Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

Post by greglindahl » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

rohit2412 wrote: post #105

aidenn0 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a non-sequitur unless the average driver the autopilot is replacing is alert and focused.

Or you could have only the automatic emergency braking in a vehicle, and not autosteer. Stop acting like it's all or nothing. The technology behind autopilot is being touted as driverless/self-driving, but it can do passive accident avoidance. That should be the benchmark to compare too. In this particular case, humans get distracted and get in an accident. Autopilot is dumb as shit and gets in an accident. But a hum…

Post by brownbat » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

macintux wrote: post #75

brownbat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely can't challenge someone's personal experience with statistics, but something about this line of argument still troubles me. I've lost a handful of close friends to car accidents. If survivorship grants standing, then I'm for doing almost anything to reduce the tens of thousands of US road deaths each year. Survivors have been angry at safety tech before, but we generally ignore them. I've known people…

People understand drunk drivers. They understand distracted drivers. They’re angry, rightfully so, but it’s a known problem and easy to comprehend. We can make laws tougher and feel good about it, even if it doesn’t help much. It’s harder to emotionally cope with, I speculate, when someone you love is killed by a software bug, or by machine learning where no one can precisely explain why it made a certain choice. I’m…

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #59

macintux wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics makes for a tough sell to the survivors. “Yes, this autonomous vehicle killed your son who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but someone else’s son would have died in an unrelated accident somewhere else were it not for autonomy.”

You absolutely can't challenge someone's personal experience with statistics, but something about this line of argument still troubles me. I've lost a handful of close friends to car accidents. If survivorship grants standing, then I'm for doing almost anything to reduce the tens of thousands of US road deaths each year. Survivors have been angry at safety tech before, but we generally ignore them. I've known people…

Post by slg » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 5:55 AM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #7

Confusedcius wrote: post #2

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

The best way to stay attentive behind the wheel is to actually be the one driving. There's virtually no way of being both attentive and passive for long periods of time. If a driver can't check their email or whatever on their phone while autopilot is on, then autopilot is not safe to put in cars. And while I'm okay with not-exactly-safe for most things people willingly consume or use, driving is not an area where it…

Post by rimliu » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #79

matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

This is completely ridiculous. Adults drive into stationary objects all the time. 4 year olds walk into stationary objects all the time. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one criterion that matters when evaluating self driving cars: is it better than human drivers? The fact that we are still discussing this _one_ accident that happened _a year ago_ indicates to me that the answer is a resounding yes.