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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

#401

Post by tim333 »

londons_explore wrote: post #288
natch wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A few percent better than “humans” is quite bad Yes it should be (imho) at least an order of magnitude better than humans before we consider it OK to not pay attention. Not a few percentage points better as you say. However, to overcome media drama, it probably will need to be not just one, but more like three or four orders of magnitude safer than humans, because of the “oh look, a Tesla had an accident” effect.

Getting more than 50 percent better than humans gets hard, since frequently the accidents are the fault of the other party.

Getting much better than the average human is achieved by a lot of humans. Deaths per mile are about 30x lower for bus/coach compared to cars, about 4x lower for vans and about 50x higher for motorcycles. There's a lot of variation. https://www.statista.com/statistics/300601/average-number-of...

If you assume vans have about the same crash protection as cars and some van drivers are idiots then I'd guess you could get 10x better than the average human just through driving skill/technique.

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

#402

Post by bufferoverflow »

sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

It's unfair that Tesla would get sued for every death, but wouldn't get a comparable reward for every death it prevented.

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

#403

Post by tasubotadas »

threeseed wrote: post #268
goshx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually help it every day during my commute. They are not stupid and this isn’t so unsafe as people who have no actual experience with it claim to be.

People have died. So it seems pretty unsafe to me.

People have died in cars without autopilot. So what do you suggest we do with regular cars?

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

#404

Post by moduspol »

iabacu wrote: post #264
linsomniac wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very true, but one interesting thing is that the driver in this case knew that at this location the autopilot was 100% likely to fail. I believe I read he had even reported it several times to Tesla Service and his family. The lane markers in this area, based on video I watched of it years ago, are pretty bad, IIRC. Like, a human could have problems following the markers bad. As evidence to support this I'…

The problem is: - Autopilot doesn’t work in that area. Driver reports it to Tesla. - Tesla fixes the issue in a software update. - Driver sees the improvement, and happily relies on autopilot. - After a while, a new software update introduces a regression. - Driver doesn’t find out about the regression until it’s too late (and is not around to testify about it anymore).

The driver has only been not around to testify three times in the history of Tesla, and only once since 2016 (despite increasing capabilities and far more cars on the road). The instance here is the one time. [1]

Regressions undoubtedly happen, but clearly in the vast, vast majority of cases, no deaths are involved. It's not "the problem," it's "the exception."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatal...

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

#406

Post by zip1234 »

aduric wrote: post #350
aneutron wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they actually didn't. They specifically tell you it is NOT a fully autonomous autopilot and that's it's more of an advanced cruise control. They also specifically tell you to KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD. If you fail to do so, you're asking for trouble. It is unfortunate the guy haf kids that will now grow up orphans, but judging from the information I've read in the Tesla blog post, it is clear that he was in the…

So why call it 'autopilot'? Seems like bullshit marketing to me. The first association we make when we hear that term is hands-off, not 'advanced cruise control'. They're specifically using that terminology to sell their products and now they're paying the price.

In an airplane, autopilot still requires the pilot to pay attention.

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

#407

Post by pps »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #365
rolleiflex wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm paraphrasing from the last time this was posted, but Tesla's words need to be read very carefully. What they say is: > the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision What Tesla does not say is that the six seconds the driver's hands were not on the wheel was immediately preceding the crash. It is any six seconds before the crash. Admittedly this is a very dark reading, ho…

They are still misreprenting their self-driving capabilities in their marketing materials: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/autopilot?redirect=no In the beginning of this video there's the caption "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." If the lawyers in this lawsuit are any good they will have a field day with this.

It's only a comment for the situation on this video. I'm absolutely not an expert on this topic, but I guess there are places where it's true that the car itself can drive from one location to the other. But on the same page they wrote: "Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

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

#408

Post by bjl »

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.

We have absolutely no evidence that AP is safer than human drivers because Tesla (tellingly) refuses to release information comparing AP miles to comparable miles driven by other luxury vehicles. Their refusal to release that information combined with sky-high insurance rates for Teslas indicates that they are (perhaps significantly) less safe than other modern luxury vehicles driven by humans.

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

#409

Post by strainer »

rolleiflex wrote: post #340
sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

I'm paraphrasing from the last time this was posted, but Tesla's words need to be read very carefully. What they say is: > the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision What Tesla does not say is that the six seconds the driver's hands were not on the wheel was immediately preceding the crash. It is any six seconds before the crash. Admittedly this is a very dark reading, ho…

You are claiming that the accuracy of Telsas language is outrageously deceptive, using an outrageously made up example of deception: "six seconds prior to the collision = It is any six seconds before the crash"

"This is the kind of sketchiness that makes people wary of Tesla."

Its the kind of sketchiness that make me wary of the stuff people post about Tesla. If the driver had multiple warnings - about anything, any car company will mention that, there is nothing exceptionally sketchy about Tesla doing so. And that is all on which you based your incredible interpretation of "six seconds prior to". Its just an entirely made up accusation.

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

#410

Post by sean-duffy »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #113
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.

It's not about what the autopilot does, but what the driver/pilot has to do while it's on. In a plane, you don't need to be ready to take over instantly at any moment with autopilot on, right?

I think the pilot absolutely has to be ready to take over at any moment. I know that at least on general aviation aircraft the autopilot can automatically disconnect for any number of reasons, including various weather conditions. When that happens the pilot has to immediately resume hand-flying.
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