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>I saw a number of Tesla vehicles on the road as well, each passing these same emergency vehicles, but not always in the same lane. How do you know all of them

by tw04 5y ago

>I saw a number of Tesla vehicles on the road as well, each passing these same emergency vehicles, but not always in the same lane. How do you know all of them were on autopilot? >12 crashes is 12 crashes too many, statistically speaking, but it's also a tiny tiny percentage of the total number of cases. It's also 12 more than any normal attentive human has gotten into, and an average attentive human driver is the absolute floor for self-driving on public roads unless Tesla is going to go to the lengths GM has to ensure the person behind the wheel is remaining attentive. >IMO, it is good that there is federal investigation into this. My main concern is that is seems our government agencies at large are not very good when it comes to properly understanding anything technology related, or making relevant decisions/rulings/etc. on these kinds of things. I think they're good at understanding if Tesla loses complete public confidence in self driving that is a net-loss for humanity and technology, as well as a prime source of political shitstorm when people ask why something wasn't done sooner.

guhidalg 5y ago
> It’s also 12 than any normal attentive human has gotten into Are you comparing a fleet of cars driving millions of miles to the performance of one ostensibly good driver? Ok, I guess we’ll need perfect systems, see you after the heat death of the universe.
- yifanl 5y ago
  There's never going to be a perfect comparison when the same AI can drive every car in the fleet at the same time, whereas one human brain can drive at most one car at a time.
  - garyfirestorm 5y ago
    Yeah but the issue is at hand is specifically 12 cars. You can put 12 humans in cars and watch them brake before hitting emergency vehicles. If they’re claiming AI is better than humans then it’s important to understand why these 12 are so bad.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  I get this argument in abstract, but I don't think it's fair when we're talking about obviously unsafe behaviour that literally no human driver should ever do, except in cases of like, extreme medical distress. It's about the unknown unknowns. If you have Teslas slamming into stopped emergency vehicles with their lights on, and you don't know why, what else don't we know about their ability to perceive and reason about the world that they're navigating in?
  - kook_throwaway 5y ago
    Humans should never do it, but I'd be surprised if it happened less than once a week.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      Really? Not steering into a stopped, highly visible emergency vehicle with its lights on? Humans do a lot of dumb, irresponsible things on the road, but this is not one of them.
      - kook_throwaway 5y ago
        It shouldn't even be a question, seriously? This cop[1] tells a lady not to stand between the vehicles because she will get killed if his patrol car gets hit, and seconds later it happens and he says "just like that". >this is not one of them. Yes[2], this[3] is[4] one[5] of[6] them[7]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZDIwaRWCl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZDIwaRWCl0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97D3llj0KSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97D3llj0KSQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV5FrWTATDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV5FrWTATDY [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loex5U9zD0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loex5U9zD0s [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khz9hlpvhko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khz9hlpvhko [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaa6zEHZ2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaa6zEHZ2Q [7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piT4lZBGU4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piT4lZBGU4w
        adanto6840 5y ago
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Nope, he is simply saying that a human of sound state of mind does not have these accidents. The authorities are simply viewing Tesla's credibility as undermined. They ask themselves, if it can't do this, how can it get anything right, or there must be many more flaws. The humans do not like to pass over control to machines unless the machines do it clearly better. And in this case, the authority does not want to have their credibility shot by looking away from the Tesla issue, it cannot be pushed under the metaphorical carpet anymore, there is a bulge under the carpet visible to anyone who wants to see.
Spare_account 5y ago
>It's also 12 more than any normal attentive human has gotten into Can you clarify this please? Are you asserting that prior to the 12 Tesla incidents, there weren't any crashes into stationary emergency vehicles?
- ghaff 5y ago
  No, he's asserting that a normal attentive driver won't crash into a stationary emergency vehicle under remotely normal weather/road conditions. And, personally, I'm not going to trust a system that isn't as good as a normal attentive driver.
  - Spare_account 5y ago
    Thanks, I'm not sure how I missed that. >I'm not going to trust a system that isn't as good as a normal attentive driver. As I understand it, we're not expected to trust the current incarnation of Tesla Autopilot. We're supposed to be ready to intervene in case it screws up. I'd be interested to know how long the drivers of the 12 Teslas in these accidents had to intervene but didn't (how long was it obvious Autopilot had screwed up before the impact).
    - PavleMiha 5y ago
      My problem with this is that we have little proof that people are any good at this sort of task (i.e. monitoring something without intervening for really long stretches of time). So if data show that people keep failing at it we have to take a look and decide that it's not a good system, not that the people are at fault.
      - FireBeyond 5y ago
        Even more than that, we actual have multiple studies demonstrating that people are actively bad at this sort of task.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The challenge, which no one has a good answer for, is that if you do a "good" job of automating something, people will zone out. It's just how we're wired.
dado3212 5y ago
Approximately 12 percent of all interstate highway deaths result from shoulder accidents. This means that an estimated 600 people a year are killed—and thousands more are injured—while making emergency stops off the highway. It’s not just autopilot.
brk 5y ago
>How do you know all of them were on autopilot? I don't, but statistically speaking, some of them likely were. Tesla has shipped about 1.6M units globally, with most of those in the US. Let conservatively estimate half of those stayed in the US, and half of that half have used autopilot frequently enough for a high degree of opportunity of these kinds of crashes. That is still 250,000 vehicles. 12 of those being involved in crashes is a pretty low number, and we also do not know how many scenarios they avoided that a human might have missed. > It's also 12 more than any normal attentive human has gotten into What is your definition of "normal attentive human"? There are tons of studies showing how humans suck at long-term tasks that are repetitive or non-engaging (like highway driving). People get distracted all the time while driving and cause accidents. Sure an "attentive" human would not run into a police vehicle, but there are not enough of those on the road most days.

