5 ms·

Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. Either you're selling something and taking some responsibility for certain failure

Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. Either you're selling something and taking some responsibility for certain failures, or it's research that you don't want people to use on the road. This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. Basically, "don't use this on the road" wink wink, but we have millions of miles driven on it and obviously expect you to do so. I'd think they'd be better off with some sort of honest policy around this that they could actually defend, but I am not a lawyer.

Closi 6y ago
It’s because the standard product doesn’t have autopilot, they sell a driver assistance tool. The tool they sell does not have autopilot. The device is open, and you can flash with their open source code from GitHub to give you hacky autopilot. This is how they get around the legal issue. It’s like a “we sell you a legal product. We advise you don’t flash this code on it which we are hosting on GitHub wink wink”
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Curious to see if a court would buy that argument.
- Pasorrijer 6y ago
  Reminds me of university. "No officer, we weren't selling tickets to the keg, we'd need a license to sell booze. We're only selling cups for $5, the beer is free!"
  - Closi 6y ago
    This appears to be the strategy. In the U.K. they used to sell legal highs in tablets marked as “do not eat - plant food” since technically they weren’t safe for human consumption. That’s effectively the same too!
almost_usual 6y ago
Welcome to the world of aftermarket vehicle modifications.
- Piskvorrr 6y ago
  ...and woe betide you if you try to get your insurance company to pay up, ever again. "Aftermarket? Cool, a get-out-of-reimbursement-free card, have a nice day!"
  - almost_usual 6y ago
    I’ve had aftermarket mods for years and haven’t had problems. There’s a big market and people will do what they want.
    - Piskvorrr 6y ago
      Sure, I'm all for that. OTOH, my experiences with insurance companies is that they'll spend 10x the money and effort for denying payment, and the contracts are heavily weighted in their favor.
onelovetwo 6y ago
I think its just them trying to fend off those people that are looking for anything to sue companies. Telsa gets these lawsuits all the time, but they have a bunch of lawyers to deal with it.
buran77 6y ago
> Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. I don't think they would have any legal problems due to this. They sell it but clearly label it as experimental, for research only, and urge buyers to comply with local regulation. And the law pretty much everywhere states that the driver is responsible for driving the car and for the outcomes of any modification brought to the car that was not pass homologation. Tesla is a real example that passed this test. Their marketing language brands AP as "fully self driving, some features unavailable due to local laws". The "wink wink" may be obvious for the buyer but not in the eyes of the law. Letting the car drive itself is the driver's failure, not Tesla's. Tesla can at most be held responsible for misleading advertisement and ordered not to use specific language (as it actually happened).
- fossuser 6y ago
  > "Tesla is a real example that passed this test. Their marketing language brands AP as "fully self driving, some features unavailable due to local laws"." This isn't true, FSD has always been a 'coming soon' feature you can prepay for distinct from autopilot. Autopilot has always been advanced lane assist. "Autopilot" in planes just holds the same flight pattern and doesn't really do anything sophisticated, autopilot in Tesla is similar.
  - buran77 6y ago
    German authorities did find Tesla's claims about the AP as misleading [0]. Tesla's AP page was updated (globally) to reflect "full self driving in the future" but until recently it just said "Tesla cars come equipped with all the necessary hardware for full self driving" with a footer claiming some features are unavailable due to local laws. Regardless, Tesla was not found guilty for anything other than misleading advertisement, not for failing to build a car that drives itself. I don't see how comma.ai could be held to a higher standard. > The court, in Munich, said: "By using the term 'autopilot' and other wording, the defendant suggests that their vehicles are technically able to drive completely autonomously." [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069
bko 6y ago
> This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. This is just a safety precaution. Why wouldn't they put this in there? It may not hold up in court but it can't hurt. I don't think this means they "know it could fail in dangerous ways". The safety model in comma.ai is actually quite brilliant. It can't perform any action faster than you're able to correct and disengage. To test it, they have someone drive while a malicious passenger seat has full access of the controls as limited to by the software. The passenger then messes with the steering and acceleration without the main driver's knowledge. The driver has to prevent the actions. The torque limit is much lower than that of Tesla or other lane-keep assist tools.
- picks_at_nits 6y ago
  "It may not hold up in court but it can't hurt" If you sell someone something with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, and they get killed using it, it absolutely hurts. You may be able to weasel out of being held accountable for it, in which case it won't hurt you, but the larger issue here is that this kind of misleading copy can lead to people making poor decisions. You may have put it in the fine print that it's not a real product, but the whole point of nudge-nudge wink-wink is to strongly imply that it's a real product worth real money, and thus you are going out of your way to encourage people to try it and take chances with real lives.
  - bko 6y ago
    What's the appropriate level of liability? If I buy a cell phone holder for my car, and it distracts me and I get into an accident? What if Car Play lags and i'm distracted and I get into an accident? What if radio plays an ambulance and I freak out and get into an accident? What if my sunglasses make me mistake a red light? This product does lane assist. It does a good job according to consumer reports [0], higher than all other lane assists. It doesn't detect stop signs or traffic lights or drive for you. It keeps your lane. It acts predictably and gives the driver enough time to react. Unfortunately the liability model is messed up. I think this product is relatively tame and should allow to exist. And you need to pay attention. They even have inward facing cameras to make sure you're paying attention, more than most other companies. They do everything they can to be safe but of course they're not stupid and they'll put in a sweeping statement on liability. This is really pushing forward the self-driving industry and is an incredible feat of engineering. It's much more open and transparent than every other lane keeping software, and it's being developed with a lot of thought and care from a talented engineer as opposed to some nameless faceless bureaucratic commission in Ford or some other dinosaur. https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-this-aftermarket-driver-assistance-kit-above-tesla-autopilot-cadillac-super-cruise https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-t...
parsimo2010 6y ago
I think their distinction is that they’re selling the hardware, which is capable of controlling the car just fine. So the thing you’re paying for is delivering as promised. The software is a separate project, and you could theoretically load whatever software on the hardware you wanted. So the fact that the software is glitchy is not (in the view of the company) something you can hold them responsible for. You paid for hardware, you got hardware. What you do with it is up to you. This is at least what I remember from a years old Wired article when the comma one was being developed. Whether that will actually hold up in court is TBD, considering how closely coupled the software is to the company and hardware.
- Piskvorrr 6y ago
  Sure. You can load any software you want on that, so it's actually for playing DOOM on your car's entertainment system, and it has absolutely no relation to the demos on their pages. IANAL, but "the dog ate my steering wheel" would be a more plausible defense.
tjoff 6y ago
> This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. Exactly the same as Tesla then? Though I do think they are both terrible reckless. "The driver is always responsible" might or might not be a good enough legal scapegoat, but morally inexcusable.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Not at all the same as Tesla. Tesla expects you to use its product on the road and expects it to work within the constraints they tell you with you also paying attention.
  - tjoff 6y ago
    > "with you also paying attention." So no guarantees whatsoever then. Because you are always responsible and are always expected to recover from anything the autopilot might ever come up with. Teslas do fail in deadly ways. Everyone that cares to look knows this. Yet Tesla is fine with it, even while knowing that humans can't reason about safety when the car drives perfectly the other 99% of times.
    - luplex 6y ago
      Tesla guarantees that an attentive driver can safely take control. Comma does not.
      - camjohnson26 6y ago
        They don’t guarantee it they just provide a disclaimer. There’s plenty of driver monitoring solutions they could provide but don’t. Combine that with deeply unethical promises of full self driving coming just around the corner, feature complete by 2020, fully autonomous road trip by 2017, and you’re left with a dangerous product and customers that overestimate its abilities.
        6y ago

