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If Tesla calls it Autopilot mode, you can hardly blame everyone else doing so.

by nicky0 8y ago

michaelmior 8y ago
Just because Tesla calls it Autopilot doesn't absolve drivers of responsibility in my mind. Especially since Tesla explicitly says drivers should still be attentive. That said, I agree it's poor marketing.
- RobLach 8y ago
  Autopilot is not a word made up by marketing though. It’s already defined: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/automatic_pilot https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/automatic_pilot “A device for keeping an aircraft on a set course without the intervention of the pilot.” If you enable an autopilot, intervention by the pilot is not necessary by definition
  - hyperbovine 8y ago
    “By definition“ you are not driving a car.
  - cynix 8y ago
    > If you enable an autopilot, intervention by the pilot is not necessary by definition Only if you're happy for the aircraft to continue travelling in the same set course. I guess by the same virtue, driver intervention is also not required if you're willing to let the vehicle travel in the same direction and disregard the firetruck ahead... Tesla's Autopilot is perfectly capable of maintaining direction/speed of travel, and it even follows the curves of the road most of the time which is presumably more than an aircraft autopilot system can do. It is the driver who is not willing to disregard the obstacles ahead, the same way presumably aircraft pilots are not willing to disregard obstacles in their course and will take over control of the aircraft if there is one. Nothing wrong with our tendency to avoid obstacles in order to not die, of course, but it's not the autopilot's job since the definition of autopilot is to maintain a set course, as you quoted. You may be confusing it with full self-driving, which doesn't exist yet.
  - readams 8y ago
    Aircraft autopilot will happily fly you into a mountain or other aircraft.
    - King-Aaron 8y ago
      I'm glad someone mentioned this. It's frustrating that the general public doesn't understand what the word 'autopilot' means... Otto the automatic pilot from the movie Airplane! isn't what an automatic pilot is. However, since it is commonly misrepresented, they should change the name of Tesla's system.
    - Twisell 8y ago
      While true, there is like a lot of redondant auxiliary warning system in a plane that work independently of the autopilot. So if autopilot tried to fly you into a mountain, the humans pilots would have to willingly ignore all the warnings thrown at them (it happened recently, and was qualified as human error). What is terrifying with Tesla autopilot is that there is seemingly not enough auxiliary warning system. With only two of them (hand on wheel or stop, static object detection) you could have avoided almost all Tesla crashes. They putted beta vehicle in hand of customers, that’s a choice, now they have to live with it. Edit: first sentence was misleading
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    General public has little idea of what a plane autopilot can or cannot do. Somewhat ironically, the Tesla Autopilot is quite close to a real plane autopilot in that it’s a rather dumb system that cannot adjust to unexpected events. But Joe R. Driver reads Tesla marketing material and doesn’t realize that, dictionary definition notwithstanding.
- watwut 8y ago
  So, now that we pinpointed who is responsible, can we discuss which design leads to many people making deadly errors and which design leads to few people making deadly errors? And how much responsibility the designer when choosing between former and latter?
- rebuilder 8y ago
  It seems like deceptive marketing to me. If I sold shoes with proprietary NailStopper soles, with a disclaimer the soles don't actually stop nails and it's up to the user to make sure they don't step on any, would that be cool?
  - michaelmior 8y ago
    I'm not saying the marketing is cool. Although your example is fundamentally different since in the "Autopilot" case, you're not just dealing with your own safety, but the safety of others. (Presumably you're not putting others in danger by wearing NailStopper shoes and continuing to step on nails.)
    - rebuilder 8y ago
      Fair enough. I guess this is a case of something lost in translation. To me, bad marketing is when the marketing doesn't help sell the product. Deceptive marketing misleads the consumer as to what they're being enticed to purchase.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kingkongjaffa 8y ago
Tesla's marketing has directly contributed to a number of deaths now.
- JoshCole 8y ago
  It's also directly prevented a number of deaths. The same is true of the consumption of water. However, I can count the number of deaths caused by Tesla on one hand, but I cannot count the number of deaths caused by the consumption of water on one hand [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalit... [2]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-... If you really care about road safety? Encourage the use of Uber among the intoxicated. It saves more than a handful of lives in this world in which more than a hundred thousand people die each day.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    People frequently argue that "X hasn't caused very many deaths compared to Y" and thus the dangers of X are insignificant, while ignoring that people are reacting in a frightened way to X because it might scale such that it soon becomes significant.
    - JoshCole 8y ago
      What I was hoping to show was that there are things where the property of causing deaths doesn't mean that the thing itself was a bad idea. Water is an example of that. Going without water is fatal. Getting water can be fatal. It would be very easy to write thousands of news articles about water killing people. But its still good that people can drink water. The same is true of these driver-assistance technologies. Without them, people are already crashing and dying all the time. They do this at a greater rate than the rate at which people crash and die in vehicles that have these driver-assistance technologies. So on the whole, its actually better to have people in cars with these driver-assisting technologies, not worse.
  - 8y ago

If Tesla calls it Autopilot mode, you can hardly blame everyone else doing so.

by nicky0 8y ago

If Tesla calls it Autopilot mode, you can hardly blame everyone else doing so.

