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DVD player found in Tesla car in May crash: Florida officials

15 points by sndean 10y ago

iamleppert 10y ago
Tesla needs to take responsibility for negligently releasing a feature they knew was going to be abused. Its shocking to me how they still have this feature enabled when it has proven to kill. I hope they are punished within the full extent of the law. A car is not a web application that can be pushed updates at the whim of the developer. They've known about the limitations of the feature, in that its sensors can't even approximate the complete bounding box of the car, do not have sufficient resolution and are thus limited by hardware, not software. It's not "beta", it is alpha quality and should never be in the hands of customers in uncontrolled situations let alone on the open road. We are all subjected to risk with this feature, regardless if we have agreed to it or not. It's not just the owner of the Tesla who is in danger but anyone else on the road as well. I personally have witnessed Tesla drivers doing their makeup, eating, and even sleeping in their car on my commute on 101S and 280S in the morning. Contrast that to those who drive recklessly, weaving in and out of traffic. For some reason, these cars seem to attract a certain kind of person who thinks they are above the law. At the minimum, Tesla drivers should be required to carry high risk insurance on their vehicles. Its only a matter of time before it kills or seriously injures someone other than the driver.
- kbenson 10y ago
  > Tesla needs to take responsibility for negligently releasing a feature they knew was going to be abused. I can release a car without any autonomous features, should I take responsibility for the people that I know will eventually use it in an inappropriate manner, such as while intoxicated, sleep deprived, on medication, or just without paying attention? > Its shocking to me how they still have this feature enabled when it has proven to kill. Driving cars has proven to kill, even when you follow all the directions correctly. Some things can't be avoided. Nothing about this is any different than cruise control. In both cases you are supposed to still be paying attention and take over in the case of situations the assist feature can't handle. Cruise control just handles less. This will be a problem until we make the cars completely autonomous, with enough safety assurance. Until then, if we don't want to allow assistance features this advanced, we need to take legal action not against Tesla, but to create laws that are very explicit in what is and is not allowed.
- existencebox 10y ago
  I take issue with the first line. To go right to the most "devils advocate" point; Do gun manufacturers ever take responsibility for the regular mass murders we experience? There is certainly more and more direct abuse in that space than in self driving car software. To attack my own point; one could make a statement that their software falls prey to not accomodating for known human failings (negligence), however, I see that same parallel with driving a car period, and we don't blame the car makers for a negligent accident. In this case I can certainly see how that line is blurred, but I would hesitate to not put duress on the user of a dangerous tool to _USE IT APPROPRIATELY_. There is only so much I would hold a company responsible for in terms to protect someone against themselves when evidence seems to indicate the consumer was the negligent party. Let me conclude with a rephrasing of your statement to demonstrate the incredularity I feel, and then weaken my argument with a concession "Budweiser needs to take responsibility... it's shocking to me how they can still sell beer when it has proven to kill"; the concession being as with beer we've found a level of regulation may be reasonable, perhaps we should be asking the same question of self driving cars than to place the blame soley on the producer, especially when you yourself admit to seeing absolutely rampant terrible behavior on part of the drivers that should be punished on its own merits, ignoring any context of tesla/automation.
kbenson 10y ago
This highlights Google's stance in driver assistance vs driver replacement. They specifically noted in their first test cards that they had employees use, which were modified regular street cars, that the people quickly treated them as completely autonomous even when they were warned not to. For example, rooting around in the back-seat looking for a charger to the laptop they had with them while the car drove itself. Google decided that if people were going to treat it that way, they needed to design it that way, and now their autonomous cards don't have steering wheels, just a big button to tell the car to try to safely pull off the road and stop. You'll necessarily be a bit more stringent in your tests and capabilities if you opt for an approach that buts all the responsibility on what you design, and not the passenger. I agree with this, so I've been somewhat leery of Tesla's auto-pilot feature. While sad, I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the accident. Our own nature makes us very unreliable for regular driving and assisted driving in many of the same ways. Removing people from the active driving process is ultimately the better solution, but it takes time to get it right.
joezydeco 10y ago
The link points to an older article now, for some reason. Link moved to here: http://www.reuters.com/article/tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSL1N19N19C http://www.reuters.com/article/tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSL1N19...

