5 ms·

So...one person died? Do you know how many people die in normal, non-self-driving cars? It's never possible to get 100% accuracy.

GW150914 9y ago
If those people die because the car fails catastrophically, and predictably, rather than the usual reasons it would be news. This is not about 100% or “the perfect is the enemy of the good” or any bullshit Utopianism. This is about a company marketing a flawed product deceptively for money, while letting useful idiots cover their asses with dreams of level 5 automation that aren’t even close to the horizon.
Judgmentality 9y ago
One person died from that accident. There are now at least 4 deaths where Tesla's autopilot was involved (most of the deaths in China don't get much publicity, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more). And the statistics do not back up your claim that Tesla is safer (despite their attempts to spin it that way).
- Aqueous 9y ago
  This seems to contradict your assertion: http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-cuts-crash-rates-by-40-government-finds-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-cuts-crash-ra...
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    No, the NHTSA report says nothing about how Tesla's autopilot compares to human driving. Here are two comments I made last week about this: In that study there are two buckets, one which is total Tesla miles in TACC-enabled cars and then after the update total Tesla miles in cars with TACC + Autosteer and they calculated on airbag deployments. Human driven miles are going to dominate both of those buckets and there's a reason the NHTSA report makes zero claims about Tesla's safety relative to human drivers. It's totally outside the scope of the study. Then add in that some researchers who are skeptical of the methodology and have been asking for the raw data from NHTSA/Tesla have yet to receive it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932350 Autosteer, however, is relatively unique to Tesla. That’s what makes singling out Autosteer as the source of a 40 percent drop so curious. Forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking were introduced just months before the introduction of Autosteer in October 2015. A previous IIHS study shows that both the collision warning and auto emergency braking can deliver a similar reduction in crashes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932406
    - PersistentCough 9y ago
      I'm not sure what "safer" means. Not sure what posting your insistence in other threads has to do with this. 10x or 100x the number of deaths would be small price to pay to get everyone in autonomous vehicles. It's air travel, all over again and there's a price to pay.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        >I'm not sure what "safer" means. You can define it however you want. By any common sense definition of safety Tesla has not proven that their autopilot is 'safer' than a human driver. >10x or 100x the number of deaths would be small price to pay to get everyone in autonomous vehicles. This supposes a couple things. Mainly that autonomous vehicles will become safer than human drivers, that you know roughly how many humans will have to die to achieve that and that those humans have to die to achieve it. Those are all unknown at this point and even if you disagree about the first one (which I expect you might) you still have to grant me two and three.
        Shikadi 9y ago
        Ignoring Tesla, self driving cars will almost definitely be safer. People die in cars constantly. People don't have to die if companies don't rush the tech to market like Tesla plans to. To be fair, I blame the drivers, but I still think the aggressive marketing pretty much guaranteed someone would be stupid like that, so Tesla should share some of the blame as well.
      - rohit2412 9y ago
        I don't think we are opposed to autonomous vehicles. Can Autopilot not run passively and prevent human errors? Why are the two options presented seem to be only "only a human behind the wheel, not assisted by even AEB" and "Full autopilot with no human in the car at all".
rescripting 9y ago
I hand you a gun and say "you can point this gun at anyone, pull the trigger, and it wont harm them." You point the gun at a crowd, pull the trigger, it goes off and kills someone. Who do you blame? No one is saying guns, or cars, aren't dangerous. However this kind of false advertising leads people to use cars in dangerous ways while believing they are safe because they've been lied to. (Side note, there is some fine print you never read that says the safe-gun technology only works when you point the gun at a single person and doesn't work on crowds.)
- Retric 9y ago
  Safer than human hardware does not imply safe. It means this will kill people but fewer people than humans would and they have actual data that backs this assertion up. The benchmark is not an alert, cautious, and sober driver because that's often not how actual people drive. So right now it's often safer to drive other times it really is safer to use autopilot, net result fewer people die.
  - DennisP 9y ago
    But if you do happen to be an alert, cautious, and sober driver, it'd be unfortunate if Tesla's marketing led you to overly rely on Autopilot. Ideally Tesla's marketing would say it's safer than drunk, sleepy, and reckless drivers, though it might not sell as many Autopilots.
    - jacobush 9y ago
      Drunk, sleepy and reckless drives from an age bracket not normally buying premium sedans.
    - heurist 9y ago
      Autopilot should not be accessible to drivers until their driving habits have been assessed and baselined. If autopilot is known to drive more safely than the individual human driver in environments X, Y, and Z then it should be made available in those environments, if not encouraged. That might not make an easy sell since a major value prop is inaccessible to many of the people who really want to use it, but it's the most reasonable, safest path. I also imagine that cars will learn from both human and each others' driving patterns over time, which (under effective guidance) should enable an enormous improvement in a relatively short period of time.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
> Do you know how many people die in normal, non-self-driving cars false equivalency. you need at least compare per mile, at best by driver demographic since most tesla drivers are in the high income and maybe in the safety conscious bracket
coldtea 9y ago
Many people also die when they fall from the stairs. But if you build faulty staircases that make people slip, they can still put you in jail or sue you. Same if you push them down the stairs.
dghughes 9y ago
Self-driving cars or Tesla autopilot?

