’t even much different than driving license requirements, except that planes are…

I think you are nitpicking definitions here when it is not the issue.

The issue is that the general public think of "Autopilot" as the magical piece of technology that automatically pilots thing while you sip a pina colada and otherwise switch off mentally.

What the 0.5% of people who actually know what is required of the flesh and blood pilot when using an aviation autopilot is not the issue. It is what the majority understand.

Changing what Tesla is allowed to call it is the path of least resistance rather than trying to educate the general public on "what the team actually means in the industry that made the term famous and therefore should be universally applied elsewhere".

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#413

Post by HumanHater »

Robotbeat wrote: post #326
prawn wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prevent them from using the AutoPilot term, penalise them for marketing imagery that includes people driving with their hands off the wheel, and require hands to be on the wheel far more often. Until it's significantly improved, it should be a backup safety system rather than a driving and safety system.

> I'd prevent them from using the AutoPilot term I disagree. It's the same term as in aviation and does the same thing. > penalise them for marketing imagery that includes people driving with their hands off the wheel That's more reasonable.

Can this "Autopilot" control altitude of the vehicle? No. Therefor it's not the same thing, it is just something similar.

What should we call car autopilot? There is more than one opinion. Some people believe in importance of some weird technical characteristics. For most people defining property of autopilot is its ability to control vehicle while pilot left the cockpit for a few minutes. So to them car autopilot must safely drive some roads and require human to take full control on the others. Taking over in case of emergency doesn't exactly fit this idea.

What looks really weird in all this discussions is their fanatical uselessness. Who would be hurt if new law would prohibit to call autopilot anything less than L5? Well probably no one. Who would benefit? Most likely a lot of people. Why would anyone oppose regulation like this? Huge question.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#414

Post by [deleted] »

lsaferite wrote: post #371
crote wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dutch citizen here, I have never seen something like this. To compare, here's a similar situation in The Netherlands: https://www.google.nl/maps/@52.0928662,5.1734685,3a,75y,281.... Points of interest: - big solid white arrow, line-fade is nearly impossible - white-green sign indicating that the road is splitting - big shoulder in the continuation of the division - loads of grass instead of immediately using a metal…

Here's an example of a crash attenuator right near your example: https://www.google.nl/maps/@52.0928978,5.1609792,3a,60y,305.... Edit: Also, that gore is freshly painted. Here's the same gore with faded paint. Mind you, it wasn't as bad, but even there you get faded painting: https://www.google.nl/maps/@52.0928706,5.1608083,3a,75y,109....

[deleted]

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#415

Post by CaptainZapp »

daveguy wrote: post #407
amelius wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what is the right way to handle these updates? Require updates to be sent to a government entity, which will test the code for X miles of real traffic, and then releases the updates to the cars. Of course, costs of this are to be paid by the company.

Current development of cars is done with safety as a paramount concern. There is no need to filter everything through a government entity. However the automobile companies are responsible for their design decisions. This should absolutely apply to software updates. That does mean complete transparency during investigations, a complete audit trail of every software function invoked prior to a crash. So, no filter, but…

"Current development of cars is done with safety as a paramount concern."

That's exactly the impression that I don't get from Tesla very much. Instead I see the follwing:

Get that thing to market as quickly as possible. If the software for safety critical systems is sub-par, well, can be fixed with OTA updates. That's fine for your dry cleaning app. For safety critical software that's borderline criminal

Hype features far beyond their ability (autopilot). Combine this with OTAs, which potentially change the handling of something that is not at all autopilot, but actually some glorified adaptive cruise control. For good measure: Throw your customers under the bus if ineviteble and potentially deadly problems do pop up

Treating safety issues merely as a PR problem and acting acordingly. Getting all huffy and insulted and accusing the press of fake news when such shit is pointed out

I could go on. But such behavior to me is not a company signaling that safety is of paramount concern.

"That does mean complete transparency during investigations, a complete audit trail of every software function invoked prior to a crash."

