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A counter argument that HUMAN DRIVERS are unsafe an fatal (let alone missing common sense and alertness). I 100% get your point, but my counterpoint, is that th

A counter argument that HUMAN DRIVERS are unsafe an fatal (let alone missing common sense and alertness). I 100% get your point, but my counterpoint, is that this is what we are going to see, in the future. Autonomous systems that by and large are way safer, than human drivers, but when they fail, the might do so, in circumstances where are human would not. Humans are good at some things, computers/ai/sensor suites are good at others, and that is going to mean different kinds of failures, and we have to learn from this. The gigantic upside, is countless situations where the ai, detecs things, the human would not, and overall better outcomes. (Its also worth nothing, that this incident, was way worse because of the barrier. If the divider was in normal condition, the driver would have lived, in my opinion).

lern_too_spel 8y ago
It is not clear that this particular autonomous driving system is better than a human driver.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  And they play contradictory arguments using statistics "You don't have enough data to say it is dangerous!" while at the same time using the exact same statistics to argue that it is safer. Either the statistics are half-baked or they're ready to draw conclusions with, you cannot have it both ways.
- cornholio 8y ago
  This is not even an autonomous driving system. Let loose to drive from city A to city B without human supervision, it will crash 9/10 trips.
- dylan-m 8y ago
  Not to mention repeatedly claiming that "it saves lives", when they're probably either talking about a completely separate collision avoidance system (which has probably stopped several accidents, by definition, but it isn't special and it doesn't move the car on its own); or they're talking out of their asses because the number of independent variables is the kind of thing you need a PhD statistician for and they'll probably just tell you to take a hike.
Analemma_ 8y ago
I shouldn't have to keep saying this in every thread about Tesla autopilot, but I guess I do: the fact that there will probably one day be autonomous driving systems that are safer than human drivers does not imply that Tesla's current system is safer than human drivers.
- martin_bech 8y ago
  I think it is safer. Its of course dependant on the situation ie. Highway cruising. But I think it is. (Human drivers are not that high of a bar, I see crashes at least weekly, on my stretch of highway)
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    Why are we comparing to humans? Shouldn't we compare autosteer to a human assisted by lane keeping assist?
rhacker 8y ago
I get that in 5-10 years we MAY have SDVs that are superior than human drivers. But I think a lot of people have a mental model of SDVs _right now_ being superior to human drivers. I can't remember the crash stats, but I think the only way to know for sure is to calculate the number of miles a single human generally drives on average before they are involved in a collision or crash, etc... Now I don't have the numbers memorized, but in previous Tesla, Uber, Google threads - only Google had reached records similar to human level crash safety. Keeping in mind however that they are still working on driving through snow, construction sites, non-existant (paint gone) lane lines... so the test areas are quite specific still. I realize Tesla isn't advertising level 5 autonomy - I'm just responding to the above poster.
- slg 8y ago
  We don't have exact numbers for Tesla but there are 2 confirmed casualties in what is conservatively over a billion Autopilot miles. The average casualty rate for human drivers is something around 1.25 death per 100 million miles. Those numbers are not directly comparable given that Autopilot is not something that is used during 100% of all driving miles and Tesla drivers are not average car drivers. However, there is nothing that screams "Teslas with Autopilot are a death trap" like some people in this thread are implying.
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    Autopilot will only be engaged on roads and under conditions that are favorable to autonomous driving, but fatal accidents tend to happen more under unfavorable conditions for human drivers. The non-Tesla numbers also include cars that are smaller, cheaper and less sophisticated, so much more likely to lead to fatal outcomes in crashes. So these numbers are heavily skewed in favor of Tesla. The proper comparison would be waymos performance and they’ve been without a fatal crash afaik. As an alternative you could pull the numbers for cars of similar build on similar roads for human drivers.
    - freerobby 8y ago
      I don't think it's fair to compare an L2 system to an L5 system, though. My sense is that a very good ADAS (L2) system will reduce overall fatalities, while causing a small number of additional ones through human misuse of the system. This accident seems like the latter case.

lern_too_spel 8y ago

It is not clear that this particular autonomous driving system is better than a human driver.

Someone1234 8y ago
And they play contradictory arguments using statistics "You don't have enough data to say it is dangerous!" while at the same time using the exact same statistics to argue that it is safer. Either the statistics are half-baked or they're ready to draw conclusions with, you cannot have it both ways.
cornholio 8y ago
This is not even an autonomous driving system. Let loose to drive from city A to city B without human supervision, it will crash 9/10 trips.
dylan-m 8y ago
Not to mention repeatedly claiming that "it saves lives", when they're probably either talking about a completely separate collision avoidance system (which has probably stopped several accidents, by definition, but it isn't special and it doesn't move the car on its own); or they're talking out of their asses because the number of independent variables is the kind of thing you need a PhD statistician for and they'll probably just tell you to take a hike.

Analemma_ 8y ago

I shouldn't have to keep saying this in every thread about Tesla autopilot, but I guess I do: the fact that there will probably one day be autonomous driving systems that are safer than human drivers does not imply that Tesla's current system is safer than human drivers.

martin_bech 8y ago
I think it is safer. Its of course dependant on the situation ie. Highway cruising. But I think it is. (Human drivers are not that high of a bar, I see crashes at least weekly, on my stretch of highway)
- rohit2412 8y ago
  Why are we comparing to humans? Shouldn't we compare autosteer to a human assisted by lane keeping assist?

rhacker 8y ago

I get that in 5-10 years we MAY have SDVs that are superior than human drivers. But I think a lot of people have a mental model of SDVs _right now_ being superior to human drivers. I can't remember the crash stats, but I think the only way to know for sure is to calculate the number of miles a single human generally drives on average before they are involved in a collision or crash, etc... Now I don't have the numbers memorized, but in previous Tesla, Uber, Google threads - only Google had reached records similar to human level crash safety. Keeping in mind however that they are still working on driving through snow, construction sites, non-existant (paint gone) lane lines... so the test areas are quite specific still. I realize Tesla isn't advertising level 5 autonomy - I'm just responding to the above poster.

slg 8y ago
We don't have exact numbers for Tesla but there are 2 confirmed casualties in what is conservatively over a billion Autopilot miles. The average casualty rate for human drivers is something around 1.25 death per 100 million miles. Those numbers are not directly comparable given that Autopilot is not something that is used during 100% of all driving miles and Tesla drivers are not average car drivers. However, there is nothing that screams "Teslas with Autopilot are a death trap" like some people in this thread are implying.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  Autopilot will only be engaged on roads and under conditions that are favorable to autonomous driving, but fatal accidents tend to happen more under unfavorable conditions for human drivers. The non-Tesla numbers also include cars that are smaller, cheaper and less sophisticated, so much more likely to lead to fatal outcomes in crashes. So these numbers are heavily skewed in favor of Tesla. The proper comparison would be waymos performance and they’ve been without a fatal crash afaik. As an alternative you could pull the numbers for cars of similar build on similar roads for human drivers.
  - freerobby 8y ago
    I don't think it's fair to compare an L2 system to an L5 system, though. My sense is that a very good ADAS (L2) system will reduce overall fatalities, while causing a small number of additional ones through human misuse of the system. This accident seems like the latter case.