4 ms·

Misfortune

46 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

thesimon 10y ago
Context is probably http://fortune.com/2016/07/06/tesla-autopilot-crash-material-ceo-elon-musk/ http://fortune.com/2016/07/06/tesla-autopilot-crash-material... SEC statements are usually covering a lot of stuff, so I doubt it's very surprising. But I'm still not convinced by their argumentation on the safety of the Autopilot. >That contrasted against worldwide accident data, customers using Autopilot are statistically safer than those not using it at all. I can only cite German data [0], but on the Autobahn there is a death every 90 million miles driven. But that includes drunk drivers, old cards, old drivers etc. Teslas Autopilot being save in over 100 million miles doesn't really sound that much better, especially considering the smaller sample size. And in this case, the death could've probably been avoided by not using autopilot. [0]: https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/statistik_4_5_Unfallgeschehen_Strassenarten_42780.pdf https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/statistik_4_5_Unfallgeschehen_S...
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Tesla itself claims knowledge of a statistical inevitability that a collision will occur while Autopilot is engaged. Some questions now are: What did Tesla do to warn of this inevitability? What did they do to mitigate it? What are they doing to mitigate it? Is there any way for users to reduce their chance of being a count in the collision statistic, other than reading and following all relevant disclaimers and warnings?
  - eclipxe 10y ago
    Yeah they can pay attention, even while AutoPilot is engaged
suprgeek 10y ago
Note that another possible Autopilot Crash is now being investigated: http://electrek.co/2016/07/06/nhtsa-probing-tesla-model-x-rollover-accident-pa-autopilot-involve-tesla-updates-statement/ http://electrek.co/2016/07/06/nhtsa-probing-tesla-model-x-ro... As I have noted before: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12012688&goto=item%3Fid%3D12011419%2312012688 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12012688&goto=item%3Fi... TESLA really needs to tread carefully here to avoid giving the whole Self-Driving Tech a bad name. You CANNOT move fast and Break Things in this particular case.
- cocotino 10y ago
  >TESLA really needs to tread carefully here to avoid giving the whole Self-Driving Tech a bad name. What does it matter if it cannot be proven to be better than regular driving?
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Valuations of companies in the space may drop unless they can provide an alternative prospectus.
    - cocotino 10y ago
      As someone who owns no stock, I don't care about that. I thought we were talking about advancing the mankind and that kind of thing...
      - Aelinsaar 10y ago
        Talk is just talk, follow the money.
  - pesfandiar 10y ago
    Even with a better performance than regular driving, people will avoid a technology they don't understand and have no control over. Dying of a bot accident is scarier to many than a drunk driver on the oncoming lane. Unfortunately, accidents with automated driving will seem a lot more prevalent if people are shown concrete cases. I believe that's why none of the players should give it a bad name in its infancy.
vessenes 10y ago
Tesla is surprisingly aggressive with media organizations. I think it's one of their hallmarks actually -- I'm not sure why they are this way, but I would guess that they have over the years hardened up in response to one-sided press (I'm thinking of the NYT article claiming their car died and Top Gear in particular). At any rate, it's refreshing to read rebuttals to journalists. My own experience is that it is very rare that journalists both want to get a story right and have time to get it right; the vast majority of modern 'news' is written by glorified bloggers on a deadline.
- pcurve 10y ago
  I think it's a sign that Tesla is not yet run by an army of corporate lawyers. (or they haven't been able to persuade Elon Musk yet)
- poof131 10y ago
  Personally, I think Tesla and Musk should shut up. This bantering back at the media might have been “new” and “cool” with other topics, but not when it involves somebody’s death. While it’s fine to respond to inaccurate facts, the catchy headlines (“Misfortune”, “A Tragic Loss”) and the condescending and confrontational tone is totally out of place. Stick to the facts. Talk about how you take this very seriously, are going to look more into it, but do believe the autopilot is safe. After a decade in the military, where bad things happen frequently, I couldn’t imagine public relations acting in this manner: "We bombed the wrong house, but this happens, it's war, the media just doesn't understand". Don’t give people the impression you care more about your business than their lives. Don’t dismiss someone’s death as a statistic. I want Tesla to succeed, but they are starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I remember my XO saying, “never get into a shouting match with an idiot, bystanders can’t tell the difference.” Ignore the media if you can’t respond appropriately. The real misfortune here is that somebody died in what was probably a preventable accident, not a poorly sourced Fortune article.
  - etendue 10y ago
    Wanted to say that, in addition to agreeing with what you wrote here, I've noticed myself frequently nodding in agreement with your other nicely worded and considered comments. I prefer your version, but I would like to share a slightly different formulation of that aphorism that is equally amusing: never argue with idiots, they'll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
chollida1 10y ago
