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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

#151

Post by toast0 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #73
barrkel wrote: post #21

I think it's deeply irresponsible to create a device which can drive in 90 or 95% of scenarios. It's just a way to fool humans into killing themselves.

If the system is even a few percent better than humans then it would save thousands of lives when widely deployed. Musk has made this argument many times. Basically don't let perfect be the enemy of better. But if the vendor is legally liable in each case then this software is untenable.

Tesla (and/or Musk) keep saying it's safe to let the car drive, and then when you let the car drive and it kills you, they say you're holding it wrong.

If you're actually trying to increase safety, the right things to build are computers to supervise the human driver, and not systems that require a human to supervise the computer driver.

If the human drifts out of the lane, nudge the car back in and beep, but don't prevent the human from intentionally going over the lines.

If the human appears to be driving into an obstacle, beep and apply the brakes, but allow the human to override.

If the human isn't paying attention, beep, then turn on the hazard lights and slow down / try to find a safe place to pull over.

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

#152

Post by jhayward »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #73
barrkel wrote: post #21

I think it's deeply irresponsible to create a device which can drive in 90 or 95% of scenarios. It's just a way to fool humans into killing themselves.

If the system is even a few percent better than humans then it would save thousands of lives when widely deployed. Musk has made this argument many times. Basically don't let perfect be the enemy of better. But if the vendor is legally liable in each case then this software is untenable.

The legal problem is: which humans? It's one thing to say that on average, the system will save lives compared to an average human. But perhaps the human in the car is above average. Is the car safer for them? Perhaps not. How can they discern the relative safety?

The easiest way to deal with the issue is to be safer than, say, 99% of drivers. I don't think Tesla can make that claim at present.

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

#153

Post by colordrops »

gamblor956 wrote: post #149
ebg13 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you said is very wrong. LIDAR produces line of sight depth information. Stereo cameras produce line of sight depth information. Radar produces line of sight depth information. Ultrasound produces line of sight depth information. The only differences are how, how fast, and how detailed. The biggest difference between LIDAR and stereo vision is that LIDAR doesn't depend on illumination because it uses its ow…

Stereo cameras produce line of sight depth information That is wrong. Stereo cameras provide data which, after significant processing, can result in line-of-sight depth information. With radar (including LIDAR) and ultrasound, the depth information is essentially "free" since very little processing is required to extract the depth information (i.e., the information returned is the depth). So the biggest difference be…

Aren't the algorithms for extracting depth from stereo imagery already solved and thus also essentially "free"?

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

natch wrote: post #134
rjdagost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Twitter user who rooted his Tesla claims that autopilot disengagement reports are very small ( https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1096322810694287361 Not the kind of information that you use to train computer vision algorithms. I found his claims to be an interesting read.

Definitely interesting but I wouldn’t trust a rooted system to behave the same as a non-rooted system. Nor is there any guarantee that the snapshot in time when he did his research is representative of everything they do. And such logging behavior can vary by car, by location, and by software version. I tend to think it is in Tesla’s interest to collect the most useful data, efficiently, and make good tradeoffs when…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by bdamm »

soulofmischief wrote: post #147
ummonk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that argument, every car with cruise control (i.e. almost all of them) has autopilot. Clearly, with their naming of their system as autopilot rather than cruise control, Tesla is trying to imply that autopilot means something more. Namely, it means the driver / pilot can offload the work of routine driving / flying to the computer, only intervening in certain times (e.g. off0highway or takeoff / landing) or in the…

Do you understand the difference between going in a straight line and going at a consistent speed? Cruise control only enables the latter.

To go straight in a car, just release the steering wheel.

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

#156

Post by gamblor956 »

zaroth wrote: post #76
arkades wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we've heard from other Tesla drivers on HN in the past: Tesla continues to deliver OTA updates, which occasionally causes people to think that previous issues have been fixed, especially if they haven't popped up again recently. Either they continue to avoid using autopilot because they can't take the chance of finding out whether Tesla ever bothered fixing the problem, or they give it a test, think it's working f…

As a Tesla driver, I look out the windows when operating my motor vehicle. If my car crashes on AutoPilot or otherwise, it’s my fault. When Tesla tells me I can stop looking while the car drives, instead of how they currently do it where it constantly reminds me to be alert, then I might change my position. Until then it is abundantly clear to every single Tesla driver, who exactly is responsible for controlling the…

As a Tesla driver, I look out the windows when operating my motor vehicle. If my car crashes on AutoPilot or otherwise, it’s my fault.

Legally, both you and Tesla are at fault if the car crashes. You, for not maintaining full control of the car. And Tesla, for developing the AutoPilot system which directly caused the crash. In this context, Tesla is the "proximate cause* of the crash, so their liability generally would supersede your own. Moreover, in a lawsuit, you and Tesla would be jointly liable for damages, but any sane lawyer would settle with your for a small amount and go after Tesla for the remainder.

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

#157

Post by gugagore »

rayiner wrote: post #83
LeoPanthera wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a pilot, but I have had flying lessons. Airplane autopilots are extremely simple. They can basically fly you in a straight line, at a fixed altitude. Tesla's autopilot is actually way more advanced than those found in airplanes.

A commercial airliner autopilot (the kind people think of when you say autopilot) can perform evasive maneuvers and land the plane.

Can you say more about evasive maneuvers? TCAS provides only advisory information, but doesn't control a plane, I thought.

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

#158

Post by gamblor956 »

natch wrote: post #125
codetrotter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowingly manufacturing a product that has such a high risk of causing cancer as do cigarettes is certainly unethical in my opinion. But today when that risk is known to consumers (as opposed to in the past when it was not) it is ultimately the responsibility of anyone that decide to start smoking today when doing so ends up giving them cancer. I say this as someone who is a low volume consumer of another tobacco pro…

Autopilot arguably prevents more accidents and deaths than it causes, just to keep this in perspective. So the tobacco analogies can only go so far here.

Keep this in perspective: based on the number of avoidable deaths in Tesla cars driving on Autopilot in otherwise favorable conditions, its arguable that Autopilot causes more accidents and deaths than it avoids, especially given that Autopilot is used in the lowest-risk driving conditions.

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

#159

Post by natch »

rayiner wrote: post #83
LeoPanthera wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a pilot, but I have had flying lessons. Airplane autopilots are extremely simple. They can basically fly you in a straight line, at a fixed altitude. Tesla's autopilot is actually way more advanced than those found in airplanes.

A commercial airliner autopilot (the kind people think of when you say autopilot) can perform evasive maneuvers and land the plane.

What do you conclude about Tesla autopilot from this?

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

#160

Post by gugagore »

areoform wrote: post #142
ummonk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensor technology is a big factor here. You can use LIDAR for perception without needing a neural net. On the other hand with radar + ultrasound + vision you'll need a neural net to try to detect things like obstacles, since the raw data from those sensors doesn't directly tell you whether there is an obstacle in the way.

That's a very common perception, but it's not true! Kalman filters have for years been used to get usable data out of these and multiple studies have shown that ultrasound can be used as a standalone in low-speed scenarios. Design and experimental study of an ultrasonic sensor system for lateral collision avoidance at low speeds - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1336460 Environmental perception and mult…

Kalman filters over what state space? Localization isn't really the challenging aspect of self-driving cars.
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