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the fact that there is such a thing as a 'public beta' for moving two tons of steel through pedestrian areas at lethal speeds seriously makes me question our co

the fact that there is such a thing as a 'public beta' for moving two tons of steel through pedestrian areas at lethal speeds seriously makes me question our collective sanity. Imagine if gun vendors did public betas where random police officers just get a beta testing gun. "It might fire in random directions at arbitrary intervals 5% of the time, but that's just how innovation goes folks. You don't like that, do you hate progress?"

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Imagine if gun vendors did public betas where random police officers just get a beta testing gun. This is a thing. They give marketing samples to organizations they want to sell to on a "try 'em out and let us know if you want to buy more" basis.
- b112 5y ago
  Marketing samples are not public betas. They are marketing samples of tested product.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    If your complaint is that a very conservative manufacturing industry doesn't have 1:1 analogues with software development then I guess it's valid. Giving organizations stuff you haven't 100% nailed down yet expecting them to come back with stuff they want changed in order to buy is pretty par for the course in the firearms industry. That's as close to a public beta as you're gonna get.
    - everforward 5y ago
      The big difference is that marketing firearms are still safe, or as safe as firearms tend to get. It's a fully functional firearm; they want feedback on whether the ergonomics are good, whether the weight is good, how it handles recoil, etc. It would be more akin to handing out prototype weapons to police departments, which doesn't happen specifically because they might fire themselves or blow up or fail in some annoying but not spectacular way like failing to feed new rounds.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        The key mechanical features always "work" but little stuff like "gun fails to cycle 500% more often with the particular spec of ammo a particular force uses". A rifle spec'd out for sale to Cambodia probably is going to have a lot of teething issues if you try and sell it to the Swedes unchanged. Are these things "safe"? IDK. But no force is going to put in an order for tens of thousands of guns unless correctable issues like those are proven fixed. Infantry arms are a battle of margins. Everything "works" but a marginally more finicky gun to use is going to mean the people using it are marginally less effective which extrapolates pretty directly to "safety". At the end of the day the analogy isn't great and we're building a castle in a swamp here.
dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
That reminds me of the ED-209 prototype in Robocop: "You have 20 seconds to comply!"
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Here's the "20 seconds to comply" scene from Robocop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M
renewiltord 5y ago
This is a fair point. It's pretty bad that we have learner drivers on the road. Can't think of anything more public beta-y than that. Maybe trainee doctors?
- gvb 5y ago
  I've had three "learner drivers" in my family and I spent quite a few hours as the "safety person" during their apprenticeship. During all those hours I never touched the wheel, brake, or gas. I gave advice occasionally, but never felt that the "learner driver" was driving unsafely. I assure you that 15 year old young adults drive much better than a Tesla "self driving" computer with millions of miles and millions of hours of training.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Oh I’m sure you were convinced but you never asked me if I consented to you randomly putting underaged kids behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle on a road which I share with you. You’re a regular Yaroslav Kudrinsky, just with better luck. But I suppose one can go around swinging swords in a crowd, hit no one, and convince oneself of one’s good judgment.
- rhizome 5y ago
  Category error: people have brains.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    That's the important one - a Tesla has no concept of the real world. Remember that clip where a Tesla was slowing down because it mistook the full moon in the sky for a traffic light? Likewise, no one would aim at a cyclist, except when they are a homicidal criminal.
    - noizejoy 5y ago
      … or under the influence of some substance, or a health event, or voluntary or involuntary distraction, or …
FireBeyond 5y ago
Someone said in another thread earlier today that there is a worry that we are making the path towards FSD too erratic, and that if we screw it up, the next shot might be in generations. People are arguing, with a straight face, that we are ruining (aspects of) humanity by not letting Tesla be laisez-faire with such things (and lets be real, it's predominantly Tesla who is just in full Cowboy/YOLO mode... other players in this field certainly aren't perfect, but they are at least trying to be conservative and cautious).
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  It's still a regulatory failure in the end. If the government does not want to lay down exactly what path should be taken in getting to FSD, then we should not complain when we don't agree with the path that the manufacturers choose. As long as Tesla can demonstrate a similar or better rate of serious harm than human drivers, why should we stop them? It's up to government to do their job and outline exactly what price society should bear in the pursuit of this paradigm shift (because let's not kid ourselves, FSD is a complete shift in paradigm for society).
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    > As long as Tesla can demonstrate a similar or better rate of serious harm than human drivers, why should we stop them? Because it can't, or won't. Instead they release statistics that _imply_ that it is better, that they have to know are absolutely misleading, because anyone who did high school statistics would be aware thereof. Everything else, they refuse to release.
    - jimmydorry 5y ago
      I'm not aware of _anyone_ releasing such data in a way. Not that I have been looking that closely for it (so I certainly could have missed this!). This is another major regulatory failure. Government should lay out the minimum data that the companies must publish, so we can get a better idea of their performance. (It's still a chicken and egg scenario though. You can't get that kind of data anywhere but on public roads in uncontrolled environments.)

