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Exactly. This is what I’ve been saying. It is so dangerous. I love Tesla but I think autopilot is currently a death trap.

donkeyd 9y ago
> I think autopilot is currently a death trap. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. As long as the driver keeps paying attention and uses it as a driving aid, not a driver replacement, everything is fine. It's the moment that people start relying on it doing something that it wasn't built for, that the problems arise.
- MadcapJake 9y ago
  > I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. As long as the driver keeps paying attention and uses it as a driving aid, not a driver replacement, everything is fine. It's the moment that people start relying on it doing something that it wasn't built for, that the problems arise. I think this is a bit too optimistic. People will start relying on it to be an autopilot. I think most people see this as the desired result: a car that can drive itself. Do you really think anyone wants "a car that will drive itself while you are paying full attention to every detail"? Otherwise, what is a driver really gaining from this? They're still expected to pay just as much attention (if not more) and I'd bet it's even more boring than regular driving (no interaction from the driver means it's like the world's most boring VR movie) Humans are not machines, we love to find the lazy/easy way and we love to do things rather than stare at the road, eventually people will grow complacent (hopefully not before the tech is up-to-snuff).
  - aerovistae 9y ago
    > Do you really think anyone wants "a car that will drive itself while you are paying full attention to every detail"? Otherwise, what is a driver really gaining from this? They're still expected to pay just as much attention (if not more) and I'd bet it's even more boring than regular driving (no interaction from the driver means it's like the world's most boring VR movie) EXACTLY. They're at even more risk for accident due to inattention because it's so hard to focus on doing nothing.
- admax88q 9y ago
  They shouldn't market it as "autopilot"
  - donkeyd 9y ago
    Volvo does it too, but nobody seems to be complaining about Volvo.
    - jerrycruncher 9y ago
      Volvo's tech hasn't killed anyone yet.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      Volvo calls it Pilot Assist when you actually have the feature on your car
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- noxToken 9y ago
  This puts Telsa at odds with itself. The feature is called Autopilot after the namesake of flight systems where the pilot doesn't need to be constantly hands on. It is marketed as an autonomous driving system that allows the car to drive safely without human intervention. In the same breath, Tesla says that it isn't really an autopilot system, and that even though they market it as autonomous driving, it is still essential that you act as if you were driving. As you've stated, it's a tool for assisting drivers. So why do they market it as fire and forget?
Applejinx 9y ago
Naive centering certainly is. That's exactly what caused this behavior. Just about any scenario where the car tries to split the difference between widening lane lines has the potential of causing this problem. To make matters worse, it's trivial to run across a case where the road curves AND splits, causing the 'neutral' path to go straight into a barrier… which is exactly what's seen in the video. The straight path would be toward the split-off road, but it veers slightly to the right before splitting. Makes me wonder if GPS can play a role in determining whether the lane markings are liable to seduce the autopilot into splitting the difference. Given established roads, the car should have some clue this scenario is approaching. If we can see a 'V' approaching on a simple freaking Garmin, the car ought to be able to have that information.

donkeyd 9y ago

> I think autopilot is currently a death trap. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. As long as the driver keeps paying attention and uses it as a driving aid, not a driver replacement, everything is fine. It's the moment that people start relying on it doing something that it wasn't built for, that the problems arise.

MadcapJake 9y ago
> I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. As long as the driver keeps paying attention and uses it as a driving aid, not a driver replacement, everything is fine. It's the moment that people start relying on it doing something that it wasn't built for, that the problems arise. I think this is a bit too optimistic. People will start relying on it to be an autopilot. I think most people see this as the desired result: a car that can drive itself. Do you really think anyone wants "a car that will drive itself while you are paying full attention to every detail"? Otherwise, what is a driver really gaining from this? They're still expected to pay just as much attention (if not more) and I'd bet it's even more boring than regular driving (no interaction from the driver means it's like the world's most boring VR movie) Humans are not machines, we love to find the lazy/easy way and we love to do things rather than stare at the road, eventually people will grow complacent (hopefully not before the tech is up-to-snuff).
- aerovistae 9y ago
  > Do you really think anyone wants "a car that will drive itself while you are paying full attention to every detail"? Otherwise, what is a driver really gaining from this? They're still expected to pay just as much attention (if not more) and I'd bet it's even more boring than regular driving (no interaction from the driver means it's like the world's most boring VR movie) EXACTLY. They're at even more risk for accident due to inattention because it's so hard to focus on doing nothing.
admax88q 9y ago
They shouldn't market it as "autopilot"
- donkeyd 9y ago
  Volvo does it too, but nobody seems to be complaining about Volvo.
  - jerrycruncher 9y ago
    Volvo's tech hasn't killed anyone yet.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    Volvo calls it Pilot Assist when you actually have the feature on your car
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
noxToken 9y ago
This puts Telsa at odds with itself. The feature is called Autopilot after the namesake of flight systems where the pilot doesn't need to be constantly hands on. It is marketed as an autonomous driving system that allows the car to drive safely without human intervention. In the same breath, Tesla says that it isn't really an autopilot system, and that even though they market it as autonomous driving, it is still essential that you act as if you were driving. As you've stated, it's a tool for assisting drivers. So why do they market it as fire and forget?

Applejinx 9y ago

Naive centering certainly is. That's exactly what caused this behavior. Just about any scenario where the car tries to split the difference between widening lane lines has the potential of causing this problem. To make matters worse, it's trivial to run across a case where the road curves AND splits, causing the 'neutral' path to go straight into a barrier… which is exactly what's seen in the video. The straight path would be toward the split-off road, but it veers slightly to the right before splitting. Makes me wonder if GPS can play a role in determining whether the lane markings are liable to seduce the autopilot into splitting the difference. Given established roads, the car should have some clue this scenario is approaching. If we can see a 'V' approaching on a simple freaking Garmin, the car ought to be able to have that information.