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US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

reuters.com

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Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#841

Post by jakub_g »

pessimizer wrote: post #801
drowsspa wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't drive but I would think it would be worse than actually paying attention all the time

It's also a problem that gets worse as the software gets better. Having to intervene once every 5 minutes is a lot easier than having to intervene once every 5 weeks. If lack of intervention causes an accident, I'd bet on the 5 minute car avoiding an accident longer than the 5 week car for any span of time longer than 10 weeks.

I feel like the full self driving cars should have a "budget". Every time you drive, say, 1000 km in FSD, you then need to drive 100 km in "normal" mode to keep sharp. Or whatever the ratio / exact numbers TBD. You can reset the counter upfront by driving smaller mileage more regularly.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#842

Post by Schiendelman »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #763
dyauspitr wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say less than 5% of people maintain the required 30-50ft of recommended distance needed to stop safely at those speeds.

Then I guess they're not skilled enough to be granted the privilege of driving at those speeds ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can work backwards from this - the vast majority of people in the US don't agree with that statement. You might be able to get them there, if Americans didn't have to be as car dependent due to their built environment. But because so many people are already car dependent, it's hard to make those changes.

The one theory of change I think is approachable suggests allowing dramatic increases in density in places that are not car dependent - the people who live there are much more likely to agree with us, so letting the number of people who live there 10x or even 100x could lead to this kind of change you propose.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#843

Post by 7sidedmarble »

jalapenos wrote: post #530
thunky wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go to prison or die for being a bad driver, yet people choose to drive.

Arguing for the sake of it; you wouldn't take that risk reward. Most code has bugs from time to time even when highly skilled developers are being careful. None of them would drive if the fault rate was similar and the outcome was death.

I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting people be held accountable for bugs which are ultimately accidents. But if you knowingly sign off on, oversea, or are otherwise directly responsible for the construction of software that you know has a good chance of killing people, then yes, there should be consequences for that.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#844

Post by wtallis »

emmelaich wrote: post #830
deergomoo wrote: post #787

This is an opinion almost certainly based more in emotion than logic, but I don't think I could trust any sort of fully autonomous driving system that didn't involve communication with transmitters along the road itself (like a glideslope and localiser for aircraft approaches) and with other cars on the road. Motorway driving sure, there it's closer to fancy cruise control. But around town, no thank you. I regularly…

Potential problem with transmitters is that they could be faked. You could certainly never rely on them alone.

There are lots of other areas where intentionally violating FCC regulations to transmit harmful signals is already technologically feasible and cheap, but hasn't become a widespread problem in practice. Why would it be any worse for cars communicating with each other? If anything, having lots of cars on the road logging what they receive from other cars (spoofed or otherwise) would make it too easy to identify which signals are fake, thwarting potential use cases like insurance fraud (since it's safe to assume the car broadcasting fake data is at fault in any collision).

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#845

Post by crazygringo »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #822
crazygringo wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely not sure what the answer is. When you're driving directly in the direction of a setting sun, polarized sunglasses won't help you at all. That's what sun visors are for, but they won't always work if you're short, and can block too much of the environment if you're too tall. The only truly safe answer is really to pull to the side of the road and wait for the sun to set. But in my life I've never seen an…

No, polarized sunglasses work fine. I drive into a setting sun probably once a week to no incident.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

First of all, polarization is irrelevant when looking at the sun. It only affects light that is reflected off things like other cars' windows, or water on the street. In fact, it's often recommended not to use polarized sunglasses while driving because you can miss wet or icy patches on the road.

Secondly, standard sunglasses don't let you look directly at the sun, even a setting one. The sun is still dangerously bright.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#846

Post by FireBeyond »

londons_explore wrote: post #703
llamaimperative wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla does not release the data required to substantiate such a claim. It simply doesn’t and you’re either lying or being lied to.

tesla releases this data: https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

No, it releases enough data to actively mislead you (because there is no way Tesla's data people are unaware of these factors):

The report measures accidents in FSD mode. Qualifiers to FSD mode: the conditions, weather, road, location, traffic all have to meet a certain quality threshold before the system will be enabled (or not disable itself). Compare Sunnyvale on a clear spring day to Pittsburgh December nights.

