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Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

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Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#111

Post by spookthesunset »

perl4ever wrote: post #93
nzrf wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also own a Subaru. The assistance is very unwelcome for the crash detection at times. Living in Minnesota the exhaust from a car in front of you can set it off. This can happen on start off of a green light and can completely decelerate the Subaru. The eyesight detects the exhaust as obstacle the car behind you is now at a loss why you are now immediately breaking off the green light. I’m not a fan at all and eye s…

I don't like the idea of automatic braking, but arguably plenty of people had irrational fears about seat belts and air bags (although the fears about air bags seem to be coming back)...so I will seriously consider the new safety features once my car insurance offers a significant discount for them.

Good ones only engage when you don’t act fast enough. They’ll also press the brake pedal harder if it thinks you aren’t pressing hard enough fast enough.

Ours only engages when it is truly justified. It has yet to flip its shit incorrectly. It’s adaptive cruise control on the other hand will sometimes freak out about cars in adjacent lanes and slow down more than it should.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#112

Post by scarejunba »

hugey010 wrote: post #99
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I've seen Where? How? That's not a scientific statement. > Loads of people think pilots simply push a button then sit back and relax as the plane automatically taxis, takes off, flies then lands itself. Who thinks that? That seems like a hyperbole and you can't possibly know. > Tesla chose to inherit those misconceptions. Assuming all those above assumptions are true and assuming Tesla reached those same…

Just expand and define the words, and don't let your knowledge about how the tech works block your ability to reason. Autopilot -> Automatic Pilot. Automatic: working by itself with little or no direct human control. Pilot: one qualified to control a vehicle. I'd argue if autopilot requires intervention it is hardly automatic and definitely not qualified to operate a vehicle. Further, consider other automatic devices…

Well, I mean, my auto-mobile requires me in order to be mobile so maybe words are more than the sum of their parts.

It's like how 'act' means one thing, 'god' means one thing, but in the right context 'act of god' doesn't mean a supernatural being intervened.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#113

Post by theluketaylor »

runako wrote: post #48

I am intrigued by Teslas, and am considering purchasing one. However, I would feel better about the purchase if there was absolutely no autopilot software or hardware on board. Ideally that would mean zero , including non-autopilot builds of all system and control software so there is no chance the car will ever engage autopilot. Is it possible to buy a Tesla completely devoid of autopilot, or is this type of acciden…

Every tesla you can buy new has autopilot hardware and software for level 2 autonomy features. Certain older builds have different hardware.

There is an additional cost you can pay for called "Full Self Driving". This fee enables some new functionality like summon mode and the car changing lanes itself when you indicate a lane change. This fee is borderline fraud as people who leased early model 3 cars didn't receive anything close to the functionality described.

Autopilot is not ever active unless the driver enables it. You pull a stalk to turn on adaptive cruise control which only manages your speed and doesn't do any steering. Another pull of the stalk turns on autosteer, which is really just fairly fancy lanekeeping assist. You can buy a tesla and never use autopilot. There is some automatic emergency braking you can't disable, but that's true of nearly all new vehicles.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#114

Post by zaroth »

tyrust wrote: post #107
jaxn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have autoplilot on the VAST majority of the time. It does not make any sudden movements. If anything, it brakes a little heavier than I would prefer at times, but there are rarely any steering problems. It has improved a lot in the 9 months I have had it.

>It has improved a lot in the 9 months I have had it. A system like this should not have noticable changes in behavior over such a short period of time. In other words, I don't think they should launch it (let alone call it "autopilot") until it's done and stable.

A system like this which isn't constantly improving is not a system that will ever ship, or ever reach truly reliable widespread use.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#115

Post by quelltext »

Balgair wrote: post #95
thbr99 wrote: post #7

Don't text and autopilot on level 3, which is a nascent technology. An engineer should know better. Wonder why a level 3 is allowed to market as an 'autopilot'.

> An engineer should know better Maaaaybe? I'm not a hydraulic engineer and won't pretend to be one. So I hire plumbers when things go wrong. If they screw up, I don't tend to blame myself though. I think the same logic would apply to the deceased.