If you've never used the Tesla autopilot its a weird feeling. It's not a fully self driving car and its obviously not strictly human controlled. Unfortunately it ends up being more mentally taxing to use this hybrid approach than to just drive yourself. Consider highway driving, with normal human powered mode you are in full control so if you see brake lights a half kilometer up ahead you can disengage the cruise control and react on your own, everyone who has driven is comfortable with this. With this assisted driving the car doesn't slow down right away, and its not clear if the car just can't see the tail lights lighting up yet or if its decided it doesn't need to react yet and as such you start to second guess the car, - should I drive or should I leave it to the car? - what if it turns when I grab the wheel? Will I make things worse by driving? - does the car even see the object up ahead? How can I tell, its impossible to expect the car to tell you of an object that it cant' even see. It becomes just more taxing to use the hybrid approach to driving and as such I don't use it at all. I have no doubt that the Tesla auto pilot is safer than driving, but I also have no doubt that it can royally screw up. I've come to the conclusion that some assisted driving, like auto braking for obstacles that you will imminently hit is good but the kind of assisted driving where it can almost automatically drive for you is not really anywhere near ready, if you follow Tesla's rules on how to use it, it actually makes driving harder:(
- eclipxe 10y ago
  I have a completely different opinion. What do you have your following distance set to? I have mine set to 6 or 7 and it starts slowing down well ahead of when I would slow down. I think you're over thinking things - just let it do its thing, but be ready to resume control if needed. I drive 90% of the time in Auto Pilot, and it makes driving exponentially more relaxing and safer.
  - argonaut 10y ago
    Yes, but that's the problem. Just "letting it do its thing" and relaxing/trusting/expecting it to "do the right thing" is what leads to accidents like this. And if you trust Autopilot to do the right thing, and get into a fatal accident, Tesla will say you should have been paying attention!
joshdickson 10y ago
These comments are absurd. Fortune did not "assume that Tesla had complete information from the moment this accident occurred." Fortune merely noted that there was a long period of time between the time of the accident and when the information was disclosed. Fortune is not saying that Tesla did have knowledge of what happened, it's saying that Tesla should have had knowledge. And Fortune is saying that Tesla should have investigated more quickly especially considering the impending stock sale. Perhaps they did not because Tesla feels as though the death is not "material." Musk's logic on whether the death was material is so convoluted it defies any sort of logical counterargument, and is ultimately for the courts to decide. Regarding whether or not the accident was not an Autopilot failure, of course technically it appears that the truck should not have turned, but this is what happens in normal traffic. We do not design autonomous driving systems with the idea that nobody ever breaks driving rules or laws, rather we design them with the idea that every crazy situation that we can think of, and a lot that we cannot, are likely to happen and we should attempt to avoid or lessen the impact of a crash whenever possible. When Musk says that there is "no evidence to suggest that Autopilot was not operating as designed and as described to users," I seem to have missed the marketing material where they say that the features work only when other drivers follow traffic laws. It's one thing if a construction crane drops on top of the vehicle (cannot be reasonably avoided); it's another when a truck crosses in front of you (where we can take various evasive measures to lessen the impact of the crash even if we cannot entirely stop the crash from occurring, none of which were taken in this case). Regarding vehicle accident statistics, as someone who worked in active safety for several years (i.e. systems like radar-based crash avoidance that did not trigger in this case), when we look at these numbers to make comparisons, the entire idea as of 2016 is that when we combine a human driver with a lot of electronic help, you are far safer than driving without that assistance or if the electronics were driving for you. But Musk only compares autopilot, which is only usable in certain scenarios, with the entirely of vehicular death information (which by the way, is largely much cheaper, older cars with worse safety systems that lead to more deaths). We know for a fact that autopilot lulls drivers into becoming distracted and doing other things, taking their eyes off the road, etc, because it does not enforce drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel (See NYTimes report today). The simple, obvious fact of the matter is that a Tesla would be far safer if it were using all of its accident avoidance technology and required the driver to be engaged with the steering wheel. Yet it does not. As someone with experience with this technology (though not at/with Tesla), I would greatly like to see them push a software update that requires you to have your hands on the wheel while autopilot is engaged. Saying that you should do so is not enough when the tools to enforce it are there. Is is clear and obvious that that would make the technology even safer. Yet rather than accept even the tiniest shred of responsibility, Tesla has entirely closed ranks and blamed everyone else. I, for one, am disappointed in Tesla as a whole and Elon Musk in particular.
iamleppert 10y ago
The numbers he quotes of "world wide accident deaths" and "do the math" is a totally ingenuous argument. It's nowhere near an apples to apples comparison. The fact of the matter is, a Tesla driver is not your regular driver. A better test would be to give everyone with a Honda Civic some kind of autopilot. The data that they do have is a curiosity at best, and cannot be compared vis a vis regular joe blow accident data.
- sverige 10y ago
  Wait, what? Do you mean that buying a Tesla makes you a good driver, or the kind of driver who watches Harry Potter movies while tooling down the highway?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

