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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

#801

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

smallcharleston wrote: post #673
neuronic wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. What really bugs me, as someone working in consulting as a hands-on backend developer with a previous background in technical consulting at an accounting Big4 (student job), is the insane amount of PR, politics and marketing talk by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are talking about. I witnessed politicians an…

I wonder why the self-driving car hype folks don’t simply lobby to make more trains. (I mean the ones who have been successfully marketed to here, not the marketers).

We had self driving vehicles for 30,000 years. I’ve thought about just getting horse brains hooked up - but people probably don’t want their cars spooked by plastic bags.

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

#802

Post by philwelch »

FactolSarin wrote: post #732
briandear wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they attempted trickery to pay them less as "independent" contractors An Uber driver is the very definition of an independent contractor. Many drivers also drive for Lyft. How can they be “employees” of Uber while also driving Lyft? Or doing Door Dash? If Uber drivers were employees, they would have to work where and when assigned. As it is now, Uber drivers come and go as they please. I am not sure how an Uber…

You are aware that people can have multiple jobs, right? It's very common for poorer people especially

And those usually have set, non-overlapping hours, even if those hours can vary from week to week. An Uber/Lyft driver can switch back and forth from ride to ride and has no set hours at all.

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

#803

Post by riversflow »

Drew_ wrote: post #691
mumblemumble wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to understand it. We just need to know that, even armed with all that knowledge, he still made the decision he did, and that we should not expect others with less knowledge of how software works to be any less human.

If anything I would expect less knowledgeable people to be more skeptical and cautious than somebody who has a vested interest and passion for technology. I can't imagine anybody other than a tech enthusiast who would maintain trust in a self driving car technology that previously attempted to veer them into a barrier.

100% agree with this. Most people I’ve talked to about this incident think the guy is an idiot; if you had found a car’s feature to be unsafe on a portion of your commute before, why on earth would you trust it with your and other’s lives? If you had a new fancy belaying device slip in the gym, you wouldn’t use it on your next big wall climb.

I also don’t get how everyone is forgiving him for being on his phone, in a construction zone no less. Reckless driving is reckless driving, being an Apple Engineer and Tesla owner doesn’t somehow negate that he was being a belligerent driver.

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

#804

Post by joncrane »

johnjungles wrote: post #680
neotek wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've driven a Model 3 over the course of a few days, maybe a handful of hours in total, and based on that experience I absolutely do not feel comfortable using Auto Pilot and would not buy a Tesla at the moment. It's far more janky and susceptible to confusion than Tesla makes it out to be in its marketing, and the reality is that people simply do not pay as much attention as they are required to when using it becaus…

Thank you for having actually tried it then having a real opinion about it. I have a Tesla, I usually use autopilot for highway traffic only, summon it like a valet to where I am in my parking lot, and not have to idle in hot and cold weather. I agree, I wouldn’t use it for local roads and unclear highways, but isn’t this what they tell you? I don’t think they ever tell you that it’s full self driving right now. Also…

>not have to idle in hot and cold weather.

As a car and efficiency enthusiast, I totally try to keep my gasoline powered car from idling unnecessarily.

But what does "idling" mean in the context of a 100% electric car?

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

#805

Post by heliodor »

dopamean wrote: post #681
mumblemumble wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to understand it. We just need to know that, even armed with all that knowledge, he still made the decision he did, and that we should not expect others with less knowledge of how software works to be any less human.

This has been my takeaway from the whole situation. It says something about the exactly how safe this stuff needs to be for it to be considered reliable.

My impression is that it's already more reliable than humans. Not perfect, but it probably averages better than all the crashes humans are causing.

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

#806

Post by clairity »

Alupis wrote: post #388
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…

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…

technology has made good progress improving safety, to the point that it's mainly a social problem at this point. we've allowed cars to be all sorts of things (status symbols, entertainment centers, etc.) other than transportation devices requiring high skill and attention to operate safely, at the expense of life and limb.

for cars to be safe for drivers and riders, we need to optimize two things and strip away the rest (especially an over-reliance on technology as savior):

1. minimize distraction and maximize attention on the act of driving 2. maximize the skill of the driver in controlling the vehicle in all sorts of (unexpected) conditions

technology can actually reduce safety, either because it allows drivers to pay less attention or it lowers the skill bar. driver assist technologies--lane assist or automatic braking--fall into this category.

that's not to say safety technologies shouldn't continue to be developed--structural crash safety improvements, for example, don't have the same detrimental effects on driver attention or skill (with the caveat that ever-increasing weights can decrease control and increase lethality).

it's important to distinguish technological advancements that acually improve safety rather than our perceptions of it.

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

#807

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

snowwrestler wrote: post #586
xkemp wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predicting with All-Caps confidence that autonomous driving is "decades away" is at least as indefensible as overly optimistic predictions were.

I think autonomous driving advocates would do well to look at the history of computer handwriting recognition, an easier technical problem with lower consequences that received significant investment over decades. But it has never gotten good enough to succeed in the marketplace against alternatives. Why? It never exceeded consumer expectations, which are extremely high for automated systems. Even a correctness rate…

> [comparison to hand writing recognition]

Excellent point, stealing that. I work in automotive and an engineer, traveled around the world, think the realistic possibility of self driving cars without major changes in how we make roads, everywhere, is extremely low.

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

#808

Post by Piskvorrr »

hugh-avherald wrote: post #656
Piskvorrr wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairly sure that you do need that for autoland, to engage TO/GA (for go-around) and take control. Most other cases, AP disengagement indeed means "now we think about what next".

No. Required reaction times would be around 2-3 s. Even if you took 10s, you're not going to die -- you might hit the edge lights though

At which point you're arguing semantics: "it's not the short landing that kills you, it's the impact into whatever you hit there!" You're describing Asiana Airlines 214, whose crash killed 3.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214

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

#809

Post by mrob »

fortran77 wrote: post #607
snowwrestler wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think autonomous driving advocates would do well to look at the history of computer handwriting recognition, an easier technical problem with lower consequences that received significant investment over decades. But it has never gotten good enough to succeed in the marketplace against alternatives. Why? It never exceeded consumer expectations, which are extremely high for automated systems. Even a correctness rate…

Handwriting recognition works very well if you can capture the actual strokes used while writing and not just the end result.

Analyzing the individual strokes works flawlessly with Chinese and Japanese, where the stroke order is fixed (occasionally with a few variants). If you have the stroke information and the user writes correctly you can recognize characters that even humans would fail to read from the finished glyphs.

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

#810

Post by simion314 »

ascar wrote: post #334
stephenr wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Granted, we're not quite ready for self driving And yet it's literally in cars on the road. I'm not saying you're wrong because of that. I just wonder how far from "ready" we are, and how much of a gamble manufacturers are taking, and how much risk that presents for not just their customers, but everyone else their customers may drive near.

Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone). The error rate of human drivers tends to be downplayed, while the perceived risks of automated driving is exaggerated, distorting the picture. Yes, it's a hard problem, yes we are not nearly there and there is a lot of development/research to do. Yes, accidents will happen during the process. But humans suck at driving a…

Is there any chance that tesla is lying with statistics?

A fun example, someone was selling some meat, he said it is 50% rabbit and 50% horse because he used 1 rabbit and 1 horse. The conclusion is when you read some statistics you want to find the actual data and find if statistics are used correctly, most of the time as in this case the people doing the statistics are manipulating you.

There was an article about a city in Norway with 0 deaths in 2019, if I would limit my statistics to that city only, to that year only I will get the number of 0 people killed by human drivers.

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