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That’s one of those thorny AI-human problems, though — if I crash 1 in 10 drives, it’s my fault, and therefore much easier to rationalize to be, well, not my fa

by ketzo 8y ago

That’s one of those thorny AI-human problems, though — if I crash 1 in 10 drives, it’s my fault, and therefore much easier to rationalize to be, well, not my fault. If my Tesla crashes 1 in 100 drives, it’s a faulty machine and an obvious death trap.

slg 8y ago
It is a classic trolley problem. Is it worth killing a group of innocent people if it will save a larger group of innocent people? I can certainly see why people might be pushing for caution against Tesla since we don't know the size of either of those groups.
- tim333 8y ago
  It could theoretically be a trolley problem. In practice Tesla are probably not that safe if you compare them driving themselves on freeways to humans driving under the same conditions.
  - btilly 8y ago
    I was going to point you to a study showing that autosteer reduced accidents by 40%, but Google told me that this was recently shown to be wrong. In fact it increased accidents by 60%. See https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-tesla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t... for details and verification.
    - slg 8y ago
      The the paragraph directly after that 60% number: >So does that mean that Autosteer actually makes crashes 59 percent more likely? Probably not. Those 5,714 vehicles represent only a small portion of Tesla's fleet, and there's no way to know if they're representative. And that's the point: it's reckless to try to draw conclusions from such flawed data. NHTSA should have either asked Tesla for more data or left that calculation out of its report entirely. I will go back to my original statement at the start of this thread. No one in these comments has the data to say definitively whether Autopilot is safer than a human driver. I am skeptical that Tesla even has enough data for that. But I am also skeptical of people who take that unknown and the occasional anecdotal data point like the above video as proof that Autopilot is inherently less safe than humans.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Tesla turned over the best data set to the NHTSA. They had more data on Autopilot usage and chose not to turn it over. It's thus fair to assume that the data they did not provide would not have benefited the company. So if even the Tesla-provided data set shows Tesla is worse than a normal driver, then it's logical to assume that a full data set would show the same--or worse.
gamblor956 8y ago
If you crash 1 in 10 drives you have no business being on the road. Most people can drive for years without even having a single, minor accident. If Tesla crashes 1 in 100 drives, it's absolutely a death trap since that's still an obscenely bad accident rate.

by ketzo 8y ago

slg 8y ago

It is a classic trolley problem. Is it worth killing a group of innocent people if it will save a larger group of innocent people? I can certainly see why people might be pushing for caution against Tesla since we don't know the size of either of those groups.

tim333 8y ago
It could theoretically be a trolley problem. In practice Tesla are probably not that safe if you compare them driving themselves on freeways to humans driving under the same conditions.
- btilly 8y ago
  I was going to point you to a study showing that autosteer reduced accidents by 40%, but Google told me that this was recently shown to be wrong. In fact it increased accidents by 60%. See https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-tesla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t... for details and verification.
  - slg 8y ago
    The the paragraph directly after that 60% number: >So does that mean that Autosteer actually makes crashes 59 percent more likely? Probably not. Those 5,714 vehicles represent only a small portion of Tesla's fleet, and there's no way to know if they're representative. And that's the point: it's reckless to try to draw conclusions from such flawed data. NHTSA should have either asked Tesla for more data or left that calculation out of its report entirely. I will go back to my original statement at the start of this thread. No one in these comments has the data to say definitively whether Autopilot is safer than a human driver. I am skeptical that Tesla even has enough data for that. But I am also skeptical of people who take that unknown and the occasional anecdotal data point like the above video as proof that Autopilot is inherently less safe than humans.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Tesla turned over the best data set to the NHTSA. They had more data on Autopilot usage and chose not to turn it over. It's thus fair to assume that the data they did not provide would not have benefited the company. So if even the Tesla-provided data set shows Tesla is worse than a normal driver, then it's logical to assume that a full data set would show the same--or worse.

gamblor956 8y ago

If you crash 1 in 10 drives you have no business being on the road. Most people can drive for years without even having a single, minor accident. If Tesla crashes 1 in 100 drives, it's absolutely a death trap since that's still an obscenely bad accident rate.