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No, I am someone who has a BS EE/CS degree that worked four years as an engineer at a large firm. It is not fear mongering. It is legitimate questioning about

No, I am someone who has a BS EE/CS degree that worked four years as an engineer at a large firm. It is not fear mongering. It is legitimate questioning about engineering, from someone who has the experience. For all of his self-promotion and as head of a car company and a rocket company, Elon Musk has never worked as an engineer for a large firm where he'd be mentored in engineering. For example, the CEO of GM is an engineer (EE) who was mentored in engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra And the same for IBM: (EE & CS) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty

vvanders 10y ago
> lack of engineering on the part of Tesla which I find frightening. That looks a tad like fear mongering.
- davidf18 10y ago
  > That looks a tad like fear mongering. Please be specific. What is the fear mongering? It is a statement from someone educated as an engineer and trained as an engineer. Engineering, whether it is designing buildings, cars, airplanes, is thinking through the scenarios and testing for them. This seems to be a situation where they were ruling out overhead signs, but because of trucks clearance of these signs would be well over 10 feet and they could check for anything under 10 feet or 8 feet and should have. And, as I said before, if they didn't think this through, what else that we can't see are they not thinking through?
  - vvanders 10y ago
    Just because you're an engineer doesn't make all of your arguments automatically correct. I've got the word "Engineer" in my job title but I don't beat people over the head with it when I want to make an argument for a technical position. It's not like they haven't thought this through. Tesla has been clear that this is a Driver Assistance, not a full autonomous car. There are multiple warnings, including every time you enable auto pilot that makes it clear you must pay attention. This accident while tragic from current reports looks like the driver was not paying attention to the road. The best way that we're going to get to fully autonomous cars is to collecting real world data and I think auto pilot has been a reasonable approach in that direction.
    - cbr 10y ago
      > I've got the word "Engineer" in my job title If by that you mean you're a software engineer, I do think it's fair to distinguish between getting an EE/CS degree vs say a BA in CS plus programming experience. (I write this as someone in the latter group.)
      - vvanders 10y ago
        Yeah, the title is heavily overloaded for sure. The meta point I'm trying to share is that if you're trying to convince a technical audience(which HN certainly is) berating people by saying "I know better because I have this slip of paper" is the quickest way to get someone to dig in and dismiss your idea. Engineers are natural skeptics, arguing from the technical side will always be the stronger position.
        davidf18 10y ago
        I no longer work as an engineer. I apply the engineer and safety rules developed for airlines, nuclear power, oil & gas to patient safety. We put in "forcing functions" to ensure safety. For example, a driver cannot pit their car in reverse without their foot on the brake. As far as I can tell the design flaw in the Tesla (which I have already Stated) is that the object detection radar sensor did not see high enough for clearance of the car. Musk mentioned in a twitter feed that they didn't want to detect overhead signs, but the signs must be high enough to clear large truck so the radar sensors should have been looking 8 to 10 feet vertically but the were not. That is why the car crashed. Not operator error. Not beta software. Not going 74 miles per hour. The car lacked the appropriate radar sensor to detect vertical 8 to 10 feet or so. Musk and supportes can spin but the engineer asks why the sensor wasn't there. To me, it appears to be a flaw in the thought process and it is hard to understand how the autopilot could be allowed to be turned on without the proper object detection sensor. And this basic flaw makes me concerned about other flaws in the design.
    - throwaway-hn123 10y ago
      It's odd how desperate some people are to give Tesla a free pass. Basically you're saying that some level of collateral damage is acceptable, and because there's a warning, it's the driver's fault.
- mannykannot 10y ago
  > That looks a tad like fear mongering. That looks a tad like denial, especially in the light of your follow-up. There are sound arguments to be made here. There's no need to make it personal.

vvanders 10y ago

> lack of engineering on the part of Tesla which I find frightening. That looks a tad like fear mongering.

davidf18 10y ago
> That looks a tad like fear mongering. Please be specific. What is the fear mongering? It is a statement from someone educated as an engineer and trained as an engineer. Engineering, whether it is designing buildings, cars, airplanes, is thinking through the scenarios and testing for them. This seems to be a situation where they were ruling out overhead signs, but because of trucks clearance of these signs would be well over 10 feet and they could check for anything under 10 feet or 8 feet and should have. And, as I said before, if they didn't think this through, what else that we can't see are they not thinking through?
- vvanders 10y ago
  Just because you're an engineer doesn't make all of your arguments automatically correct. I've got the word "Engineer" in my job title but I don't beat people over the head with it when I want to make an argument for a technical position. It's not like they haven't thought this through. Tesla has been clear that this is a Driver Assistance, not a full autonomous car. There are multiple warnings, including every time you enable auto pilot that makes it clear you must pay attention. This accident while tragic from current reports looks like the driver was not paying attention to the road. The best way that we're going to get to fully autonomous cars is to collecting real world data and I think auto pilot has been a reasonable approach in that direction.
  - cbr 10y ago
    > I've got the word "Engineer" in my job title If by that you mean you're a software engineer, I do think it's fair to distinguish between getting an EE/CS degree vs say a BA in CS plus programming experience. (I write this as someone in the latter group.)
    - vvanders 10y ago
      Yeah, the title is heavily overloaded for sure. The meta point I'm trying to share is that if you're trying to convince a technical audience(which HN certainly is) berating people by saying "I know better because I have this slip of paper" is the quickest way to get someone to dig in and dismiss your idea. Engineers are natural skeptics, arguing from the technical side will always be the stronger position.
      - davidf18 10y ago
        I no longer work as an engineer. I apply the engineer and safety rules developed for airlines, nuclear power, oil & gas to patient safety. We put in "forcing functions" to ensure safety. For example, a driver cannot pit their car in reverse without their foot on the brake. As far as I can tell the design flaw in the Tesla (which I have already Stated) is that the object detection radar sensor did not see high enough for clearance of the car. Musk mentioned in a twitter feed that they didn't want to detect overhead signs, but the signs must be high enough to clear large truck so the radar sensors should have been looking 8 to 10 feet vertically but the were not. That is why the car crashed. Not operator error. Not beta software. Not going 74 miles per hour. The car lacked the appropriate radar sensor to detect vertical 8 to 10 feet or so. Musk and supportes can spin but the engineer asks why the sensor wasn't there. To me, it appears to be a flaw in the thought process and it is hard to understand how the autopilot could be allowed to be turned on without the proper object detection sensor. And this basic flaw makes me concerned about other flaws in the design.
  - throwaway-hn123 10y ago
    It's odd how desperate some people are to give Tesla a free pass. Basically you're saying that some level of collateral damage is acceptable, and because there's a warning, it's the driver's fault.
mannykannot 10y ago
> That looks a tad like fear mongering. That looks a tad like denial, especially in the light of your follow-up. There are sound arguments to be made here. There's no need to make it personal.