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Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

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Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#541
post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drunk drivers, recklessly fast drivers, redlight runners, stop sign blowers, high speed tailgaters... those are the demographic you have to compare the Tesla drivers to. Do people who buy Teslas engage in those kinds of dangerous activities?

> Drunk drivers, recklessly fast drivers, redlight runners, stop sign blowers, high speed tailgaters. Wait, so you are willing to share the road with all those nutjobs, yet you're "staying the hell away from" Teslas you see which you claim are NOT being driven by these people? I think you need to reevaluate your argument. Badly. That even leaves aside the clear point that a Tesla on autopilot is significantly less li…

I stay away from all these people. I have no illusions that a self driving Tesla is significantly safer.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hello, fellow robot car, I am also a robot car, not a wifi pineapple notatall nooosir, and all lanes ahead are blocked. But hey, there's a shortcut, just turn sharp to the right. Yes, your map says you're on a bridge, but don't worry, I have just driven through there, trust me." Nothing could possibly go wrong and the idea of evil actors in such a network is absurd - right? Your idea reminds me of the 1990s Internet…

Also, what's to stop evil actors right now? There is a road near me with the bridge out. Anybody could just go remove the warning signs. Why don't they?

Obvious to casual observers, non-targettable, hard to set up/tear down quickly.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hello, fellow robot car, I am also a robot car, not a wifi pineapple notatall nooosir, and all lanes ahead are blocked. But hey, there's a shortcut, just turn sharp to the right. Yes, your map says you're on a bridge, but don't worry, I have just driven through there, trust me." Nothing could possibly go wrong and the idea of evil actors in such a network is absurd - right? Your idea reminds me of the 1990s Internet…

There's no reason such a system would have to be engineered to be totally trusting. The car, in that situation, would likely be set up to say "nope, my sensors say that's not safe" and hand off to the driver or reject the input. Use it just for additional input to err on the side of safety. If the car ahead says "hey, I'm braking at maximum" and my car's sensors show it's starting to slow down, I can apply more immed…

That last part is actually scariest: blame the victim, yay. Unless they can prove they had a functional, powered, up to date, compatible I'm-a-car responder, it's their own damn fault for being invisible to the SDV. How about "I'm a human, don't hit me"? Does that also sound like a good idea (RIP Elaine Herzberg)?

In other words, "all other road users should accommodate my needs just to make life a bit easier for me" is a terrible idea.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#544
post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this feature should require hands on the wheel It does.

Yet, in this fatal crash: > "the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision" https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accide...

What is the car supposed to do? Have robot arms that force your hands? It will actually slow down and stop if you continue not holding the wheel.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#545
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the point he's making is that it's worse if a person dies because of something they have no control over Perhaps. I reject this argument though. A death is a death. And if you prevent lifesaving technology then you are responsible for a whole lot of deaths, irregardless of how "deserved" those deaths are.

>Perhaps. I reject this argument though. A death is a death. A death caused by shitty engineering (e.g. Tesla in this case) is not the same as a death caused by gross negligence on ones own part. >And if you prevent lifesaving technology then you are responsible for a whole lot of deaths, irregardless of how "deserved" those deaths are. How many deaths has Tesla prevented, which would have happened otherwise?

> How many deaths has Tesla prevented, which would have happened otherwise?

Certainly a larger number than the number of deaths caused by Autopilot failure (which makes major news in every individual case). Have a look at YouTube for videos of Teslas automatically avoiding crashes.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone driving with it for an hour will probably encounter a situation they have to take over. Seems pretty obvious. It's a cool tech demo with bugs that can kill you.

That proves that a Tesla is dangerous if you enable the autopilot and then take a nap. It doesn't demonstrate that it's more dangerous if used as intended.

I haven't ever seen it save anyone, only introduce more problems for the inattentive driver.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, nobody can answer that, including Tesla engineers, because their cars' AI is trained with black-box machine learning algorithms that are extremely resistant to any attempt to understand how they make decisions. What is the justification for allowing anything we don't understand to be on the road? I really want the NTSB to ask specifically what decisions the Tesla was making and not accept "black box…

> What is the justification for allowing anything we don't understand to be on the road? What's the justification for allowing human brains in the control loop?

Because human brains can tell a human from the side of a barn?