Let's just say that Tesla's very selective handling and publication of crash data does not signal any inclination for transparency.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#416

Post by Robotbeat »

rurounijones wrote: post #412
Robotbeat wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. Autopilots are commonly used even in general aviation, and you can get your pilot’s license in just a month or two if you had a cooperative flight school. Heck, there are accelerated immersive programs that train you in just 14 days. You only need ~40 hours (minimum) of flight time to get your private pilot’s license. This isn’t even much different than driving license requirements, except that planes are…

I think you are nitpicking definitions here when it is not the issue. The issue is that the general public think of "Autopilot" as the magical piece of technology that automatically pilots thing while you sip a pina colada and otherwise switch off mentally. What the 0.5% of people who actually know what is required of the flesh and blood pilot when using an aviation autopilot is not the issue. It is what the majority…

> It is what the majority understand.

Yeah, you're going to have to provide some evidence of that, not just assertion (as common as that assertion may be on HN).

The word "autopilot" has a well-established definition. You might think "automobile" was a fully automatic vehicle.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#417

Post by blub »

JoshCole wrote: post #394
buvanshak wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not the crash that makes the evil. It is how they handle it. And how they put blatantly misleading marketing out there, along with poorly researched features that may or may not have lead to overconfidence from the drivers along with half baked tech, that resulted in crashes such as these.

There haven't even been five deaths yet in the entire history of Tesla autopilot car accidents, but there are more than three thousand deaths a day due to car accidents. Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day. Their marketing reflects this. So does their communication on the topic. I know it can sound offensive when they say that a drive…

"Tesla's safety record" is misleading:

* every update to the software makes the record irrelevant, because one is no longer driving the same car which set the previous record. Lane centering for instance was introduced in an OTA update and it likely contributed to this accident.

* most of the safe miles driven by Teslas are not with autopilot on. The NTSB explicitly said they did not test autopilot.

* finally, some HN users did the math and it turns out that humans have overall a better safety record than autopilot Teslas.

To me it looks like Tesla's communication is only reflective of covering their asses. From blaming that journalist to the latest accident.

Note: I work for a Tesla competitor.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#418

Post by Kiro »

hexane360 wrote: post #232
crote wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dutch citizen here, I have never seen something like this. To compare, here's a similar situation in The Netherlands: https://www.google.nl/maps/@52.0928662,5.1734685,3a,75y,281.... Points of interest: - big solid white arrow, line-fade is nearly impossible - white-green sign indicating that the road is splitting - big shoulder in the continuation of the division - loads of grass instead of immediately using a metal…

This is pretty apples-to-oranges. You see things like this in a lot of less dense U.S. areas as well. But in the crash example, it's right in the middle of an interchange, with the lane needing to form and rise quickly. Additionally, the gently rising metal barriers aren't safe in many situations because of their ability to launch cars. That's why they've been replaced by crash attenuators and sand/water barrels. Unf…

Why are roads in the US so post-apocalyptic? Even your good example here looks horrible.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#419

Post by gscott »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #404
gscott wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a fictitious example of entrapment to go along with the posters idea that the person who released the nsa tools archive might have been entrapped.

T-H-U-M-B-D-R-I-V-E.... What are you talking about.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/thumb--drive

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#420

Post by sandos »

dannyw wrote: post #319
sologoub wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars are special to the vision system. Wonder if the barriers can be modified to look like another car to these systems, but still remain highly visible and unambiguous to human drivers? Part of the overall problem is that these roads were not designed for autonomous driving. This is much like the old paver roads were fine for horses, but really bumpy/distractive to car wheels and suspensions. Overtime, we adapted…

Machine vision is perfectly capable of detecting these barriers, as well as LIDAR. The fault here isn’t with road design. The fault here is with Tesla shipping Autopilot without any support for stationary objects, AND their delusional and (should be criminally reckless) decision to not use LIDARs. A car without ABS or power braking is not legal to be sold today. We need to apply those standards here: anything more th…

I think they rely (more) on radar now since the "I can't see a white truck" incident. The camera is useless if the sun is shining against it, the radar will still work but be useless for stationary objects. I have no idea how Tesla intends to solve this "small" issue.
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