3 ms·
These comments are absurd. Fortune did not "assume that Tesla had complete information from the moment this accident occurred." Fortune merely noted that there
by 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.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoTesla is pretty clear with users that auto pilot is little more than an advanced cruise control feature and you can't rely on it. The whole Auto pilot name is just marketing. It is really no different than a Mercedes with the same features getting in a crash. As these systems are widely deployed people will continue to die. What's important is that the deaths per million miles is lower than with auto pilot off, and that's already true today's.
- joshdickson 10y agoI worked on the Mercedes system and have driven it for thousands of miles. How the systems approach enforcement is entirely different. If you remove your hands from the wheel for more than a second or two, the system turns off. I can watch dozens of videos of people with their hands off the wheel of their Tesla while speaking into a camera on YouTube. I consider that very different.
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoPerhaps but at some point software has to let people take their hands off the wheel. It's very hard to say when the software is "good enough" to let people do that but it's a leap we need to make to get to where we're going.
- studentrob 10y ago> at some point software has to let people take their hands off the wheel At that point, drivers shouldn't be expected to put their hands back on the wheel. They should be in the backseat, which is Google's plan. There isn't time to put your hands back on the wheel in the event of a car accident. Planes get minutes to react to errors. Cars have seconds. Car drivers are more akin to train conductors who, these days, have complex deadman's switches that guarantee the conductor is still focused on driving the train.