Live data from Hacker News

Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

fuelarc.com

101–110 of 449 posts

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#101

The point I soured on Musk was when he ditched radar/lidar and tried to go with camera's alone. This made me realize he is not the genius he is made out to be but instead he is a fraud/charlatan and over the years his statements on different topics have only hardened that belief. Why the fuck would you want ai cars to be the same as humans you should want them to be many times better and radarr/lidar sonarr type tech…

You do want them to be better than humans, but vision quality is not really a major source of human accidents. Accidents are typically caused by driving technique, inattention, or a failure to accurately model the behavior of other drivers. Put another way - would giving humans superhuman vision significantly reduce the accident rate? The issue here is that the vision based system failed to even match human capabilit…

> Put another way - would giving humans superhuman vision significantly reduce the accident rate?

Yes? Incredibly?

If people had 360° instant 3D awareness of all objects, that would avoid so many accidents. No more blind spots, no more missing objects because you were looking in one spot instead of another. No more missing dark objects at night.

It would be a gigantic improvement in the rate of accidents.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#102

I would have been skeptical of news like this in the past, but the last 6 months have shown that Elon Musk doesn't give a fuck about human tragedy. Or truth.

if this hasn't been obvious for a decade you need a more varied news diet.

He did deliver on several fronts for a long time and seemed like a serious person. But people can change, and not always for the better.

But yeah, like Sam Harris says now, perhaps I didn't know the real Musk.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple independent sensor streams is like having multiple pilots fly a plane instead of just one pilot. The chance of a fatal error (false negative identification of an object near the car) decreases from p to p^n. The size of that decrease is not intuitive: if p=0.0001 it now becomes a much smaller number with the introduction of a second pilot or second independent sensor stream (0.0001^2). Now the errors are not…

I'm not really following the attempt at logic here but under this logic surely you'd WANT multiple types of sensors for all the same reasons.

Yes, that's what it's saying.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#105
The other comment pointing this out has been (ridiculously) flagged, so I'll repeat the point that was made:

The analysis is useless if it doesn't account for the base rate fallacy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy)

The first thing I thought before even reading the analysis was "Does the author account for it?" And indeed he makes no mention that he did.

So after reading the whole article I have no idea whether Tesla's automatic driving is any worse at detecting motorcycles than my Subaru's (which BTW also uses only visual sensors).

Antidisclaimer: I hate both Teslas and Musk. And my hate for one is not tied to the other.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was consensus that the move away from lidar was driven by a lack of supply compared to desired EV production numbers, and the things said about making vision only work have all been about coping with that reality.

They didn't let lack of battery supply stop them.

I can imagine a useful EV without lidar (my ICE vehicles certainly don't have one). I cannot imagine a useful EV without a battery.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"crippleds"? Jesus Christ I know the zeitgeist is a cultural backlash against political correctness but goddamn we're getting a little cavalier using 1930s-esque language about non minority groups here aren't we? You couldn't have said serious injuries vs deaths? Or deaths vs maimings?

Please don’t try to be an “ally”. I have a very slight disability that causes me to limp a little when I walk (or run and well trained I’m a decent runner) and I am not that easily offended.

Please don't try to speak for everyone who's impacted by the regressive trends in social practices.

I have a slight limp and am a member of a scapegoated minority who uses slurs in-community, I'm not easily offended (I'm inherently offensive) and your lil' shoutdown is gross.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#108

Prediction: over the next 4 years we're going to see lots of stories like this. Some of the stories will be fair, some won't. "Musk bad" stories get clicks. The next administration will be very anti-Tesla. Coincidentally, by that time self-driving will be considered mature enough to warrant proper regulation, rather than the experimental regulation status we have now. Combine the two, and the regulations will be writ…

It’s imply a next administration. And ediction of new regulation.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#109

Everyone comparing autonomous vehicles to non autonomous vehicles and number of accidents misses one important impediment to people’s and the government’s acceptance of accidents for the former. Currently over 40K people are killed in the US every year from automobile fatalities and people think that’s just the price we pay for driving. I am not making a value judgement about that statistic. But if even 1 person dies…

But isn't that also because it's new? Plenty of people die in work accidents because equipment malfunctions, but unless it's a specific type of equipment blowing up at alarming rates, nobody asks to pause e.g. all power-drills.

I believe that has been pretty much figured out, and insurance companies offer policies that cover it.

Sure, they are usually not "intelligent", but are auto-pilots in cars?

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#110
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other brands might have so bad FSD that people simply not trust it and basically never use it The issue is not quite how good the automation is in absolute terms, it's how good it is vs. how it is sold. Tesla is an outlier here, right down to the use of the term "FSD" i.e. "Full Self-Driving", when it's nothing of the sort.

That's kind of my point. We don't know from the data if the problem is that Tesla has worse FSD than the non-accident brands, or if all brands are equally good/bad and Tesla owners are more likely to use the feature. Tesla could very well have the best FSD software on the market and still lead the accident stats simply because how their users are (ab)using the feature (which I suspect is closest to the truth)

> Tesla could very well have the best FSD software on the market

Tesla could very well have the best FSD marketing on the software. And that's dangerous.

Data point: the "First To Gain U.S. Approval For Level 3 Automated Driving System" is ... Mercedes-Benz

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kyleedward/2023/09/28/mercedes-...

The second will be, IDK, maybe BMW? https://www.bmwblog.com/2024/06/25/bmw-approval-for-combinin...

Post reply on HN