6 ms·

Hasn’t Tesla autopilot saved more lives than it took? So it’s more net beneficial (so far) than cautious Waymo?

dwighttk 8y ago
[citation needed]
rb808 8y ago
Quite probably. But that is irrelevant to the lawyers of the people that driverless cars did take. That is the real problem to me.
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
There's no evidence of that assertion.
tertius 8y ago
So did the surgeon who killed that poor girl because he was overconfident and took too many risks.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Is there a specific case you're referring to here?
semi-extrinsic 8y ago
How could it do that? The safety statistics quoted by Tesla is "fatalities per mile of Autopilot-enabled vehicle", compared to "fatalities per mile for the average car on the road". It's by no means an accurate comparison, in fact they're inflating their relative safety versus other cars by more than an order of magnitude.
- Consultant32452 8y ago
  Tangential to your point, do you think it's fair to compare AI driven cars to "average" drivers? I think it's more reasonable to compare them to "average [worst_category_of_driver]." For example, how does the Tesla car compare to teen drivers? If it's better than a meaningfully sized category of human drivers, it's probably ready for the road. Being on the real road is where the best data will be collected.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    only if you are exclusively giving the Teslas to that smaller, worse, category of driver
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Consultant32452 8y ago
      The point is that we allow teen drivers on the road with the expectation and understanding that they will improve over several years. Why would we not expect to have to make the same concession for AI?
      - logifail 8y ago
        If a human drives sufficiently poorly they will eventually lose their right to drive on public roads for a time. Could this/should this also apply for autonomous vehicles? If so, how?
        Consultant32452 8y ago
        Sure. I'm open to suggestions, but I'll offer financial liability for damages as an opening bid.
        logifail 8y ago
        I suspect that the corporate entities involved have such deep pockets and/or so many lawyers and lobbyists that won't work. Instead, how about: All new autonomous vehicle configurations (let's call that the algos + sensors + vehicle) have to take some kind of actual driving test, just like us humans do. Maybe the public could even help design a good test? "Not driving at speed into a stationary fire truck which is parked on the highway right in front of you" would be one element I'd want to see tested. If an autonomous vehicle is involved in an accident, and the algo/sensors/vehicle are found to be (partially) at fault the configuration earns penalty points. If that configuration earns enough penalty points over a period of time, the entire configuration loses its certification, plus a fine, plus a mandatory re-test. This method appears to work reasonably well in dealing with us not-always-perfect human drivers, and ought to concentrate the minds of the designers/developers/managers behind autonomous vehicles.
tree_of_item 8y ago
How would we get accurate information on the number of lives Tesla's "autopilot" has saved?
- leesec 8y ago
  Humans die on average every 80 million miles driven ( not sure the metric for highway miles only ), but prove that Tesla can beat that metric and you can assume lives are being saved.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    not so fast. youneed to compare tesla death per mile withother high end sedan death per mile. comparing a population of all cars include a lot of less secure cars, like city cars, old cars and cars that haven't enjoyed the same level of maintenance a driver with high income can afford. iow tesla needs to beat the average 2014+ 3 series death per mile.
    - favorited 8y ago
      You also need to account for the regions where Teslas are most popular, the demographic of people who are purchasing Teslas, cars with similar safety features, and many other factors. Comparing the very tiny slice of the market which drives Teslas against every other car+driver on the road is almost meaningless.
  - amalcon 8y ago
    In addition to the confounding variables others have mentioned, I think the most important factor is when autopilot is enabled. If you don't (or can't) use autopilot at night, in inclement weather, or in construction zones, then you'll get into more accidents when not using autopilot -- even if it's a significantly worse driver than you are.
photos_victim 8y ago
How did you conclude this? There are other similarly-priced but more-numerous models of car where literally nobody has ever died after crashing one. Controlling for price (as a proxy for the wealth of the occupants) Tesla has a poor safety record.
- beat 8y ago
  Cite?
  - andrewaylett 8y ago
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/britains-safest-car-revealed-no-road-deaths-16-years/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/britains-safest-... for example: "no drivers or passengers killed inside it in the 16 years it has been on sale", with 50k sold in the UK.
    - ArchTypical 8y ago
      > no drivers or passengers killed inside it To be fair, nobody has been killed inside any driverless car either.
beat 8y ago
Arguably, but it's hard to demonstrate the negative. At best, we can compare Tesla accident rates to those of other vehicles in the same class (luxury sedans). I'm sure you're right, but proving you're right against the naysayers is a different problem.
newnewpdro 8y ago
You're drinking some strong kool-aid.
esalman 8y ago
I was in a statistics class where the Professor was teaching likelihood, then asked if there are cases when we don't want to maximize the likelihood ratio. The answer is when you want to put a limitation on false positive (or negative) detection. You wouldn't vet a system that is susceptible to high false negatives and likely to kill people- no matter how good the accuracy is.
maxerickson 8y ago
You have to compare it to other widely deployed driver assistance, not to the absence of Autopilot.

