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How about comparing Teslas before Autopilot to Teslas after Autopilot? > ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 thro

How about comparing Teslas before Autopilot to Teslas after Autopilot? > ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package... The data show that the Tesla vehicles crash rate dropped by almost 40 percent after Autosteer installation. https://www.scribd.com/document/337008436/NHTSA-Full-Report-on-Tesla-Fatal-Autopilot-Crash#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/337008436/NHTSA-Full-Report-...

rohit2412 8y ago
Those stats aren't for autosteer (which is the point of contention) alone, and include AEB which no doubt saves lives. This brings me to a crucial point. Nobody doubts that assistive technology save lives. Not just automatic emergency braking, but even lane keeping assists. What Tesla does is however take lane keeping assist and give it more responsibility of actively driving the car. It's not clear if that is safe. Even if it's safe, it's not clear if it's safer. You shouldn't be comparing autosteer to just a human, but a human with lane keeping assist. The difference is between the human driving actively, and the car driving itself actively.
- freerobby 8y ago
  > Those stats aren't for autosteer (which is the point of contention) alone, and include AEB which no doubt saves lives. What are you basing this on? AEB was available before Autosteer, and it says in the report that the 40% improvement was after Autosteer installation. > What Tesla does is however take lane keeping assist and give it more responsibility of actively driving the car. Autosteer specifically is new, but the precedent for "active control" isn't. TACC takes just as active a role in driving a car as Autosteer, and most people feel it is net helpful (regardless of manufacturer, but especially in Tesla's case because it can see things via radar that a human cannot, e.g. a second car ahead slamming on the brakes). Heck, a lot of people think even standard cruise control is net helpful! It's not clear to me why longitudinal control is okay to do actively but latitudinal control isn't; both require attention and vigilance. My belief is that people are more skeptical of active latitudinal control because it is so new. It's understandable, but it's not an intellectually satisfying reason to hold back the technology.
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    From here https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-safety-statistics/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-safety-statistic... Read the whole article > Tesla’s oft-touted figure is flawed for another reason, experts say: With this data set, you can’t separate the role of Autopilot from that of automatic emergency braking, which Tesla began releasing just a few months before Autopilot. I hold the same view for TACC. And cruise control doesn't require reducing attention. That is the prime difference, active (longitudinal or latitudinal) control that encourages users to reduce attention but still relies on them, and leaves then liable is dangerous.
    - freerobby 8y ago
      Hey, thanks for that citation. That was really helpful for me to understand this critique of the data. My reading is that the 40% figure still represents the switch to Autosteer, but because the first cohort contains both AEB and non-AEB data, we don't know how much of that 40% improvement to allocate to Autosteer vs how much to allocate to AEB. Makes sense. It's too bad that NHTSA didn't present the AEB-only cohort in the report (i.e. pre-AEB vs AEB vs AEB + Autosteer instead of just pre-Autosteer vs Autosteer). I respectfully disagree about TACC and Autosteer (or put another way: my experience with them leads me to the opposite hypothesis, and thus my burden of proof is flipped from yours). Hopefully between Elon's promised quarterly reports, NHTSA's current and future investigations, and Tesla putting more cars on the road, we'll get better data on this moving forward than we've gotten to date.
      - rohit2412 8y ago
        Thanks, this discussion is going well. I want to add that it wasn't nhtsa, it was Tesla's data which nhtsa cited without any fact checking. But since Tesla has been parroting nhtsa's citation, they have since then withdrawn their support for Tesla's data. You would have read that in the article. Further we need to compare not only pre-aeb vs aeb vs aeb+autosteer, but also aeb+lane_keeping_assist, which we unfortunately won't have. So, let me reiterate -- we agree that autosteer is lane keeping assist given more responsibility. If that's helpful to the driver or dangerous as it distracts him is a debate were should have with better data, which we don't have. Unfortunately, I personally don't trust Tesla giving data without any hidden unsaid caveats, given their behavior till date. However, there is another topic we should talk about. Do you think improving autosteer lane detection with vision will make a car driverless capable? Because that's precisely Tesla markets their technology as, with coast to coast drive, or cross country summon, or driverless taxis. I personally don't believe a line following robot is enough for self driving. Infact, I like Google's approach more, where they drive only when the road is free of any object (3d mapped by lidar). Even then, I don't think that's enough either. For example, say a ball bounces on front of you. I stop expecting a child or a dog running after it. I think driving means interacting with the environment, and responding appropriately to it, and would require a general AI.
gamblor956 8y ago
Because that data isn't limited to just Autosteer but also includes Autobreaking and the other safety features which are more likely to have played a role in the accident reduction. There's no evidence that Autosteer has saved any lives, but there is evidence that it's taken at least 4.
- freerobby 8y ago
  > Because that data isn't limited to just Autosteer but also includes Autobreaking and the other safety features which are more likely to have played a role in the accident reduction. See my response to your sibling comment. AEB was available earlier than Autosteer, and it says in multiple places (both in the summary and in the graph) that the 40% figure is since the release of Autosteer. If I am misunderstanding or misreading the report, please tell me. > There's no evidence that Autosteer has saved any lives, but there is evidence that it's taken at least 4. That's not an accurate summary of the evidence. There are reports all over reddit, TMC, Twitter, Electrek, etc. of Autopilot preventing accidents. There are accounts of Autosteer in particular swerving when a truck drifts toward a car. If we're going to consider one-off anecdotes that go badly, we have to consider the ones that go well, too. And there's a lot of confirmation bias to fight to do that, because "Car Doesn't Crash And Erupt Into Flames" is not a headline you will ever read.
Vik1ng 8y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/u-s-safety-agency-says-did-not-assess-tesla-autopilot-effectiveness-idUSKBN1I334A https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/u-s-safet...