For some reason "Apple engineer" is used a lot (see title) in discussions around this on both ends (i.e. "he was an engineer and thus knew his stuff/was credible, and he voiced some concerns to friends/family, so let's agree with it being Tesla's fault" vs. "he was an engineer and should have known/anticipated the system's caveats"). The thing is you cannot have it both ways, so I think (and I think we agree) we should not appeal to the driver being an engineer at all.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#116

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

taneq wrote: post #5
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #2

Question: if the guy thought the Autopilot was failing, why did he continue to use it?

It's the curse of SAE Level 3. The driver is responsible for monitoring a system that works fine 99% of the time, they start to feel a false sense of security and when it does fail they're not paying as much attention as they need to be. This is also why SAE autonomy levels are a poor measure of a vehicle's capabilities, but that's another rant.

I heard of a similar situation, there are times when trains almost drive themselves so the engineers don't need to pay much attention. The problem is when things go wrong and they need to act. Sometimes the engineers are so involved in other things that they fail to act.

That's one of the theories given for the cause of the 2008 Chatsworth train crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chatsworth_train_collisio...

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#117

Post by spookthesunset »

perl4ever wrote: post #54
eropple wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words, in general, mean things. "Autopilot" is a word that means things. It does not, most notably mean "at its most generously-described best, full and complete attention the entire time lest it send you into the side of a semi at highway speeds or direct you into a concrete barrier". Tesla does not need any heroes with capes attempting to minimize their literally-not-figuratively-dangerous marketing. They'll do fin…

"It does not mean "full and complete attention the entire time lest it send you into the side of a semi at highway speeds" or "direct you into a concrete barrier"." Presumably "Autopilot" is a reference to aircraft, and they do not fly milliseconds away from concrete. (at least not the vast majority of the time) So if you want to be literal, then the word autopilot shouldn't give you confidence you aren't going to hi…

It is completely dishonest to suggest they called it auto pilot for any reason other than to invoke the image of the car doing every thing for you. It’s funny how people love to slam other companies marketing as being dishonest “brainwashing” but give Tesla a free pass.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#118

Post by scarejunba »

salgernon wrote: post #63
perl4ever wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And within a few minutes we got freaked out with what seem to us as unpredictable action and we turned it off." On the one hand, I'm affected by the FUD and will not buy a Tesla, and perhaps also will have schadenfreude to the extent their CEO has misfortunes. On the other hand, to be fair, other driver assistance features are creating problems too. I think it was Subaru I was just reading about having serious probl…

I have a Subaru with some sort of "Eye Sight" feature. It is quite handy in maintaining a constant distance from a car in front of you in moderate traffic - but you have to always be ready for someone to cut you off. It tracks the lane markers and rumbles the steering wheel. If a car stops short ahead of you, it beeps and flashes an indicator - I'm usually on the ball enough to hit the brakes myself though, so I don'…

I like Eyesight. It's pretty cool and I like the emergency braking feature. The warning triggers before the emergency brake quite often spuriously but it's nice. I like it.

I think the difference between me and the rest of these guys is that I see it as just an assistive technology and they're trying not to drive. I still have my eyes on the road and everything. It's just there to help, just like I still use my mirrors even when I have the blind-spot detector active. And it does a good job, especially since I can override the adaptive cruise and lane assist at any time pretty easily.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#119

Post by aaomidi »

spookthesunset wrote: post #103
m00x wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot never meant full automatic control. In a plane context, which was the most common until now, it's only used to keep a trajectory steady, and anything unusual has to be taken care of by a human pilot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot > Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the vehicle. Names don't really mean anything, it could have been named anything.…

> Names don't really mean anything, it could have been named anything. Names absolutely have meaning. Why do you think Tesla named it “auto pilot” and not something else?

Maybe because it literally means what it does?

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#120

Post by zaroth »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #8

IMHO the fault ultimately lies with Caltrans. Poorly drawn lane markers resulted in a human driver hitting the barrier just days before destroying the arresting system. If the lanes had been painted correctly and the arresting system replaced the Tesla driver would not have died.

It was literally the most dangerous left-hand ramp in the entire Bay Area, and had already killed someone within the previous year.

> Huang's 2017 Tesla Model X was traveling at 71 mph when it crashed against the same attenuator, which the NTSB determined had been damaged and repaired more frequently than any other left-exit in Caltrans' District 4, which includes all of the Bay Area.

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