4 ms·

This seems like trying to argue that brakes are bad because, while people normally use them at times when they should stop, it's also possible to use your brake

by chc 9y ago

This seems like trying to argue that brakes are bad because, while people normally use them at times when they should stop, it's also possible to use your brakes at times when you shouldn't stop. The fact that something can be used used in a dumb manner is good to know so you can avoid doing so, but that doesn't negate the fact that cars are safer overall with it than without it.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Yes but if I asked you to prove brakes were safer you'd be able to do it pretty easily. The fact that no one has actually set out and done a study proving that autopilot is safer than human driving is disconcerting considering these vehicles are already being put on the road. Seeing people abandoning the precautionary principle so they can latch onto an over-marketed, over-promised Muskian view of the future is sad. And in five or ten years we're all going to be looking back wondering what made us so dumb to think that computers could actually drive cars.
- chc 9y ago
  After the first fatality while on Autopilot, the NHTSA did a study on whether Autopilot was inherently safe and whether it had any defects that needed to be addressed. It found that Teslas with Autopilot were substantially safer than Teslas without. I'd like to see a better study (since that one was mainly aimed at answering the question of whether Teslas with Autopilot should be recalled), but someone has looked into it at least.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    That's not quite accurate, the NHTSA study was not designed, in any way, to compare human-driven miles and autopilot-driven miles for safety. The only thing it showed was that vehicles with TACC + Autosteer had less accidents than vehicles with just TACC. Whether TACC + Autosteer is safer than human drivers is up for debate.
    - URSpider94 9y ago
      True. However, it shows a very substantial decrease in accident rate in the population with Autopilot features, vs. the population without. Correlation, not causality. It could be that Model X drivers are inherently safer than Model S drivers (they would be in the latter set), or it could be that just having the features in the car makes drivers do better even without using them. However, the inference that Autopilot reduces incidents per mile seems very likely to be true.
- Fricken 9y ago
  Toyota came out saying you'd have to gather 8.5 billion miles of driving data to make any claims with statistical certainty about the ability of any autonomous driving system to prevent fatalities (I've heard other outrageous numbers thrown out to this effect, though I don't recall them off the top of my head). Though by the time you get to the 8 billionth mile the technology will have evolved, rendering the earlier data moot. So it will be pretty much impossible to do any sort of authoritative study on how safe this technology is until it is widespread, and mature.
  - MarkMc 9y ago
    If a study could reliably demonstrate that autonomous vehicles have fewer collisions it would strongly hint that fatalities are also fewer.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      Number of collisions and number of fatalities will not necessarily have the same proportions as for humans. You could have a car that never gets into little collisions that often happen to human drivers because of carelessness, but are rarely deadly, but the same AI might have a faulty reasoning every once in a while leading it to accelerate to 200kph before running straight into a wall. This hypothetical AI would have very few collisions, but maybe still be much more deadly than a human. Humans are the only data we currently have significant numbers of miles logged for. Any extrapolation to AI is meaningless.
patcheudor 9y ago
The key point is that you can say things like, "per million miles, Tesla auto pilot use has resulted in X fewer fatalities", however, unless the data leading to that statement has been normalized against data representing the exact use case of Tesla auto pilot then it is false. The only way to say that Tesla autopilot is safer per million miles than a human is to base the figure on when the Tesla auto-pilot could be used. I'm not sure I've ever seen that data from Tesla. Who knows, maybe they have it and I've just not seen it. If they do, very cool. I would assume they could get the data by taking sensor readings from Tesla cars under human control in situations where auto-pilot could be used.
- chc 9y ago
  The NHTSA found a 40% safety improvement when comparing Teslas with Autopilot to Teslas without. I wouldn't put a huge amount of stock in the exact number, but because one group never uses Autopilot and the other offers a realistic view of when people actually do use Autopilot, it seems like enough to say "Yes, Autopilot makes cars safer in aggregate."
  - patcheudor 9y ago
    The data is suspect at best and should require a third party evaluation. I'm speculating that the reason for that 40% safety improvement is more a result of the difference between where autopilot can and cannot be used. People with autopilot equipped Tesla vehicles get the option because they likely drive more highway miles where it can be used mile after mile. Those who don't, likely don't and may be in statistically more dangerous driving situations like short commutes over high speed roads. When I commuted to the office, I'd pull out of my 25 MPH subdivision road and immediately accelerate to 65-70 MPH onto the highway and proceed to drive two miles. There's no reason for autopilot in those conditions so I wouldn't purchase the package, but yet making a left-hand turn onto a five lane highway where cars are regularly traveling at high speed is one of the more dangerous things you can do while driving for which if I got hit in a side impact could easily be killed and because of the location on a highway, would be counted as a highway fatality.