[citation needed]

Quite probably. But that is irrelevant to the lawyers of the people that driverless cars did take. That is the real problem to me.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

There's no evidence of that assertion.

tertius 8y ago

So did the surgeon who killed that poor girl because he was overconfident and took too many risks.

SilasX 8y ago
Is there a specific case you're referring to here?

semi-extrinsic 8y ago

How could it do that? The safety statistics quoted by Tesla is "fatalities per mile of Autopilot-enabled vehicle", compared to "fatalities per mile for the average car on the road". It's by no means an accurate comparison, in fact they're inflating their relative safety versus other cars by more than an order of magnitude.

Consultant32452 8y ago
Tangential to your point, do you think it's fair to compare AI driven cars to "average" drivers? I think it's more reasonable to compare them to "average [worst_category_of_driver]." For example, how does the Tesla car compare to teen drivers? If it's better than a meaningfully sized category of human drivers, it's probably ready for the road. Being on the real road is where the best data will be collected.
- dwighttk 8y ago
  only if you are exclusively giving the Teslas to that smaller, worse, category of driver
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Consultant32452 8y ago
    The point is that we allow teen drivers on the road with the expectation and understanding that they will improve over several years. Why would we not expect to have to make the same concession for AI?
    - logifail 8y ago
      If a human drives sufficiently poorly they will eventually lose their right to drive on public roads for a time. Could this/should this also apply for autonomous vehicles? If so, how?
      - Consultant32452 8y ago
        Sure. I'm open to suggestions, but I'll offer financial liability for damages as an opening bid.
        logifail 8y ago
        I suspect that the corporate entities involved have such deep pockets and/or so many lawyers and lobbyists that won't work. Instead, how about: All new autonomous vehicle configurations (let's call that the algos + sensors + vehicle) have to take some kind of actual driving test, just like us humans do. Maybe the public could even help design a good test? "Not driving at speed into a stationary fire truck which is parked on the highway right in front of you" would be one element I'd want to see tested. If an autonomous vehicle is involved in an accident, and the algo/sensors/vehicle are found to be (partially) at fault the configuration earns penalty points. If that configuration earns enough penalty points over a period of time, the entire configuration loses its certification, plus a fine, plus a mandatory re-test. This method appears to work reasonably well in dealing with us not-always-perfect human drivers, and ought to concentrate the minds of the designers/developers/managers behind autonomous vehicles.

tree_of_item 8y ago

How would we get accurate information on the number of lives Tesla's "autopilot" has saved?

leesec 8y ago
Humans die on average every 80 million miles driven ( not sure the metric for highway miles only ), but prove that Tesla can beat that metric and you can assume lives are being saved.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  not so fast. youneed to compare tesla death per mile withother high end sedan death per mile. comparing a population of all cars include a lot of less secure cars, like city cars, old cars and cars that haven't enjoyed the same level of maintenance a driver with high income can afford. iow tesla needs to beat the average 2014+ 3 series death per mile.
  - favorited 8y ago
    You also need to account for the regions where Teslas are most popular, the demographic of people who are purchasing Teslas, cars with similar safety features, and many other factors. Comparing the very tiny slice of the market which drives Teslas against every other car+driver on the road is almost meaningless.
- amalcon 8y ago
  In addition to the confounding variables others have mentioned, I think the most important factor is when autopilot is enabled. If you don't (or can't) use autopilot at night, in inclement weather, or in construction zones, then you'll get into more accidents when not using autopilot -- even if it's a significantly worse driver than you are.

photos_victim 8y ago

How did you conclude this? There are other similarly-priced but more-numerous models of car where literally nobody has ever died after crashing one. Controlling for price (as a proxy for the wealth of the occupants) Tesla has a poor safety record.

beat 8y ago
Cite?
- andrewaylett 8y ago
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/britains-safest-car-revealed-no-road-deaths-16-years/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/britains-safest-... for example: "no drivers or passengers killed inside it in the 16 years it has been on sale", with 50k sold in the UK.
  - ArchTypical 8y ago
    > no drivers or passengers killed inside it To be fair, nobody has been killed inside any driverless car either.

beat 8y ago

Arguably, but it's hard to demonstrate the negative. At best, we can compare Tesla accident rates to those of other vehicles in the same class (luxury sedans). I'm sure you're right, but proving you're right against the naysayers is a different problem.

newnewpdro 8y ago

You're drinking some strong kool-aid.

esalman 8y ago

I was in a statistics class where the Professor was teaching likelihood, then asked if there are cases when we don't want to maximize the likelihood ratio. The answer is when you want to put a limitation on false positive (or negative) detection. You wouldn't vet a system that is susceptible to high false negatives and likely to kill people- no matter how good the accuracy is.

maxerickson 8y ago

You have to compare it to other widely deployed driver assistance, not to the absence of Autopilot.