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Scary... software developers at these robotic cars and their mistakes/bugs aren’t just going to bring down a business application(lose money) but kill their cus

Scary... software developers at these robotic cars and their mistakes/bugs aren’t just going to bring down a business application(lose money) but kill their customers and innocent drivers. Progress to where it’s safer is going to be a killer and we the drivers on the road are unwilling guinea pigs to billionaires’ dreams/goals.

nathanaldensr 8y ago
Unwilling? Don't buy a Tesla. Don't believe the hype. It's that simple. Granted, there is nothing stopping any ECU from killing you, but I'd trust a company like Honda way before Tesla.
- Tomte 8y ago
  I generally have zero interest in cars and don't follow the new models, but my impression from articles I've seen in the last years is that Volvo is actually a top contender for driver assistant systems (when you don't fool yourself into thinking you have an autopilot, but you really want sensible safety augmentation features). Is that impression accurate?
  - mongol 8y ago
    I have no idea. Volvo certainly has the culture to do something good out of it. But do they have the money and resources required? Today they are owned by Chinese Geely. I don't know what partnerships and capital they can work with to compete with the top contenders (who I assume have Silicon Valley capital behind them)
    - sangnoir 8y ago
      Geely has invested a lot into Volvo[1], and Volvo are innovating in interesting ways[2] . I would choose the electric Polestar 2 over a Tesla in the same price-bracket due to Volvo's culture of safety. Hopefully the cheaper versions will be released soon. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-24/volvo-is-better-than-ever-thanks-to-this-chinese-billionaire https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-24/volvo-is-... 2. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-polestar-reveals-its-battery-ev-the-polestar-2/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-polestar-...
  - ancientworldnow 8y ago
    Waymo and Cadillac Super Cruise are generally considered the market leaders.
  - ronaru 8y ago
    GM cruise is the best based on this article, when you take "keeping driver engaged" as one of the criteria: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cadillac-tops-tesla-in-automated-systems-ranking/ https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cadillac-... Volvo's tech is last among the ones compared.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Tesla crashes can injure people who don't drive a Tesla themselves.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    So can Honda crashes.
    - yborg 8y ago
      Honda isn't experimenting on the public at large with unproven technology. One of their suppliers did, and ended up bankrupt as a result.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "Unwilling? Don't buy a Tesla." That doesn't protect me from being killed by a Tesla. I am pretty neutral on the topic but I am getting the feeling that they are in danger of pushing out half baked stuff like we tend to do in software. For most things like software this is OK but maybe not for things that are moving at high speeds.
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    Reminder that it has been and still is the norm for the last half century for 30k people to die in car accidents each year. Many more injured and disabled. Better yet, texting while driving increases the risk of an accident while driving 23x
trhway 8y ago
> we the drivers on the road are unwilling guinea pigs to billionaires’ dreams/goals. we'll adapt, ie. adjust our behavior to account for that new factor. Police for example have already learnt how to pretty safely stop a Tesla on autopilot with a driver sleeping behind the wheel and not reacting to any signals (because of being deadly drunk for example).
- benj111 8y ago
  I like comments where you can't tell if the author is defending something, or absolutely condemning it.
breakyerself 8y ago
Willing guinea pig here. I'm going to do my best not to die, but I'm excited about this tech and willing to deal with the drawbacks of being an early adopter.
- lambda_lover 8y ago
  It's great that you're willing to die for Tesla's profit, but you realize that autonomous vehicle-induced crashes affect everyone on the road? Even someone who doesn't consent to Tesla's TOS is still sharing the road with potentially dangerous software. Granted, individual drivers are awful enough that it probably doesn't make that huge a difference in danger. But would you still feel the way if a family member was killed in an accident where their human-controlled car was rear-ended by a Tesla?
  - jstanley 8y ago
    I don't think he said he's willing to die. He said he's willing to test it, and presumably he'll continue concentrating and will manually take over if the car does something dangerous.
    - FireBeyond 8y ago
      He came fairly close, honestly. "I'm going to do my best not to die, but I'm excited about this tech" is recognizing, and accepting that death is a possibility as a result of Tesla's self driving process.
      - breakyerself 8y ago
        There's risk of dying every time I get behind the wheel of any car. There's no benefit to pretending real risk doesn't exist in any given scenario. I'm confident that I can be attentive and cautious enough using this tech to keep the risk similar to what it would be just driving normally.
    - atomicUpdate 8y ago
      That's assuming he's always able to intervene before it kills him. The argument is that he may not always be able to or prevent AP from behaving erratically enough that results in killing someone else (while he saves his own life).
jseliger 8y ago
Right now 30,000-40,000 people die in car crashes annually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in.... And those are just fatalities: hundreds of thousands more are injured. How do we deal with those presently? We just accept that amateurs should be hauling around at high speeds in several thousand pounds of missile. The most relevant question is whether Tesla AP is safer or less safe than typical amateur drivers per 1,000 vehicle miles driven. I don't know the answer to that question.

nathanaldensr 8y ago

Unwilling? Don't buy a Tesla. Don't believe the hype. It's that simple. Granted, there is nothing stopping any ECU from killing you, but I'd trust a company like Honda way before Tesla.

