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No, it's still the issue. If there's a bug in the software code for a programmable pacemaker, it doesn't matter if the fundamental design is flawed. For governm

• slg 8y ago
  Ok, but a lot of people are arguing something along the lines of "there is a bug in the pacemaker, let's take take out everyone's pacemakers". I am not saying we shouldn't be critical of Tesla or hold them accountable for their product. My point is simply that their product doesn't have to be infallible for it to still be an improvement over the current solution.
  • gamblor956 8y ago
    A pacemaker has objective improvements over the alternative, namely, death. So if a pacemaker has a bug, it's still overwhelmingly better than the baseline scenario of "no pacemakers." A self-driving Tesla is not objectively better than a regular, human-driven car. The jury's still out on whether any self-driving car is even as good as the average human driver, so if one of them has a bug that causes serious accidents in reproducible situations, that's not better than the baseline situation it's being compared to.
    • jimktrains2 8y ago
      > So if a pacemaker has a bug, it's still overwhelmingly better than the baseline scenario of "no pacemakers." Unless it goes of when it's not needed and kills you.
      • yellowapple 8y ago
        Right, but the probability of you dying because you do have a pacemaker is (in the situations for which a pacemaker is prescribed) far less than the probability of you dying because you don't have a pacemaker. The same cannot yet be said about "self-driving" cars.
        • jimktrains2 8y ago
          > Right, but the probability of you dying because you do have a pacemaker is (in the situations for which a pacemaker is prescribed) far less than the probability of you dying because you don't have a pacemaker. That assumes the pacemaker works more often than it doesn't. (Which is the case now.) It's an unstated assumption that doesn't always apply when generalizing your example.
          • kilotaras 8y ago
            No it doesn't assume that. We don't install pacemakers to everyone at birth. Even if pacemaker fails 90% of the time 90% chance of death is better than a 100% without it.
            • jimktrains2 8y ago
              You're assuming "fails" only accounts for false negatives. False positives are a thing. If there was a 90% chance of a pacemaker going off when it wasn't needed, they wouldn't be used as it'd cause nearly as meany deaths as it prevents, assuming no false negatives.
  • mannykannot 8y ago
    Another reason pacemakers are not comparable is that pacemakers do not present anything like the potential threat to third parties that self-driving cars do. Two reasons we can say that with confidence is that, with pacemakers, the scenarios are simpler and we have good statistical data.
    • lightwin 8y ago
      >> Another reason pacemakers are not comparable is that pacemakers do not present anything like the potential threat to third parties that self-driving cars do. Unless the person wearing pacemaker is driving a non-self-driving car.
      • mannykannot 8y ago
        As I wrote, specifically because I knew someone would make this reply, in this case we have adequate statistics to make a good estimate of the minuscule risk.