by chc 9y ago

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Yes but if I asked you to prove brakes were safer you'd be able to do it pretty easily. The fact that no one has actually set out and done a study proving that autopilot is safer than human driving is disconcerting considering these vehicles are already being put on the road. Seeing people abandoning the precautionary principle so they can latch onto an over-marketed, over-promised Muskian view of the future is sad. And in five or ten years we're all going to be looking back wondering what made us so dumb to think that computers could actually drive cars.

chc 9y ago
After the first fatality while on Autopilot, the NHTSA did a study on whether Autopilot was inherently safe and whether it had any defects that needed to be addressed. It found that Teslas with Autopilot were substantially safer than Teslas without. I'd like to see a better study (since that one was mainly aimed at answering the question of whether Teslas with Autopilot should be recalled), but someone has looked into it at least.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  That's not quite accurate, the NHTSA study was not designed, in any way, to compare human-driven miles and autopilot-driven miles for safety. The only thing it showed was that vehicles with TACC + Autosteer had less accidents than vehicles with just TACC. Whether TACC + Autosteer is safer than human drivers is up for debate.
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    True. However, it shows a very substantial decrease in accident rate in the population with Autopilot features, vs. the population without. Correlation, not causality. It could be that Model X drivers are inherently safer than Model S drivers (they would be in the latter set), or it could be that just having the features in the car makes drivers do better even without using them. However, the inference that Autopilot reduces incidents per mile seems very likely to be true.
Fricken 9y ago
Toyota came out saying you'd have to gather 8.5 billion miles of driving data to make any claims with statistical certainty about the ability of any autonomous driving system to prevent fatalities (I've heard other outrageous numbers thrown out to this effect, though I don't recall them off the top of my head). Though by the time you get to the 8 billionth mile the technology will have evolved, rendering the earlier data moot. So it will be pretty much impossible to do any sort of authoritative study on how safe this technology is until it is widespread, and mature.
- MarkMc 9y ago
  If a study could reliably demonstrate that autonomous vehicles have fewer collisions it would strongly hint that fatalities are also fewer.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    Number of collisions and number of fatalities will not necessarily have the same proportions as for humans. You could have a car that never gets into little collisions that often happen to human drivers because of carelessness, but are rarely deadly, but the same AI might have a faulty reasoning every once in a while leading it to accelerate to 200kph before running straight into a wall. This hypothetical AI would have very few collisions, but maybe still be much more deadly than a human. Humans are the only data we currently have significant numbers of miles logged for. Any extrapolation to AI is meaningless.

patcheudor 9y ago

The key point is that you can say things like, "per million miles, Tesla auto pilot use has resulted in X fewer fatalities", however, unless the data leading to that statement has been normalized against data representing the exact use case of Tesla auto pilot then it is false. The only way to say that Tesla autopilot is safer per million miles than a human is to base the figure on when the Tesla auto-pilot could be used. I'm not sure I've ever seen that data from Tesla. Who knows, maybe they have it and I've just not seen it. If they do, very cool. I would assume they could get the data by taking sensor readings from Tesla cars under human control in situations where auto-pilot could be used.

chc 9y ago
The NHTSA found a 40% safety improvement when comparing Teslas with Autopilot to Teslas without. I wouldn't put a huge amount of stock in the exact number, but because one group never uses Autopilot and the other offers a realistic view of when people actually do use Autopilot, it seems like enough to say "Yes, Autopilot makes cars safer in aggregate."
- patcheudor 9y ago
  The data is suspect at best and should require a third party evaluation. I'm speculating that the reason for that 40% safety improvement is more a result of the difference between where autopilot can and cannot be used. People with autopilot equipped Tesla vehicles get the option because they likely drive more highway miles where it can be used mile after mile. Those who don't, likely don't and may be in statistically more dangerous driving situations like short commutes over high speed roads. When I commuted to the office, I'd pull out of my 25 MPH subdivision road and immediately accelerate to 65-70 MPH onto the highway and proceed to drive two miles. There's no reason for autopilot in those conditions so I wouldn't purchase the package, but yet making a left-hand turn onto a five lane highway where cars are regularly traveling at high speed is one of the more dangerous things you can do while driving for which if I got hit in a side impact could easily be killed and because of the location on a highway, would be counted as a highway fatality.