Closi 6y ago

It’s because the standard product doesn’t have autopilot, they sell a driver assistance tool. The tool they sell does not have autopilot. The device is open, and you can flash with their open source code from GitHub to give you hacky autopilot. This is how they get around the legal issue. It’s like a “we sell you a legal product. We advise you don’t flash this code on it which we are hosting on GitHub wink wink”

cortesoft 6y ago
Curious to see if a court would buy that argument.
Pasorrijer 6y ago
Reminds me of university. "No officer, we weren't selling tickets to the keg, we'd need a license to sell booze. We're only selling cups for $5, the beer is free!"
- Closi 6y ago
  This appears to be the strategy. In the U.K. they used to sell legal highs in tablets marked as “do not eat - plant food” since technically they weren’t safe for human consumption. That’s effectively the same too!

almost_usual 6y ago

Welcome to the world of aftermarket vehicle modifications.

Piskvorrr 6y ago
...and woe betide you if you try to get your insurance company to pay up, ever again. "Aftermarket? Cool, a get-out-of-reimbursement-free card, have a nice day!"
- almost_usual 6y ago
  I’ve had aftermarket mods for years and haven’t had problems. There’s a big market and people will do what they want.
  - Piskvorrr 6y ago
    Sure, I'm all for that. OTOH, my experiences with insurance companies is that they'll spend 10x the money and effort for denying payment, and the contracts are heavily weighted in their favor.

onelovetwo 6y ago

I think its just them trying to fend off those people that are looking for anything to sue companies. Telsa gets these lawsuits all the time, but they have a bunch of lawyers to deal with it.

buran77 6y ago

> Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. I don't think they would have any legal problems due to this. They sell it but clearly label it as experimental, for research only, and urge buyers to comply with local regulation. And the law pretty much everywhere states that the driver is responsible for driving the car and for the outcomes of any modification brought to the car that was not pass homologation. Tesla is a real example that passed this test. Their marketing language brands AP as "fully self driving, some features unavailable due to local laws". The "wink wink" may be obvious for the buyer but not in the eyes of the law. Letting the car drive itself is the driver's failure, not Tesla's. Tesla can at most be held responsible for misleading advertisement and ordered not to use specific language (as it actually happened).

