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Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

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Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#11
post #2

I think it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information. i.e. it's not acceptable for automation to fail danger, it must fail safe, including even if all it can do is give up (disconnects, warning tone, hands control over to the human driver). I think it's reasonable, in the narrow case where primary control is asserted and competency is claimed…

This sounds good, but is impractical.

First, a human who is paying attention makes better decision than a human who is surprised by being given control during a crisis. Therefore if automation sees a crisis, it's standard has to be that it is worse than a surprised human, and not how it compares to an alert driver.

Second, the analysis that concludes that we're now in a specific situation where a human would do better is often beyond the powers of automation. For example it can recognize that we are now in a class of cases where, on average, automation does better. But whether it will in any particular case may be beyond its reasoning power.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#12
post #7

That news about this case is being spread everywhere irks me a bit, because people aren't considering the actual circumstances of the accident. Excerpt from the article: "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 wit…

Sounds like his smartphone is about as liable as Tesla here. If he hadn't been distracted this shouldn't have happened. He knew his autopilot doesn't handle this section of the road.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#13
post #2

I think it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information. i.e. it's not acceptable for automation to fail danger, it must fail safe, including even if all it can do is give up (disconnects, warning tone, hands control over to the human driver). I think it's reasonable, in the narrow case where primary control is asserted and competency is claimed…

> ... it's not acceptable for automation to fail danger, it must fail safe... The scary thing is, by definition of what is being automated there can be no fail-safe. The only "safe" is to stop the car. If the car detected it was going to crash, then it wouldn't have had the failure in the first place. By the time the failure might be detected, it is already too late for "safe".

It's worse than that. Sudden breaking is also dangerous.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#14
post #6
post #2

I think it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information. i.e. it's not acceptable for automation to fail danger, it must fail safe, including even if all it can do is give up (disconnects, warning tone, hands control over to the human driver). I think it's reasonable, in the narrow case where primary control is asserted and competency is claimed…

you cant expect the human driver to be ready to take over autopilot in any meaningful way. if the driver is alert enough to the conditions and physically ready at the appropriate controls to do that, then they are already driving . still, despite it not being based on science, but legal reasons, companies pretend that humans can "take over" when alerted to. maybe a lawsuit will change that idiocy.

A few people dying of their own irresponsibility does not warrant ruining it for the rest of us.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#15
post #7

That news about this case is being spread everywhere irks me a bit, because people aren't considering the actual circumstances of the accident. Excerpt from the article: "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 wit…

Well yeah but he’s not the one suing. The family lost him and probably isn’t thinking rationally. Or, maybe they are thinking rationally. Lawyers probably took the suit on contingency right?

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#16
post #7

That news about this case is being spread everywhere irks me a bit, because people aren't considering the actual circumstances of the accident. Excerpt from the article: "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 wit…

Why does that matter? The next person who comes by with autopilot on who doesn't know that might also die.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#17
post #7

That news about this case is being spread everywhere irks me a bit, because people aren't considering the actual circumstances of the accident. Excerpt from the article: "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 wit…

Your argument sounds the same as: people who smoke know that cigarettes cause cancer, in fact it says that on the pack, still they decide to smoke. So, if they get cancer and die it's their fault not the cigarette manufacturer's.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#18
post #9
post #2

I think it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information. i.e. it's not acceptable for automation to fail danger, it must fail safe, including even if all it can do is give up (disconnects, warning tone, hands control over to the human driver). I think it's reasonable, in the narrow case where primary control is asserted and competency is claimed…

> it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information I don't think anyone disagrees on that. The question is: is the software worse than a human driver? Do we have enough data for a statistically significant judgement on that? Is it even autonomous enough to say anything either way, like, if the driver is required to be at attention anyway, can the…

>> it's unacceptable for automation to produce a worse result than a human in the same situation, with the same information

> I don't think anyone disagrees on that.

I disagree on that. If there's an autonomous vehicle that is better than a human in most situations, and worse in a few situations, such that the overall accident/death rate is lower, and there is no reasonable away to identify the rare dangerous situations in time to disable the autopilot, I would want to drive that car and would advise others to do so.

In fact, if there was an autonomous vehicle that was almost exactly as safe as a human but slightly more dangerous (say, a 10% higher death/accident rate), I would frequently use it because the large benefits outweigh the minor statistical costs. (Indeed, I use a car at all because of its benefits over walking, busing, or staying at home, despite the higher rate of death.) If other people understood the risks, I would also suggest that they to do likewise.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#19
The problem with Tesla's "Autopilot" is that it's marketed heavily as just that: autopilot. It's good enough to work that way 99% of the time, too, which is a recipe for disaster: things that work 99% of the time but have the potential to fail catastrophically often get glossed over by humans because it's hard to keep paying attention to something that rarely fails.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#20
post #17
post #7

That news about this case is being spread everywhere irks me a bit, because people aren't considering the actual circumstances of the accident. Excerpt from the article: "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 wit…

Your argument sounds the same as: people who smoke know that cigarettes cause cancer, in fact it says that on the pack, still they decide to smoke. So, if they get cancer and die it's their fault not the cigarette manufacturer's.

Which is right.
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