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Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

tiremeetsroad.com

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Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#231

I think the personal freedom and privacy implications of self driving cars with centralized communication are rarely talked about. What happens when your vehicle decides you can't travel to an area of civil unrest (for your safety), or refuses to drive you to the gun store?

I don't think this is quite that extreme of a slippery slope.

For one, areas of unrest are already restricted by physical police and national guard barriers. For example, during the unrest in 2020, Chicago physically raised its drawbridges. Anyone who really wants to get somewhere difficult would probably choose a bicycle or legs, so you need physical police barriers in that case.

Refusing to drive you to the gun store sounds kind of silly when the government would more easily just ban gun stores (the right to bear arms doesn't include the right to buy them at a retail store). I realize you're just giving out an example but it was not a great one. Preventing you from driving somewhere is a simple as putting up a gate and closing it.

Also, driving at all is not a right. It's a licensed privilege that can be taken away if you break traffic laws or drive while intoxicated.

I think your perspective is coming from a car-focused area of the country (which is most of them). But, someone in NYC or Chicago might point out to you that they use a transit card that has the ability to track their movements through stations, and that they mainly travel by buses and trains that have government-owned surveillance cameras all over them. Despite this, it has has failed to turn into any kind of dystopian urban nightmare.

What I'm getting at is that the technology is blamed for things that are actually just public policy, laws, and law enforcement. The privacy implications for using a smartphone in the Western world are a lot different than in China, even though the technology itself is identical.

What we actually need is legislation surrounding automotive communication and centralized control and privacy. The rights that automobile owners have should be better enshrined in law rather than trusting auto manufacturers. This, I think, will eventually happen. We're still sorely lacking a general nationwide privacy law on the Internet in the US.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#232
post #223
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how different the US would be if it was Big Public Transportation that lobbied to have towns and cities designed around them, rather than the car industry. Walking, cycling, buses, trams, trains, etc. etc. You'd still have cars but they wouldn't be a basic need for survival like they're often treated as, because you can't get anywhere without one. Because it was basically 100 years ago when the car industry s…

To be fair it wasn't some conspiracy. The reason why people began using the car 100 years ago was that the car was becoming widely available and it was super convenient even in the days when roads were caked in horse manure. Even in the peak of the streetcar era, the private car was the best way around town, and as more people bought more cars, it continued to dominate as the streetcar would be bogged down in traffic…

There was _a_ conspiracy, or at least Wikipedia refers to it as such: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp....

That is to say, there's enough there to suggest that this wasn't the free market answering solely to consumer demand.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Are you seriously suggesting that protesting is an execution worthy offense?

If you're protesting in the middle of the street for the express purpose of disrupting traffic, you get what you get.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#234
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A first step. Won’t be long before the car goes to the repossession lot itself. Tesla is evolving country music: not only will your girl leave you, so will your truck.

I don’t usually vote up comments that are mostly humorous on HN, but there’s always an exception. To me the problem isn’t that they might, but that they can. I guess the fault is technically on the person who rented something under terrible terms, but the problem to me is that over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones. Not to mention, if Tesla is capable of doing this for rentals, I have to assume…

The house always wins. Contract terms almost always give favor the issuer.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#235
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty strongly of the position that high levels of self-driving are impossible for artificial intelligences to attain, because they're built by corporations. Driving is VERY risky, and involves an irreducible assumption of both risk and liability on behalf of the driver. Humans are natural risk-takers. Corporations are not; and any artificial intelligence a corporation produces is always, at some level of meanin…

From Tesla's release of their full self-driving beta and its performance in a recent CGP Grey video where it successfully navigates the most dangerous road in America[1] I think a lot of people are going to have to eat their hats on this stance very soon. I consider myself bullish on this tech, and I have worked closely with autonomous robotics, but I didn't expect it this soon. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d…

That is the most boring Tail of the Dragon driving vid I have ever seen.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#236

I had a medical bill for a small amount like $60 sent to collections because they didn’t have the right address. Never called or emailed me. Judging by the comments here, the healthcare co would be well within its rights to pickpocket me.

Garnishing wages is very much a real thing.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#237
post #20

Holy sh!t ... reason 47 to not buy a Tesla.

So…in case you plan to not pay for it but still keep it anyway? I am really struggling to understand the mindset here of what I assume are mostly well paid professional software developers. If I defaulted on a car loan (I don’t know the details exactly off the top of my head, but this entails more than just missing a payment) I’d be quite ashamed of myself and return the car myself with an apology. I cannot understan…

I appreciate I left little to assist your conclusion, but that isn't it at all.

This isn't the the path I want us going down. If this applies / impacts a few thousand Tesla 'owners' so enamoured by the that cultish brand that they'll accept this BS, so be it.

But apply variations of this to the world, and the countless mistakes and mishaps that can happen and you're in further down into a nasty world of things happening.

I mean, look at getting something fixed with Google or a Facebook. Those bastions of the tech world.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the money aspect of this.

Case in point: literally this happened yesterday. I set up a D/D with one of our internet providers 3 months ago. They have been chasing me for 3 months for payments. New supplier so their email went to spam. I have evidence I did all the right things to do this. And yet, yesterday, I checked my spam luckily and there was a 7 day suspension notice if the bill wasn't paid. So, basically, our business internet connections relied on me being lucky that I caught a stray e-mail ... apply this to your car ... or your home (where there have been stories of this kind of BS, only for the owner come home and realise their home had been sold on and they can't get it back).

Basically, automation is great, but don't automate interaction with your customers on key situatons.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A first step. Won’t be long before the car goes to the repossession lot itself. Tesla is evolving country music: not only will your girl leave you, so will your truck.

Ha. Though my guess is, once self-driving is reliable enough to do that, the economics of car ownership are going to flip completely. It won't make sense anymore to have a car that spends most of its time sitting unused in your garage.

That is only going to happen for most people if the economics of car rentals are VEEEEEERRY reasonable. I am not willing to wait 10 minutes for an available vehicle every time I need to go somewhere. People who are dreaming of a day of full automation need to take this into account, because while I don't know how long the average trip by car is, I suspect that it's somewhere in the 15-20 minute range, which is impossible to match even with a fully autonomous driving scheme that can ignore things like stop lights and stop signs.

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#239
I remember watching a Defcon talk years ago by Barnaby Jack (RIP) who warned of this exact scenario, but in a medical sense.

ie. you take out a loan to pay for some sort of medical implant, you miss your payments, and they can turn it off.

I can't find the exact video, if anyone has I'd love a link!

Re: Tesla remotely unlocks Model 3 car, uses smart summon to help repo agent

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your dog is in the truck? Can you then go after them for kidnapping?

Dogs aren't considered people (in the US), so it would be considered stolen property _at best_ if this were an actual thing. Likely, they'll pass the animal on to a shelter and give you the info as to where to pick them up. It wouldn't be considered "stealing".

This depends entirely on how quickly they get to the vehicle, but given the money involved, I'm sure they will just lobby to have the death of the dog pinned on the owner.
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