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Lets examine autopilot's 5 deaths compared to human drivers? There are roughly 3 billion autopilot miles driven [1] and we'll take your 5 deaths as a given [0]

Lets examine autopilot's 5 deaths compared to human drivers? There are roughly 3 billion autopilot miles driven [1] and we'll take your 5 deaths as a given [0]. That's 1.7 deaths per billion miles. Overall US deaths is around 15 per billion miles driven (in 2000, before Tesla) [2] ... around 8x worse than autopilot. Is autopilot saving lives? Expecting zero mishaps is not reasonable because all software has bugs and bugs can be reduced with effort while compute power improves with time. Humans on the other hand will not likely improve. 0. citation needed? 1. https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billion-miles/ https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billio... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...

llukas 6y ago
Your reasoning is broken. Human miles include all conditions/situations. Autopilot disengages whenever it is convenient and human handles all harder situations. How about comparing same type of miles?
- jcims 6y ago
  Most crashes aren't in difficult situations. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
  - close04 6y ago
    Current self driving stats in general are meaningless because all that driving is done under constant human supervision. But if the car drives itself for 20Km and then needs intervention to avoid a fatal crash it will still count as another 20Km of self driving with no incidents. The human saves don't make it into the publicized stats. There are 2 stats that could prove meaningful for this: some average of distance driven between human interventions, and percentage of driving conditions covered. Then compare this to human stats, I'd assume the average human driver might go 10000Km without incident while covering 90% of driving conditions (like everything except extreme weather or road conditions). A self driving car would have to match that. In other words AP only has 5 deaths because those were the only drivers who left it unsupervised. I'd guess that if every car in the world today would suddenly be driven by a computer we'd see worse numbers than with human drivers one way or another (efficiency, deaths, etc.). Self driving today is great as an assist, with the human still fully in control.
- chemmail 6y ago
  People need to lookup the definition of autopilot. It is not self driving.
  - llukas 6y ago
    Simpler option: don't call it autopilot if it is shown that it misleads people.
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      In my 2015 Model S it is called Autosteer in the settings, the manual, and in the instrument cluster when messages appear related to that function.
camjohnson26 6y ago
How many of those 15 deaths are in a car that costs as much as a Tesla, and therefore can be expected to have the same safety features? How many are in 25 year old cars? If you claim that driving a Tesla on autopilot on a freeway is safer than a 30 year old $2000 clunker, I won’t challenge that. If you say it’s safer than a $50,000 Audi that’s highly debatable. Not only that, but how many times would autopilot have caused a fatal accident if the human driver hadn’t intervened? Tons of YouTube examples would suggest quite a few.

llukas 6y ago

Your reasoning is broken. Human miles include all conditions/situations. Autopilot disengages whenever it is convenient and human handles all harder situations. How about comparing same type of miles?

jcims 6y ago
Most crashes aren't in difficult situations. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
- close04 6y ago
  Current self driving stats in general are meaningless because all that driving is done under constant human supervision. But if the car drives itself for 20Km and then needs intervention to avoid a fatal crash it will still count as another 20Km of self driving with no incidents. The human saves don't make it into the publicized stats. There are 2 stats that could prove meaningful for this: some average of distance driven between human interventions, and percentage of driving conditions covered. Then compare this to human stats, I'd assume the average human driver might go 10000Km without incident while covering 90% of driving conditions (like everything except extreme weather or road conditions). A self driving car would have to match that. In other words AP only has 5 deaths because those were the only drivers who left it unsupervised. I'd guess that if every car in the world today would suddenly be driven by a computer we'd see worse numbers than with human drivers one way or another (efficiency, deaths, etc.). Self driving today is great as an assist, with the human still fully in control.
chemmail 6y ago
People need to lookup the definition of autopilot. It is not self driving.
- llukas 6y ago
  Simpler option: don't call it autopilot if it is shown that it misleads people.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    In my 2015 Model S it is called Autosteer in the settings, the manual, and in the instrument cluster when messages appear related to that function.

camjohnson26 6y ago

How many of those 15 deaths are in a car that costs as much as a Tesla, and therefore can be expected to have the same safety features? How many are in 25 year old cars? If you claim that driving a Tesla on autopilot on a freeway is safer than a 30 year old $2000 clunker, I won’t challenge that. If you say it’s safer than a $50,000 Audi that’s highly debatable. Not only that, but how many times would autopilot have caused a fatal accident if the human driver hadn’t intervened? Tons of YouTube examples would suggest quite a few.