46 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

Context is probably http://fortune.com/2016/07/06/tesla-autopilot-crash-material-ceo-elon-musk/ http://fortune.com/2016/07/06/tesla-autopilot-crash-material... SEC statements are usually covering a lot of stuff, so I doubt it's very surprising. But I'm still not convinced by their argumentation on the safety of the Autopilot. >That contrasted against worldwide accident data, customers using Autopilot are statistically safer than those not using it at all. I can only cite German data [0], but on the Autobahn there is a death every 90 million miles driven. But that includes drunk drivers, old cards, old drivers etc. Teslas Autopilot being save in over 100 million miles doesn't really sound that much better, especially considering the smaller sample size. And in this case, the death could've probably been avoided by not using autopilot. [0]: https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/statistik_4_5_Unfallgeschehen_Strassenarten_42780.pdf https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/statistik_4_5_Unfallgeschehen_S...

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Tesla itself claims knowledge of a statistical inevitability that a collision will occur while Autopilot is engaged. Some questions now are: What did Tesla do to warn of this inevitability? What did they do to mitigate it? What are they doing to mitigate it? Is there any way for users to reduce their chance of being a count in the collision statistic, other than reading and following all relevant disclaimers and warnings?
- eclipxe 10y ago
  Yeah they can pay attention, even while AutoPilot is engaged

suprgeek 10y ago

Note that another possible Autopilot Crash is now being investigated: http://electrek.co/2016/07/06/nhtsa-probing-tesla-model-x-rollover-accident-pa-autopilot-involve-tesla-updates-statement/ http://electrek.co/2016/07/06/nhtsa-probing-tesla-model-x-ro... As I have noted before: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12012688&goto=item%3Fid%3D12011419%2312012688 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12012688&goto=item%3Fi... TESLA really needs to tread carefully here to avoid giving the whole Self-Driving Tech a bad name. You CANNOT move fast and Break Things in this particular case.