rohit2412 8y ago

Those stats aren't for autosteer (which is the point of contention) alone, and include AEB which no doubt saves lives. This brings me to a crucial point. Nobody doubts that assistive technology save lives. Not just automatic emergency braking, but even lane keeping assists. What Tesla does is however take lane keeping assist and give it more responsibility of actively driving the car. It's not clear if that is safe. Even if it's safe, it's not clear if it's safer. You shouldn't be comparing autosteer to just a human, but a human with lane keeping assist. The difference is between the human driving actively, and the car driving itself actively.

freerobby 8y ago
> Those stats aren't for autosteer (which is the point of contention) alone, and include AEB which no doubt saves lives. What are you basing this on? AEB was available before Autosteer, and it says in the report that the 40% improvement was after Autosteer installation. > What Tesla does is however take lane keeping assist and give it more responsibility of actively driving the car. Autosteer specifically is new, but the precedent for "active control" isn't. TACC takes just as active a role in driving a car as Autosteer, and most people feel it is net helpful (regardless of manufacturer, but especially in Tesla's case because it can see things via radar that a human cannot, e.g. a second car ahead slamming on the brakes). Heck, a lot of people think even standard cruise control is net helpful! It's not clear to me why longitudinal control is okay to do actively but latitudinal control isn't; both require attention and vigilance. My belief is that people are more skeptical of active latitudinal control because it is so new. It's understandable, but it's not an intellectually satisfying reason to hold back the technology.
- rohit2412 8y ago
  From here https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-safety-statistics/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-safety-statistic... Read the whole article > Tesla’s oft-touted figure is flawed for another reason, experts say: With this data set, you can’t separate the role of Autopilot from that of automatic emergency braking, which Tesla began releasing just a few months before Autopilot. I hold the same view for TACC. And cruise control doesn't require reducing attention. That is the prime difference, active (longitudinal or latitudinal) control that encourages users to reduce attention but still relies on them, and leaves then liable is dangerous.
  - freerobby 8y ago
    Hey, thanks for that citation. That was really helpful for me to understand this critique of the data. My reading is that the 40% figure still represents the switch to Autosteer, but because the first cohort contains both AEB and non-AEB data, we don't know how much of that 40% improvement to allocate to Autosteer vs how much to allocate to AEB. Makes sense. It's too bad that NHTSA didn't present the AEB-only cohort in the report (i.e. pre-AEB vs AEB vs AEB + Autosteer instead of just pre-Autosteer vs Autosteer). I respectfully disagree about TACC and Autosteer (or put another way: my experience with them leads me to the opposite hypothesis, and thus my burden of proof is flipped from yours). Hopefully between Elon's promised quarterly reports, NHTSA's current and future investigations, and Tesla putting more cars on the road, we'll get better data on this moving forward than we've gotten to date.
    - rohit2412 8y ago
      Thanks, this discussion is going well. I want to add that it wasn't nhtsa, it was Tesla's data which nhtsa cited without any fact checking. But since Tesla has been parroting nhtsa's citation, they have since then withdrawn their support for Tesla's data. You would have read that in the article. Further we need to compare not only pre-aeb vs aeb vs aeb+autosteer, but also aeb+lane_keeping_assist, which we unfortunately won't have. So, let me reiterate -- we agree that autosteer is lane keeping assist given more responsibility. If that's helpful to the driver or dangerous as it distracts him is a debate were should have with better data, which we don't have. Unfortunately, I personally don't trust Tesla giving data without any hidden unsaid caveats, given their behavior till date. However, there is another topic we should talk about. Do you think improving autosteer lane detection with vision will make a car driverless capable? Because that's precisely Tesla markets their technology as, with coast to coast drive, or cross country summon, or driverless taxis. I personally don't believe a line following robot is enough for self driving. Infact, I like Google's approach more, where they drive only when the road is free of any object (3d mapped by lidar). Even then, I don't think that's enough either. For example, say a ball bounces on front of you. I stop expecting a child or a dog running after it. I think driving means interacting with the environment, and responding appropriately to it, and would require a general AI.

gamblor956 8y ago

Because that data isn't limited to just Autosteer but also includes Autobreaking and the other safety features which are more likely to have played a role in the accident reduction. There's no evidence that Autosteer has saved any lives, but there is evidence that it's taken at least 4.

freerobby 8y ago
> Because that data isn't limited to just Autosteer but also includes Autobreaking and the other safety features which are more likely to have played a role in the accident reduction. See my response to your sibling comment. AEB was available earlier than Autosteer, and it says in multiple places (both in the summary and in the graph) that the 40% figure is since the release of Autosteer. If I am misunderstanding or misreading the report, please tell me. > There's no evidence that Autosteer has saved any lives, but there is evidence that it's taken at least 4. That's not an accurate summary of the evidence. There are reports all over reddit, TMC, Twitter, Electrek, etc. of Autopilot preventing accidents. There are accounts of Autosteer in particular swerving when a truck drifts toward a car. If we're going to consider one-off anecdotes that go badly, we have to consider the ones that go well, too. And there's a lot of confirmation bias to fight to do that, because "Car Doesn't Crash And Erupt Into Flames" is not a headline you will ever read.

Vik1ng 8y ago

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/u-s-safety-agency-says-did-not-assess-tesla-autopilot-effectiveness-idUSKBN1I334A https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/u-s-safet...