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There are only two options here— either you can root against Tesla, or you can be indifferent to the death of Walter Huang. Tesla has been irresponsible with th

by nrook 7y ago

There are only two options here— either you can root against Tesla, or you can be indifferent to the death of Walter Huang. Tesla has been irresponsible with their rollout of self-driving technology, and someone has died as a result. There's nothing wrong with rooting for other entrants in the self-driving technology space, like Waymo, which aren't willing to grease their path to market dominance with the blood of innocents.

leesec 7y ago
You're ignoring lives saved and potential future lives saved.
- Fins 7y ago
  Can you (or anyone, really) show that there were, or were not, any lives saved? That there were people killed is quite easy to show, but showing that there were crashes prevented... that does not even seem provable.
  - mlindner 7y ago
    Youtube is full of crashes prevented. Spending a few minutes on Google would show you otherwise. If you're not seeing it it's because you have refused to look. You already made up your opinion.
    - Fins 7y ago
      Right, right. And also I am shorting 27 thimgamajillions of Tesla stock, of course. You can't show (least of all on some fanboy Youtube video) that AutoPilot had prevented a crash, compared to a normal person just driving a car. A Tesla crashing into a firetruck -- that you can show. What you could show would be crash statistics over a significant population of similar cars, in similar conditions, driving on similar roads. These statistics don't seem to show any safety benefit to Tesla, but believers will believe.
sabertoothed 7y ago
I disagree with respect to one point: The death is insufficient evidence. What matters is relative safety (compared to non-self-driving cars). You cannot only count the hits but ignore misses. Or in this context: Avoided crashes need to be considered as well.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Not really though. Human drivers both crash and avoid crashes all the time. In the instances where a fatal crash happens, there is a party at fault and they are held liable under the law. The same logic applies here. If the software caused the crash by being imperfect, then Tesla is liable. It is doubly bad if Tesla caused more people to rely on the software in a perilous manner by overstating the software's safety/feature-completeness. We could argue all day about an ideal future where no human drivers or accidents exist and how we get there, but today Tesla has blood on its hands.
  - sabertoothed 7y ago
    Yes, really, though. If autopilot (or similar system) are safer than humans, then this should get reflected in the statistics. Just because people die in a crash with a self-driving car (even if that software was at fault), is NOT sufficient evidence. What matters is the net effect!
  - sabertoothed 7y ago
    After another read of your post: You seem to argue a totally different point. I did NOT say Tesla was not liable if their AP causes a crash in a fully self-driving mode. They are. My point in the original post was a different one.
    - defterGoose 7y ago
      It seems from your original comment and your reply that you're arguing that liability can be discharged if the AP system has fewer crashes per capital than humans do. You can't argue relative liability based on statistics. That's like me murdering someone and then arguing that I'm not liable because it just so happens that I didn't increase the per capita murder rate over last year. Now, whether Tesla has any claim that their liability can be discharged because the operator wasn't following legally binding instructions not to operate in that way is a different issue, and one I'm not privy to.
collias 7y ago
It's possible to both think their branding of "autopilot" is irresponsible, and also think that they make great cars, self-driving tech aside. As a side note, there's an article every time someone is killed in a Tesla, but there are never (rarely?) articles when someone is saved by one.
codyb 7y ago
Not to be indifferent to Huang’s death, but people die in cars all the time. I’m more interested in whether or not Tesla’s autopilot is better on total deaths per X miles than human drivers. I guess this is one of those derail the train or kill the man questions, is society willing to kill a man to save thousands of lives in the future? Of course it’s not quite as clearcut since we’re not certain self driving cars will ever be safer than human drivers (although my intuition is that they will be since they won’t get drunk, fall asleep, or text at the wheel). And of course comparisons are a bit difficult since humans are of course at level 5 autonomy and statistics are generated from those conditions, and of course Tesla is not and stats won’t be. Interesting stuff.
- Fins 7y ago
  People die all the time, but when they get in the car, they generally do not agree to be beta testers for an FSD system that one day might be as safe as human driver. Or not.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
eloff 7y ago
You still have to babysit autopilot. Walter Huang knew his Tesla had a problem on that part of the road and still allowed himself to be distracted when passing that area. Looks like a case of pilot error while operating an imperfect system. I don't think the company is liable since autopilot wasn't recommended to be used unsupervised and its flaws are readily acknowledged.
CriticalCathed 7y ago
You mean the guy who told people autopilot had trouble in that spot, repeatedly, and then negligently caused his own death by not paying attention in that very same spot? No one deserves to die, but he is responsible for his own death.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mlindner 7y ago
Thousands die every day from crashes of cars that people actually drive. Trading one set of deaths for a different set of deaths with less people is a morally correct position to hold.

by nrook 7y ago

leesec 7y ago

You're ignoring lives saved and potential future lives saved.

