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I really don't understand the antipathy towards systems like this. Even at their worst they are 5 to 10 times safer then human drivers. That's the point. That's

I really don't understand the antipathy towards systems like this. Even at their worst they are 5 to 10 times safer then human drivers. That's the point. That's the only point that should matter. I understand people want some robocar utopia but it doesn't all happen at once. I will happily take a 10x reduction in driving deaths.

anothernewdude 5y ago
0.9x as safe as human drivers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-tesla-autopilot-statistics-show-its-almost-as-safe-driving-with-it-as-without/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-te...
- sidibe 5y ago
  And as the system gets better, that number might go down instead of up since we won't be able to maintain focus.
- Retric 5y ago
  He’s making a useful point, but doing a really poor job of it. That article creates a graph from thin air as far as I can see based on arbitrary assumptions via cherry picked estimates to make a point. For example only listing city driving and limited access highways. “If we reduce the estimate ratio of accidents/mile on freeway and non-free to just 2.3:1 (as a number from another source suggests) the chart shows Autopilot slightly below non-Autopilot until Q1 2020, then being around 15-20% better in 2020” So, he’s also estimating it may have been slightly worse before 2020 and significantly better in 2020, yet he’s happy to post the 0.9 number based on what exactly?
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Somewhere there should be stats on taxi and bus driver accidents. I think that is what self-driving should be compared to, not the average person. It's "applying for a job" as a professional driver, not as a simulated drunk, texting, shaving, eating, feet-on-dashboard average American driver. Not too high a bar.
    - Retric 5y ago
      I agree it’s a good idea to have higher standards for self driving Taxis. However, delaying self driving cars that would be safer than the average driver would cost lives. Mostly I just want drunk drivers taken off the road ASAP.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        Suppose we have a lot of self-driving vehicles that are slightly better than drunks, and the worst drunks use them. Maybe they can be hooked up to breathalyzers or something. How can we ensure that the increase in the amount of driving (riding) that drunks do, doesn't more than cancel out the reduction in the rate of accidents? What if, the self-driving being available to non-drunks, they use it because it's fun and futuristic, and that increases the amount of accidents even more?
        Retric 5y ago
        > slightly better than drunks We are well past that point. At even just 0.08 BAC a driver is 7 times as likely to cause a fatal accident and it gets dramatically worse as BAC increases. Self driving are close to the norm right now, even if they where say 20% more dangerous than an average alert driver it would take a massive increase in miles driven by drunk people for things to end up worse. Anyway, the penalties are currently the same with and without self driving, hell sleeping in your car while drunk is illegal. As long as the laws stay the same things should stay about the same while saving 10’s of thousands of lives.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        A drunk driver might be 7 times, or 70 times, or 700 times as likely to have an accident. That range is plausible to me. But estimates of the proportion of trips under the influence of alcohol that I was able to find were around 0.03%. (111 million out of 411 billion) So I don't see a logical reason to rule out their driving increasing by ten times, or 100 times, or more. And I don't see what the justification would be for assuming a self-driving system is within 20% of an arbitrary standard. Because drunk drivers are so bad, as you point out, there's a lot of space between "as bad as a drunk" and "as good as an average non drunk". I think it's completely plausible that a system could be ten times or a hundred times worse than an average human and it not be obvious. That's because an average human has one fatal accident in approximately 100 lifetimes (in the US). Or, for another reference point, drivers had fatalities about 7 times more often per mile, in 1950 than now. Without saying I know exactly what numbers to use, I'm pretty certain that betting on things matching to within 20% is unjustified without, well, a specific logical justification. However, regarding penalties being the same, this seems like a lack of incentives that would mean neither lives saved nor lost. Also, I don't think saving tens of thousands of lives per year is a possibility if we're talking about alcohol in the US. I believe there are only on the order of 10,000 fatalities per year. I note that millions of people (again, in the US) seem to think 10,000 covid-19 fatalities in only a few weeks is not worth even wearing a mask to stop. Some of the things I read while writing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/im... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
peakaboo 5y ago
I would be extreamly sceptic of marketing statistics.
gambiting 5y ago
>>Even at their worst they are 5 to 10 times safer then human drivers. Except that it's a statistic that's abused to hell and then some. For instance, frequently companies use total number of deaths per mile driven, without any consideration of what kind of miles they were, and you know, that's kind of important. Like, driving at night in certain places you are far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, but that risk is simply extremely low when doing a low speed heavy traffic commute in the city. If your entire commute is being stuck in 10mph max traffic, how exactly can anyone argue that your driving risks include being hit by a drunk driver at 2am or a 120mph motorway crash? It's like using the statistics for "animal caused deaths" which include venomous snakes and stingrays to estimate the risk of playing with a hamster. Yes, technically it's also an animal but you're using the wrong stat for your argument. And Tesla has in the past lumped together all vehicle deaths for marketing purposes - so, motorcycle deaths. Hopefully I don't need to explain how that one is misleading and possibly fraudulent. Like the article said - in these kinds of scenarios that Tesla is showing everyone, you are at an extremely low risk. Or at least, if the system is still asking you to keep full attention, then really, you've gained absolutely nothing. A modern car with front based collision avoidance radar(so all cars sold for a few years now) will avoid any collision as well as a Tesla would, without using teraflops of computing power to navigate extremely mundane driving situations. Again, Tesla tech might be saving lives elsewhere, I'm prepared to accept that argument. But in the scenarios they are showing? Nope, don't believe that in the slightest.

