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Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

washingtonpost.com

21–30 of 315 posts

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#21
post #3

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit — a level of intoxication that would have hampered his ability to maintain control of the car, experts said. The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue.

I use a self-driving technology every time I drink. It's called Taxi or Uber.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#22
post #13

So there's an interesting legal question here. If someone's drunk (i.e diminished reasoning) and steps into the car expecting that a feature named "full self driving" will safely drive them home, how is responsibility divided between the person who got drunk and the entity who created and named the "full self driving" feature? I don't think even a reasonable person could consistently conclude that "full self driving"…

If it's truly self driving then the passenger shouldn't be responsible at all. Would riders be responsible for taxi drivers?

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#23
post #8
post #3

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit — a level of intoxication that would have hampered his ability to maintain control of the car, experts said. The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue.

These two were idiots, but this highlights the dangers of L2 driver assistance systems (misleadingly marketed as "Full Self Driving") that requires driver attention at all times to prevent accidents. It gives you a false sense of security and there's no guarantee you'll take over in time to prevent an accident. If you give dumb toys to people, they will use it in dumb ways. This is why Waymo/Google abandoned their dr…

This is more than Tesla and it's claims of "full self driving" though. People publish videos about doing reckless stuff with lane centering and adaptive cruise control tech in other vehicles as well.

This is a large issue that will take more than action against any individual manufacturer to solve.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#24
post #6

As someone who works in the autonomous driving space, it is absolutely mind boggling to me how much blind faith Tesla fans put into FSD. When you compare it to any true L4 system it’s not even close and very unlikely to get close any time soon.

It's a supervised system as deployed. How much "blind faith" are you really seeing vs. what you think you're interpreting. None of us are taking naps in the cars. The system does continue to make mistakes, though virtually always of the "too conservative" variety. But it's also the most fun I've had in a vehicle in my whole life and an absolutely sale-maker for me personally. I simply won't buy a vehicle from another vendor until it can do this.

So... I guess I repeat the question: where are you seeing "Tesla fans" using FSD unsupervised?

I mean the linked article is almost unique in that it seems to have happened. And why? Well, it's buried but it turns out the driver was on autopilot because he was absolutely hammered:

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#25
post #13

So there's an interesting legal question here. If someone's drunk (i.e diminished reasoning) and steps into the car expecting that a feature named "full self driving" will safely drive them home, how is responsibility divided between the person who got drunk and the entity who created and named the "full self driving" feature? I don't think even a reasonable person could consistently conclude that "full self driving"…

A reasonable person shouldn't be operating a 2 ton death device without an understanding of it's capabilities.

Responsibility would fall to the operator unless the self driving assistance performed out of spec.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#26
One thing I hate about Musk saying things like "They have fewer accidents than people" is that it is only able to be engaged in the easiest of scenarios. So per mile, self driving on the easiest roads barely has less accidents than a human in adverse conditions?

That doesn't seem to actually be better than people yet.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#27
post #13

So there's an interesting legal question here. If someone's drunk (i.e diminished reasoning) and steps into the car expecting that a feature named "full self driving" will safely drive them home, how is responsibility divided between the person who got drunk and the entity who created and named the "full self driving" feature? I don't think even a reasonable person could consistently conclude that "full self driving"…

It depends what the "full self driving" feature is legally. How it is described, what the warning messages on the screen tell the driver, what the manual says.

If the person was a Tesla employee I think it's safe to assume that they knew it is only an assistant system and the driver still needs to monitor it at all time and able to take over at any time.

Hints into this direction pop up at the screen all the time. This could become more vague if once a driver gets into this situation that is illiterate or doesn't speak the language the car is set up to and genuinely misses all of that.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#28
post #8
post #3

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit — a level of intoxication that would have hampered his ability to maintain control of the car, experts said. The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue.

These two were idiots, but this highlights the dangers of L2 driver assistance systems (misleadingly marketed as "Full Self Driving") that requires driver attention at all times to prevent accidents. It gives you a false sense of security and there's no guarantee you'll take over in time to prevent an accident. If you give dumb toys to people, they will use it in dumb ways. This is why Waymo/Google abandoned their dr…

Your contention is that having FSD the car makes accidents more likely because people will rely on it when they shouldn't be driving at all. So... does it? The statistics don't seem to bear that out. This is the first significant accident of that type we've seen, where there have been multiple "driver passed out and the car stopped on the road" incidents. Seems like the truth is the opposite, no? Tesla didn't invent DUIs, but it seems like autopilot is a net win anyway.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#29
post #10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These two were idiots, but this highlights the dangers of L2 driver assistance systems (misleadingly marketed as "Full Self Driving") that requires driver attention at all times to prevent accidents. It gives you a false sense of security and there's no guarantee you'll take over in time to prevent an accident. If you give dumb toys to people, they will use it in dumb ways. This is why Waymo/Google abandoned their dr…

Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot. But otherwise, yes, your statement otherwise about giving "toys" to "dumb" people stands no matter the technology. And knives can be used to cut steak or stab people.

> Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot.

It's not for the larger discussion about safety of these sorts of systems. Any such system _has_ to consider the dumb human that's in the loop, because to not do so is almost inevitable to lead to problems. If your driving assist system makes people more likely, and more able, to drive drunk, then it's not just a problem with those people. Sure, they shouldn't be doing that, but ignoring that some people will is irresponsible.

Any system that involves humans that doesn't consider the human element is doomed to fail eventually. We humans are far too good at making that a certainty.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#30
post #6

As someone who works in the autonomous driving space, it is absolutely mind boggling to me how much blind faith Tesla fans put into FSD. When you compare it to any true L4 system it’s not even close and very unlikely to get close any time soon.

When I was in a Tesla Uber, I found watching the front screen that shows where cars are around you frightening. Cars would frequently move around and change position unexpectedly and in a way that had nothing to do with actual car movements, lane markings would be totally off, etc. If that screen is at all representative of what FSD "thinks" is going on, I'm not at all surprised that there are lots of crashes when relying on the system.
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