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I'm suprised that he got 9 years in prison and was convicted of 2nd degree murder for this. What he was doing was definitely strange and ended up causing someo
by dx87 7y ago
I'm suprised that he got 9 years in prison and was convicted of 2nd degree murder for this. What he was doing was definitely strange and ended up causing someone's death, but I haven't seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail when people died because they're beta testing autonomous cars on public roads. The double standards are crazy.
- jessaustin 7y agoHe's a weird guy, which means certain jurors will be biased against him. He's also an asshole, which also means certain jurors will be biased against him. Also he killed someone, even if out of negligence rather than spite. This doesn't seem like a giant miscarriage of justice.
- mars4rp 7y agoLet's put some corporate officer in trial and see how jurors react to it! but we never do that!
- rwmj 7y agoCorporate officers of companies go on trial all the time. In the UK it even happens for manslaughter - you can be held responsible if someone working for you dies if you didn't take the right precautions.
- mlevental 7y agohe didn't testify
- jessaustin 7y agoOK, if they didn't hear him talk they might not have picked up the "asshole" vibe, although they might have made some assumptions in that vein about any BTC millionaire. Any testimony about his actions or public statements would have transmitted the "weird" vibe loud and clear.
- debt 7y ago“He's a weird guy” He was building a series of tunnels beneath a bomb shelter to protect himself from an impending nuclear war with North Korea. He’s not weird, he’s crazy.
- jessaustin 7y agoIf I had enough money I would definitely be building weird shit which could include tunnels. I already like caves. I don't particularly care about DPRK, but I'm sure normals would find something wanting in my motivations. The problem is not that he built some tunnels. The problem is that he lethally endangered his employee. Rich people make tasteless decisions all the time (for proof, drive through any tony suburb). It is important that their tastelessness not be negligent.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tedivm 7y agoIf comma.ai had killed someone while illegally testing their self driving cars I would expect someone to go to jail. If Tesla and Uber are following the laws regarding testing then they probably wouldn't be held liable. I do think there's a huge double standard where companies get treated better than individuals, but I also think that this guy ignored enough regulations regarding construction that he should definitely be held liable for this death.
- ghaff 7y agoWell, you can't put corporations in jail though you can most certainly fine them. Passing through criminal liabilities can circumvent one of the purposes of corporations (though those should properly apply in extreme cases). I expect that a lot of people here would prefer not to be personally liable because some bug they were responsible for caused a significant financial loss much less an injury even though they worked for a company. If you are an individual, you should probably set up a corporate structure and take out insurance.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tedivm 7y agoYou're confusing two very different issues- civil and criminal liability. Corporations protect their shareholders and officers from a variety of civil liability claims, as the corporation itself takes on that responsibility. Criminal liability does not get shielded by a corporation. Your example about a software bug is a great one- that would clearly be a civil issue in most cases, but in the case that the law was broken in the process (say, a car company explicitly programs their vehicles to have lower emissions during testing than they do in real world scenarios) then you should expect some jailtime[1]. So going back to my example- if people follow the law but kill someone during testing (such as with Uber) then they probably shouldn't be held criminally liable, but if they are breaking the law (like comma.ai did) and kill someone as a result I would be shocked if they weren't held criminally liable. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16743308/volkswagen-oliver-schmidt-sentence-emissions-scandal-prison https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16743308/volkswagen-olive...
- drugme 7y agoI haven't seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail when people died because they're beta testing autonomous cars on public roads. As cold and cynical it is, what the self-driving car "pioneers" are doing -- it's not nearly as reckless (and flat-out clueless) as what this guy did.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoIt is far more reckless to expose everyone in the public to your murder machines than one hapless contractor. We don't allow people to drive without seatbelts because of the risk of them losing control and causing avoidable fatalities but half-baked autonomous machines vaguely guessing about what might be in front of them are perfectly ok?
