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George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

electrek.co

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Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#161

Post by wyager »

pdog wrote: post #69
Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

I can't believe the nerve of some of these Silicon Valley randroids. If they're so great, why do they think a little bit of regulation is going to kill them?

Is this a joke? If not, you clearly didn't read the letter; it's more than "a little regulation", it's a huge set of requests on an unreasonably short timeline.

With regard to the more general point of your post, even if it's nominally possible to eke out a profit under overburdening regulation, you're still allowed to take a principled stand against it.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#162

Post by luisivan »

izqui wrote: post #157

Today, I can only paraphrase George's harsh bulling destructive feedback he gave us on our startup: George, "that wouldn't work" :)

And days before that I was with him in a fundraising dinner and we were like besties. Sociopaths.

(Edited to reflect the point more politely)

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#163

Post by 6stringmerc »

defen wrote: post #146
6stringmerc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, do you understand the concept of journalism? It's a reporting profession. It's not goddamn PR.

I'm just saying that there are many cases where "a single instance of a journalist having a good experience with a revolutionary pre-release product" turned out to have been the company deliberately misleading the journalist. I'm not claiming that happened here, but I am claiming there is a non-negligible chance it happened.

Fair enough, I'm not trying to say the profession is 100% on the up and up and you're right, people can be manipulated. That doesn't mean it's reasonable to prima-face like you did and dismiss a journalist's impressions (being cited on an Auto enthusiast site mind you) as worthless. It just struck a nerve because I'm a pretty cynical person but do my best to weigh what I've seen / gathered, and while I do admit I think George is an interesting underdog type character and sympathetic in that regard (so to speak), I'm noticing a lot of open hostility toward the product being cloaked in dislike of the person.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#164

Post by oldmanjay »

Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

I've been trying to convince myself that it's possible that some day people won't be tribalistic assholes constantly playing us v. them in situations that don't need it at all, and posts like yours leave me sad and shaking my head knowing it's way, way in the future.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#165

Post by smallnamespace »

BurningFrog wrote: post #131
Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

> He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product

Which either he should have readily available, since he's the creator, or he should have known, since he should be able to demonstrate the safety of the device.

> I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error

Usually you hand over what you have, then you negotiate with the regulator for a time frame to answer the more difficult questions. If you're unsure about something, tell the regulator up front.

The correct response is not to throw a tantrum and shut everything down.

> interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it

That's the textbook definition of 'regulation'.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#166

Post by vvanders »

DanBC wrote: post #151
6stringmerc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it seems a lot of the community here thinks that if he just threw together a few bullet points in an email response the NHTSA would sit back, say "Okay, great have fun!" and not, you know, make a big deal out of it. I, uh, disagree.

I more thinking "why the hell doesn't he have the answers already?"

This, it's not a secret that NHSTA is interested in self-driving cars and would be asking the serious questions that he should already have responses for.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#167

Post by mikeash »

abduhl wrote: post #158
jtmarmon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i understand where you're coming from, but there is a counter argument to what you're saying, which is that although there may be some dangers to things like the comma one and tesla autopilot, their release may save more lives than they edanger, having a net positive to humans. humans are pretty bad at driving

This is an ends justify the means argument. How many lives have been saved TO DATE with self driving cars? How many lives will be saved IN THE FUTURE with self driving cars? What is the acceptable casualty rate to get from where we are now to where you think we will be in the future. Is your family an acceptable casualty? If not, then why is mine?

"Is your family an acceptable casualty?" is a pointless question. It can be applied equally well to the opposite argument: what is the acceptable casualty rate for not advancing safety in this way? Is your family an acceptable casualty?

Continuing on with the status quo is just as much of an action and a choice as pushing forward with automation. Both choices are going to get people killed. We can either evaluate the choices and choose the one that seems better, or we can ignore the question and possibly have more people die than is necessary, but there's no option where your family isn't at risk.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#168

Post by akehrer »

BurningFrog wrote: post #131
Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

He's got two weeks to provide the detailed information he should already have or a reason why he doesn't have it. He could even provide an estimate (see instruction #4 in the Special Order). The threat of legal consequences is if any information/reason is missing or if the order is completely ignored. Getting your company shut down by the government only comes after a lot of back and forth communication and is usually due to willful negligence on the company's part.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#169

Post by idlewords »

BurningFrog wrote: post #131
Analemma_ wrote: post #16

He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special... ). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input. I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn…

If you read the letter, it's a lot more than "answering a few questions". He gets two weeks to provide an enormous amount of detailed information about the product, I assume under threat of legal consequences if any of it contains an error, interspersed with lots of reminders that they can and will close down his business if they feel like it.

This is why lawyers exist, and the job they are trained to do. A competent one would have told Hotz on Day 1 that this letter was coming, and would already have the documents ready in a folder with a little pink ribbon bow.

Re: George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’

#170

Post by kyledrake »

mikeryan wrote: post #126
patcheudor wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not mission critical, rather life critical. I've worked on several life critical systems as a security researcher, helping to develop controls in tightly controlled environments to keep people safe. Work on software controlled switches in industrial machines mostly. As I've followed these developments and those of Google and Tesla I've been wondering at times if I live in some alternate universe. The level of diligen…

Google I'm totally cool with. They've been at this a long time and still don't seem very close to actually releasing a product. I like Tesla's and what Elon's accomplished has been impressive but he seems hellbent on "winning the race" to release a self driving car and that worries me.

It's a good concern to have, but I also worry about waiting too long here. At the end of the day, there's going to be problems that the testing would have never found regardless of how much testing there is, and we need to be psychologically prepared for that.

It took airplanes a long time to become safe (through a long and scary process), and now they're safer than my front porch. Whatever the outcome, self driving cars will very likely be safer than human drivers, and that means more lives are saved than lost, even with the occasional horrific problem. It is entirely plausible that self driving cars are already safer than human ones.

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