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Here are things wrong with this video and the group (person) that made it. While I'm not a fan of Elon, I am fan of actually verifying information and placing c
by beeboop 4y ago
Here are things wrong with this video and the group (person) that made it. While I'm not a fan of Elon, I am fan of actually verifying information and placing criticism where criticism is due.
* This video was made by the The Dawn Project, whose goal is literally to make Tesla's self driving illegal. Their current goal isn't to make all unsafe self driving illegal, only Tesla's.
* The Dawn Project is founded and operated by Dan O'Dowd, who is campaigning for senate. His biggest platform issue is banning Tesla's self driving. He's definitely getting the press coverage he wants as a result of this publicly advertised test.
* Dan O'Dowd is the founder and owner of Green Hills Software, which makes self driving software for car manufacturers, and has more than a dozen partners with deep connections to the automotive industry. Dan does not disclose this conflict of interest.
* Green Hills Software has Ford and Toyota as direct customers. Dan does not disclose this conflict of interest.
* The Dawn Project explicitly outlined this test as "a small child walking across the road in a crosswalk" and it fails in both of these goals - the "child" isn't walking and the road isn't marked as a crosswalk.
* There is zero coverage of trials where Tesla did successfully brake. The test circumstances are clearly setup to make it fail. While noteworthy they were able to find the right conditions, not disclosing the work that went into making the test scenario only further fuels the bias of this test.
* It is unclear to me how they managed to get a Tesla to work in full self driving mode while plowing through clearly marked parking spaces in a parking lot. These are clearly not conditions that anyone would be using FSD. This is further marked by the fact that the Tesla braked hard from 40MPH to 25MPH as soon as FSD was enabled because it knew going that speed in a parking lot and driving over road markings it shouldn't was a stupid thing to be doing.
* FSD was enabled only seconds before being introduced to the stationary mannequin.
TLDR: There is a massive conflict of interest here that isn't disclosed anywhere. There is a massive incentive to use this as advertising for his senate campaign. The test doesn't actually put in any baseline effort to replicate what they claim to be testing. They put the Tesla in a situation that no one would ever actually be using FSD.
- gerbler 4y agoThe article clearly outlines the conflict of interest
- beeboop 4y agoThe article points this out, yes, but Dan and his organization do not. By "anywhere" I meant on his website, in the documentation around the test, or in any of his organizations communication in advertising this test. It's clearly not included in the million social media posts around this, and 99% of people seeing this video won't know this.