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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

#671

Post by renegade-otter »

f1shy wrote: post #656
renegade-otter wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are many examples.

The Koch brothers, famous "anti-regulatory state" warriors, have fought oversight so hard that their gas pipelines were allowed to be barely intact.

Two teens get into a truck, turn the ignition key - and the air explodes:

https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/nation-world/1996...

Does anyone go to jail? F*K NO.

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

#672

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

amelius wrote: post #628
LadyCailin wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people driving manually kill people all the time too. The bar for self driving isn’t «does it never kill anyone», it’s «does it kill people less than manual driving». We’re not there yet, and Tesla’s «FSD» is marketing bullshit, but we certainly will be there one day, and at that point, we need to understand what we as a society will do when a self driving car kills someone. It’s not obvious what the best solutio…

No, because every driver thinks they are better than average. So nobody will accept it.

Assuming I understand the argument flow correctly, I think I disagree. If there is one thing that the past few decades have confirmed quite conclusively, it is that people will trade a lot of control and sense away in the name of convenience. The moment FSD reaches that sweet spot of 'take me home -- I am too drunk to drive' of reliability, I think it would be accepted; maybe even required by law. It does not seem there.

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

#673

Post by mlinhares »

ekianjo wrote: post #649
TheCleric wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. If you write software that people rely on with their lives, and it fails, you should be held liable for that criminally.

How is that working with Boeing?

People often forget corporations don’t go to jail. Murder when you’re not a person ends up with a slap.

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

#674

Post by lolinder »

herdcall wrote: post #670
bastawhiz wrote: post #257

Lots of people are asking how good the self driving has to be before we tolerate it. I got a one month free trial of FSD and turned it off after two weeks. Quite simply: it's dangerous. - It failed with a cryptic system error while driving - It started making a left turn far too early that would have scraped the left side of the car on a sign. I had to manually intervene. - In my opinion, the default setting accelera…

Same here, but I tried the new 12.5.4.1 yesterday and the difference is night and day. It was near flawless except for some unexplained slowdowns and you don't even need to hold the steering anymore (it detects attention by looking at your face), they clearly are improving rapidly.

How many miles have you driven since the update yesterday? OP described a half dozen different failure modes in a variety of situations that seem to indicate quite extensive testing before they turned it off. How far did you drive the new version and in what circumstances?

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

#675

Post by throw627004 »

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

#676

Post by jillesvangurp »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #226

The interesting question is how good self-driving has to be before people tolerate it. It's clear that having half the casualty rate per distance traveled of the median human driver isn't acceptable. How about a quarter? Or a tenth? Accidents caused by human drivers are one of the largest causes of injury and death, but they're not newsworthy the way an accident involving automated driving is. It's all too easy to se…

The key here is insurers. Because they pick up the bill when things go wrong. As soon as self driving becomes clearly better than humans, they'll be insisting we stop risking their money by driving ourselves whenever that is feasible. And they'll do that with price incentives. They'll happily insure you if you want to drive yourself. But you'll pay a premium. And a discount if you are happy to let the car do the driving.

Eventually, manual driving should come with a lot more scrutiny. Because once it becomes a choice rather than an economic necessity, other people on the road will want to be sure that you are not needlessly endangering them. So, stricter requirements for getting a drivers license with more training and fitness/health requirements. This too will be driven by insurers. They'll want to make sure you are fit to drive.

And of course when manual driving people get into trouble, taking away their driving license is always a possibility. The main argument against doing that right now is that a lot of people depend economically on being able to drive. But if that argument goes away, there's no reason to not be a lot stricter for e.g. driving under influence, or routinely breaking laws for speeding and other traffic violations. Think higher fines and driving license suspensions.

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

#677

Post by InsomniacL »

As I come over the top of a crest, there was suddenly a lot of sun glare and the my Model Y violently swerved to the left, fortunately I had just overtaken a car on a two lane, dual carriageway and hadn't moved back to the left hand lane yet.

The driver I had just overtaken, although he wasn't very close anymore slowed right down to get away from me and I didn't blame him.

That manoeuvre in another car likely would have put it on two wheels.

They say FSD crashes less often than a human per mile driven, but I can only use FSD on roads like motorways, so I don't think it's a fair comparison.

I don't trust FSD, I still use it occasionally but never in less than ideal conditions. Typically when doing something like changing the music on a motorway.

It probably is safer than just me driving alone, when it's in good conditions on a straight road with light traffic with an alert driver.

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

#678

Post by ywvcbk »

sokoloff wrote: post #563
ywvcbk wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Imagine that in 2031, FSD cars could exactly halve all aspects of auto crashes (minor, major, single car, multi car, vs pedestrian, fatal/non, etc.) Would you want FSD software to be developed or not? If you do, do you think holding devs or companies criminally liable for half of all crashes is the best way to ensure that progress happens?

From a utilitarian perspective sure, you might be right but how do you exempt those companies from civil liability and make it impossible for victims/their families to sue the manufacturer? Might be legally tricky (driver/owner can explicitly/implicitly agree with the EULA or other agreements, imposing that on third parties wouldn’t be right).

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

#679

Post by lolinder »

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…

I was taught that in every situation you should act as though you are the sole person responsible for making the interaction safe.

If you're the one merging? It's on you. If you're the one being merged into? Also you.

If you assume that every other driver has a malfunctioning vehicle or is driving irresponsibly then your odds of a crash go way down because you assume that they're going to try to merge incorrectly.

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

#680

Post by mglz »

InsomniacL wrote: post #677

As I come over the top of a crest, there was suddenly a lot of sun glare and the my Model Y violently swerved to the left, fortunately I had just overtaken a car on a two lane, dual carriageway and hadn't moved back to the left hand lane yet. The driver I had just overtaken, although he wasn't very close anymore slowed right down to get away from me and I didn't blame him. That manoeuvre in another car likely would h…

The underlying problem is that the current FSD architecture doesn't seem to have good guard rails for these outlier situations you describe (sunlight blinding the camera from just the right angle probably?) and it is probably not possible to add such rules without limiting the system enormously.

Fundamentally driving consists of a set of fairly clear cut rules with a ridiculous amount of "it depends" cases.

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