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I'm saddened, though not surprised, with how many people are so quick to come to Tesla's defense here. Autonomous cars will have issues. But we should hold th

I'm saddened, though not surprised, with how many people are so quick to come to Tesla's defense here. Autonomous cars will have issues. But we should hold the software makers accountable for those issues the same way we hold airplane makers / maintainers responsible in the rare event their planes crash. As other commenters pointed out, Tesla likely released a half-baked technical solution too early, and created misleading (and in this case dangerous) marketing to go along with it: calling it "autopilot" and not requiring hands on the steering wheel. Tesla screwed up here, and shame on them. This is not a binary world: I'm not saying that they should be bankrupted or the autonomous car industry shut down. When a plane crashes due to poor maintenance - I want that company to suffer market+legal consequences, I don't want the entire aviation industry to be shut down. White trucks on a sunny sky are not rare enough to call this an anomaly. If Tesla had installed sensors on their cars to collect data but not enabled autopilot yet - would this man still be alive today? The MVP model is great, but not for things where life is on the line. Google seems to be doing this right.

DasIch 10y ago
The product Tesla has built is a perfectly fine assistance mechanism. The problem is that it's not an autopilot and nowhere near autonomous driving, nevertheless Tesla is naming it and marketing it as such. The problem is that Tesla's marketing here is (borderline) fraudulent. There should be and need to be legal consequences for that.
- cynix 10y ago
  > The problem is that it's not an autopilot… An autopilot is a system that assists, but does not replace, the human operator in operating a vehicle. Tesla's system does exactly this. > … and nowhere near autonomous driving… Nobody ever claimed it was autonomous.
  - DasIch 10y ago
    A plane can depending on the airport start, fly and land on autopilot, you just need to tell it where to go. There is pretty much no unplanned intervention necessary. This is what the term means to people, autonomous driving. I don't think most people would draw any distinction between the two. In a Tesla it would be irresponsible to take your hands of the wheel or not to pay attention to the road for even a minute. Tesla's "Autopilot" is nothing like what people imagine an autopilot to be like.
  - synpatcal 10y ago
    The 'auto' in autopilot means automatic or autonomous.

DasIch 10y ago

The product Tesla has built is a perfectly fine assistance mechanism. The problem is that it's not an autopilot and nowhere near autonomous driving, nevertheless Tesla is naming it and marketing it as such. The problem is that Tesla's marketing here is (borderline) fraudulent. There should be and need to be legal consequences for that.

cynix 10y ago
> The problem is that it's not an autopilot… An autopilot is a system that assists, but does not replace, the human operator in operating a vehicle. Tesla's system does exactly this. > … and nowhere near autonomous driving… Nobody ever claimed it was autonomous.
- DasIch 10y ago
  A plane can depending on the airport start, fly and land on autopilot, you just need to tell it where to go. There is pretty much no unplanned intervention necessary. This is what the term means to people, autonomous driving. I don't think most people would draw any distinction between the two. In a Tesla it would be irresponsible to take your hands of the wheel or not to pay attention to the road for even a minute. Tesla's "Autopilot" is nothing like what people imagine an autopilot to be like.
- synpatcal 10y ago
  The 'auto' in autopilot means automatic or autonomous.