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Tesla wants videos of its cars running over child-sized dummies taken down

95 points by davidbarker 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
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smt88 4y ago
Remember a few months ago when Elon Musk claimed to be a "free speech maximalist"?
- Thetawaves 4y ago
  I'm going to repeat a perception I saw on here that seems to ring true. We all know Tesla/Elon is 69% full of shit.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Say it louder, plenty of people right here on this board still deny this.
- goatcode 4y ago
  I'm of the position that speech we don't like should be countered with more speech. Therefore, I'd look forward to airing all the dirty laundry of every other EV manufacturer.
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    It already is...in detail, by the newspapers and news shows all the time. The difference is that other car makers don't claim to be saving the world, nor do their CEOs claim to be "free speech maximalists," nor do they go crying to their followers every time they or their company gets even the slightest bit of criticism.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - goatcode 4y ago
      I've honestly never heard any story pushed as much as are the Tesla ones. Maybe it's just there isn't as venomous anti-following attached to other manufacturers as there is to Tesla.
      - gamblor956 4y ago
        The media doesn't push the stories because they're just regular news stories. Tesla deliberately seeks out media attention, so Tesla stories attract more attention. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that.
        rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
        >Tesla deliberately seeks out media attention, so Tesla stories attract more attention. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that. Tesla also does not pay media a dime. All the other auto manufacturers do via auto ads, in hundreds of $ per vehicle sold. Some also own newspapers directly! Publishers will do everything to favor their paying customers and make the others interested in getting more favorable coverage.
        clouddrover 4y ago
        Sure. It's all a big conspiracy. Here, watch some Tesla ads and be happy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY Look at the little panda!
- mlindner 4y ago
  When did he use the words "maximalist"? I think the term he used was "absolutist". However I don't get how libel is covered under free speech. It's one of the few forms of speech in the US that is not protected.
  - smt88 4y ago
    A video of someone operating a Tesla is not and cannot be libel. That is ridiculous. He has said both maximalist and absolutist[1]. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/18/musk-twitter-free-speech/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/18/musk-tw...
jmpman 4y ago
“Musk has said Autopilot is “unequivocally safer” than normal driving.” I expect that if Tesla was forced to release all camera footage from each Autopilot related crash, the public would be horrified. I expect it would show that each situation would have been handled perfectly by a 16 year old driver with a week of experience. I’d like to see people advocate for all self driving vehicles to be forced to publicly release all video of any crash involving their technology. There’s too much of an incentive for our politicians to willingly discount the lives of their constituents in order to look like a tech friendly business environment and make some political points.
- oehpr 4y ago
  I'm not exactly a booster for tesla or anything. But are you sure this is the standard you want to set? Would humans pass this standard? If you released dash cam footage of most human accidents and asked "could an inexperienced 16 year old avoid this situation?" What would the answer be? I don't think that's a good test.
  - nso95 4y ago
    I think you missed the point
    - oehpr 4y ago
      Help me out then. Because as far as I'm aware, the baseline assertion is that fully self driving cars are safer than humans behind the wheel. to REFUTE that you don't just say "look at this one example" because the assertion was never "They will never crash and nothing bad will ever happen" It was "self driving cars are safer than humans" So: How do humans do? How do self driving cars do? And there's plenty we can talk about here. Scatter shot examples of failure are not it.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        Musk said "unequivocally". Besides, the person you responded to was making a different point. They were making the point that the crashes would likely be those easily avoided by humans. A) I think this is a distinct point from yours, but still answers it anyway as far as it being a refutation that FDS is safer, and it's not pointing to a single anecdote. the poster was calling for ALL footage to be released... B) if your point is to say that there is always a human that could have made such a mistake in the car, what is that supposed to mean? not all drivers should be driving, many are even unlicensed...
oehpr 4y ago
So, moving past the outrage. Any speculation as to what's happening here that's leading to the failure? Why does Tesla feel the video is defamatory? Is it mis-representing or being dishonest about the test? edit: I did some more research. This is an actual smear campaign: https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-campaign-releases-test-fails-fsd-never-engaged/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...
- georgemcbay 4y ago
  Tesla/Musk's continued insistence on building the system based on vision cameras alone. I wouldn't trust an auto-braking system as far as I could throw whatever it was installed in without LIDAR as at least a last resort failsafe.
- richbell 4y ago
  Does it matter whether FSD was enabled? Most newer cars — that don't have fancy computer vision — still have built-in sensors to prevent collisions when the car is "driving" (e.g., above 10km/h). I would expect that to be a core feature of a Tesla vehicle.
  - oehpr 4y ago
    Err... yes? This campaign is explicitly calling for the ban of FSD on the grounds that it failed to react to an obstacle on the road. So yes it matters rather a lot.
- camjohnson26 4y ago
