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I work in the self-driving space. Before I did I was super hype about what Tesla were doing with self-driving and auto-pilot, but once I actually started seriou

I work in the self-driving space. Before I did I was super hype about what Tesla were doing with self-driving and auto-pilot, but once I actually started seriously looking at the safety ramifications of a vehicle driving with these technologies I changed tune really quickly. A massive problem, particularly with the more capable L4 style technologies is you get lulled into a false sense of security because it'll drive a decent amount of distance perfectly fine right up until it doesn't (and it's normally spectacularly bad when it fails). Testing purely on closed track or from simulated analysis only goes so far, you definitely need to do public road testing before you can hand it to end-users. But the driver needs to do advance driver training so that they're more aware of the hazards, they need to always be ready to take over (as with an L3 system, even if you're developing L4), they need to fully understand the capabilities, ODD and behaviour of the software, you need to keep the durations/distances short to avoid driver fatigue and ideally you have a second person in the vehicle to keep them honest. Letting end-consumers use this technology on public roads is insane. It feels to me like the reason Tesla do it is they've boxed themselves into a corner because they've already sold it.

reitzensteinm 5y ago
My main concern is that Tesla will end up poisoning the well in a regulatory sense, and other SDCs that are focused on doing narrow verticals properly will get caught in the crossfire. The common pro Tesla argument of delaying self driving costing lives is absolutely valid. But it doesn't follow that allowing Tesla FSD to run red lights is the best way to accelerate the adoption as a whole. If the whole industry was as cautious as Waymo, I think the risk of regulation would be minimal. This is orthogonal to how well done the system is. I am extremely impressed it works as well as it does. But it's not good enough.
- olliej 5y ago
  > The common pro Tesla argument of delaying self driving costing lives is absolutely valid. It would be if self driving Teslas were safer, but the evidence seems to suggest that they crash more often than regular drivers once you control for when it is used.
  - zaroth 5y ago
    Tesla doesn’t have to be safer now to follow this reasoning. If Tesla’s approach ultimately succeeds in getting FSD working and into the mainstream, then for each year earlier that happens than it otherwise would, up to about 30,000 lives are saved, millions of injuries prevented, and roughly $1 trillion USD in total lifetime value is preserved as the worldwide accident rate goes to zero. In that context, FSD should absolutely be civilization’s next moonshot. That’s to say nothing of the other economic benefits besides simply killed and maiming fewer people and destroying less property.
    - Tempest1981 5y ago
      How did you calculate the $1 trillion/year? What cost would be attributed to Covid, roughly?
      - zaroth 5y ago
        https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812013 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... That’s just the USA
    - carlivar 5y ago
      Interesting idea. But the only problem with it is the assumption Tesla can succeed. I am not sure about that. The other, darker, possibility is that Tesla does so poorly in this moonshot that they poison the well for everyone else, some of whom might be more equipped to succeed.
      - zaroth 5y ago
        To be clear, I’m not saying they will or won’t succeed! And the converse is true too! If through their actions FSD is ultimately delayed a year, then they contributed to extended the carnage of human driven automobiles. The point is the scale of the problem, and how valuable it is to solve it.
    - seanhunter 5y ago
- torginus 5y ago
  I find this line of reasoning strange - it's like if we only kind of figured out how to do heart transplants on pigs, and then immediately went full steam ahead operating on people - because otherwise it would've costed the lives of people who didn't receive the operation
  - reitzensteinm 5y ago
    Are you sure you're replying to my line of reasoning? Because I'm saying just because the goal is extremely worthwhile, it's not carte blanche to move fast and break things.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Really? That seems like a perfectly reasonable line of thinking (except of course, for uncertainty regarding pig transplant). But lives killed by inaction should be counted!

reitzensteinm 5y ago

My main concern is that Tesla will end up poisoning the well in a regulatory sense, and other SDCs that are focused on doing narrow verticals properly will get caught in the crossfire. The common pro Tesla argument of delaying self driving costing lives is absolutely valid. But it doesn't follow that allowing Tesla FSD to run red lights is the best way to accelerate the adoption as a whole. If the whole industry was as cautious as Waymo, I think the risk of regulation would be minimal. This is orthogonal to how well done the system is. I am extremely impressed it works as well as it does. But it's not good enough.

olliej 5y ago
> The common pro Tesla argument of delaying self driving costing lives is absolutely valid. It would be if self driving Teslas were safer, but the evidence seems to suggest that they crash more often than regular drivers once you control for when it is used.
- zaroth 5y ago
  Tesla doesn’t have to be safer now to follow this reasoning. If Tesla’s approach ultimately succeeds in getting FSD working and into the mainstream, then for each year earlier that happens than it otherwise would, up to about 30,000 lives are saved, millions of injuries prevented, and roughly $1 trillion USD in total lifetime value is preserved as the worldwide accident rate goes to zero. In that context, FSD should absolutely be civilization’s next moonshot. That’s to say nothing of the other economic benefits besides simply killed and maiming fewer people and destroying less property.
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    How did you calculate the $1 trillion/year? What cost would be attributed to Covid, roughly?
    - zaroth 5y ago
      https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812013 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... That’s just the USA
  - carlivar 5y ago
    Interesting idea. But the only problem with it is the assumption Tesla can succeed. I am not sure about that. The other, darker, possibility is that Tesla does so poorly in this moonshot that they poison the well for everyone else, some of whom might be more equipped to succeed.
    - zaroth 5y ago
      To be clear, I’m not saying they will or won’t succeed! And the converse is true too! If through their actions FSD is ultimately delayed a year, then they contributed to extended the carnage of human driven automobiles. The point is the scale of the problem, and how valuable it is to solve it.
  - seanhunter 5y ago
torginus 5y ago
I find this line of reasoning strange - it's like if we only kind of figured out how to do heart transplants on pigs, and then immediately went full steam ahead operating on people - because otherwise it would've costed the lives of people who didn't receive the operation
- reitzensteinm 5y ago
  Are you sure you're replying to my line of reasoning? Because I'm saying just because the goal is extremely worthwhile, it's not carte blanche to move fast and break things.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Really? That seems like a perfectly reasonable line of thinking (except of course, for uncertainty regarding pig transplant). But lives killed by inaction should be counted!