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I strongly disagree. By all measures I've seen (including a couple of slides in the OP's video), Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the numbe

by cs702 5y ago

I strongly disagree. By all measures I've seen (including a couple of slides in the OP's video), Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the number of accidents and deaths per mile driven are something like an order of magnitude lower (i.e., around 10x safer). I mean, the machine never gets distracted, tired, sleepy, emotional, drunk, etc., so it is a LOT LESS likely to crash on boring, monotonous road segments than most people -- who do get distracted, tired, sleepy, etc. Not only that, but people make really scary mistakes in routine circumstances. The video shows several examples of human drivers hitting the accelerator when they actually meant to hit the brake! The criticism of autopilot is really about it getting tripped-up in response to statistically rare, unusual circumstances, i.e., edge cases. Karpathy et al are working on getting better at those, bringing the rate of situations that surprise autopilot closer and closer to 0%, even if it can never be achieved -- there will be always be surprises. Personally, I would rather take a tiny risk of crash on rare, once-in-a-million-miles events with autopilot driving than a ~1% risk of crash per 1000 to 2000 miles with everyday human driving. Prediction: Tesla will be the first of all major automakers to get to level 4 and 5 autonomy.

AndrewKemendo 5y ago
>Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the number of accidents and deaths per mile driven are something like an order of magnitude lower Still not close to good enough for people to accept: "Participants from both countries required Self Driving Vehicles to be 4-5 times as safe as Human Driven Vehicles" [0] 0: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32202821/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32202821/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- minhazm 5y ago
  It’s already about 10x. But it is a bit tricky since they don’t break the numbers out by highway and local driving. Also their active safety features outside of AP also improve safety. So does it need to be 4-5x better than an already improved system that has AEB and lane departure avoidance and other safety features? https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport > In the 1st quarter, we registered one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.05 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 978 thousand miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
  - slg 5y ago
    There are way too many confounding variables in those numbers for you to directly compare them like you are doing. The biggest being that Autopilot is predominately engaged in situations that are already safer than average driving.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    > It’s already about 10x. It is not from your data alone. It maybe, but the data is not from a controlled experiment. Because: 1. Autopilot disengages in dangerous/ambiguous situations. 2. The set of users with autopilot is different from those without.
harikb 5y ago
Illusory superiority [1] will make us think the bad drivers are only those below average drivers. It will take a while for people to truly trust FSD just by accident stats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
olyjohn 5y ago
Tesla does not have self driving. Production Autopilot is not self driving. It's advanced cruise control with lane keeping, nothing that any other manufacturer doesn't offer on their cars. Full self driving doesn't even work, and is acknowledged by Tesla themselves, calling FSD a beta. And FSD can barely even do basic tasks like making an unprotected left turn.
aimkey 5y ago
>Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the number of accidents and deaths per mile driven are something like an order of magnitude lower (i.e., around 10x safer). Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Tesla here, is, again, being funny with the numbers. They LOVE to cite autopilot ON death statistics as being "10x safer than normal driving". What they fail to note is that Autopilot can ONLY be on while driving on a limited access highway. Highways are much safer to drive on than a mix of ALL ROADS, which is where the baseline figure comes from. Another confounding factor is the price of the vehicle. The average CONFIGURED Tesla with the FSD package today costs what? $65k? More? Those X's and S's are $100k+. Nobody is buying that base Model 3. The point is that Tesla drivers are 1) Older and 2) Wealthy. Wealthy, older people get in far fewer car crashes than the average driver. In fact, car crash fatalities are really driven by two groups: drunks (or pill addicts), and young (teenage) men. Not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to have a substance abuse problem and own a Tesla, but the average Tesla owner is less likely to have these issues. It's also less likely to own a Tesla while young. So, Tesla autopilot stats should be compared to other comparably priced vehicles while driving on the highway ONLY. That would actually be a fair, honest comparison. I believe a recent outgoing BMW 5 series chassis finished its entire life without a single fatality in the US. That's right -- 4-5 years of service in the US without a single death. Turns out, wealthy people who drive expensive family sedans don't get in a lot of fatal highway crashes. Here's a Forbes article (sorry) doing some of the back-of-the-napkin math. They estimated that in Q3 2019, autopilot really wasn't any safer than manual driving. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-tesla-autopilot-statistics-show-its-almost-as-safe-driving-with-it-as-without/?sh=44e2a9b31794 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-te...
- cs702 5y ago
  > So, Tesla autopilot stats should be compared to other comparably priced vehicles while driving on the highway ONLY. I disagree. Autopilot driving on the highway should be compared to all human drivers driving on the highway. Otherwise you wouldn't be comparing against human performance per mile driven apples-to-apples.
  - aimkey 5y ago
minwcnt5 5y ago
Of course autopilot and FSD are safer than unaided human driving. That's because a human is still required to be in ultimate control. They are aids to the human, not replacements for the human.
rvz 5y ago
So all of that 'research' and several FSD crashes later and they have added a new driver monitoring tool in the refreshed line of Tesla Model S Plaid vehicles because even with FSD turned on, you must have your eyes on the road at ALL times whilst driving. [0] Looks like someone made a correct prediction on this technology and it was none other than Comma.ai [1] I have to give it to Elon that he was able to keep his fans believing a big lie of their FSD system to achieve Level 4 / 5 autonomy last year, when this year it was admittedly Level 2 [2]. The fans will continue to believe his lies and keep on saying "It's coming soon, you'll see..." when they have just been sold a Fools Self Driving System™. [0] https://twitter.com/Model3Owners/status/1406002366923612163 https://twitter.com/Model3Owners/status/1406002366923612163 [1] https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1406304017400012800 https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1406304017400012800 [2] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/teslas-full-self-driving-claim-admittedly-not-feasible-yet-says-companys-internal-memo-3724682.html https://www.news18.com/news/auto/teslas-full-self-driving-cl...