  Has that been confirmed? Electrek is essentially Tesla propaganda and O’Dowd denied the claims, but I haven’t seen independent confirmation of whether the test was valid.
  - oehpr 4y ago
    Fair question. But the points Electrek put forward seem pretty reasonable. FSD needs maps to operate, the tests were done on a private field, so the FSD stays off. I'm currently taking these propositions as true, but if they're false then it's one word against another. I remain curious, what exactly is happening here?
vivegi 4y ago
It is a ridiculous ask by TSLA. Why should videos that highlight mortal dangers be taken down? Fix the software/hardware instead of waging this quixotic PR/legal battle. It fools no one. Wasn't TSLA/Musk the one that vehemently criticised and made a mockery of competitors who included LIDAR as part of their situational awareness technical solution? Could the FSD issues pointed out be potentially minimized with LIDAR added? https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is-doomed-elon-musk-says/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mlindner 4y ago
  The videos aren't highlighting dangers as much as the drivers themselves causing them. Nothing in the videos is about any of Tesla's systems. Just the driver overriding them.
  - vivegi 4y ago
    Would we say the equivalent thing about the ill-fated MCAS in the Boeing 737 MAX? How different is TSLA's behavior compared to what Boeing's position was when it didn't inform the pilots about how MCAS worked (and actively called it safe) until it was forced to do so by the regulator's investigation into the crashes. Basically what TSLA is saying is -- Our all-knowing AI is infalliable. Stupid drivers should just keep their hands off and they don't need to know. The easiest thing to do would be to tar the messenger and ignore the message. Didn't the TSLA autopilot a few years ago have problems identifying a slow moving tractor trailer and a parked fire truck. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/feds-autopilot-was-active-during-deadly-march-tesla-crash/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/feds-autopilot-was-acti... https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30474504/nhtsa-indiana-tesla-model-3-crash-fire-truck/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30474504/nhtsa-indiana-te... I guess we should just ignore all evidence to the contrary and drink the TSLA koolaid on FSD/autopilot.
    - mlindner 4y ago
__derek__ 4y ago
> "to cease and desist, on behalf of my client, [Tesla]." Signed, crybaby [Tesla]'s lawyer. Okay. Well, I've got two words for you, [Tesla]: [beep] you. If they actually try to do something about the videos, one benefit of moving Tesla HQ: Texas weakened its anti-SLAPP laws back in 2019.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kklisura 4y ago
While we're about Tesla: I yesterday submitted the reddit link [1] with title "Tesla Model S got totaled from FSD by swerving into a guard rail". The title is short version of reddit post title, and the reddit post itself is user testimonial with accompanying video. The post immediately got flagged. What did I do wrong? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/wvdbtv/my_tesla_model_s_got_totaled_from_full/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/wvdbtv/my_tesla_...
- nomel 4y ago
  > What did I do wrong? One could claim that you let some of the only unregulated, uncertified, safety critical software in existence, drive your car. Can anyone give an example of other completely unregulated safety critical software out there? For some extreme contrast, see the basic requirements for a traffic light [1]. Other good examples are elevator control, aircraft autopilot, and basically anything that hooks up to a human, in a hospital, containing a microcontroller. The NHTSA seems to be slowly waking up to the need for safety regulations [2]. 1. https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop06006/chapter_12.htm https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop06006/chapter_1... 2. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/automakers-now-required-to-report-automation-related-crashes-a3894720173/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/automakers-now-re...
  - ra7 4y ago
    I think they are talking about submitting the Reddit post to HN and the HN post being immediately flagged. I’ve also noticed posts critical of Tesla usually get demoted from the front page quickly even though they generate a lot of discussion and have votes. I don’t know if that’s because of constant flagging too.
- lm28469 4y ago
  What a shit show, glad you made it unharmed. After going through something like this do you feel you could ever trust a self driving car in their current state ?
- tlb 4y ago
  "Particular Kind of Car Crashes" is not that interesting a story when there are millions of that kind of car on the road. A good statistical analysis of crash rates across version of autopilots would be interesting, but individual anecdotes aren't. Stories about individual occurrences of things that happen with some frequency don't usually result in good HN discussions. Just partisan battles of "this always happens!" vs. "this almost never happens!"
throw7 4y ago
I have no idea who is telling me the truth and what the truth even is. But, honestly, my biggest problem here is the citing that youtube is taking down videos of tesla owners doing the same "test" on their own. People really need to get wise on who is getting played... O'dowd's tesla test video has comments disabled, dislikes disabled by youtube, youtube deleting contrary videos because google knows the truth and wants to keep you safe and informed /s.
- newaccount74 4y ago
  According to the linked article, Youtube took the videos down because they did tests with real children.
clouddrover 4y ago
This is true to form. Musk recently told a Tesla owner to stop complaining about "full self-driving" not working very well. Musk plainly believes in free speech for himself, but not for others: https://www.thedrive.com/news/elon-musk-tells-tesla-full-self-driving-beta-tester-to-stop-complaining https://www.thedrive.com/news/elon-musk-tells-tesla-full-sel... The reality is Tesla is not competitive with other manufacturers on simple tests like self parking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA Instead of running around trying to suppress "bad press", Tesla should focus on making their cars better.

