7 ms·

I just saw their latest marketing literature on their website. They promise: > All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardwar

I just saw their latest marketing literature on their website. They promise: > All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot It seems somewhat irresponsible to promise that you have enough hardware to achieve something that nobody has ever achieved before, with any hardware. Tesla has plenty of impressive-looking videos on their website of autopilot working well, but if you Google for "Tesla autopilot fail" you can also find plenty of stuff like this, which is just surprisingly bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1XLqc5IUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1XLqc5IUg Tesla strikes me as over-promising and under-delivering here. I wouldn't want to work in a division like that.

andrewprock 9y ago
But what about the software?
nostrademons 9y ago
They say "at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver". This is a low bar to meet - some human drivers are really bad. I know I would much rather trust my life to one of the Google self-driving cars than some of the people I got in a car with in college, for example. It's also the wrong bar to meet, because lawmakers are going to be much tougher on AIs than on human constituents. It's not enough to be better than a human, you have to be so much better than a human that it'd be irresponsible not to mandate self-driving cars.
- resf 9y ago
  The bar to meet will be precisely "as good as Waymo", because if Tesla's technology kills substantially more people, neither regulators nor consumers will allow it to exist.
- tedsanders 9y ago
  Human drivers die at a rate of about 1 per 100 million miles driven. Waymo cars have only driven about 2 million miles, as I recall. Therefore, as it stands today, there is nowhere near enough public evidence to confidently believe that Waymo cars are less deadly than human drivers. Especially considering that much of that driving has taken place in meticulously mapped areas with good roads in daylight hours. Personally, I would trust a human driver over a Waymo car until strong statistical evidence shows that Waymo cars are safe in a wide range of conditions.
- skrause 9y ago
  I also don't think the bar should be "safer than a human driver", but "safer than than an experiended, sober, well-rested, defensive driver who doesn't use this phone while driving".
  - zamalek 9y ago
    I think you're going to have problems finding enough people for that scientific study.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Why should the bar be any higher than the median actual human driver? Adding vehicles operating at a higher skill level than the median to the pool of vehicles driving around should reduce incidents per mile driven. And then if autonomous vehicles become prevalent, it becomes less punitive to raise the standards for licensing humans.
    - Aissen 9y ago
      > Why should the bar be any higher than the median actual human driver? Marketing. The western world is mostly afraid of robots so they'll need to be at least 10x safer in a hybrid (human/autopilot) environment in order to gain adoption.
rebootthesystem 9y ago
This would be FAR, FAR more believable if the guy placed both his hands in view. You can't see what the right hand is doing. I remain skeptical. Does he show his hands in the rest of the video? I stopped watching after a few minutes of not seeing both of them up in the image.
- fghvbnvbnfe 9y ago
  What do you think his right hand might be doing? I'm not familiar with the Tesla interior setup so I don't know what is possible, but I'm having a hard time imagining what he could be possibly be doing off-camera that wouldn't be reflected in any of the visible displays.
  - rebootthesystem 9y ago
    How about steering the car with his right hand on the bottom of the wheel to make it look like there's a problem with the auto pilot? If someone wants to claim there's a problem with any auto pilot they better have a camera view showing they are not interfering with it in any way. The idea that one can do things that are not seen on the various reflective surfaces isn't a new concept, television shows rely on camera and object placement all the time to ensure the camera and crew are not visible. If I were to make a claim about the auto pilot I would have both my hands in plain view in a "look ma, no hands" stance right above the steering wheel for all to see. I would also have a second camera shooting from the side or farther back in order to make it visible that nothing is interfering with the steering, like my leg for example or someone pulling on strings from the back seat. I don't have a problem with the idea of issues with any auto pilot software. I simply want to make sure claims are not falsified through the use of trickery.
jiqiren 9y ago
To add on to this, how can they reconcile their /autopilot link with their car configurator? the /autopilot link implies all cars have the hardware to do full autopilot - but the fine print seems to be "if you add on $10k of options". https://www.tesla.com/modelx/design https://www.tesla.com/modelx/design "Enhanced Autopilot" as a $6,000 option. "Full Self-Driving Capability" is another $4,000 option. /autopilot page seems very disingenuous.
- brians 9y ago
  4K of that is software. The 6k option doubles the number of cameras.