cocotino 10y ago
>TESLA really needs to tread carefully here to avoid giving the whole Self-Driving Tech a bad name. What does it matter if it cannot be proven to be better than regular driving?
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Valuations of companies in the space may drop unless they can provide an alternative prospectus.
  - cocotino 10y ago
    As someone who owns no stock, I don't care about that. I thought we were talking about advancing the mankind and that kind of thing...
    - Aelinsaar 10y ago
      Talk is just talk, follow the money.
- pesfandiar 10y ago
  Even with a better performance than regular driving, people will avoid a technology they don't understand and have no control over. Dying of a bot accident is scarier to many than a drunk driver on the oncoming lane. Unfortunately, accidents with automated driving will seem a lot more prevalent if people are shown concrete cases. I believe that's why none of the players should give it a bad name in its infancy.

vessenes 10y ago

Tesla is surprisingly aggressive with media organizations. I think it's one of their hallmarks actually -- I'm not sure why they are this way, but I would guess that they have over the years hardened up in response to one-sided press (I'm thinking of the NYT article claiming their car died and Top Gear in particular). At any rate, it's refreshing to read rebuttals to journalists. My own experience is that it is very rare that journalists both want to get a story right and have time to get it right; the vast majority of modern 'news' is written by glorified bloggers on a deadline.

pcurve 10y ago
I think it's a sign that Tesla is not yet run by an army of corporate lawyers. (or they haven't been able to persuade Elon Musk yet)
poof131 10y ago
Personally, I think Tesla and Musk should shut up. This bantering back at the media might have been “new” and “cool” with other topics, but not when it involves somebody’s death. While it’s fine to respond to inaccurate facts, the catchy headlines (“Misfortune”, “A Tragic Loss”) and the condescending and confrontational tone is totally out of place. Stick to the facts. Talk about how you take this very seriously, are going to look more into it, but do believe the autopilot is safe. After a decade in the military, where bad things happen frequently, I couldn’t imagine public relations acting in this manner: "We bombed the wrong house, but this happens, it's war, the media just doesn't understand". Don’t give people the impression you care more about your business than their lives. Don’t dismiss someone’s death as a statistic. I want Tesla to succeed, but they are starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I remember my XO saying, “never get into a shouting match with an idiot, bystanders can’t tell the difference.” Ignore the media if you can’t respond appropriately. The real misfortune here is that somebody died in what was probably a preventable accident, not a poorly sourced Fortune article.
- etendue 10y ago
  Wanted to say that, in addition to agreeing with what you wrote here, I've noticed myself frequently nodding in agreement with your other nicely worded and considered comments. I prefer your version, but I would like to share a slightly different formulation of that aphorism that is equally amusing: never argue with idiots, they'll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

chollida1 10y ago

If you've never used the Tesla autopilot its a weird feeling. It's not a fully self driving car and its obviously not strictly human controlled. Unfortunately it ends up being more mentally taxing to use this hybrid approach than to just drive yourself. Consider highway driving, with normal human powered mode you are in full control so if you see brake lights a half kilometer up ahead you can disengage the cruise control and react on your own, everyone who has driven is comfortable with this. With this assisted driving the car doesn't slow down right away, and its not clear if the car just can't see the tail lights lighting up yet or if its decided it doesn't need to react yet and as such you start to second guess the car, - should I drive or should I leave it to the car? - what if it turns when I grab the wheel? Will I make things worse by driving? - does the car even see the object up ahead? How can I tell, its impossible to expect the car to tell you of an object that it cant' even see. It becomes just more taxing to use the hybrid approach to driving and as such I don't use it at all. I have no doubt that the Tesla auto pilot is safer than driving, but I also have no doubt that it can royally screw up. I've come to the conclusion that some assisted driving, like auto braking for obstacles that you will imminently hit is good but the kind of assisted driving where it can almost automatically drive for you is not really anywhere near ready, if you follow Tesla's rules on how to use it, it actually makes driving harder:(