GW150914 9y ago

If those people die because the car fails catastrophically, and predictably, rather than the usual reasons it would be news. This is not about 100% or “the perfect is the enemy of the good” or any bullshit Utopianism. This is about a company marketing a flawed product deceptively for money, while letting useful idiots cover their asses with dreams of level 5 automation that aren’t even close to the horizon.

Judgmentality 9y ago

One person died from that accident. There are now at least 4 deaths where Tesla's autopilot was involved (most of the deaths in China don't get much publicity, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more). And the statistics do not back up your claim that Tesla is safer (despite their attempts to spin it that way).

Aqueous 9y ago
This seems to contradict your assertion: http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-cuts-crash-rates-by-40-government-finds-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-cuts-crash-ra...
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  No, the NHTSA report says nothing about how Tesla's autopilot compares to human driving. Here are two comments I made last week about this: In that study there are two buckets, one which is total Tesla miles in TACC-enabled cars and then after the update total Tesla miles in cars with TACC + Autosteer and they calculated on airbag deployments. Human driven miles are going to dominate both of those buckets and there's a reason the NHTSA report makes zero claims about Tesla's safety relative to human drivers. It's totally outside the scope of the study. Then add in that some researchers who are skeptical of the methodology and have been asking for the raw data from NHTSA/Tesla have yet to receive it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932350 Autosteer, however, is relatively unique to Tesla. That’s what makes singling out Autosteer as the source of a 40 percent drop so curious. Forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking were introduced just months before the introduction of Autosteer in October 2015. A previous IIHS study shows that both the collision warning and auto emergency braking can deliver a similar reduction in crashes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16932406
  - PersistentCough 9y ago
    I'm not sure what "safer" means. Not sure what posting your insistence in other threads has to do with this. 10x or 100x the number of deaths would be small price to pay to get everyone in autonomous vehicles. It's air travel, all over again and there's a price to pay.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      >I'm not sure what "safer" means. You can define it however you want. By any common sense definition of safety Tesla has not proven that their autopilot is 'safer' than a human driver. >10x or 100x the number of deaths would be small price to pay to get everyone in autonomous vehicles. This supposes a couple things. Mainly that autonomous vehicles will become safer than human drivers, that you know roughly how many humans will have to die to achieve that and that those humans have to die to achieve it. Those are all unknown at this point and even if you disagree about the first one (which I expect you might) you still have to grant me two and three.
      - Shikadi 9y ago
        Ignoring Tesla, self driving cars will almost definitely be safer. People die in cars constantly. People don't have to die if companies don't rush the tech to market like Tesla plans to. To be fair, I blame the drivers, but I still think the aggressive marketing pretty much guaranteed someone would be stupid like that, so Tesla should share some of the blame as well.
    - rohit2412 9y ago
      I don't think we are opposed to autonomous vehicles. Can Autopilot not run passively and prevent human errors? Why are the two options presented seem to be only "only a human behind the wheel, not assisted by even AEB" and "Full autopilot with no human in the car at all".

rescripting 9y ago

I hand you a gun and say "you can point this gun at anyone, pull the trigger, and it wont harm them." You point the gun at a crowd, pull the trigger, it goes off and kills someone. Who do you blame? No one is saying guns, or cars, aren't dangerous. However this kind of false advertising leads people to use cars in dangerous ways while believing they are safe because they've been lied to. (Side note, there is some fine print you never read that says the safe-gun technology only works when you point the gun at a single person and doesn't work on crowds.)

Retric 9y ago
Safer than human hardware does not imply safe. It means this will kill people but fewer people than humans would and they have actual data that backs this assertion up. The benchmark is not an alert, cautious, and sober driver because that's often not how actual people drive. So right now it's often safer to drive other times it really is safer to use autopilot, net result fewer people die.
- DennisP 9y ago
  But if you do happen to be an alert, cautious, and sober driver, it'd be unfortunate if Tesla's marketing led you to overly rely on Autopilot. Ideally Tesla's marketing would say it's safer than drunk, sleepy, and reckless drivers, though it might not sell as many Autopilots.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Drunk, sleepy and reckless drives from an age bracket not normally buying premium sedans.
  - heurist 9y ago
    Autopilot should not be accessible to drivers until their driving habits have been assessed and baselined. If autopilot is known to drive more safely than the individual human driver in environments X, Y, and Z then it should be made available in those environments, if not encouraged. That might not make an easy sell since a major value prop is inaccessible to many of the people who really want to use it, but it's the most reasonable, safest path. I also imagine that cars will learn from both human and each others' driving patterns over time, which (under effective guidance) should enable an enormous improvement in a relatively short period of time.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

> Do you know how many people die in normal, non-self-driving cars false equivalency. you need at least compare per mile, at best by driver demographic since most tesla drivers are in the high income and maybe in the safety conscious bracket

coldtea 9y ago

Many people also die when they fall from the stairs. But if you build faulty staircases that make people slip, they can still put you in jail or sue you. Same if you push them down the stairs.

dghughes 9y ago

Self-driving cars or Tesla autopilot?