by cs702 5y ago

AndrewKemendo 5y ago

>Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the number of accidents and deaths per mile driven are something like an order of magnitude lower Still not close to good enough for people to accept: "Participants from both countries required Self Driving Vehicles to be 4-5 times as safe as Human Driven Vehicles" [0] 0: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32202821/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32202821/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
minhazm 5y ago
It’s already about 10x. But it is a bit tricky since they don’t break the numbers out by highway and local driving. Also their active safety features outside of AP also improve safety. So does it need to be 4-5x better than an already improved system that has AEB and lane departure avoidance and other safety features? https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport > In the 1st quarter, we registered one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.05 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 978 thousand miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
- slg 5y ago
  There are way too many confounding variables in those numbers for you to directly compare them like you are doing. The biggest being that Autopilot is predominately engaged in situations that are already safer than average driving.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  > It’s already about 10x. It is not from your data alone. It maybe, but the data is not from a controlled experiment. Because: 1. Autopilot disengages in dangerous/ambiguous situations. 2. The set of users with autopilot is different from those without.

harikb 5y ago

Illusory superiority [1] will make us think the bad drivers are only those below average drivers. It will take a while for people to truly trust FSD just by accident stats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

olyjohn 5y ago

Tesla does not have self driving. Production Autopilot is not self driving. It's advanced cruise control with lane keeping, nothing that any other manufacturer doesn't offer on their cars. Full self driving doesn't even work, and is acknowledged by Tesla themselves, calling FSD a beta. And FSD can barely even do basic tasks like making an unprotected left turn.

aimkey 5y ago

>Tesla's self-driving is far safer than human driving: the number of accidents and deaths per mile driven are something like an order of magnitude lower (i.e., around 10x safer). Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Tesla here, is, again, being funny with the numbers. They LOVE to cite autopilot ON death statistics as being "10x safer than normal driving". What they fail to note is that Autopilot can ONLY be on while driving on a limited access highway. Highways are much safer to drive on than a mix of ALL ROADS, which is where the baseline figure comes from. Another confounding factor is the price of the vehicle. The average CONFIGURED Tesla with the FSD package today costs what? $65k? More? Those X's and S's are $100k+. Nobody is buying that base Model 3. The point is that Tesla drivers are 1) Older and 2) Wealthy. Wealthy, older people get in far fewer car crashes than the average driver. In fact, car crash fatalities are really driven by two groups: drunks (or pill addicts), and young (teenage) men. Not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to have a substance abuse problem and own a Tesla, but the average Tesla owner is less likely to have these issues. It's also less likely to own a Tesla while young. So, Tesla autopilot stats should be compared to other comparably priced vehicles while driving on the highway ONLY. That would actually be a fair, honest comparison. I believe a recent outgoing BMW 5 series chassis finished its entire life without a single fatality in the US. That's right -- 4-5 years of service in the US without a single death. Turns out, wealthy people who drive expensive family sedans don't get in a lot of fatal highway crashes. Here's a Forbes article (sorry) doing some of the back-of-the-napkin math. They estimated that in Q3 2019, autopilot really wasn't any safer than manual driving. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-tesla-autopilot-statistics-show-its-almost-as-safe-driving-with-it-as-without/?sh=44e2a9b31794 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-te...

cs702 5y ago
> So, Tesla autopilot stats should be compared to other comparably priced vehicles while driving on the highway ONLY. I disagree. Autopilot driving on the highway should be compared to all human drivers driving on the highway. Otherwise you wouldn't be comparing against human performance per mile driven apples-to-apples.
- aimkey 5y ago

minwcnt5 5y ago

Of course autopilot and FSD are safer than unaided human driving. That's because a human is still required to be in ultimate control. They are aids to the human, not replacements for the human.

rvz 5y ago

So all of that 'research' and several FSD crashes later and they have added a new driver monitoring tool in the refreshed line of Tesla Model S Plaid vehicles because even with FSD turned on, you must have your eyes on the road at ALL times whilst driving. [0] Looks like someone made a correct prediction on this technology and it was none other than Comma.ai [1] I have to give it to Elon that he was able to keep his fans believing a big lie of their FSD system to achieve Level 4 / 5 autonomy last year, when this year it was admittedly Level 2 [2]. The fans will continue to believe his lies and keep on saying "It's coming soon, you'll see..." when they have just been sold a Fools Self Driving System™. [0] https://twitter.com/Model3Owners/status/1406002366923612163 https://twitter.com/Model3Owners/status/1406002366923612163 [1] https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1406304017400012800 https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1406304017400012800 [2] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/teslas-full-self-driving-claim-admittedly-not-feasible-yet-says-companys-internal-memo-3724682.html https://www.news18.com/news/auto/teslas-full-self-driving-cl...