eclipxe 10y ago
I have a completely different opinion. What do you have your following distance set to? I have mine set to 6 or 7 and it starts slowing down well ahead of when I would slow down. I think you're over thinking things - just let it do its thing, but be ready to resume control if needed. I drive 90% of the time in Auto Pilot, and it makes driving exponentially more relaxing and safer.
- argonaut 10y ago
  Yes, but that's the problem. Just "letting it do its thing" and relaxing/trusting/expecting it to "do the right thing" is what leads to accidents like this. And if you trust Autopilot to do the right thing, and get into a fatal accident, Tesla will say you should have been paying attention!

joshdickson 10y ago

These comments are absurd. Fortune did not "assume that Tesla had complete information from the moment this accident occurred." Fortune merely noted that there was a long period of time between the time of the accident and when the information was disclosed. Fortune is not saying that Tesla did have knowledge of what happened, it's saying that Tesla should have had knowledge. And Fortune is saying that Tesla should have investigated more quickly especially considering the impending stock sale. Perhaps they did not because Tesla feels as though the death is not "material." Musk's logic on whether the death was material is so convoluted it defies any sort of logical counterargument, and is ultimately for the courts to decide. Regarding whether or not the accident was not an Autopilot failure, of course technically it appears that the truck should not have turned, but this is what happens in normal traffic. We do not design autonomous driving systems with the idea that nobody ever breaks driving rules or laws, rather we design them with the idea that every crazy situation that we can think of, and a lot that we cannot, are likely to happen and we should attempt to avoid or lessen the impact of a crash whenever possible. When Musk says that there is "no evidence to suggest that Autopilot was not operating as designed and as described to users," I seem to have missed the marketing material where they say that the features work only when other drivers follow traffic laws. It's one thing if a construction crane drops on top of the vehicle (cannot be reasonably avoided); it's another when a truck crosses in front of you (where we can take various evasive measures to lessen the impact of the crash even if we cannot entirely stop the crash from occurring, none of which were taken in this case). Regarding vehicle accident statistics, as someone who worked in active safety for several years (i.e. systems like radar-based crash avoidance that did not trigger in this case), when we look at these numbers to make comparisons, the entire idea as of 2016 is that when we combine a human driver with a lot of electronic help, you are far safer than driving without that assistance or if the electronics were driving for you. But Musk only compares autopilot, which is only usable in certain scenarios, with the entirely of vehicular death information (which by the way, is largely much cheaper, older cars with worse safety systems that lead to more deaths). We know for a fact that autopilot lulls drivers into becoming distracted and doing other things, taking their eyes off the road, etc, because it does not enforce drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel (See NYTimes report today). The simple, obvious fact of the matter is that a Tesla would be far safer if it were using all of its accident avoidance technology and required the driver to be engaged with the steering wheel. Yet it does not. As someone with experience with this technology (though not at/with Tesla), I would greatly like to see them push a software update that requires you to have your hands on the wheel while autopilot is engaged. Saying that you should do so is not enough when the tools to enforce it are there. Is is clear and obvious that that would make the technology even safer. Yet rather than accept even the tiniest shred of responsibility, Tesla has entirely closed ranks and blamed everyone else. I, for one, am disappointed in Tesla as a whole and Elon Musk in particular.

iamleppert 10y ago

The numbers he quotes of "world wide accident deaths" and "do the math" is a totally ingenuous argument. It's nowhere near an apples to apples comparison. The fact of the matter is, a Tesla driver is not your regular driver. A better test would be to give everyone with a Honda Civic some kind of autopilot. The data that they do have is a curiosity at best, and cannot be compared vis a vis regular joe blow accident data.

sverige 10y ago
Wait, what? Do you mean that buying a Tesla makes you a good driver, or the kind of driver who watches Harry Potter movies while tooling down the highway?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]