- toomuchtodo 7y agoDo Teslas on autopilot kill more people than regular cars? Murder machines seems a bit hyperbole, no? Disclaimer: Written from my Model S at a Supercharger, having driven over 10k miles on autopilot/navigate on autopilot in the last 6 months
- paulcole 7y agoWeird rich guys go to jail. Really weird really rich guys pay fines.
- wil421 7y agoRobert Durst comes to mind. The Jinx on HBO is a great miniseries about him.
- aiyodev 7y agoHe was just a millionaire. Musk is a billionaire. The first letter in those words makes all the difference.
- codezero 7y agoHe was employing this person, which I think entitles the person to some protections with respect to the work being done. The particular malice here, I believe, was that he was texted about an emergency, and did not respond in a timely manner.
- pandapower2 7y ago>urinating and defecating into a bucket Beckwitt lowered down to him. Does that mean that he was unable to get out of the tunnel by himself? If the poor guy was trapped in a hole with no way out then you could argue that this goes beyond being a simple accident.
- teh_infallible 7y agoYeah, this is where the story took a turn for me as well.
- jccalhoun 7y agoI listened to the Dark net diaries episode mentioned in the thread and according to it, the guy basically lived down there for days at a time.
- bobsil1 7y ago>beta testing autonomous cars on public roads Auto-steer is just one step above radar cruise control, which is also semi-autonomous and hugely buggy. Shipping cars come with radar cruise which suddenly turns off below 25 mph, presumably because radar processing is imprecise with position. No one is crusading to ban it. Furthermore, using a massive training set comparing against human interventions is precisely how you get up the safety curve given the current tech approach, which will never suffice for full autonomy sans humans.
- jaimex2 7y agoTesla driving assistance features work as described. The only thing crazy here is your obsession with that company.
- sjg007 7y agoDid you even read the article? If you want to build secret tunnels under your house, employ a licensed contractor and several engineers. Have them sign NDAs even.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoI know you mean well but that attitude is basically equivalent to "be rich enough to pay other people to have the liability or don't bother" in practice.
- dllthomas 7y agoBut... people with professional training around managing exactly that kind of liability, at least in theory.
- sjg007 7y agoUmm.. how about we start with, get a permit and adhere to building code and the law.
- jessaustin 7y agoThis is the only way this can work. If you want to build and occupy your own construction, that's great. May you only cut the corners that won't result in your own painful death. If you want to pay others to labor under your direction, you have to get that inspected. I say this as someone who does a great deal of unprofessional carpentry, electrical work, mechanical repair, excavation, plumbing, etc. for myself and for family members. I would never have gone willingly into that hole. I certainly would never have asked anyone else to do so. No unexploited worker would have done this work.
- dfeojm-zlib 7y agoReminds me of the underground structures Colin Furze has conjured up: - an underground multi-level beach hut: https://youtu.be/AojTrc_UMaM https://youtu.be/AojTrc_UMaM - apocalypse bunker under his shed: https://youtu.be/KO25JYAaJC0 https://youtu.be/KO25JYAaJC0
- King-Aaron 7y agoSay what you will about Musk, but I haven't heard reports of him installing toilet-buckets in their factories yet and lowering them down to employees with ropes.
- doingmyting 7y agoThat would be silly. Obviously they'd be self lowering buckets
- rchaud 7y agoProbably because they use mandatory arbitration.
- irjustin 7y agoThe list of differences between the given situations of Tesla/Uber vs Beckwitt is huge. To simply all those considerations down to "double standards is crazy" literally puts them on the same plane of judgable circumstances. You have something against the pursuit for automotive driving which is understandable/admirable, but to do so like this is cheapening both sides.
- qtplatypus 7y agoThe thing I see is that he wasn't really doing anything strange. Building structures and digging tunnels that humanity has been doing for a very long time. There exists laws, regulations and engineering knowledge developed over thousands of years to ensure that these activities are safe. In order for this to happen he had ignore this body of safe practice knowledge that has been built up. Safety regulations are written in blood and to ensure that more blood isn't spilt unsafe practices that result in death have to be punished. I don't think that there is an equivalent with the autonomous cars issue. It is a young field and we still don't know what the acceptable practices are in it.