fossuser 6y ago
> "Tesla is a real example that passed this test. Their marketing language brands AP as "fully self driving, some features unavailable due to local laws"." This isn't true, FSD has always been a 'coming soon' feature you can prepay for distinct from autopilot. Autopilot has always been advanced lane assist. "Autopilot" in planes just holds the same flight pattern and doesn't really do anything sophisticated, autopilot in Tesla is similar.
- buran77 6y ago
  German authorities did find Tesla's claims about the AP as misleading [0]. Tesla's AP page was updated (globally) to reflect "full self driving in the future" but until recently it just said "Tesla cars come equipped with all the necessary hardware for full self driving" with a footer claiming some features are unavailable due to local laws. Regardless, Tesla was not found guilty for anything other than misleading advertisement, not for failing to build a car that drives itself. I don't see how comma.ai could be held to a higher standard. > The court, in Munich, said: "By using the term 'autopilot' and other wording, the defendant suggests that their vehicles are technically able to drive completely autonomously." [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069

bko 6y ago

> This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. This is just a safety precaution. Why wouldn't they put this in there? It may not hold up in court but it can't hurt. I don't think this means they "know it could fail in dangerous ways". The safety model in comma.ai is actually quite brilliant. It can't perform any action faster than you're able to correct and disengage. To test it, they have someone drive while a malicious passenger seat has full access of the controls as limited to by the software. The passenger then messes with the steering and acceleration without the main driver's knowledge. The driver has to prevent the actions. The torque limit is much lower than that of Tesla or other lane-keep assist tools.

picks_at_nits 6y ago
"It may not hold up in court but it can't hurt" If you sell someone something with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, and they get killed using it, it absolutely hurts. You may be able to weasel out of being held accountable for it, in which case it won't hurt you, but the larger issue here is that this kind of misleading copy can lead to people making poor decisions. You may have put it in the fine print that it's not a real product, but the whole point of nudge-nudge wink-wink is to strongly imply that it's a real product worth real money, and thus you are going out of your way to encourage people to try it and take chances with real lives.
- bko 6y ago
  What's the appropriate level of liability? If I buy a cell phone holder for my car, and it distracts me and I get into an accident? What if Car Play lags and i'm distracted and I get into an accident? What if radio plays an ambulance and I freak out and get into an accident? What if my sunglasses make me mistake a red light? This product does lane assist. It does a good job according to consumer reports [0], higher than all other lane assists. It doesn't detect stop signs or traffic lights or drive for you. It keeps your lane. It acts predictably and gives the driver enough time to react. Unfortunately the liability model is messed up. I think this product is relatively tame and should allow to exist. And you need to pay attention. They even have inward facing cameras to make sure you're paying attention, more than most other companies. They do everything they can to be safe but of course they're not stupid and they'll put in a sweeping statement on liability. This is really pushing forward the self-driving industry and is an incredible feat of engineering. It's much more open and transparent than every other lane keeping software, and it's being developed with a lot of thought and care from a talented engineer as opposed to some nameless faceless bureaucratic commission in Ford or some other dinosaur. https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-this-aftermarket-driver-assistance-kit-above-tesla-autopilot-cadillac-super-cruise https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-t...

parsimo2010 6y ago

I think their distinction is that they’re selling the hardware, which is capable of controlling the car just fine. So the thing you’re paying for is delivering as promised. The software is a separate project, and you could theoretically load whatever software on the hardware you wanted. So the fact that the software is glitchy is not (in the view of the company) something you can hold them responsible for. You paid for hardware, you got hardware. What you do with it is up to you. This is at least what I remember from a years old Wired article when the comma one was being developed. Whether that will actually hold up in court is TBD, considering how closely coupled the software is to the company and hardware.

Piskvorrr 6y ago
Sure. You can load any software you want on that, so it's actually for playing DOOM on your car's entertainment system, and it has absolutely no relation to the demos on their pages. IANAL, but "the dog ate my steering wheel" would be a more plausible defense.

tjoff 6y ago

> This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. Exactly the same as Tesla then? Though I do think they are both terrible reckless. "The driver is always responsible" might or might not be a good enough legal scapegoat, but morally inexcusable.

fossuser 6y ago
Not at all the same as Tesla. Tesla expects you to use its product on the road and expects it to work within the constraints they tell you with you also paying attention.
- tjoff 6y ago
  > "with you also paying attention." So no guarantees whatsoever then. Because you are always responsible and are always expected to recover from anything the autopilot might ever come up with. Teslas do fail in deadly ways. Everyone that cares to look knows this. Yet Tesla is fine with it, even while knowing that humans can't reason about safety when the car drives perfectly the other 99% of times.
  - luplex 6y ago
    Tesla guarantees that an attentive driver can safely take control. Comma does not.
    - camjohnson26 6y ago
      They don’t guarantee it they just provide a disclaimer. There’s plenty of driver monitoring solutions they could provide but don’t. Combine that with deeply unethical promises of full self driving coming just around the corner, feature complete by 2020, fully autonomous road trip by 2017, and you’re left with a dangerous product and customers that overestimate its abilities.
      - 6y ago