95 points by davidbarker 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

smt88 4y ago

Remember a few months ago when Elon Musk claimed to be a "free speech maximalist"?

Thetawaves 4y ago
I'm going to repeat a perception I saw on here that seems to ring true. We all know Tesla/Elon is 69% full of shit.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Say it louder, plenty of people right here on this board still deny this.
goatcode 4y ago
I'm of the position that speech we don't like should be countered with more speech. Therefore, I'd look forward to airing all the dirty laundry of every other EV manufacturer.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  It already is...in detail, by the newspapers and news shows all the time. The difference is that other car makers don't claim to be saving the world, nor do their CEOs claim to be "free speech maximalists," nor do they go crying to their followers every time they or their company gets even the slightest bit of criticism.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - goatcode 4y ago
    I've honestly never heard any story pushed as much as are the Tesla ones. Maybe it's just there isn't as venomous anti-following attached to other manufacturers as there is to Tesla.
    - gamblor956 4y ago
      The media doesn't push the stories because they're just regular news stories. Tesla deliberately seeks out media attention, so Tesla stories attract more attention. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that.
      - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
        >Tesla deliberately seeks out media attention, so Tesla stories attract more attention. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that. Tesla also does not pay media a dime. All the other auto manufacturers do via auto ads, in hundreds of $ per vehicle sold. Some also own newspapers directly! Publishers will do everything to favor their paying customers and make the others interested in getting more favorable coverage.
        clouddrover 4y ago
        Sure. It's all a big conspiracy. Here, watch some Tesla ads and be happy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY Look at the little panda!
mlindner 4y ago
When did he use the words "maximalist"? I think the term he used was "absolutist". However I don't get how libel is covered under free speech. It's one of the few forms of speech in the US that is not protected.
- smt88 4y ago
  A video of someone operating a Tesla is not and cannot be libel. That is ridiculous. He has said both maximalist and absolutist[1]. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/18/musk-twitter-free-speech/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/18/musk-tw...