andrewprock 9y ago

But what about the software?

nostrademons 9y ago

They say "at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver". This is a low bar to meet - some human drivers are really bad. I know I would much rather trust my life to one of the Google self-driving cars than some of the people I got in a car with in college, for example. It's also the wrong bar to meet, because lawmakers are going to be much tougher on AIs than on human constituents. It's not enough to be better than a human, you have to be so much better than a human that it'd be irresponsible not to mandate self-driving cars.

resf 9y ago
The bar to meet will be precisely "as good as Waymo", because if Tesla's technology kills substantially more people, neither regulators nor consumers will allow it to exist.
tedsanders 9y ago
Human drivers die at a rate of about 1 per 100 million miles driven. Waymo cars have only driven about 2 million miles, as I recall. Therefore, as it stands today, there is nowhere near enough public evidence to confidently believe that Waymo cars are less deadly than human drivers. Especially considering that much of that driving has taken place in meticulously mapped areas with good roads in daylight hours. Personally, I would trust a human driver over a Waymo car until strong statistical evidence shows that Waymo cars are safe in a wide range of conditions.
skrause 9y ago
I also don't think the bar should be "safer than a human driver", but "safer than than an experiended, sober, well-rested, defensive driver who doesn't use this phone while driving".
- zamalek 9y ago
  I think you're going to have problems finding enough people for that scientific study.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Why should the bar be any higher than the median actual human driver? Adding vehicles operating at a higher skill level than the median to the pool of vehicles driving around should reduce incidents per mile driven. And then if autonomous vehicles become prevalent, it becomes less punitive to raise the standards for licensing humans.
  - Aissen 9y ago
    > Why should the bar be any higher than the median actual human driver? Marketing. The western world is mostly afraid of robots so they'll need to be at least 10x safer in a hybrid (human/autopilot) environment in order to gain adoption.

rebootthesystem 9y ago

This would be FAR, FAR more believable if the guy placed both his hands in view. You can't see what the right hand is doing. I remain skeptical. Does he show his hands in the rest of the video? I stopped watching after a few minutes of not seeing both of them up in the image.

fghvbnvbnfe 9y ago
What do you think his right hand might be doing? I'm not familiar with the Tesla interior setup so I don't know what is possible, but I'm having a hard time imagining what he could be possibly be doing off-camera that wouldn't be reflected in any of the visible displays.
- rebootthesystem 9y ago
  How about steering the car with his right hand on the bottom of the wheel to make it look like there's a problem with the auto pilot? If someone wants to claim there's a problem with any auto pilot they better have a camera view showing they are not interfering with it in any way. The idea that one can do things that are not seen on the various reflective surfaces isn't a new concept, television shows rely on camera and object placement all the time to ensure the camera and crew are not visible. If I were to make a claim about the auto pilot I would have both my hands in plain view in a "look ma, no hands" stance right above the steering wheel for all to see. I would also have a second camera shooting from the side or farther back in order to make it visible that nothing is interfering with the steering, like my leg for example or someone pulling on strings from the back seat. I don't have a problem with the idea of issues with any auto pilot software. I simply want to make sure claims are not falsified through the use of trickery.

jiqiren 9y ago

To add on to this, how can they reconcile their /autopilot link with their car configurator? the /autopilot link implies all cars have the hardware to do full autopilot - but the fine print seems to be "if you add on $10k of options". https://www.tesla.com/modelx/design https://www.tesla.com/modelx/design "Enhanced Autopilot" as a $6,000 option. "Full Self-Driving Capability" is another $4,000 option. /autopilot page seems very disingenuous.

brians 9y ago
4K of that is software. The 6k option doubles the number of cameras.