There's no qualifier to the "comparison": all drivers, all conditions, all weather, all roads, all location, all traffic.

It's not remotely comparable, and Tesla's data people are not that stupid, so it's willfully misleading.

This report does not include fatalities. It also doesn't consider any incident where there was not airbag deployment to be an accident. Sounds potentially reasonable until you consider:

- first gen airbag systems were primitive: collision exceeds threshold, deploy. Currently, vehicle safety systems consider duration of impact, speeds, G-forces, amount of intrusion, angle of collision, and a multitude of other factors before deciding what, if any, systems to fire (seatbelt tensioners, airbags, etc.) So hit something at 30mph with the right variables? Tesla: "this is not an accident".

- Tesla also does not consider "incident was so catastrophic that airbags COULD NOT deploy*" to be an accident, because "airbags didn't deploy". This umbrella could also include egregious, "systems failed to deploy for any reason up to and including poor assembly line quality control", as also not an accident and also "not counted".

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#847

Post by johnisgood »

wtallis wrote: post #844
emmelaich wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential problem with transmitters is that they could be faked. You could certainly never rely on them alone.

There are lots of other areas where intentionally violating FCC regulations to transmit harmful signals is already technologically feasible and cheap, but hasn't become a widespread problem in practice. Why would it be any worse for cars communicating with each other? If anything, having lots of cars on the road logging what they receive from other cars (spoofed or otherwise) would make it too easy to identify which…

I agree, the problem has been solved.

If a consensus mechanism similar to those used in blockchain were implemented, vehicles could cross-reference the data they receive with data from multiple other vehicles. If inconsistencies are detected (for example, a car reporting a different speed than what others are observing), that data could be flagged as potentially fraudulent.

Just as blockchain technologies can provide a means of verifying the authenticity of transactions, a network of cars could establish a decentralized validation process for the data they exchange. If one car broadcasts false data, the consensus mechanism among the surrounding vehicles would allow for the identification of this "anomaly", similar to how fraudulent transactions can be identified and rejected in a blockchain system.

What you mentioned with regarding to insurance could be used as a deterrent, too, along with laws making it illegal to spoof relevant data.

In any case, privacy is going to take a toll here, I believe.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#848

Post by fallingknife »

tapoxi wrote: post #505
fallingknife wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else are they? You jump through hoops to get a piece of plastic from the government that declares you "safe." And then holders of those licenses go out and kill 40,000 people every year just in the US.

And you're comparing that against what? That's 40,000 with regulation in place. Imagine if we let anyone drive without training.

We do. Nobody crazy enough to drive without knowing how is going to not be crazy enough to drive without a piece of plastic from the government.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#849

Post by vmladenov »

deergomoo wrote: post #787

This is an opinion almost certainly based more in emotion than logic, but I don't think I could trust any sort of fully autonomous driving system that didn't involve communication with transmitters along the road itself (like a glideslope and localiser for aircraft approaches) and with other cars on the road. Motorway driving sure, there it's closer to fancy cruise control. But around town, no thank you. I regularly…

Once insurance requires it or makes you pay triple to drive manually, that will likely be the tipping point for many people.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#850

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

FireBeyond wrote: post #783
kgermino wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are responsible (Legally, contractually, morally) for supervising FSD today. If the car decided to stomp on the throttle you are expected to be ready to hit the brakes. The whole point is that is somewhat of an unreasonable expectation but it’s what Tesla expects you to do today

> If the car decided to stomp on the throttle you are expected to be ready to hit the brakes. Didn't Tesla have an issue a couple of years ago where pressing the brake did not disengage any throttle? i.e. if the car has a bug and puts throttle to 100% and you stand on the brake, the car should say "cut throttle to 0", but instead, you just had 100% throttle, 100% brake?

If it did, it wouldn’t matter. Brakes are required to be stronger than engines.
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