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I have a few problems with your comment. First, how do we know that FSD is safer than most drivers? From Tesla's marketing material? Who are they comparing to:
by reureu 5y ago
I have a few problems with your comment.
First, how do we know that FSD is safer than most drivers? From Tesla's marketing material? Who are they comparing to: the general public, or a matched control group? How are defining safer: number of crashes, number of deaths, property damage, something else? I work as a data scientist, and I'm hugely skeptical of the claim that FSD is safer because I (and I'm sure you too) know how to scam statistics.
Second, I bought an M3 last year and have put 23k miles on it traveling through 18 states. I didn't buy FSD, but I regularly use autopilot. It does some crazy shit, including trying to drive me off the road in Wyoming, trying to drive into opposing traffic in Marin, phantom braking sometimes quite abruptly, etc. And while I agree with the assertion that 99% of the time it does reasonable things, that 1% is horrifying and dangerous. And it's definitely not truly context aware-- as a human driver, I'm aware when someone is tailgating me or when a driver appears to be distracted or if there's a hazard on the road. Tesla, on the other hand, forced me to drive over large debris on 101 because it thought my evasive maneuver was a lane departure. It's a nice thought that people might just be scared of new technology, but I really don't think this technology is actually ready to be doing anything without close human supervision.
Third, I disagree that we have to ban all cars. The current standard is how humans drive. Humans are culpable for their negligence while driving. When the laws catch up to make Tesla culpable for damage caused by its algorithms, and when regulations exist for standardizing algorithm behavior and testing/quality-control, then I'll be more supportive of tools like FSD.
Finally, it'd be nice if we could acknowledge that individual choices often have direct impacts on the safety and wellbeing of others [you didn't say this, but another common response I've encountered is "if you don't feel safe with FSD, then don't use it"]. Just because someone might feel more comfortable "driving" from the backseat of their Tesla[1] does not mean it's actually safe. If someone wants to do reckless things that could get themself killed, then on some level that's their prerogative. However, deciding to put other's lives at risk because your gadget is nifty and usually right is really misguided. Further, Tesla shifting the responsibility for the safety of their product onto the behaviors of its users is shameful.
1: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-13/tesla-driver-arrested-after-riding-in-backseat https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-13/tesla-dr...