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While the potential excites me (self-driving cars can't come fast enough IMHO - I despise driving) I agree. Tesla has been given an incredibly long rope by reg

While the potential excites me (self-driving cars can't come fast enough IMHO - I despise driving) I agree. Tesla has been given an incredibly long rope by regulators and it'll just take a really terrible accident or two to bring it all to a screeching halt. It's hard to imagine Elon not realizing this, but the incessant drive to the endgame may cloud his judgement.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
~33k people a year (About 90 per day) die in car accidents in the US because of humans. It’s us who have been given the long rope There have been four deaths while Autopilot was engaged [1], almost all because the drivers weren’t paying attention. Autopilot has been used for 3 billion miles, 1 billion with Navigate on Autopilot (automatic passing and interchange routing), and 200,000 automated lane changes [2]. Is this not impressive? Yes, self driving is hard. Yes, there will be fatalities due to edge cases. It is unreasonable to confine the tech to a test track until it’s perfect, considering the human incurred death rate as it stands. We should be racing to take the person out of the driver’s seat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatal... [2] https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billion-miles/ https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billio...
- canada_dry 6y ago
  I tend to agree with everything you've said... however... The cold-hard-reality is that if a self-driving car of any make were to careen into a school-bus full of children and burst into flames all automakers would very likely face severe restrictions going forward.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Let’s hope self driving turns the corner before human irrationality holds us back even more than it already does.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      You know, for a long, long time Apple users claimed that Macs were unhackable. That was part of the hype and appeal for a long time. Problem was, Macs didn't reach critical mass in market penetration during those "unhackable years". Once there were enough in the general public to make it worth hacking, people start noticing/realizing that Macs weren't special, just irrelevant for a long time. Same goes for self-driving cars. Critical mass has not been reached, not by a long shot. Most miles driven by autopilot cars have been supervised by either trained or very attentive drivers or even in very controlled environments. In other words, not how autopilot will be used in the real world what so ever. Because that's not the point. Either the car drives by itself or the person is driving. Not half here, half there. This is where the fear and hesitation exists. Will autopilot be inevitable? Probably. But Silicon Valley's cult like attitude to "break things fast" is not the attitude I want behind the software that is going to drive me to work or make me headless like the dude that crashed into a semitruck in Florida. At 33, I'm perfectly good at driving and will place my own life in my hands if "break things fast" is going to be their little bonfire chant. Someone else's idea of "the greater good" doesn't always live up to expectations.
- solidasparagus 6y ago
  > Yes, there will be fatalities due to edge cases. If the public thinks this is how self-driving car work, I think self-driving will have a very hard time becoming popular and avoiding extreme regulation.
- erk__ 6y ago
  Who should be at fault in accidents? Tesla? The owner of the car? And if your death rate is correct and they will scale you would still have around 30 deaths every day. Automated driving is not the end all. I don't think we should put it into wide usage hastely for highway driving it may work, but it gets a lot worse as soon as you are off the high way I would believe.
- thebruce87m 6y ago
  The stats you give for human-driven deaths are for all conditions and all roads. Autopilot does not work in all conditions and all roads, so it’s not really a fair comparison. Further to that, human deaths will be skewed towards drunk drivers and other “bad” drivers. Autopilot deaths will be “random”, so public perception will be worse even if the figures were exactly the same. The other problem is complacency - the Apple software engineer had 2 seconds from his Tesla leaving the road to it hitting the gore point - and this was a bug he was aware of. If the car looks like it’s 100% infallible then peoples attention will naturally waver. How long does it take to react to a situation? Feel the weight of the steering again? Calculate the appropriate correction? I think the system that replaces human drivers has to be 100 times better in terms of fatalities in order to be accepted by society.
  - chub500 6y ago
    Although I am concerned about safety and deeply skeptical of the Tesla self-driving claims, if the stats GP presented are to be believed at face value then a lot of your points are irrelevant. While society may not accept self driving until it is 100x safer it would be to their own deadly detriment... human beings are extremely bad at rationally managing risk.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

toomuchtodo 6y ago

~33k people a year (About 90 per day) die in car accidents in the US because of humans. It’s us who have been given the long rope There have been four deaths while Autopilot was engaged [1], almost all because the drivers weren’t paying attention. Autopilot has been used for 3 billion miles, 1 billion with Navigate on Autopilot (automatic passing and interchange routing), and 200,000 automated lane changes [2]. Is this not impressive? Yes, self driving is hard. Yes, there will be fatalities due to edge cases. It is unreasonable to confine the tech to a test track until it’s perfect, considering the human incurred death rate as it stands. We should be racing to take the person out of the driver’s seat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatal... [2] https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billion-miles/ https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billio...

canada_dry 6y ago
I tend to agree with everything you've said... however... The cold-hard-reality is that if a self-driving car of any make were to careen into a school-bus full of children and burst into flames all automakers would very likely face severe restrictions going forward.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Let’s hope self driving turns the corner before human irrationality holds us back even more than it already does.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    You know, for a long, long time Apple users claimed that Macs were unhackable. That was part of the hype and appeal for a long time. Problem was, Macs didn't reach critical mass in market penetration during those "unhackable years". Once there were enough in the general public to make it worth hacking, people start noticing/realizing that Macs weren't special, just irrelevant for a long time. Same goes for self-driving cars. Critical mass has not been reached, not by a long shot. Most miles driven by autopilot cars have been supervised by either trained or very attentive drivers or even in very controlled environments. In other words, not how autopilot will be used in the real world what so ever. Because that's not the point. Either the car drives by itself or the person is driving. Not half here, half there. This is where the fear and hesitation exists. Will autopilot be inevitable? Probably. But Silicon Valley's cult like attitude to "break things fast" is not the attitude I want behind the software that is going to drive me to work or make me headless like the dude that crashed into a semitruck in Florida. At 33, I'm perfectly good at driving and will place my own life in my hands if "break things fast" is going to be their little bonfire chant. Someone else's idea of "the greater good" doesn't always live up to expectations.
solidasparagus 6y ago
> Yes, there will be fatalities due to edge cases. If the public thinks this is how self-driving car work, I think self-driving will have a very hard time becoming popular and avoiding extreme regulation.
erk__ 6y ago
Who should be at fault in accidents? Tesla? The owner of the car? And if your death rate is correct and they will scale you would still have around 30 deaths every day. Automated driving is not the end all. I don't think we should put it into wide usage hastely for highway driving it may work, but it gets a lot worse as soon as you are off the high way I would believe.
thebruce87m 6y ago
The stats you give for human-driven deaths are for all conditions and all roads. Autopilot does not work in all conditions and all roads, so it’s not really a fair comparison. Further to that, human deaths will be skewed towards drunk drivers and other “bad” drivers. Autopilot deaths will be “random”, so public perception will be worse even if the figures were exactly the same. The other problem is complacency - the Apple software engineer had 2 seconds from his Tesla leaving the road to it hitting the gore point - and this was a bug he was aware of. If the car looks like it’s 100% infallible then peoples attention will naturally waver. How long does it take to react to a situation? Feel the weight of the steering again? Calculate the appropriate correction? I think the system that replaces human drivers has to be 100 times better in terms of fatalities in order to be accepted by society.
- chub500 6y ago
  Although I am concerned about safety and deeply skeptical of the Tesla self-driving claims, if the stats GP presented are to be believed at face value then a lot of your points are irrelevant. While society may not accept self driving until it is 100x safer it would be to their own deadly detriment... human beings are extremely bad at rationally managing risk.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]