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Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

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Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#51

Post by metabagel »

bangaladore wrote: post #42
metabagel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What matters is the definition which most people use. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44761341

I guess I don't understand how. > A navigation mechanism, as on an aircraft, that automatically maintains a preset course. Applies here. As far as I can tell the system did do exactly that. But the details of the actual event are unclear (I've heard parked car but also just hitting the back of another car?)

It’s an emergent technology. The onus is on Tesla to be crystal clear about capabilities, and consistently so. People might quite reasonably infer that something which is labeled as “auto-“ or “automatic” doesn’t require supervision.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#52

Post by cosmicgadget »

bangaladore wrote: post #29
panarky wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you you make a manufacturing error without intentionally deceiving your customers through deceptive naming of features, you have to pay millions per death. If you intentionally give the feature a deceptive name like "autopilot", and then customers rely on that deceptive name to take their eyes off the road, then you have to pay hundreds of millions per death. Makes sense to me.

Wouldn't that logic mean any automaker advertising a "collision avoidance system" should be held liable whenever a car crashes into something? In practice, they are not, because the fine print always clarifies that the feature works only under specific conditions and that the driver remains responsible. Tesla's Autopilot and FSD come with the same kind of disclaimers. The underlying principle is the same.

If it was called "comprehensive collision avoidance system" then yes.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#53

Post by bko »

furyofantares wrote: post #31
guywithahat wrote: post #4

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced…

> This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. There's essentially no difference $3M and $300M fine against most individuals, but $3M means very little to Tesla. If you want Tesla's behav…

> If you want Tesla's behavior to change - and other automakers take notice and not repeat the behavior - then the fine must be meaningful to them.

What behavior do you want them to change? Remove FSD from their cars? It's been nearly 10 years since released and over 3bn miles driven. There's one case where someone died while fetching his cell phone. You would think if it was really dangerous, people would be dying in scores.

This is obviously targeted and the court system should not be playing favorites or going after political opponents

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#54

Post by ratelimitsteve »

aaomidi wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As gets pointed out ad nauseum, the very first "cruise control" product in cars was in fact called "Auto-Pilot". Also real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free. This is a fake argument (post hoc rationalization): It invents a meaning to a phrase that seems reasonable but that has never been rigorously applied ever, and demands that one speaker, and only…

That’s why we have a jury. Autopilot quite literally means automatic pilot. Not “okay well maybe sometimes it’s automatic”. This is why a jury is made up of the average person. The technical details of the language simply does not matter.

Couldn't agree more. This thing where words have a common definition and then a secret custom definition that only applies in courts is garbage. Everyone knows what "full self driving" means, either deliver that, come up with a new phrase or get your pants sued off for deceptive marketing.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#55

Post by cosmicgadget »

bangaladore wrote: post #28
thorum wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product simply should not be called Autopilot. Anyone with any common sense could predict that many people will (quite reasonably) assume that a feature called Autopilot functions as a true autopilot, and that misunderstanding will lead to fatalities.

> feature called Autopilot functions as a true autopilot What's a "true autopilot"? In airplanes, autopilot systems traditionally keep heading, altitude, and speed, but pilots are still required to monitor and take over when necessary. It's not hands-off or fully autonomous. I would argue you are creating a definition of "autopilot" that most people do not agree with.

IANAP but I think they can take their hands off the controls and pick up a dropped phone.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#56

Post by stouset »

furyofantares wrote: post #31
guywithahat wrote: post #4

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced…

> This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. There's essentially no difference $3M and $300M fine against most individuals, but $3M means very little to Tesla. If you want Tesla's behav…

I agree that Tesla should receive punitive damages. And the size of the punitive damages must be enough to discourage bad behavior.

I'm not necessarily sure the victim(s) should get all of the punitive damages. $329 million is a gargantuan sum of money; it "feels" wrong to give a corporation-sized punishment to a small group of individuals. I could certainly see some proportion going toward funding regulatory agencies, but I fear the government getting the bulk of punitive damages would set up some perverse incentives.

I think in the absence of another alternative, giving it to the victim(s) is probably the best option. But is there an even better possible place to disburse the funds from these types of fines?

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#57

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

colingauvin wrote: post #32
guywithahat wrote: post #4

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced…

Tesla was found partially liable for this crash. The reason they were liable was they sold something claiming (practically speaking) that it could do something. The customer believed that claim. It failed to do that thing and killed people. So the question then is - how much did Tesla benefit from claiming they could do this thing? That seems like a reasonable starting point for damages.

And the fine needs to be high enough to prevent them from just saying - oh, well, we can make money if we keep doing it.

If you could only fine a person for committing murder, you wouldn't fine a billionaire $5m, and then hope he wouldn't go on killing everyone he thinks he'd rather have dead than $5m.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#58

Post by cosmicgadget »

wedn3sday wrote: post #14
bsimpson wrote: post #5

Wellbeing doesn't have a price tag. There's no amount of money someone could pay you to make up for your daughter dying early or your son becoming disabled. However, $329M sounds like an imaginary amount of money in a liability claim. If this guy crashed into a parked car without Tesla being involved, the family would be unfathomably lucky to even get 1% of that amount.

Perhaps the driver would have acted differently if Tesla hadnt sold him a product called "autopilot."

But if it was called 'lane assist' or 'adaptive cruise' he might not have bought the car in the first place.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#59

Post by SoftTalker »

metabagel wrote: post #30
ajross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As gets pointed out ad nauseum, the very first "cruise control" product in cars was in fact called "Auto-Pilot". Also real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free. This is a fake argument (post hoc rationalization): It invents a meaning to a phrase that seems reasonable but that has never been rigorously applied ever, and demands that one speaker, and only…

The dictionary definition for Americans is: > A navigation mechanism, as on an aircraft, that automatically maintains a preset course. https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=automatic+pilot Note that “autopilot” and “automatic pilot” are synonyms. https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Autopilot An autopilot is supposed to be an automatic system, which doesn’t imply supervision. https://ahdictionary.com/wor…

Notably, an aircraft autopilot will NOT avoid hitting anything in its path, or slow down for it, or react to it in any way. It's just that the sky is very big and other aircraft are very small, so random collisions are extremely unlikely.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#60

Post by TheAlchemist »

Whatever one believes about the state of the FSD / Autopilot today (it still doesn't work well enough to be safe and probably won't for the next 5 years), I just don't see how one can argue that almost 10 years ago, when this thing would go into a fatal accident every 10 miles while Tesla was arguing it's safer than a human and will go from LA to NY autonomously within the year, was not a total bullshit a deceptive marketing.

"The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons" - that was 2016... Funnily enough, in 2025 they are rolling exactly the same idea, as a Robotaxi, in California. Amazing.

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