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>Imagine if gun vendors did public betas where random police officers just get a beta testing gun. This is a thing. They give marketing samples to organizations they want to sell to on a "try 'em out and let us know if you want to buy more" basis.

b112 5y ago
Marketing samples are not public betas. They are marketing samples of tested product.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  If your complaint is that a very conservative manufacturing industry doesn't have 1:1 analogues with software development then I guess it's valid. Giving organizations stuff you haven't 100% nailed down yet expecting them to come back with stuff they want changed in order to buy is pretty par for the course in the firearms industry. That's as close to a public beta as you're gonna get.
  - everforward 5y ago
    The big difference is that marketing firearms are still safe, or as safe as firearms tend to get. It's a fully functional firearm; they want feedback on whether the ergonomics are good, whether the weight is good, how it handles recoil, etc. It would be more akin to handing out prototype weapons to police departments, which doesn't happen specifically because they might fire themselves or blow up or fail in some annoying but not spectacular way like failing to feed new rounds.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      The key mechanical features always "work" but little stuff like "gun fails to cycle 500% more often with the particular spec of ammo a particular force uses". A rifle spec'd out for sale to Cambodia probably is going to have a lot of teething issues if you try and sell it to the Swedes unchanged. Are these things "safe"? IDK. But no force is going to put in an order for tens of thousands of guns unless correctable issues like those are proven fixed. Infantry arms are a battle of margins. Everything "works" but a marginally more finicky gun to use is going to mean the people using it are marginally less effective which extrapolates pretty directly to "safety". At the end of the day the analogy isn't great and we're building a castle in a swamp here.

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago

That reminds me of the ED-209 prototype in Robocop: "You have 20 seconds to comply!"

pmoriarty 5y ago
Here's the "20 seconds to comply" scene from Robocop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M

renewiltord 5y ago

This is a fair point. It's pretty bad that we have learner drivers on the road. Can't think of anything more public beta-y than that. Maybe trainee doctors?

gvb 5y ago
I've had three "learner drivers" in my family and I spent quite a few hours as the "safety person" during their apprenticeship. During all those hours I never touched the wheel, brake, or gas. I gave advice occasionally, but never felt that the "learner driver" was driving unsafely. I assure you that 15 year old young adults drive much better than a Tesla "self driving" computer with millions of miles and millions of hours of training.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Oh I’m sure you were convinced but you never asked me if I consented to you randomly putting underaged kids behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle on a road which I share with you. You’re a regular Yaroslav Kudrinsky, just with better luck. But I suppose one can go around swinging swords in a crowd, hit no one, and convince oneself of one’s good judgment.
rhizome 5y ago
Category error: people have brains.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  That's the important one - a Tesla has no concept of the real world. Remember that clip where a Tesla was slowing down because it mistook the full moon in the sky for a traffic light? Likewise, no one would aim at a cyclist, except when they are a homicidal criminal.
  - noizejoy 5y ago
    … or under the influence of some substance, or a health event, or voluntary or involuntary distraction, or …

FireBeyond 5y ago

Someone said in another thread earlier today that there is a worry that we are making the path towards FSD too erratic, and that if we screw it up, the next shot might be in generations. People are arguing, with a straight face, that we are ruining (aspects of) humanity by not letting Tesla be laisez-faire with such things (and lets be real, it's predominantly Tesla who is just in full Cowboy/YOLO mode... other players in this field certainly aren't perfect, but they are at least trying to be conservative and cautious).

jimmydorry 5y ago
It's still a regulatory failure in the end. If the government does not want to lay down exactly what path should be taken in getting to FSD, then we should not complain when we don't agree with the path that the manufacturers choose. As long as Tesla can demonstrate a similar or better rate of serious harm than human drivers, why should we stop them? It's up to government to do their job and outline exactly what price society should bear in the pursuit of this paradigm shift (because let's not kid ourselves, FSD is a complete shift in paradigm for society).
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  > As long as Tesla can demonstrate a similar or better rate of serious harm than human drivers, why should we stop them? Because it can't, or won't. Instead they release statistics that _imply_ that it is better, that they have to know are absolutely misleading, because anyone who did high school statistics would be aware thereof. Everything else, they refuse to release.
  - jimmydorry 5y ago
    I'm not aware of _anyone_ releasing such data in a way. Not that I have been looking that closely for it (so I certainly could have missed this!). This is another major regulatory failure. Government should lay out the minimum data that the companies must publish, so we can get a better idea of their performance. (It's still a chicken and egg scenario though. You can't get that kind of data anywhere but on public roads in uncontrolled environments.)