anothernewdude 5y ago

0.9x as safe as human drivers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-tesla-autopilot-statistics-show-its-almost-as-safe-driving-with-it-as-without/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-te...

sidibe 5y ago
And as the system gets better, that number might go down instead of up since we won't be able to maintain focus.
Retric 5y ago
He’s making a useful point, but doing a really poor job of it. That article creates a graph from thin air as far as I can see based on arbitrary assumptions via cherry picked estimates to make a point. For example only listing city driving and limited access highways. “If we reduce the estimate ratio of accidents/mile on freeway and non-free to just 2.3:1 (as a number from another source suggests) the chart shows Autopilot slightly below non-Autopilot until Q1 2020, then being around 15-20% better in 2020” So, he’s also estimating it may have been slightly worse before 2020 and significantly better in 2020, yet he’s happy to post the 0.9 number based on what exactly?
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Somewhere there should be stats on taxi and bus driver accidents. I think that is what self-driving should be compared to, not the average person. It's "applying for a job" as a professional driver, not as a simulated drunk, texting, shaving, eating, feet-on-dashboard average American driver. Not too high a bar.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I agree it’s a good idea to have higher standards for self driving Taxis. However, delaying self driving cars that would be safer than the average driver would cost lives. Mostly I just want drunk drivers taken off the road ASAP.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      Suppose we have a lot of self-driving vehicles that are slightly better than drunks, and the worst drunks use them. Maybe they can be hooked up to breathalyzers or something. How can we ensure that the increase in the amount of driving (riding) that drunks do, doesn't more than cancel out the reduction in the rate of accidents? What if, the self-driving being available to non-drunks, they use it because it's fun and futuristic, and that increases the amount of accidents even more?
      - Retric 5y ago
        > slightly better than drunks We are well past that point. At even just 0.08 BAC a driver is 7 times as likely to cause a fatal accident and it gets dramatically worse as BAC increases. Self driving are close to the norm right now, even if they where say 20% more dangerous than an average alert driver it would take a massive increase in miles driven by drunk people for things to end up worse. Anyway, the penalties are currently the same with and without self driving, hell sleeping in your car while drunk is illegal. As long as the laws stay the same things should stay about the same while saving 10’s of thousands of lives.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        A drunk driver might be 7 times, or 70 times, or 700 times as likely to have an accident. That range is plausible to me. But estimates of the proportion of trips under the influence of alcohol that I was able to find were around 0.03%. (111 million out of 411 billion) So I don't see a logical reason to rule out their driving increasing by ten times, or 100 times, or more. And I don't see what the justification would be for assuming a self-driving system is within 20% of an arbitrary standard. Because drunk drivers are so bad, as you point out, there's a lot of space between "as bad as a drunk" and "as good as an average non drunk". I think it's completely plausible that a system could be ten times or a hundred times worse than an average human and it not be obvious. That's because an average human has one fatal accident in approximately 100 lifetimes (in the US). Or, for another reference point, drivers had fatalities about 7 times more often per mile, in 1950 than now. Without saying I know exactly what numbers to use, I'm pretty certain that betting on things matching to within 20% is unjustified without, well, a specific logical justification. However, regarding penalties being the same, this seems like a lack of incentives that would mean neither lives saved nor lost. Also, I don't think saving tens of thousands of lives per year is a possibility if we're talking about alcohol in the US. I believe there are only on the order of 10,000 fatalities per year. I note that millions of people (again, in the US) seem to think 10,000 covid-19 fatalities in only a few weeks is not worth even wearing a mask to stop. Some of the things I read while writing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/im... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

peakaboo 5y ago

I would be extreamly sceptic of marketing statistics.

gambiting 5y ago

>>Even at their worst they are 5 to 10 times safer then human drivers. Except that it's a statistic that's abused to hell and then some. For instance, frequently companies use total number of deaths per mile driven, without any consideration of what kind of miles they were, and you know, that's kind of important. Like, driving at night in certain places you are far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, but that risk is simply extremely low when doing a low speed heavy traffic commute in the city. If your entire commute is being stuck in 10mph max traffic, how exactly can anyone argue that your driving risks include being hit by a drunk driver at 2am or a 120mph motorway crash? It's like using the statistics for "animal caused deaths" which include venomous snakes and stingrays to estimate the risk of playing with a hamster. Yes, technically it's also an animal but you're using the wrong stat for your argument. And Tesla has in the past lumped together all vehicle deaths for marketing purposes - so, motorcycle deaths. Hopefully I don't need to explain how that one is misleading and possibly fraudulent. Like the article said - in these kinds of scenarios that Tesla is showing everyone, you are at an extremely low risk. Or at least, if the system is still asking you to keep full attention, then really, you've gained absolutely nothing. A modern car with front based collision avoidance radar(so all cars sold for a few years now) will avoid any collision as well as a Tesla would, without using teraflops of computing power to navigate extremely mundane driving situations. Again, Tesla tech might be saving lives elsewhere, I'm prepared to accept that argument. But in the scenarios they are showing? Nope, don't believe that in the slightest.