A Tragic Loss • Hacker News Board

Re: A Tragic Loss

#21

Post by BinaryIdiot » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me.

Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd love to own a Tesla but couldn't they have worded this a little more sympathetic and a little less lawyer?

Re: A Tragic Loss

#22

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #13

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

That doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completel…

[deleted]

Re: A Tragic Loss

#23

Post by hueving » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #13

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

That doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completel…

>detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle

RTFA. It mentions explicitly that autopilot checks for hands on the wheel.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#24

Post by camkego » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

Main issue is that once you take away 90% of the requirement for a human to focus on the task at hand (driving) they are going to ignore the remaining 10% where an exception occurs.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#25

Post by georgecmu » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.

How is this not an "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story?

Tesla autopilot drove the vehicle full-speed into a tractor-trailer, which wasn't registered by its sensor systems. It's great that Tesla already has an explanation for the failure, but the situation as described is far from an improbable edge case. What they are saying is that the autopilot can't detect white objects when a bright light is present -- that's a pretty serious limitation to overlook.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#26

Post by devy » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

robbiet480 wrote: post #4

It's all over CNBC right now, Tesla is down 2.58% in after hours after closing up 0.99%

Care to share a link? Google News doesn't turn up any CNBC results yet as of now.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#27

Post by ebbv » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

I count myself as a big Tesla fan but this announcement is too heavy on the disclaimers and ass covering and too little on empathy and sympathy.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#28

Post by rspeer » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

The only situation I can imagine a driver not noticing a huge truck perpendicular to them on the highway, regardless of what color it is, is that they're not paying any attention at all.

This peculiar wording is making it sound like the computer made the same mistake as the driver, but it seems much more likely that they made two different mistakes. The computer's mistake was in image recognition, and the person's mistake was trusting the autopilot fully and not paying attention to the road.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#29

Post by BinaryIdiot » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

gjulianm wrote: post #20

Pxtl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completel…

From the article, it seems that this autopilot checks that the driver is attentive. > When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times," and that "you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle” while using it. Additionally, every time that Autopilot is en…

It does but it's not terribly frequent and it's easy to bypass. When you give people a feature they're going to use it however they want regardless of what you tell them. Users are funny like that :)

Re: A Tragic Loss

#30

Post by dismal2 » Thu, Jun 30, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

This seems like a pretty big oversight, large object that car is too tall to clear safely seems like it could cause a lot of problems. Would the car try to make a lane change while next to a trailer?