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NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

arstechnica.com

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Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#461

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #161
slg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply don't know what to say to you if you are going to legitimately argue that shaving 20 feet off of braking distance will not make a car any safer. EDIT: The comment I was replying to was heavily edited after I responded. It originally said something along the lines of improving braking distance is good but there is no evidence that it would improve safety.

And yet again, the same OTA update changed other parameters about the way the car drives that do make it less safe. I don't know why you're trying to ignore that fact. If I drastically improve the braking distance of a car, but in the same update I also make it so that the car crashes itself into a wall and kills you, is the car safer? Hint: no As for your edit, you clearly misread the original comment, which is why…

If I drastically improve the braking distance of a car, but in the same update I also make it so that the car crashes itself into a wall and kills you, is the car safer? Hint: no

You don't have enough information to come to that conclusion.

It's quite common to have to brake hard to avoid a cousin. It's pretty uncommon to see the specific scenario triggering this crash behavior.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#462

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

pishpash wrote: post #347
slg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue specific to Tesla as all automakers are now making cars that are more and more dependent on software. So what is the right way to handle these updates? You mentioned a clear flaw with OTA updates, but there are also numerous advantages. For example, the recent Tesla brake software issue was fixed with an OTA update. That immediately made cars safer. Toyota had a similar problem a few years ago and…

Give me a dumb car. The software is not ready. Get them off the road.

Keep them on the road. They're still safer than a huge percentage of the awful drivers that I see every day.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#463

Post by darkerside »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #405
slg wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is also exactly what GM is doing with Super Cruise. Here is just one of their commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u__51kTl4j8 Despite this warning in the manual[1]: >Super Cruise is not a crash avoidance system and will not steer or brake to avoid a crash. Super Cruise does not steer to prevent a crash with stopped or slow-moving vehicles. You must supervise the driving task and may need to steer and b…

Riffing off the parallel thread about Google AI and how "corporations are controlled by humans" and can have moral values - no, corporations are controlled primarily by the market forces. When Tesla started branding line assist as autopilot, it put market pressure on others to follow suit. Hence, I'm absolutely not surprised about this ad and the associated warning in the manual.

TBF, corporations are controlled by humans and overwhelmingly influenced by market forces, which are also controlled by (other) humans.

That's a nitpick. Your broader point about Tesla pressuring the market down an unfortunate path is spot on.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#464

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

tigershark wrote: post #434
blub wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tesla's safety record" is misleading: * every update to the software makes the record irrelevant, because one is no longer driving the same car which set the previous record. Lane centering for instance was introduced in an OTA update and it likely contributed to this accident. * most of the safe miles driven by Teslas are not with autopilot on. The NTSB explicitly said they did not test autopilot. * finally, some H…

Your first point is absolutely misleading. You can apply the same logic to the other cars saying that they are all different because of the different tyres, the different conditions of the tyres, of the brakes, the different degree of care and so on. You can’t just say that they are not the same cars because of the different variables.

I think OTA driving software updates are a bigger variable than tires. I think you would too if you think about it more.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#465

Post by mikejb »

ebikelaw wrote: post #16
MBCook wrote: post #3

“[Driver’s] hands were not detected on the steering wheel for the final six seconds prior to the crash. Tesla has said that Huang received warnings to put his hands on the wheel, but according to the NTSB, these warnings came more than 15 minutes before the crash.” This kind of stuff is why I’ve lost all faith in Tesla’s public statements. What they said here was, for all intents and purposes, a flat out lie. Clearly…

Musk prefers to lie to the public and benefits from the disintermediation of the media that various Internet distribution channels have allowed. Tesla often makes clearly false statements. SpaceX, when part of their heavy lift rocket crashed into the ocean, cut away from that scene to a shot of two happy smiling spokesmodels pretending to not know what had happened. Today what we need more than we ever needed it is s…

The SpaceX comparison is a bad example. Sure they could have said "this and that happened", but there's always the point on how much you can trust the data you get at that point. I fully understand them not talking about failures when cause and consequences aren't even remotely understood.

But I understand where you're coming from, and I agree: Tesla quickly released statements claiming the safety benefits of Autopilot, putting all the blame on the driver, and even providing misleading statements ('the driver was warned multiple times' but leaving out that that happened 15+ minutes prior). That was the exact opposite, when they didn't know the cause of the accident, but were quick to just deny any wrongdoing.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#467

Post by jhanschoo »

Fricken wrote: post #305
dekhn wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I don't work in self-driving cars, I do know a fair amount of ML and AI, and I have to be honest: if my bosses asked me to build this system, I would have immediately pointed out several problems and said that this is not a shippable product. I expect any system that lets me drive with my hands off the wheels for periods of time deals with stationary obstacles. What is being described here, if it's correct,…

Tesla's autopilot team is onto (if I recall) it's 5th director since the unveiling of hw2 in late 2016. The first director of Autopilot, Sterling Anderson, was dumbstruck when Musk went public with delusional claims about what autopilot would be capable of, and quit. A slew of top engineers left with him, or not long afterwards. Tesla, showing their true colours, followed up with a meritless lawsuit accusing Sterling…

This comment about rumors surrounding Anderson's departure intrigued me enough for me to Google a source. https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/608739/some-te... is one of the top results.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#468

Post by buvanshak »

JoshCole wrote: post #456
buvanshak wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day... There is not enough data to do this "scaling up". So doing so would be incredibly misleading (But doesn't stop tesla's PR from doing the same). >Tesla is also a leading player in moving away from destroying our planet. The actions of this company and the persons behind this somehow does not feel…

> There is not enough data to do this "scaling up". So doing so would be incredibly misleading (But doesn't stop tesla's PR from doing the same). There are tens of thousands of Tesla vehicles on the road, many of which have been driven for years. However, the strength of Tesla vehicles safety doesn't rest on Tesla vehicles alone. Tesla vehicles are a class of vehicle which implement driver assistance technologies. Th…

To be clear, by misleading marketing, I meant things like the "autopilot" feature. And claiming that they have "full self driving hardware". I am not sure how the safety of vehicles with assistive tech is relevant. I am not at all disagreeing on that aspect. You were saying that fact that vehicles with assistive tech are safer is reflected in tesla's marketing and PR. I am still not sure how that could be the case. How does it justify calling a half baked self driving tech as autopilot and selling them to unsuspecting people?

>At no point in the chain of logic is it necessary to call upon the motivations of Elon Musk.

We are interested in their motivation because we are thinking long term. When you are need of a million bucks, and a person shows up with a million bucks that they are willing to give you, without asking for payback, will you accept it right away? Or will you try to infer the true motivation behind the act, that may turn out to be sinister? This is irrespective of the fact that the other person is giving you real money, that can help you right now. Will you think like, we don't need to worry about their motivations as long as we are getting real money. Will you?

Hope I am clear.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#469

Post by freerobby »

golfer wrote: post #349
ams6110 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Toyota electronic throttle "unintended acceleration" accidents were in the news, the software was described as a "big bowl of spaghetti" but the NTSB ultimately determined that it was not the cause of the problems. It was drivers using the wrong pedal.

Wrong pedal? How about faulty pedal. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20...

There are news stories like this all over because it was an ongoing saga. But the DOT's investigation showed that folks were hitting the wrong pedal:

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the...

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#470

Post by jwr »

Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

As a side note, I find the lane markings in the US confusing. The "gore sections" in Europe are filled with stripes, so there is really no way to mistake them for a lane.
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