jmpman 4y ago

“Musk has said Autopilot is “unequivocally safer” than normal driving.” I expect that if Tesla was forced to release all camera footage from each Autopilot related crash, the public would be horrified. I expect it would show that each situation would have been handled perfectly by a 16 year old driver with a week of experience. I’d like to see people advocate for all self driving vehicles to be forced to publicly release all video of any crash involving their technology. There’s too much of an incentive for our politicians to willingly discount the lives of their constituents in order to look like a tech friendly business environment and make some political points.

oehpr 4y ago
I'm not exactly a booster for tesla or anything. But are you sure this is the standard you want to set? Would humans pass this standard? If you released dash cam footage of most human accidents and asked "could an inexperienced 16 year old avoid this situation?" What would the answer be? I don't think that's a good test.
- nso95 4y ago
  I think you missed the point
  - oehpr 4y ago
    Help me out then. Because as far as I'm aware, the baseline assertion is that fully self driving cars are safer than humans behind the wheel. to REFUTE that you don't just say "look at this one example" because the assertion was never "They will never crash and nothing bad will ever happen" It was "self driving cars are safer than humans" So: How do humans do? How do self driving cars do? And there's plenty we can talk about here. Scatter shot examples of failure are not it.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      Musk said "unequivocally". Besides, the person you responded to was making a different point. They were making the point that the crashes would likely be those easily avoided by humans. A) I think this is a distinct point from yours, but still answers it anyway as far as it being a refutation that FDS is safer, and it's not pointing to a single anecdote. the poster was calling for ALL footage to be released... B) if your point is to say that there is always a human that could have made such a mistake in the car, what is that supposed to mean? not all drivers should be driving, many are even unlicensed...

oehpr 4y ago

So, moving past the outrage. Any speculation as to what's happening here that's leading to the failure? Why does Tesla feel the video is defamatory? Is it mis-representing or being dishonest about the test? edit: I did some more research. This is an actual smear campaign: https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-campaign-releases-test-fails-fsd-never-engaged/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...

georgemcbay 4y ago
Tesla/Musk's continued insistence on building the system based on vision cameras alone. I wouldn't trust an auto-braking system as far as I could throw whatever it was installed in without LIDAR as at least a last resort failsafe.
richbell 4y ago
Does it matter whether FSD was enabled? Most newer cars — that don't have fancy computer vision — still have built-in sensors to prevent collisions when the car is "driving" (e.g., above 10km/h). I would expect that to be a core feature of a Tesla vehicle.
- oehpr 4y ago
  Err... yes? This campaign is explicitly calling for the ban of FSD on the grounds that it failed to react to an obstacle on the road. So yes it matters rather a lot.
camjohnson26 4y ago
Has that been confirmed? Electrek is essentially Tesla propaganda and O’Dowd denied the claims, but I haven’t seen independent confirmation of whether the test was valid.
- oehpr 4y ago
  Fair question. But the points Electrek put forward seem pretty reasonable. FSD needs maps to operate, the tests were done on a private field, so the FSD stays off. I'm currently taking these propositions as true, but if they're false then it's one word against another. I remain curious, what exactly is happening here?