Fins 7y ago
Can you (or anyone, really) show that there were, or were not, any lives saved? That there were people killed is quite easy to show, but showing that there were crashes prevented... that does not even seem provable.
- mlindner 7y ago
  Youtube is full of crashes prevented. Spending a few minutes on Google would show you otherwise. If you're not seeing it it's because you have refused to look. You already made up your opinion.
  - Fins 7y ago
    Right, right. And also I am shorting 27 thimgamajillions of Tesla stock, of course. You can't show (least of all on some fanboy Youtube video) that AutoPilot had prevented a crash, compared to a normal person just driving a car. A Tesla crashing into a firetruck -- that you can show. What you could show would be crash statistics over a significant population of similar cars, in similar conditions, driving on similar roads. These statistics don't seem to show any safety benefit to Tesla, but believers will believe.

sabertoothed 7y ago

I disagree with respect to one point: The death is insufficient evidence. What matters is relative safety (compared to non-self-driving cars). You cannot only count the hits but ignore misses. Or in this context: Avoided crashes need to be considered as well.

defterGoose 7y ago
Not really though. Human drivers both crash and avoid crashes all the time. In the instances where a fatal crash happens, there is a party at fault and they are held liable under the law. The same logic applies here. If the software caused the crash by being imperfect, then Tesla is liable. It is doubly bad if Tesla caused more people to rely on the software in a perilous manner by overstating the software's safety/feature-completeness. We could argue all day about an ideal future where no human drivers or accidents exist and how we get there, but today Tesla has blood on its hands.
- sabertoothed 7y ago
  Yes, really, though. If autopilot (or similar system) are safer than humans, then this should get reflected in the statistics. Just because people die in a crash with a self-driving car (even if that software was at fault), is NOT sufficient evidence. What matters is the net effect!
- sabertoothed 7y ago
  After another read of your post: You seem to argue a totally different point. I did NOT say Tesla was not liable if their AP causes a crash in a fully self-driving mode. They are. My point in the original post was a different one.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    It seems from your original comment and your reply that you're arguing that liability can be discharged if the AP system has fewer crashes per capital than humans do. You can't argue relative liability based on statistics. That's like me murdering someone and then arguing that I'm not liable because it just so happens that I didn't increase the per capita murder rate over last year. Now, whether Tesla has any claim that their liability can be discharged because the operator wasn't following legally binding instructions not to operate in that way is a different issue, and one I'm not privy to.

collias 7y ago

It's possible to both think their branding of "autopilot" is irresponsible, and also think that they make great cars, self-driving tech aside. As a side note, there's an article every time someone is killed in a Tesla, but there are never (rarely?) articles when someone is saved by one.

codyb 7y ago

Not to be indifferent to Huang’s death, but people die in cars all the time. I’m more interested in whether or not Tesla’s autopilot is better on total deaths per X miles than human drivers. I guess this is one of those derail the train or kill the man questions, is society willing to kill a man to save thousands of lives in the future? Of course it’s not quite as clearcut since we’re not certain self driving cars will ever be safer than human drivers (although my intuition is that they will be since they won’t get drunk, fall asleep, or text at the wheel). And of course comparisons are a bit difficult since humans are of course at level 5 autonomy and statistics are generated from those conditions, and of course Tesla is not and stats won’t be. Interesting stuff.

Fins 7y ago
People die all the time, but when they get in the car, they generally do not agree to be beta testers for an FSD system that one day might be as safe as human driver. Or not.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

eloff 7y ago

You still have to babysit autopilot. Walter Huang knew his Tesla had a problem on that part of the road and still allowed himself to be distracted when passing that area. Looks like a case of pilot error while operating an imperfect system. I don't think the company is liable since autopilot wasn't recommended to be used unsupervised and its flaws are readily acknowledged.

CriticalCathed 7y ago

You mean the guy who told people autopilot had trouble in that spot, repeatedly, and then negligently caused his own death by not paying attention in that very same spot? No one deserves to die, but he is responsible for his own death.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mlindner 7y ago

Thousands die every day from crashes of cars that people actually drive. Trading one set of deaths for a different set of deaths with less people is a morally correct position to hold.