by tw04 5y ago

guhidalg 5y ago

> It’s also 12 than any normal attentive human has gotten into Are you comparing a fleet of cars driving millions of miles to the performance of one ostensibly good driver? Ok, I guess we’ll need perfect systems, see you after the heat death of the universe.

yifanl 5y ago
There's never going to be a perfect comparison when the same AI can drive every car in the fleet at the same time, whereas one human brain can drive at most one car at a time.
- garyfirestorm 5y ago
  Yeah but the issue is at hand is specifically 12 cars. You can put 12 humans in cars and watch them brake before hitting emergency vehicles. If they’re claiming AI is better than humans then it’s important to understand why these 12 are so bad.
mikepurvis 5y ago
I get this argument in abstract, but I don't think it's fair when we're talking about obviously unsafe behaviour that literally no human driver should ever do, except in cases of like, extreme medical distress. It's about the unknown unknowns. If you have Teslas slamming into stopped emergency vehicles with their lights on, and you don't know why, what else don't we know about their ability to perceive and reason about the world that they're navigating in?
- kook_throwaway 5y ago
  Humans should never do it, but I'd be surprised if it happened less than once a week.
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    Really? Not steering into a stopped, highly visible emergency vehicle with its lights on? Humans do a lot of dumb, irresponsible things on the road, but this is not one of them.
    - kook_throwaway 5y ago
      It shouldn't even be a question, seriously? This cop[1] tells a lady not to stand between the vehicles because she will get killed if his patrol car gets hit, and seconds later it happens and he says "just like that". >this is not one of them. Yes[2], this[3] is[4] one[5] of[6] them[7]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZDIwaRWCl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZDIwaRWCl0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97D3llj0KSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97D3llj0KSQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV5FrWTATDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV5FrWTATDY [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loex5U9zD0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loex5U9zD0s [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khz9hlpvhko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khz9hlpvhko [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaa6zEHZ2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaa6zEHZ2Q [7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piT4lZBGU4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piT4lZBGU4w
      - adanto6840 5y ago
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Nope, he is simply saying that a human of sound state of mind does not have these accidents. The authorities are simply viewing Tesla's credibility as undermined. They ask themselves, if it can't do this, how can it get anything right, or there must be many more flaws. The humans do not like to pass over control to machines unless the machines do it clearly better. And in this case, the authority does not want to have their credibility shot by looking away from the Tesla issue, it cannot be pushed under the metaphorical carpet anymore, there is a bulge under the carpet visible to anyone who wants to see.

Spare_account 5y ago

>It's also 12 more than any normal attentive human has gotten into Can you clarify this please? Are you asserting that prior to the 12 Tesla incidents, there weren't any crashes into stationary emergency vehicles?

ghaff 5y ago
No, he's asserting that a normal attentive driver won't crash into a stationary emergency vehicle under remotely normal weather/road conditions. And, personally, I'm not going to trust a system that isn't as good as a normal attentive driver.
- Spare_account 5y ago
  Thanks, I'm not sure how I missed that. >I'm not going to trust a system that isn't as good as a normal attentive driver. As I understand it, we're not expected to trust the current incarnation of Tesla Autopilot. We're supposed to be ready to intervene in case it screws up. I'd be interested to know how long the drivers of the 12 Teslas in these accidents had to intervene but didn't (how long was it obvious Autopilot had screwed up before the impact).
  - PavleMiha 5y ago
    My problem with this is that we have little proof that people are any good at this sort of task (i.e. monitoring something without intervening for really long stretches of time). So if data show that people keep failing at it we have to take a look and decide that it's not a good system, not that the people are at fault.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      Even more than that, we actual have multiple studies demonstrating that people are actively bad at this sort of task.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The challenge, which no one has a good answer for, is that if you do a "good" job of automating something, people will zone out. It's just how we're wired.

dado3212 5y ago

Approximately 12 percent of all interstate highway deaths result from shoulder accidents. This means that an estimated 600 people a year are killed—and thousands more are injured—while making emergency stops off the highway. It’s not just autopilot.

brk 5y ago

>How do you know all of them were on autopilot? I don't, but statistically speaking, some of them likely were. Tesla has shipped about 1.6M units globally, with most of those in the US. Let conservatively estimate half of those stayed in the US, and half of that half have used autopilot frequently enough for a high degree of opportunity of these kinds of crashes. That is still 250,000 vehicles. 12 of those being involved in crashes is a pretty low number, and we also do not know how many scenarios they avoided that a human might have missed. > It's also 12 more than any normal attentive human has gotten into What is your definition of "normal attentive human"? There are tons of studies showing how humans suck at long-term tasks that are repetitive or non-engaging (like highway driving). People get distracted all the time while driving and cause accidents. Sure an "attentive" human would not run into a police vehicle, but there are not enough of those on the road most days.