15 points by sndean 10y ago

Tesla needs to take responsibility for negligently releasing a feature they knew was going to be abused. Its shocking to me how they still have this feature enabled when it has proven to kill. I hope they are punished within the full extent of the law. A car is not a web application that can be pushed updates at the whim of the developer. They've known about the limitations of the feature, in that its sensors can't even approximate the complete bounding box of the car, do not have sufficient resolution and are thus limited by hardware, not software. It's not "beta", it is alpha quality and should never be in the hands of customers in uncontrolled situations let alone on the open road. We are all subjected to risk with this feature, regardless if we have agreed to it or not. It's not just the owner of the Tesla who is in danger but anyone else on the road as well. I personally have witnessed Tesla drivers doing their makeup, eating, and even sleeping in their car on my commute on 101S and 280S in the morning. Contrast that to those who drive recklessly, weaving in and out of traffic. For some reason, these cars seem to attract a certain kind of person who thinks they are above the law. At the minimum, Tesla drivers should be required to carry high risk insurance on their vehicles. Its only a matter of time before it kills or seriously injures someone other than the driver.

kbenson 10y ago
> Tesla needs to take responsibility for negligently releasing a feature they knew was going to be abused. I can release a car without any autonomous features, should I take responsibility for the people that I know will eventually use it in an inappropriate manner, such as while intoxicated, sleep deprived, on medication, or just without paying attention? > Its shocking to me how they still have this feature enabled when it has proven to kill. Driving cars has proven to kill, even when you follow all the directions correctly. Some things can't be avoided. Nothing about this is any different than cruise control. In both cases you are supposed to still be paying attention and take over in the case of situations the assist feature can't handle. Cruise control just handles less. This will be a problem until we make the cars completely autonomous, with enough safety assurance. Until then, if we don't want to allow assistance features this advanced, we need to take legal action not against Tesla, but to create laws that are very explicit in what is and is not allowed.
existencebox 10y ago
I take issue with the first line. To go right to the most "devils advocate" point; Do gun manufacturers ever take responsibility for the regular mass murders we experience? There is certainly more and more direct abuse in that space than in self driving car software. To attack my own point; one could make a statement that their software falls prey to not accomodating for known human failings (negligence), however, I see that same parallel with driving a car period, and we don't blame the car makers for a negligent accident. In this case I can certainly see how that line is blurred, but I would hesitate to not put duress on the user of a dangerous tool to _USE IT APPROPRIATELY_. There is only so much I would hold a company responsible for in terms to protect someone against themselves when evidence seems to indicate the consumer was the negligent party. Let me conclude with a rephrasing of your statement to demonstrate the incredularity I feel, and then weaken my argument with a concession "Budweiser needs to take responsibility... it's shocking to me how they can still sell beer when it has proven to kill"; the concession being as with beer we've found a level of regulation may be reasonable, perhaps we should be asking the same question of self driving cars than to place the blame soley on the producer, especially when you yourself admit to seeing absolutely rampant terrible behavior on part of the drivers that should be punished on its own merits, ignoring any context of tesla/automation.

kbenson 10y ago

This highlights Google's stance in driver assistance vs driver replacement. They specifically noted in their first test cards that they had employees use, which were modified regular street cars, that the people quickly treated them as completely autonomous even when they were warned not to. For example, rooting around in the back-seat looking for a charger to the laptop they had with them while the car drove itself. Google decided that if people were going to treat it that way, they needed to design it that way, and now their autonomous cards don't have steering wheels, just a big button to tell the car to try to safely pull off the road and stop. You'll necessarily be a bit more stringent in your tests and capabilities if you opt for an approach that buts all the responsibility on what you design, and not the passenger. I agree with this, so I've been somewhat leery of Tesla's auto-pilot feature. While sad, I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the accident. Our own nature makes us very unreliable for regular driving and assisted driving in many of the same ways. Removing people from the active driving process is ultimately the better solution, but it takes time to get it right.

joezydeco 10y ago

The link points to an older article now, for some reason. Link moved to here: http://www.reuters.com/article/tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSL1N19N19C http://www.reuters.com/article/tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSL1N19...