vivegi 4y ago

It is a ridiculous ask by TSLA. Why should videos that highlight mortal dangers be taken down? Fix the software/hardware instead of waging this quixotic PR/legal battle. It fools no one. Wasn't TSLA/Musk the one that vehemently criticised and made a mockery of competitors who included LIDAR as part of their situational awareness technical solution? Could the FSD issues pointed out be potentially minimized with LIDAR added? https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is-doomed-elon-musk-says/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mlindner 4y ago
The videos aren't highlighting dangers as much as the drivers themselves causing them. Nothing in the videos is about any of Tesla's systems. Just the driver overriding them.
- vivegi 4y ago
  Would we say the equivalent thing about the ill-fated MCAS in the Boeing 737 MAX? How different is TSLA's behavior compared to what Boeing's position was when it didn't inform the pilots about how MCAS worked (and actively called it safe) until it was forced to do so by the regulator's investigation into the crashes. Basically what TSLA is saying is -- Our all-knowing AI is infalliable. Stupid drivers should just keep their hands off and they don't need to know. The easiest thing to do would be to tar the messenger and ignore the message. Didn't the TSLA autopilot a few years ago have problems identifying a slow moving tractor trailer and a parked fire truck. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/feds-autopilot-was-active-during-deadly-march-tesla-crash/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/feds-autopilot-was-acti... https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30474504/nhtsa-indiana-tesla-model-3-crash-fire-truck/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30474504/nhtsa-indiana-te... I guess we should just ignore all evidence to the contrary and drink the TSLA koolaid on FSD/autopilot.
  - mlindner 4y ago

__derek__ 4y ago

> "to cease and desist, on behalf of my client, [Tesla]." Signed, crybaby [Tesla]'s lawyer. Okay. Well, I've got two words for you, [Tesla]: [beep] you. If they actually try to do something about the videos, one benefit of moving Tesla HQ: Texas weakened its anti-SLAPP laws back in 2019.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kklisura 4y ago

While we're about Tesla: I yesterday submitted the reddit link [1] with title "Tesla Model S got totaled from FSD by swerving into a guard rail". The title is short version of reddit post title, and the reddit post itself is user testimonial with accompanying video. The post immediately got flagged. What did I do wrong? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/wvdbtv/my_tesla_model_s_got_totaled_from_full/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/wvdbtv/my_tesla_...

nomel 4y ago
> What did I do wrong? One could claim that you let some of the only unregulated, uncertified, safety critical software in existence, drive your car. Can anyone give an example of other completely unregulated safety critical software out there? For some extreme contrast, see the basic requirements for a traffic light [1]. Other good examples are elevator control, aircraft autopilot, and basically anything that hooks up to a human, in a hospital, containing a microcontroller. The NHTSA seems to be slowly waking up to the need for safety regulations [2]. 1. https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop06006/chapter_12.htm https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop06006/chapter_1... 2. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/automakers-now-required-to-report-automation-related-crashes-a3894720173/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/automakers-now-re...
- ra7 4y ago
  I think they are talking about submitting the Reddit post to HN and the HN post being immediately flagged. I’ve also noticed posts critical of Tesla usually get demoted from the front page quickly even though they generate a lot of discussion and have votes. I don’t know if that’s because of constant flagging too.
lm28469 4y ago
What a shit show, glad you made it unharmed. After going through something like this do you feel you could ever trust a self driving car in their current state ?
tlb 4y ago
"Particular Kind of Car Crashes" is not that interesting a story when there are millions of that kind of car on the road. A good statistical analysis of crash rates across version of autopilots would be interesting, but individual anecdotes aren't. Stories about individual occurrences of things that happen with some frequency don't usually result in good HN discussions. Just partisan battles of "this always happens!" vs. "this almost never happens!"

throw7 4y ago

I have no idea who is telling me the truth and what the truth even is. But, honestly, my biggest problem here is the citing that youtube is taking down videos of tesla owners doing the same "test" on their own. People really need to get wise on who is getting played... O'dowd's tesla test video has comments disabled, dislikes disabled by youtube, youtube deleting contrary videos because google knows the truth and wants to keep you safe and informed /s.

newaccount74 4y ago
According to the linked article, Youtube took the videos down because they did tests with real children.

clouddrover 4y ago

This is true to form. Musk recently told a Tesla owner to stop complaining about "full self-driving" not working very well. Musk plainly believes in free speech for himself, but not for others: https://www.thedrive.com/news/elon-musk-tells-tesla-full-self-driving-beta-tester-to-stop-complaining https://www.thedrive.com/news/elon-musk-tells-tesla-full-sel... The reality is Tesla is not competitive with other manufacturers on simple tests like self parking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA Instead of running around trying to suppress "bad press", Tesla should focus on making their cars better.