Just because Tesla calls it Autopilot doesn't absolve drivers of responsibility in my mind. Especially since Tesla explicitly says drivers should still be attentive. That said, I agree it's poor marketing.

RobLach 8y ago
Autopilot is not a word made up by marketing though. It’s already defined: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/automatic_pilot https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/automatic_pilot “A device for keeping an aircraft on a set course without the intervention of the pilot.” If you enable an autopilot, intervention by the pilot is not necessary by definition
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  “By definition“ you are not driving a car.
- cynix 8y ago
  > If you enable an autopilot, intervention by the pilot is not necessary by definition Only if you're happy for the aircraft to continue travelling in the same set course. I guess by the same virtue, driver intervention is also not required if you're willing to let the vehicle travel in the same direction and disregard the firetruck ahead... Tesla's Autopilot is perfectly capable of maintaining direction/speed of travel, and it even follows the curves of the road most of the time which is presumably more than an aircraft autopilot system can do. It is the driver who is not willing to disregard the obstacles ahead, the same way presumably aircraft pilots are not willing to disregard obstacles in their course and will take over control of the aircraft if there is one. Nothing wrong with our tendency to avoid obstacles in order to not die, of course, but it's not the autopilot's job since the definition of autopilot is to maintain a set course, as you quoted. You may be confusing it with full self-driving, which doesn't exist yet.
- readams 8y ago
  Aircraft autopilot will happily fly you into a mountain or other aircraft.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    I'm glad someone mentioned this. It's frustrating that the general public doesn't understand what the word 'autopilot' means... Otto the automatic pilot from the movie Airplane! isn't what an automatic pilot is. However, since it is commonly misrepresented, they should change the name of Tesla's system.
  - Twisell 8y ago
    While true, there is like a lot of redondant auxiliary warning system in a plane that work independently of the autopilot. So if autopilot tried to fly you into a mountain, the humans pilots would have to willingly ignore all the warnings thrown at them (it happened recently, and was qualified as human error). What is terrifying with Tesla autopilot is that there is seemingly not enough auxiliary warning system. With only two of them (hand on wheel or stop, static object detection) you could have avoided almost all Tesla crashes. They putted beta vehicle in hand of customers, that’s a choice, now they have to live with it. Edit: first sentence was misleading
- Sharlin 8y ago
  General public has little idea of what a plane autopilot can or cannot do. Somewhat ironically, the Tesla Autopilot is quite close to a real plane autopilot in that it’s a rather dumb system that cannot adjust to unexpected events. But Joe R. Driver reads Tesla marketing material and doesn’t realize that, dictionary definition notwithstanding.
watwut 8y ago
So, now that we pinpointed who is responsible, can we discuss which design leads to many people making deadly errors and which design leads to few people making deadly errors? And how much responsibility the designer when choosing between former and latter?
rebuilder 8y ago
It seems like deceptive marketing to me. If I sold shoes with proprietary NailStopper soles, with a disclaimer the soles don't actually stop nails and it's up to the user to make sure they don't step on any, would that be cool?
- michaelmior 8y ago
  I'm not saying the marketing is cool. Although your example is fundamentally different since in the "Autopilot" case, you're not just dealing with your own safety, but the safety of others. (Presumably you're not putting others in danger by wearing NailStopper shoes and continuing to step on nails.)
  - rebuilder 8y ago
    Fair enough. I guess this is a case of something lost in translation. To me, bad marketing is when the marketing doesn't help sell the product. Deceptive marketing misleads the consumer as to what they're being enticed to purchase.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kingkongjaffa 8y ago

Tesla's marketing has directly contributed to a number of deaths now.

JoshCole 8y ago
It's also directly prevented a number of deaths. The same is true of the consumption of water. However, I can count the number of deaths caused by Tesla on one hand, but I cannot count the number of deaths caused by the consumption of water on one hand [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autonomous_car_fatalit... [2]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-... If you really care about road safety? Encourage the use of Uber among the intoxicated. It saves more than a handful of lives in this world in which more than a hundred thousand people die each day.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  People frequently argue that "X hasn't caused very many deaths compared to Y" and thus the dangers of X are insignificant, while ignoring that people are reacting in a frightened way to X because it might scale such that it soon becomes significant.
  - JoshCole 8y ago
    What I was hoping to show was that there are things where the property of causing deaths doesn't mean that the thing itself was a bad idea. Water is an example of that. Going without water is fatal. Getting water can be fatal. It would be very easy to write thousands of news articles about water killing people. But its still good that people can drink water. The same is true of these driver-assistance technologies. Without them, people are already crashing and dying all the time. They do this at a greater rate than the rate at which people crash and die in vehicles that have these driver-assistance technologies. So on the whole, its actually better to have people in cars with these driver-assisting technologies, not worse.
- 8y ago