Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 495 posts

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#111

Post by cptskippy »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53

If the Tesla had a proximity sensor that slammed on the breaks in the last 2-3 meters, would he have survived? I ask because it's a common luxury car feature and would be easy for Tesla to implement. IIRC this crash and the semitruck crash had no evidence of the autopilot hitting the breaks according to the NTSB. Even if his velocity was only reduced by a fraction, the amount of power involved in the collision would…

AAA tests found 40% of AEB systems failed to stop a collision at 30mph and 60% at 45mph. Granted they're not causing them but those numbers still aren't great and get worse the faster you're traveling.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3111407/aaa-automatic-...

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#112

Post by natch »

jbritton wrote: post #57

I think self driving cars should have both high dynamic range cameras and LIDAR and maybe time of flight cameras. Input from a LIDAR system would be much more likely to detect that barrier, and computer vision via a camera much more likely to be fooled. I think an investigation into why the computer vision system failed to detect a barrier under clear daylight conditions will show the negligence on the part of Tesla.…

Yes it shuts off with a beep if it can’t handle current conditions. In case you think this kind of abrupt shutoff sounds dangerous, keep in mind this is in the current generation of the system which relies on a human driver being attentive and ready to take over at all times.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#113

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #65
saagarjha wrote: post #19

The problem with Tesla's "Autopilot" is that it's marketed heavily as just that: autopilot. It's good enough to work that way 99% of the time, too, which is a recipe for disaster: things that work 99% of the time but have the potential to fail catastrophically often get glossed over by humans because it's hard to keep paying attention to something that rarely fails.

I'm not a pilot, but I have had flying lessons. Airplane autopilots are extremely simple. They can basically fly you in a straight line, at a fixed altitude. Tesla's autopilot is actually way more advanced than those found in airplanes.

It's not about what the autopilot does, but what the driver/pilot has to do while it's on. In a plane, you don't need to be ready to take over instantly at any moment with autopilot on, right?

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#114

Post by beering »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53

If the Tesla had a proximity sensor that slammed on the breaks in the last 2-3 meters, would he have survived? I ask because it's a common luxury car feature and would be easy for Tesla to implement. IIRC this crash and the semitruck crash had no evidence of the autopilot hitting the breaks according to the NTSB. Even if his velocity was only reduced by a fraction, the amount of power involved in the collision would…

No auto-cruise-control system will suddenly brake if it comes across a stationary object at highway speeds. The danger that a false positive ends up causing a pile-up on the freeway is too dangerous.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#115

Post by maxerickson »

barrkel wrote: post #21

I think it's deeply irresponsible to create a device which can drive in 90 or 95% of scenarios. It's just a way to fool humans into killing themselves.

A minor quibble: it's irresponsible to bring it to market or otherwise operate it without additional safety measures. Creating it isn't directly a problem.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#116

Post by breck »

salawat wrote: post #61
protomyth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really isn't going to play well with a judge or jury. I can see the poor programmer up on the stand not being able to say what it meant or how the car made its decisions.

That is, unfortunately, the problem with neural nets in general. They are amazing logical constructs, but there is a fundamental opaqueness to them that absent sufficient neural network mass to convincingly simulate a human, we can't apply the same methods of formal verification and behavioral inference we could for other more specific machine implementations. No one can explain just why certain weights work at certa…

There's no fundamental law that requires neural networks be hard to understand. In fact debugging and interpreting neural networks is a very active area of research and getting easier everyday. In twenty years I would not be surprised if tools are so good, due to economic forces, that it's easier to understand why a neural network made a decision than it is to understand why some complex hand written conditionals program reached a certain result.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#117

Post by danso »

baoha wrote: post #25

While I'm not quite sure about Tesla's responsibility, I do think CA DOT has its part in this tragic accident. Had the attenuator been replaced right after the previous accident, it could have saved the driver's life. Usually I don't complain much about the gov, but just look at the construction mess they've created on 101, it's been like that for more than 4 years!

IIRC, the barrier was damaged from an accident that happened 11 days prior [0]. One or two weeks later, I remember driving past the area of the crash a Sunday or two Sundays after the Tesla fatal wreck (I vaguely remember the time period because I remember picking up a visiting friend in early April). Traffic had slowed down to a crawl for miles, and it appeared that a crew was doing work on that barrier -- I assume they were fixing/replacing the barrier.

My point is, it seems premature to blame CA DOT for its role. Do you have evidence that the delay in replacing that particular barrier was slower than the normal time window? Because it seems likely that fixing that barrier is a construction job that can only be done on a weekend, because it's impractical to jam the 101 during a weekday commute.

[0] https://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team-investigate...

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#118

Post by beering »

estebank wrote: post #92
rockinghigh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any reasonable driver could have easily prevented it, Not really. The crash attenuator was missing because someone else crashed into it. That highway exit is ridiculous. As for faults, there is obviously fault on both sides. The driver should have been more alert and the "autonomous system" should have detected the obstacle and slowed down the vehicle before hitting the guard.

Both sides? Shouldn't there be some responsibility for the organization tasked with making sure roads have dividers that people don't crash against multiple times in a month?

What would you suggest Caltrans do instead, other than replace the attenuator more often?

I can think of various other things that Caltrans can place there for people to crash into, but at some point there will be the start of a rigid wall.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#119

Post by beering »

lunulata wrote: post #38

Living around silicon valley with all the tesla drivers here, you learn real fast it makes for some of the worst drivers out on the road. Regularly see them running red lights and just generally not paying attention. They crutch too hard on the auto-pilot and dick around on their smart phones, which is probably exactly what this guy was doing. It's bad for tesla drivers and it's bad for drivers around them. Hope Tesl…

Is it that Tesla drivers are actually worse, or that Teslas stick out to you more than other mundane cars and are pretty common around Silicon Valley?

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#120

Post by natch »

threeseed wrote: post #42
eloff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like his smartphone is about as liable as Tesla here. If he hadn't been distracted this shouldn't have happened. He knew his autopilot doesn't handle this section of the road.

I'm confused here. Has Tesla publicly stated which sections of the road autopilot doesn't work on ?

It’s clear from what Elon said about high definition maps that Tesla’s stance is that roadways are dynamic environments that can change at any time.
Post reply on HN