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Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

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Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#421

Post by sillysaurusx »

mtgx wrote: post #315
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The facts around current car safety is that it's already really quite good. In modern cars and "autopilot-feasible conditions" you are talking well below 1 fatality per billion vehicle miles travelled with regular human drivers. This means that if a model has sold 1 million cars they each need to drive 100 000 miles with autopilot enabled before the insurance company has enough statistics to say "this is safer than a…

No, the "facts" you keep reading about (from the same companies trying to sell you on the technology) are extremely misleading. Tesla for instance does that statistic against "average driving" but the "Average driving" happens in cities. And most Teslas enable Autopilot on highways, where Tesla recommends enabling it, too. Accidents happen much less on highways, so of course this "statistic" looks better. Put Autopil…

It pains me to see you banned. You've been with HN a long time.

I compared your recent comments to 6 months ago. They seem a bit better now.

Why not just email and apologize? We all have bad days. Why let a string of bad days tank your 8-year history?

Regardless of what you decide, I wanted to leave an encouraging comment. At least one person is thinking of you and cheering you on. Good luck.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#422

Post by Forgivenessizer »

Buried in the middle of the story:

"In the three years before the Tesla crash, the device was struck at least five times, including one crash that resulted in fatalities. A car struck it again on May 20, 2018, about two months after the Tesla crash, the NTSB said."

Well that story was a total waste of space and time and existence. The roadway is unsafe, and it has nothing to do with Tesla. As usual. I remember reading about a guy who wrecked his Tesla into one of those pieces of concrete Dallas loves to stick in lanes. And I thought, "I nearly did that once myself". You're driving along at 60mph, round a corner, out of nowhere there's a big piece of concrete angled a bit to pretend like it's a legit lane change, like "there, job done".

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#423

Post by WA »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #406
hvidgaard wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That squarely puts Autopilot in the "Driver Aid" category. That is fine, just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted.

> just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted. No one does. Literally no one. No owner, not Tesla themselves, not their website, not their sellers. Why do people keep bringing this up. Everybody knows it is not full self-driving, yes we all know, yes and? Where does this zealotry come from?

From the hundreds of YouTube videos where people sleep at the wheel of their Tesla or do something else.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#424

Post by arethuza »

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

"I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer."

I would never call myself an engineer, although I have worked in environments where there were lots of engineers (not in the software world) and one definition of "engineering" that I heard was:

"Meeting the requirements while doing as little new as possible"

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#425

Post by WA »

bmat wrote: post #268
hvidgaard wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That squarely puts Autopilot in the "Driver Aid" category. That is fine, just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted.

Before owning a Tesla I did feel like Autopilot was overhyped, but I now realize that's more because of media coverage than anything Tesla is actively conveying. The vehicle software actively encourages driver attentiveness. Moreover when you actually experience Autopilot, it becomes abundantly clear that it can't drive unassisted.

> Moreover when you actually experience Autopilot, it becomes abundantly clear that it can't drive unassisted.

I think it's different: On long stretches of highway, it actually can drive mostly unassisted. It can't drive unassisted in city traffic or in construction sites, but I totally understand why people would overrate its capabilities. In clear and good conditions, it's actually more than a simple drive assistant.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#426

Post by preommr »

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

I don't understand why if you've gone through this much trouble, you don't have a blog post or even a medium article to cover your findings. I'd be very curious to see the responses from those authors and other experts in the field about your findings.

There's just something dubious about how it seems like you consistently find mistakes and problems in these papers. I'd be stunned if there was any expert that wasn't aware of the shortcomings of using a kernel that's as small as 3x3.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#427

Post by tsimionescu »

ascar wrote: post #398
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That report is comparing humans driving in all conditions vs autopilot driving in only the best conditions. Humans are deciding when it is safe enough to turn autopilot on. So no, it is not less dangerous.

That's not what the report is comparing at all. The report is comparing all vehicles driving in all conditions vs Teslas driving in all conditions (separate for with and without autopilot). The numbers show that Teslas experience a lower crash rate than other vehicles. Granted, this can be to a number of reasons including the hypothesis that humans deciding to buy Teslas drive more carefully to begin with. And the nu…

And how much have Teslas driven in snowy fog in the mountains on autopilot?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#428

Post by krzat »

sam_goody wrote: post #419
Alupis wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. It's followers see no other possible solution as acceptable. Instead of putting our heads together to make really good driver assistance technologies and being satisfied, the darn thing needs to also drive itself everywhere otherwise we're leaving something on the table! Untill we have zero deaths, we cannot stop demanding…

IMO, flying cars will eventually arrive. Perhaps it will be limited to specific "lanes" (it will be much more palatable to the masses if it must (like cars) keep to a limited area). But it will not need to recognize pedestrians and bikers and human driven cars, and some standard will be introduced to allow all them self driving cars to talk to each other. At that point, Level 5 will be much easier, even obvious. All…

I wonder if it's possible to solve noise problem with flying cars. Maybe use active noise cancellation at the source?

No idea if it's even theoretically possible, but would be neat.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#429

Post by tonyedgecombe »

heavyset_go wrote: post #292
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hence might be driven more carefully I don't know where you get that idea from, when I'm out cycling it's generally the people in expensive cars that don't pay much attention.

If you look at the stats, luxury cars are involved in less crashes per miles driven.

Yet: https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/9202047/bmw-drivers-most-lik...

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#430

Post by keanzu »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #166

There are going to be Autopilot crashes and people should disable it if they uncomfortable with putting their lives in the hands of Tesla's software. I would be. But I see no reason to not believe to not believe what they have on https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport It shows Teslas have much fewer accidents than the average car, and that Teslas with autopilot enabled are substantially safe per mile than with aut…

> It shows Teslas have much fewer accidents than the average car

Tesla’s Driver Fatality Rate is more than Triple that of Luxury Cars (and likely even higher)

https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r...

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