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Let’s imagine that auto-driving tech saves 2001 gross lives per year and kills 1001 people who wouldn’t have died in an all human driving world, for a net of 1000 lives saved. You're saying that auto-driving would save the lives of 1000 people who would have died without it, by causing the death of another 1001 that wouldn't have died if it wasn't for auto-driving? So you're basically exchanging the lives of the 1…

It saves 2001 (not 1000 as you said, or perhaps said differently, I'm exchanging the lives of 1001 to preserve the lives of the 2001). It kills 1001. Net lives saved = 1000. > How is it that their opinion doesn't matter? The 2001 who are saved by auto-driving were also most probably not interested in dying. How is it that their opinion doesn't matter? It's a trolley problem[1]. Individual people have been killed by s…

>> It kills 1001. >> Net lives saved = 1000.

Right. And net lives lost = 1001. So, we've killed 1001 people to let another 1000 live. We exchaned their lives.

>> The 2001 who are saved by auto-driving were also most probably not interested in dying. How is it that their opinion doesn't matter?

Of course it matters, but they were dying already, until we intervened and killed another 1001 people with our self-driving technology.

Besides, some of the people who would be dying without self-driving technology had control of their destiny, much unlike the (btw, very theoretical) trolley problem. Some of them probably made mistakes that cost their lives. Some of them were obviously the victims of others' mistakes. But the people killed because of self-driving cars were all the victims of self-driving cars mistakes (they were never the driver).

>> Individual people have been killed by airbags, yet you probably think it's OK that we have them.

An airbag or a seatbelt can't drive out on the road and run someone over. The class of accident that airbags cause is the same kind of accident you get when you fall off a ladder etc. But the kind of accident that auto-cars cause is an accident where some intelligent agent takes action and the action causes someone else harm. An airbag is not an intelligent agent, neither is a seatbelt- but an AI car, is.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saves 2001 (not 1000 as you said, or perhaps said differently, I'm exchanging the lives of 1001 to preserve the lives of the 2001). It kills 1001. Net lives saved = 1000. > How is it that their opinion doesn't matter? The 2001 who are saved by auto-driving were also most probably not interested in dying. How is it that their opinion doesn't matter? It's a trolley problem[1]. Individual people have been killed by s…

>> It kills 1001. >> Net lives saved = 1000. Right. And net lives lost = 1001. So, we've killed 1001 people to let another 1000 live. We exchaned their lives. >> The 2001 who are saved by auto-driving were also most probably not interested in dying. How is it that their opinion doesn't matter? Of course it matters, but they were dying already, until we intervened and killed another 1001 people with our self-driving t…

> And net lives lost = 1001. So, we've killed 1001 people to let another 1000 live. We [exchanged] their lives.

No. Net lives lost = -1000. Gross lives lost = 1001.

We killed 1001 people to let 2001 live.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethics works by consensus. If the majority of the public become convinced that they prefer to die as a result of their choices than as a result of the choices of a machine they have no control over, even if the machine kills less often, then the machine is not an ethical choice anymore. Basically, forcing people to die in one specific way stinks to high heaven. As to why we use certain technologies, that is not so cl…

> Basically, forcing people to die in one specific way stinks to high heaven Then these people should stop trying to force me to accept a less safe method of transportation, by preventing me from using new technology! Yeah, those people shouldn't be forced to use a self driving care. As they are ALREADY not being forced to do. Nobody is being forced to use the technology. Just don't use it if you don't like it. It is…

The technology is not yet safe, as should be evident by now. It's being promoted as safer than humans, but it's not anywhere near that, yet, mainly because to drive safely you need at least human-level intelligence. Even though humans also drive unsafely, they have the ability to drive very, very safely indeed under diverse conditions that no self-driving car can tackle with anything approaching the same degree of situational awareness and therefore, again, safety.

For the record, that's my objection to the technology: that it's not yet where the industry says it is and it risks causing a lot more harm than good.

Another point. You say nobody is being forced to use the technology. Not exactly; once people start riding self-driving cars then everyone is at risk- anyone can be run over by a self-driving car, anyone can be in an accident caused by someone else's self-driving car, etc.

So it's a bit like a smoker saying nobody is forced to smoke- yeah, but if you smoke next to me I'm forced to breathe in your smoke.

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