Tomte 8y ago
I generally have zero interest in cars and don't follow the new models, but my impression from articles I've seen in the last years is that Volvo is actually a top contender for driver assistant systems (when you don't fool yourself into thinking you have an autopilot, but you really want sensible safety augmentation features). Is that impression accurate?
- mongol 8y ago
  I have no idea. Volvo certainly has the culture to do something good out of it. But do they have the money and resources required? Today they are owned by Chinese Geely. I don't know what partnerships and capital they can work with to compete with the top contenders (who I assume have Silicon Valley capital behind them)
  - sangnoir 8y ago
    Geely has invested a lot into Volvo[1], and Volvo are innovating in interesting ways[2] . I would choose the electric Polestar 2 over a Tesla in the same price-bracket due to Volvo's culture of safety. Hopefully the cheaper versions will be released soon. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-24/volvo-is-better-than-ever-thanks-to-this-chinese-billionaire https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-24/volvo-is-... 2. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-polestar-reveals-its-battery-ev-the-polestar-2/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-polestar-...
- ancientworldnow 8y ago
  Waymo and Cadillac Super Cruise are generally considered the market leaders.
- ronaru 8y ago
  GM cruise is the best based on this article, when you take "keeping driver engaged" as one of the criteria: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cadillac-tops-tesla-in-automated-systems-ranking/ https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cadillac-... Volvo's tech is last among the ones compared.
adrianN 8y ago
Tesla crashes can injure people who don't drive a Tesla themselves.
- jstanley 8y ago
  So can Honda crashes.
  - yborg 8y ago
    Honda isn't experimenting on the public at large with unproven technology. One of their suppliers did, and ended up bankrupt as a result.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"Unwilling? Don't buy a Tesla." That doesn't protect me from being killed by a Tesla. I am pretty neutral on the topic but I am getting the feeling that they are in danger of pushing out half baked stuff like we tend to do in software. For most things like software this is OK but maybe not for things that are moving at high speeds.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  Reminder that it has been and still is the norm for the last half century for 30k people to die in car accidents each year. Many more injured and disabled. Better yet, texting while driving increases the risk of an accident while driving 23x

trhway 8y ago

> we the drivers on the road are unwilling guinea pigs to billionaires’ dreams/goals. we'll adapt, ie. adjust our behavior to account for that new factor. Police for example have already learnt how to pretty safely stop a Tesla on autopilot with a driver sleeping behind the wheel and not reacting to any signals (because of being deadly drunk for example).

benj111 8y ago
I like comments where you can't tell if the author is defending something, or absolutely condemning it.

breakyerself 8y ago

Willing guinea pig here. I'm going to do my best not to die, but I'm excited about this tech and willing to deal with the drawbacks of being an early adopter.

lambda_lover 8y ago
It's great that you're willing to die for Tesla's profit, but you realize that autonomous vehicle-induced crashes affect everyone on the road? Even someone who doesn't consent to Tesla's TOS is still sharing the road with potentially dangerous software. Granted, individual drivers are awful enough that it probably doesn't make that huge a difference in danger. But would you still feel the way if a family member was killed in an accident where their human-controlled car was rear-ended by a Tesla?
- jstanley 8y ago
  I don't think he said he's willing to die. He said he's willing to test it, and presumably he'll continue concentrating and will manually take over if the car does something dangerous.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    He came fairly close, honestly. "I'm going to do my best not to die, but I'm excited about this tech" is recognizing, and accepting that death is a possibility as a result of Tesla's self driving process.
    - breakyerself 8y ago
      There's risk of dying every time I get behind the wheel of any car. There's no benefit to pretending real risk doesn't exist in any given scenario. I'm confident that I can be attentive and cautious enough using this tech to keep the risk similar to what it would be just driving normally.
  - atomicUpdate 8y ago
    That's assuming he's always able to intervene before it kills him. The argument is that he may not always be able to or prevent AP from behaving erratically enough that results in killing someone else (while he saves his own life).

jseliger 8y ago

Right now 30,000-40,000 people die in car crashes annually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in.... And those are just fatalities: hundreds of thousands more are injured. How do we deal with those presently? We just accept that amateurs should be hauling around at high speeds in several thousand pounds of missile. The most relevant question is whether Tesla AP is safer or less safe than typical amateur drivers per 1,000 vehicle miles driven. I don't know the answer to that question.