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US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

reuters.com

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Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#651

Post by Animats »

kelnos wrote: post #601
V99 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airplane autopilots follow a lateral & sometimes vertical path through the sky prescribed by the pilot(s). They are good at doing that. This does increase safety, because it frees up the pilot(s) from having to carefully maintain a straight 3d line through the sky for hours at a time. But they do not listen to ATC. They do not know where other planes are. They do not keep themselves away from other planes. Or the gro…

Thank you for this. The number of people conflating Tesla's Autopilot with an airliner's autopilot, and expecting that use and policies and situations surrounding the two should be directly comparable, is staggering. You'd think people would be better at critical thinking with this, but... here we are.

Ah. Few people realize how dumb aircraft autopilots really are. Even the fanciest ones just follow a series of waypoints.

There is one exception - Garmin Safe Return. That's strictly an emergency system. If it activates, the plane is squawking emergency to ATC and and demanding that airspace and a runway be cleared for it.[1] This has been available since 2019 and does not seem to have yet been activated in an emergency.

[1] https://youtu.be/PiGkzgfR_c0?t=87

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#652

Post by ekianjo »

ukuina wrote: post #520
thunky wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go to prison or die for being a bad driver, yet people choose to drive.

Systems evolve to handle such liability: Drivers pass theory and practical tests to get licensed to drive (and periodically thereafter), and an insurance framework that gauges your risk-level and charges you accordingly.

And yet tens of thousands of people die on the roads right now every year. Working well?

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#653

Post by arzig »

f1shy wrote: post #646
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as it’s good enough for Tesla to accept liability for accidents. That makes a lot of sense and not just from a selfish point of view. When a person drives a vehicle, then the person is held responsible for how the vehicle behaves on the roads, so it's logical that when a machine drives a vehicle that the machine's manufacturer/designer is held responsible. It's a complete con that Tesla is promoting their a…

>> When a person drives a vehicle, then the person is held responsible for how the vehicle behaves on the roads, so it's logical that when a machine drives a vehicle that the machine's manufacturer/designer is held responsible. Never really understood the supposed dilemma. What happens when the brakes fail because of bad quality?

Then this would be manufacturing liability because they are not fit for purpose.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#654

Post by f1shy »

elric wrote: post #556
viraptor wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately - yes. But as I mentioned, the fact it's sold as ready for critical situations doesn't mean the developers thought/said it's ready.

I think it should be fairly obvious that it's not the individual developers who are responsible/liable. In critical systems there is a whole chain of liability. That one guy in Nebraska who thanklessly maintains some open source lib that BigCorp is using in their car should obviously not be liable.

It depends. If you do bad sw and skip reviews and processes, you may be liable. Even if you are told to do something, if you know is wrong, you should say it. Right now I’m in middle of s*t because of I spoked up.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#655

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

izacus wrote: post #561
dansiemens wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that individuals should carry that liability?

The ones that are identified as making decisions leading to death, yes. It's completely normal in other fields where engineers build systems that can kill.

Pretty much. Fuck. I just watched higher ups sign off on a project I know for a fact has defects all over the place going into production despite our very explicit: don't do it ( not quite Tesla level consequences, but still resulting in real issues for real people ). The sooner we can start having people in jail for knowingly approving half-baked software, the sooner it will improve.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#656

Post by f1shy »

renegade-otter wrote: post #639
bdcravens wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liability for killing someone can include prison time.

In the United States? Come on. Boeing executives are not in jail - they are getting bonuses.

But some little boy down the line will pay for it. Look for Eschede ICE accident.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#657

Post by f1shy »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #606
renewiltord wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I feel about nuclear energy. Every single plant should need to form a full insurance fund dedicated to paying out if there’s trouble. And the plant should have strict liability: anything that happens from materials it releases are its responsibility. But people get upset about this. We need corporations to take responsibility.

That's not a workable idea as it'd just encourage corporations to obfuscate the ownership of the plant (e.g. shell companies) and drastically underestimate the actual risks of catastrophes. Ultimately, the government will be left holding the bill for nuclear catastrophes, so it's better to just recognise that and get the government to regulate the energy companies.

The problem I see there is that if “corporations are responsible” then no one is. That is, no real person has the responsibility, and acts accordingly.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#658

Post by ekianjo »

ywvcbk wrote: post #540
dmix wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug companies and the FDA (circa 1906) play a very dangerous and delicate dance all the time releasing new drugs to the public. But for over a century now we've managed to figure it out without holding pharma companies criminally liable for every death. > If you write software that people rely on with their lives, and it fails, you should be held liable for that criminally. Easy to type those words on the internet t…

> criminally liable for every death. The fact that people generally consume drugs voluntarily and make that decision after being informed about most of the known risks probably mitigates that to some extent. Being killed by someone else’s FSD car seems to be very different

> make that decision after being informed about most of the known risks

Like for the COVID-19 vaccines? Experimental yet given to billions without ever showing them a consent form.

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#659

Post by sschueller »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #558

Tesla released a promotional video in 2016 saying that with FSD a human driver is not necessary and that "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons". The video was staged as we've learned in 2022. 2016 folks... Even with today's FSD which is several orders of magnitude better than the one in the video, you would still probably have a serious accident within a week (and I'm being generous here) i…

[flagged]

Re: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

#660

Post by lotsofpulp »

kelnos wrote: post #567
dreamcompiler wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It didn't merge left to make room for vehicles merging onto the highway. The vehicles then tried to cut in. The system should have avoided an unsafe situation like this in the first place. This is what bugs me about ordinary autopilot. Autopilot doesn't switch lanes, but I like to slow down or speed up as needed to allow merging cars to enter my lane. Autopilot never does that, and I've had some close calls with ir…

While I certainly wouldn't object to how you handle merging cars (it's a nice, helpful thing to do!), I was always taught that if you want to merge into a lane, you are the sole person responsible for making that possible and making that safe. You need to get your speed and position right, and if you can't do that, you don't merge. (That's for merging onto a highway from an entrance ramp, at least. If you're talking…

>cooperation with other drivers is always the right thing to do

Correct, including when the other driver may not have the strictly interpreted legal right of way. You don't know if their vehicle is malfunctioning, or if the driver is malfunctioning, or if they are being overly aggressive or distracted on their phone.

But most of the time, on an onramp to a highway, people on the highway in the lane that is being merged into need to be taking into account the potential conflicts due to people merging in from the acceleration lane. Acceleration lanes can be too short, other cars may not have the capability to accelerate quickly, other drivers may not be as confident, etc.

So while technically, the onus is on people merging in, a more realistic rule is to take turns whenever congestion appears, even if you have right of way.

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